Morality Play (15 page)

He spoke as if a spectacle were promised. There was a sliding panel at head height in the door. Martin went into the cell and the door was closed and I watched through this opening. There was a candle-lamp with a glass guard set in a bracket on the wall and this gave out a pallid light. The cell lay below the street; I could hear the sound of the wind outside and small puffs of snow came through the grille of the high window and drifted slowly down into the light. The flame of the lamp, though guarded, flickered slightly and shadows moved over the walls.

Martin advanced with his light step into the room. 'I come as a friend,' he said. The Weaver's daughter stirred against the wall and I heard the sound of sliding metal and saw that she was chained by one ankle, though on a chain long enough to allow movement across the room.

I heard Martin's voice again, saying his name, and then from the woman a sound like no human voice; and I realized at that moment, as Martin must also have done, the significance of the jailer's smile as his fingers closed over the money: the woman's tongue could not make the shape of words.

I saw Martin check himself and stand still. 'Can you hear what I say to you?' he said. There was kindness in his tone but nothing of pity. She turned towards him and raised her head and the light fell on her shoulders and face and the dark tangles of her hair. The eyes were in shadow but I saw the gleam in them. Her mouth was full-shaped without grossness, she was tender-lipped even in that wretchedness, even as she uttered more of those strange-pitched sounds which were all her throat could manage and which she could not hear.

I heard the jailer chuckle at my shoulder. Then Martin broke into mime, first with the snake-sign of tonsure and belly, then the flexing of fingers to show money, then two quick steps and the twisting movements of search and find. This done, he took up the posture of question, head tilted stiffly to the left, right hand held at waist level with thumb and forefinger extended. And in all these movements he was aped by his humpbacked shadow on the wall.

Her gestures in reply were rapid, too much so for me always to follow. I saw her shake her head and make the sign of the circle, not that slow one that indicates eternity, but hasty and repeated and made with both hands meeting and parting above and below. I did not know this sign, and perhaps it is not one that belongs to players. After it she took some steps away from the wall and the chain sounded on the stone floor. She stopped a yard from him and struck the palm of her left hand sharply with the forefinger of the right, which I took for a sign of truth-telling.

Martin made the sign of carnal relation, not that brisk one of copulation but the one that also suggests affectionate feeling, fingers interlaced and held straight. Again I think this is a sign only players use, for she did not know it and signified so by frowning and beckoning. He made the sign again, this time also setting his mouth in the shape of kissing. She made a violent gesture of denial, like a sideways blow with the flat of the hand, and I saw her eyes flash — it may have been true what her father said, that she would not harm the meanest of God's creatures, but there was a fire of anger in her. It was there in the movements of her body, in the sudden spreading of her hands before her, as at something unclean, to show her repugnance for the Monk.

The two of them were moving together now, not drawing nearer but stepping and turning in a kind of accord, like a dance, mocked by their own shadows, accompanied by the tune of the chains and the unearthly sounds that came from the woman. As she turned in this dance, for some moments I saw her more clearly and she was deep-browed and dark-eyed and slenderly made, with straight shoulders — even in the neglect and squalor of that place she was beautiful to look upon. But then I lost the thread of their discourse, I was not versed enough in this language of signs; in the end all was spectacle, as the jailer had promised, the poise of head, movement of hands, sway of body, the pause and pounce of shadows in that inconstant light.

Nor did I understand the ending of it, at least not then. The woman extended her arms, keeping them close together, and showed her open hands to him. He stepped forward and took them in his own and looked down at the palms. So they stood there together for a brief time and then he released her hands and turned away and came towards us, but uncertainly, like one who has looked too long into the light and does not fully see his way.

He spoke no word to me either then or on the way back to the inn. I cast some glances at his face but it was empty of expression. The others, except for Stephen, were already back in the inn-yard. It was half-dark now and there was a low moon in a bank of cloud. We had to talk of what we had discovered and plan changes to our play and the time for this was short. Martin surprised us by speaking first and breaking the order.

'She is innocent,' he said. 'At that distance, in that light... he could not have seen her face.' On his own face was a light, a radiance of intention, like that it had worn when he spoke for Brendan, who had been wordless too. 'She was hooded against the weather,' he said. He made a swift gesture of drawing a hood close round the face, but he did it in such a way that it did not seem to be against the bite of cold but more in fear of blindness, as at some beauty or dazzlement too strong for eyes, and I remembered the gesture the beggar had made and I knew that Martin was stricken with love for this girl, her face and form were still before him. 'She says she was never near the road,' he said.

'Says?' I looked at him a moment, then round at the others. 'The girl can neither hear nor speak,' I said. 'We went to the prison to see her. Her father says no money was found there. He was not there that night, he was away from home and there are witnesses to prove it.' I told them of my visit to the Weaver, what he had said, what manner of man he was. 'He says it was for him they came, not knowing he was from home. He preaches the Last Days and has a following among the people.'

'When the Monk held the purse up, it was too late to change the plan.' Straw mimed the dismay of the Benedictine, flinging his arms wide, spreading his hands. 'Oh cruel Fortune,' he said. 'To wait long for opportunity, then find it just at the time the Weaver was not there.'

Springer laughed at the mime and after a moment Straw laughed too, but he glanced uneasily about him. 'But how did the opportunity come?' he said.

Step by step we were moving towards evil and all of us knew it. Aided and encouraged each by the others, in that barn of twisting shapes and shadows of masks and hanging costumes and weapons that would not wound, to the sound of bells from the church above us and clatter from the yard outside, we were moving towards knowledge of evil.

'So then,' Martin said, 'having found the purse, the Monk would have to give a reason, explain why he went to the house and took a man with him, and so he said he saw her near the road. It is all lies, she was never there.' He looked at us in turn and there was appeal in his look: he was pleading with us to see the girl's innocence. 'She was given light,' he said, as if to himself. 'Perhaps there is someone ...'

'Martin, they will hang her for all that we can do,' Tobias said, and there was pity in his voice, though it was not for the girl.

'The boy had no sign of frost or freezing anywhere about him,' Margaret said. 'I found Flint again and he found me, and glad enough he was. When Flint came upon Thomas Wells he was stiff and cold but he had no touch of frost. The grass was nipped with it but not a touch on the boy. Flint noticed nothing of this at the time, being taken up by finding the body, but he is quite certain in his memory.'

'Good souls,' Tobias said, 'if the money was taken only to be found again, robbery was not the reason for his killing.'

'The Monk and the boy were travelling the same road together at the same time of the day,' Springer said in his high, clear voice. 'It might be that the Monk questioned him. Thomas Wells would speak the truth to a man in authority, he would show the purse, he would be proud of the trust placed in him ...'

'So the Monk saw a way to silence the Weaver,' Straw said. 'That would explain the strangle-marks. It is a way of killing that the Weaver might have used.'

'The girl showed me her hands,' Martin said. 'They are rough with work, rougher than mine.' He opened his hands and looked down into them. 'Her hands are narrow and the bones small,' he said.

None knew how best to answer this because of the daze on his face. And perhaps we were glad to think no further, for the moment at least, about the scene we had created among us: the lonely road, the sense of night not far, the kindly questioning of the Monk, the boy's eagerness to answer ...

Springer and Straw had gone up to the castle together and played and sung at the gates and in the first forecourt. They had talked to women washing clothes and to the soldiers in the guardhouse inside the gates.

'No one cared so much about the boy's death,' Straw said. 'They knew of it, but they have a different life up there. The talk was all of the jousting that begins tomorrow and the dancing there will be on Christmas Day.'

'Sir Richard and his lady will start the dance as soon as ever they come in from Mass,' Springer said. 'All the talk was of that, and of the young lord's pining, that is the only son of the house and is named William. They say he is handsome and a very valiant knight and plays well on the viol.'

'What pining is that?'

'They do not know what it is. Some say he is wasting for love. He has not been seen for some days but keeps to his room. He has not been out to pace his steed for the tilting or see to his arms, and that is strange for one who all say is passionate for these tourneys and noted for his skill in them — and the more strange as this would be a chance to win honour, with knights from many parts attending.'

'Well, the whims of the nobles are of more interest to their scullions than the murder of a child,' Martin said, and for the first time since our return his face lost that daze of love and took on a look of bitterness. 'Yes,' he said, 'so he keeps to his room according to his humour. Compared to this lord's indisposition it counts for nothing that she will be hanged on the word of a lying monk.' He groaned suddenly and his hand went to shield his face. 'She will be hanged,' he said.

At this moment, in the midst of our consternation at his suffering, Stephen entered and cursed when he caught his foot against the door. He was drunk and not quite steady on his feet but his voice was clear enough as he greeted us. He had wandered through the town for a while and then gone into an ale-house not far from the church, not for any particular reason it seemed, but only to drink. This was his way when troubled or frightened. He did not think it manly to confess to such feelings and he had not the resource of Springer or Straw or even Tobias, who could find relief in fooling.

While there he had recognized the grave-digger, he who had made Brendan's grave and also that of Thomas Wells. He had spoken to this man and they had drunk together, largely at Stephen's expense, and become confidential.

'The boy's grave was paid for,' he said now, sitting with his long legs stretched out before him and his back against the wall. 'This grave-digger says that the Lord's steward paid the priest. He says he saw them together. The church door was a little open and they were inside, standing near the font. He saw them talk together, he saw money change hands. Afterwards the priest gave him twopence for the work. He dug the grave but he did not see the boy put into the ground.'

'How was that?' Springer's eyes were as round as an owl's. 'Was it some witchcraft?' he said.

'It was the day before we buried Brendan.' Stephen paused and the light glinted on his dark stubble. 'The day we came to this cursed place,' he said. 'He was brought and buried that same evening. When the grave-digger came next morning to finish the digging of Brendan's grave, the boy's was already covered over. He does not know who did this work, or whether the boy was buried in linen or sacking. No one spoke of it to him and he did not venture to ask, having seen the Lord's steward there.'

'They fear the Lord's displeasure and with good reason,' I said, remembering the two labourers chained in the dungeon. It struck me as very strange and fearful that while we were arriving here, perhaps during our procession through the town, or later when we were giving our Play of Adam, someone had been lowering the boy down in the darkness of night, covering him over, and we all the time unknowing. There had been such haste in the business; the corpse of Thomas Wells had barely been two days above ground. Who had seen the boy's body? The killer, Flint, the Lord's steward. Surely the mother too had seen it...

'He told me something else.' Stephen moved his tongue inside his mouth in the manner of the drunken. 'In this twelvemonth past there have been four boys gone from this town and the country around.' He paused and looked before him and again moved his tongue slowly in his mouth. 'Four that are known and named,' he said. He sat forward and made the orator's gesture of strong statement, right arm extended before him and moved sharply across the body from left to right. 'Before that, nothing,' he said.

There was a brief silence among us. As before, when Martin had first spoken of making a play out of this murder, a hush seemed to fall over us, in which small noises sounded louder, the movement of creatures in the straw, the breathing of the dog asleep over Tobias's legs. Then Springer leaned forward into the light. 'Gone?' he said. 'Gone where?'

'Vanished,' Stephen said, and his speech had thickened, weariness adding to drunkenness. He raised his hands in the movements of conjuring but did it badly, heavily.

'They will be those the beggar spoke of,' I said. 'We thought it was only the rambling of his mind.'

'This one was found,' Martin said. 'This one was killed and his purse was taken. The time is not long. We must think how to play it, how to show that she is innocent.'

He wanted us not to be led away, he wanted us to think about the one boy, the one play, he wanted us to help him save the woman. And the force of his wish was great with us, also the perversity of this desire for her, which had come on him like an illness.