The Bastard's Tale (7 page)

Chapter 6

When Wisdom had finished his first speech, Lady Soul in the person of Ned Wilde wearing an old gown over his doublet and hosen, no longer a striding youth but all sweet womanliness, declared her love for Wisdom and Frevisse returned to her sewing, listening while they talked of the need to be rid of earthly sins. Beside her, Arteys was soon leaned forward, intently listening, and on his other side Bishop Pecock was sitting straight-back with hands folded into his lap like someone accustomed to sitting for a long time listening to others, as undoubtedly he did in royal council meetings and his bishopric. As Lady Soul’s Mights—Mind, Will, and Understanding—came on, likewise men a few minutes ago but now sweet-spoken ladies, Frevisse finished the green hem but had no more than snipped the final thread than Mistress Wilde was silently taking the gown from her and handing her another, red this time, and the thread to go with it. Frevisse took them in equal silence and somewhat gratefully. Despite how little she liked sewing, neither did she like sitting idle and she was finding the sewing came more easily now she had the play to hold her mind.

It was better written than many of its kind. The verse was steady and what ribaldry there was, once the Devils came on, was never given the upper hand over the sense. King Henry, known to be adverse to ribaldry, would approve that, and yet there was enough wit that the play did not plod and for those lookers-on beyond anything else there would be splendid sights to divert them. If the players’ garments were finished in time. Frevisse sewed on steadily.

Joliffe as Lucifer swaggered on, announcing in a smoothly rich voice, “For I am he that sin began,” and set to wooing Lady Soul and her Mights to foolishness. While he spoke, Bishop Pecock leaned forward with a questioning tilt to his head, as if listening rather than looking, then he fumbled in the fine leather pouch at his belt and brought out and put on silver-rimmed spectacles, looping the black ribbons around his ears to hold them.

What had he heard to interest him that much in Joliffe? Frevisse wondered. It was perfectly possible for Joliffe to know him by sight—if, as the saying went, a cat might look at a king, a player might look at bishops—but what about Joliffe so particularly interested the bishop?

The play went on its way, sometimes unsteadily but never stopping. Partway through a long speech, Lady Soul realized it was the wrong speech and had to sort her words around. There was a brief, almost fatal confusion in the dance between the Mights and Lucifer’s Devils but with some quick-footedness they overcame it and kept on. Arteys watched steadily, chin on hand, elbow on knee. Bishop Pecock soon sat back, but from the corner of her eye Frevisse could see his interest was still held. Lucifer’s Devils sported with Mind, Will, and Understanding. When Lady Soul, seduced by Lucifer into worldly ways and corruption, came on again, her beautiful gown replaced by black tatters, Frevisse watched to see that John did not miss his time or mess his part and was pleased when he carried it through every bit as well as Giles did.

By then both the play and the red hem were nearly done and she stopped her sewing to watch while Lady Soul rejected Lucifer, reclaimed her Mind and Will and Understanding, and returned, triumphantly welcomed, to Heaven.

‘And so to end with perfection. That is the Wisdom we pursue. God grant it to those who do,“ Wisdom declaimed and it was over. Light clapping spattered from the lookers-on, and grinning with satisfaction, the players made bows to them. Atop the steps, Master Wilde ceased to be Wisdom, rose to his feet, and said, ”Don’t fool yourselves, my fellows. They’re clapping that you finished, not that you did well at it.“

This was greeted with laughter.

‘You think I’m jesting?“ He started down the steps. ”Come here then and listen.“

From other afternoons Frevisse knew how it would go then. He would spend a while detailing everything he had liked and disliked about their performing, confirming one thing and another that had worked and changing those that had not. Low-voiced, Frevisse explained this to Bishop Pecock and Arteys, then asked how they had liked it.

Arteys, his earlier stiff unease lost in momentary pleasure, actually smiled as he answered, “Very much.”

More thoughtfully, Bishop Pecock said, “Traditional though this portraying of wisdom, the soul, and so forth is, I’ve never found to be either convincing or particularly satisfying. That said, I have to add that I found this was both effective and affecting.”

From his tangle of words, Frevisse sorted out he had enjoyed it as with a small, thoughtful frown he went on, “I understand, too, the paymaster’s ire and irk before they began and his impatience afterwards. He’s seeking to make a world in small, as it were, and knows it needs to be sure in all its parts, great and small together, lest it fail in its entirety. I daresay that God himself, what with one thing and another, was perhaps a little ill-humoured toward the end of creating the world. Though, being all-knowing, he of course did not have to wonder how it would all come out in the performance.”

Frevisse quickly caught back an urge to laugh, then saw that Bishop Pecock was widely smiling and she smiled at him in return. A jest-making bishop was not someone she had encountered before this.

Joliffe strolled over to them then, Master Wilde having finished with him though not with anyone else, it seemed. Frevisse saw him look sharply at all their faces as he joined them though he said lightly enough, with a bow to Bishop Pecock, “You all look merry. How did you find it?”

Bishop Pecock, still smiling, said, “I found it far more pleasurable than I’d expected to. Familiar figures presented in a new form or fashion can surprisingly refresh them. Your play does it very well.”

Joliffe bowed to him again. “We hope so, my lord.”

‘But when did you become player rather than clerk, young Joliffe?“

‘When Fortune turned her wheel, which no man may escape.“

‘A come-down in the world, is it not?“

‘No more than it might be said you’re leaving off being a plain priest and master of Whittington College to become a bishop is a come-down in the world, my lord.“

Smiles were pulling at both their faces but it was Bishop Pecock who laughed outright before he said, “I’ll not argue that point, lest I lose. But about this play. Who wrote it?”

‘Someone who wants to go unknown, I’m afraid.“

‘Not you?“

‘Not me. I swear it.“

‘That’s to the good, then. To find you were as shrewd at theology as you are at worldly matters would give me pause.“

‘My lord,“ Joliffe said and bowed.

But Bishop Pecock was away on another thought. “It’s an interesting thing, though, that although all was pretense from first to last here, yet despite of that, some truths were most movingly conveyed.”

‘I’d suggest,“ Joliffe said, ”those truths were conveyed ’because‘ rather than ’despite.‘ “

‘A point to be considered,“ Bishop Pecock granted. ”That truth can be conveyed by falseness.“ He peered intently at Joliffe. ”On the other hand, my sometime clerk, I find it somewhat unsettling that you can be so convincingly Lucifer.“

‘My lord.“ Joliffe laid a hand earnestly over his heart. ”I promise you I can play at being an angel equally well, given the chance.“

‘ ’Play, being the word in question, I believe?“

‘As surely as ’holy‘ goes with ’bishop,‘ my lord,“ Joliffe answered, hand still over heart. This time they both laughed aloud.

John joined them then, released and happy, taking Joliffe by the hand and saying to him and Frevisse both, “Master Wilde says if I decide not to be a lord, I can come be a player with him.”

‘I’d welcome you in any company of mine,“ Joliffe said before Frevisse could think of a discouraging answer. ”You pay heed to what you’re supposed to do and to what everyone is doing around you. I’ve known any number of players who are never good at that. Mind you, though, that’s a useful skill for lords, too. You should give my lord Bishop Pecock of St. Asaph’s greeting and Master Arteys, too.“

John immediately did, bowing to both of them, saying correctly, “My lord,” and, “Sir.” They each bent their heads to him in return, but what was neglected, Frevisse noted, was any naming of him as Suffolk’s son in return; nor did she. If Joliffe did not choose to tell them, she would likewise let it go.

Instead, Joliffe suggested, “John, why don’t you take Bishop Pecock and Master Arteys to Master Wilde? It won’t hurt him to hear from them that it’s going well.”

Done with his players for a while, the playmaster was standing alone, hands on hips, staring up the floor in front of him, and Bishop Pecock took up Joliffe’s suggestion with, “I’d be pleased to tell him that, from what I’ve seen, I think the play will suit the king very well.”

‘And promise him again that we’ll say nothing to anyone about it,“ said Arteys. He had been silent but smiling along with Frevisse at Joliffe’s and Bishop Pecock’s word-trading, with whatever had been taut in him when he had come here loosened, maybe even forgotten behind the pleasure he had had this past while. He held out his hand to John. ”Would you take us to him, please you?“

John went willingly and Joliffe sat down on the bench, leaned back against the wall, and stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, like a man tired but satisfied with a task well done. Not believing in his apparent ease for even a moment, Frevisse took up her sewing again and said, to take advantage of this chance, finally, to talk with him, “I’ve known you as a player and a minstrel and a player again, and now it seems you’ve been a clerk to a bishop.”

Toward the rafters rather to her, Joliffe answered, “He was merely master of a college of priests at St. Michael Paternoster in London when I knew him.”

‘What else have you been, I wonder?“

‘A scholar but never a scullion. A poet but never a peddler. A vagabond but never a villein. A-“

Rather than find out how long he could keep that up, Frevisse interrupted, “I never even knew your last name until now, Master Noreys.”

Joliffe made a small sideways tilt of his head. “That’s me for now, anyway.”

‘For now?“

‘Sometimes I’m… someone else.“

Behind his lightness there was a challenge, and a thought Frevisse did not want to have stirred forward from the back of her mind. “And ‘Joliffe’?” she asked. “Is that equally ‘sometimes’?”

‘ ’Joliffe‘ is mostly. For simplicity’s sake. But,“ he granted, ”sometimes I’m not.“

‘Why?“ She was sewing without heeding what she was doing, and although she kept her voice down, she was unable to curb its sharpness. ”Why are you sometimes not Joliffe? Why are you Noreys for now but sometimes someone else?“

‘Guess.“

She stopped sewing and looked at him, the unwanted thought congealing into certainty. “Because you’re Bishop Beaufort’s man. The one he said would find me out if there was need.”

Joliffe slightly bowed his head to her. “Even as you say, my lady.”

The thought chilled her, the ugliness of it settling like lead into her mind and under her heart. Of all people, why Joliffe? And how? But her voice held steady, un-revealing, as she asked, “And now there’s need?”

‘Best you keep on with your stitchery, lest it seem I’m bothering you.“

‘You
are
bothering me.“ But she returned to sewing. ”What is it you need?“

‘You know Suffolk has gathered men to guard the king against Gloucester?“

‘So it’s being said among Suffolk’s people. Though no one seems much concerned about it.“

Joliffe’s body gave no sign of anything but ease; only his voice sharpened as he asked, “No? No unease? No fears or alarm?”

‘No.“ She had not heard much when she went for John, but enough. ”Someone said they’d heard the men were mustered. Someone else said it was cold weather for it. Someone else said, well, they’d make hot work for Gloucester if it came to it. Then there was laughter. But no alarm, even among the women.“

‘And Lady Alice? Did she say anything?“

Frevisse nearly retorted she was not going to spy on her own cousin. But she already was, wasn’t she, and said truthfully, “No. She didn’t speak of it at all. What’s being said in town?”

‘The rumor is running everywhere that Gloucester is bringing an army to seize the king.“

‘An army? To seize the king? No one around Suffolk is saying that.
Is
Gloucester bringing an army to seize the king?“

‘Gloucester is not,“ Joliffe said, flatly certain.

They traded long, level looks before she said, “I won’t ask how you come to be so sure of that,” and went back to sewing.

‘Good. On the regrettable other hand, I’m going to ask you to keep as close an ear as possible on anything being said by Suffolk’s people.“

Frevisse slightly nodded to show that she would. Joliffe stood up and moved casually away to meet Bishop Pecock, John, and Arteys coming back toward the bench, and she found she had finished the hem and was started around again. Impatient at herself, she fastened off the thread, snipped it, and rose to take needle, thread, and gown to Mistress Wilde. That done, she called for John to come to her, well-wrapped him into his cloak, and left without more words to anyone except farewell to Toller at the door.

Not until she and John had gone outside, into the fading late afternoon light, did she have a thought she no more wanted than others she had lately had. “FitzGloucester” was an old way of saying “Gloucester’s son,” a way—sometimes—of naming a bastard-born child, acknowledged by his father but without claim to his father’s name. The duke of Gloucester had no legitimate son but… FitzGloucester. Gloucester’s son. Was that who Arteys was? If so, no wonder Joliffe had thought it best he not be out and about in Bury St. Edmunds today. Nor wonder that Arteys had been so ill at ease.