The Player's Boy is Dead

by Leonard Tourney

  "London," he replied simply. Behind him Will could hear the brothers whispering at the bar: He nursed his ale; he drank heavily only when he was happy.

  Samuel said, "About the lad . . ."

  "Aye?"

  "I saw you and the constable talking. I know he was asking you about the murder.'Tis a constable's business. Has he uncovered aught?"

  "Nay. He seems as ignorant as we."

  "But are we so?"

  The question made Will look up. Samuel's narrow crooked face betrayed nothing of his meaning. Will said, "The constable asked me questions; I gave what answers, I had."

  Samuel sighed heavily, his eyes downcast. " 'Tis the devil's work this, and him the devil's disciple that done it. Twas like the butchering of a beast."

  " 'Twas the devil's business all right. And yet not Old Nick's, now that I think upon it. There was mortal muscle wielding the knife that killed Richard. Would to God we knew whose."

  "If I knew," Samuel said bitterly, "I'd give him what he gave the boy. I'd plumb his guts, pull his boots up through his neck, and make him a long time dying in the bargain."

  Will looked into the other player's dark eyes, surprised by this outburst of violent language. Then as suddenly, he caught the man's drift. Samuel feared the blame might be placed upon him. Why, Will was unsure. He said, "I told him that we were all fast friends and no quarrelers among us. So 'tis, is it not?"

  "Aye," Samuel replied, a look of relief passing over his face./'And I trust you know that's so for my part."

  "I do," Will said reassuringly.

  "Townsfolk would be glad to lay the blame for the boy's murder on one of us rather than upon their own were there no more than a jot of proof."

  "Indeed so, for they would rather have us entertain them at the end of a rope than upon the stage."

  "Well, then," said Samuel confidently, as though he had just clinched an argument in his favor, "you see then how I might be suspected, having just taken over the boy's part and in a fair way of success in it."

  Will Shipman looked at Samuel's crooked face and weak chin. "You need not worry about that, I think," he said flatly. "The constable lays the blame on none of us, seems in fact ready enough to accept our words. He may not be witty, but he seems honest. We shall probably have no more trouble of him."

  "By the way," Samuel said, anxious now to change the subject, "did you know that the boy spent the last few nights of his life away from the stable?"

  Will looked up with surprise. "I did not," he said. "When I sleep, I sleep soundly."

  " 'Tis true," Samuel said. "Sometimes I wake at night and walk into the air. Once or twice I have found his place cold in the straw. By signs, he had not slept there at all. And once I heard him come creeping back into the stable just before daybreak. I could hear him coughing and muttering beneath his breath."

  "What made you of that?" Will asked, growing interested.

  "I made nothing of it, although it does mean that someone was in his mind besides us."

  "The girl at the inn, think you?"

  "Maybe. But I think not. If I read her face aright, he never quenched her fire; and 'twas the destruction of the poor thing, for sure she took her own life from the want of love."

  "Some girl in town then," Will suggested.

  "Or at the Hall." Samuel's lips pursed in .a smile peculiar to him, his head tilted at a comical angle. Usually Will scorned Samuel's love of gossip, but given the present matter he was prepared to give his full attention.

  Will said, "That would have been dangerously done, for great folks care little enough for actors; but when they worm their ways into serving girls' beds, a man's likely to feel a lord's whip upon his back."

  Samuel hesitated; his face broke into a grin. "Young men are often about such risks for a sweet pair of lips."

  Will shook his head doubtfully.

  The men stood and walked to the door and into the innyard. "If it was the girl, or a girl," Samuel said, "the niurderer might have been her husband or lover that caught the two in the act.'Tis a common enough reason for murder."

  "In which case," Will reasoned, "you would think the deed done on the spot. We found the boy's body in the stable. He could not have died there; there would have been an intolerable amount of screaming that would have awakened us all."

  "Unless the screams were muffled. A murderer knows how to keep his business quiet."

  "Yet there was no sign of a struggle. Anyway," Will concluded, "murder done in anger is quickly done. An outraged husband would have stuck him 'neath the ribs and let the devil take the hindmost. Richard's murder was planned—and by someone who had borne a grudge for some time.''

  "Well," Samuel Peacham replied, not willing to give over his theory, "it might still have been a husband, one who had uncovered his wife's adultery and wore heavily his horns."

  A light rain began to fall, and Will cursed beneath his breath. Their gear having been carted to the Hall earlier, there was no more to do now but get themselves there. The play, Will decided, was as good as it was going to be.

  Six

  MATTHEW had told Philip to hitch Pol to the cart and bring both around front of the shop, and it was not long before he heard the mare's two silver bells ringing merrily outside the door. He had already provided himself with a lantern, for they would not make the Hall before nightfall; and the London coach, rumbling toward Chelmsford, was notorious for its disregard of the safety of wayfarers.

  Joan lingered at her glass; he occupied himself straightening wares in his shop disarrayed from the day's brisk business. Fidgeting with his new coat, he regretted his constableship, which he had never till this moment felt so burdensome. How he longed to stay by his own fire.

  Joan finally appeared at the head of the stairs wearing a French hood with her plain blue gown, and new shoes that showed her tiny feet to advantage. Her brown arms were bare to the elbow, and her round dark features and bright eyes, accustomed as he was to them, struck him as particularly winsome.

  He said, "You look beautiful."

  "And you, my husband and flatterer, look prosperous and well fed," she responded cheerily, descending the stairs with confidence.

  "Best wear a cloak," he warned. "The night will turn chill."

  But Alice was already on her way down the stairs with her mistress's cloak beneath her arms. Joan took the cloak with thanks and swung it over her shoulders.

  "It does seem a shame to cover such a gown," he said, "with a cloak so worn."

  "It fits still, thank God, and shows no bare threads. I'll not be spendthrift and buy another till this one's had its day."

  He nodded approvingly, and with a smile that complimented more than her thrift.

  The air was indeed chill, and the street darkening. From within windows on the street, flickering candlelight announced the homing of householders, while the air was already heavy with the smoke of cooking fires. After helping Joan to her seat in the cart, Matthew struck his whip lightly on the mare's back; the cart jolted ahead, clattering down the cobblestones at a faster pace than either he or the mare were wont.

  On the highroad, Matthew slowed Pol to a more deliberate pace, keeping the cart well to the side of the road, even though there was no more traffic now than an occasional shepherd leading a flock homeward later than usual. In the distance the flat landscape was fast disappearing into darkness. Shadowy trees and hedges now and then broke the thin line of remaining light. There was no wind, but the moon had yet to rise, and Matthew was glad of his lamp.

  "Are you hungry," she asked, breaking their silence at last.

  "Enough," he responded.

  "And comfortable?"

  "Here, in the cart?" He shifted uneasily on the wooden seat.

  "No, goose, about our going to the Hall." She laughed nervously and poked her husband gently in the ribs. He knew her ways, had recognized where her questions led, but he was content to let her draw him out slowly, teasingly.

  " 'Tis what you've been waiting for, is
it not—what comes of success in trade, a mingling with a better sort of folk?"

  "Aye," she replied thoughtfully. "And yet had I thought the entertainment might make you restless beyond enduring, I would have rested content by our own fire."

  He said simply, "I must go. Since I am constable, there's no help for it."

  "You think still of the murder?"

  "That I do. My charge weighs heavily upon me. As yet I have uncovered little more than my own ignorance of how to proceed in such a business."

  "Sir Henry has not shown his displeasure?"

  "No, and yet he could hardly find satisfaction at the little intelligence I have given him. The lad is dead a full day and his murderer walks as free as we."

  She laughed. "La, I have heard that some murders go undiscovered for months, nay years. You are too impatient with yourself. 'Tis very like you. And yet God forbid that any murderer should walk free of an ill conscience."

  "A sound conscience would have prevented the act. What it could not hinder it will not mourn. If the murderer walks at all, he walks as free as the wind, and I am now in no place to tell him nay."

  "Tomorrow, maybe."

  "Aye, tomorrow. The girl at the inn might have told me something had she not taken her own life."

  "Then you think she was a part of it all?"

  "No doubt."

  "But not that she murdered the boy herself and then drowned herself for grief? I shudder to think that any woman would have taken her lover's life so cruelly. For jealousy, think you?"

  . He laughed, almost to himself, but she heard it above the rumble of the car.

  "So," she said in a new but still amiable tone, "this makes you laugh. Do you think I hold my own sex too high?"

  "Nay, too lowly," he said, grinning in the darkness. "Such as have power to do great good must have like power to do the devil's work. You do dishonor your sex by supposing women out of the way of murder."

  "Now you do speak as one in the schools, more industrious to trap me than lead me to truth."

  They rode along in silence. Then Joan spoke again. "Which—Sir Henry or his lady—played patron to the company?"

  "Why do you ask that?" Matthew Stock responded with surprise.

  "But to understand," she said. "Chelmsford is out of the way of most players. I know the company has come here at the invitation of Sir Henry, but I know not which of the two had taken the greater interest. It might matter, you know. Sir Henry seems such a solemn gentleman with his broad front. I should not be surprised if his young wife were not the more fond of plays."

  "Aye, women like them," he said, baiting her.

  She replied earnestly, ignoring his teasing, "Aye, they do, but that is because they like to imagine themselves in other places and conditions."

  "I think a man might have such wishes, yet not care for plays."

  "Indeed," she said. "And what wishes have you?"

  Sensing no danger in the question, he replied boldly, "I feel so out of place at Sir Henry's table that I should wish myself by my own hearth. I am a clothier, no courtier."

  "Your father and mother were honest, and you have a place in the town. You need not wipe Sir Henry's boots."

  "Granted," he replied. "Yet I am at home in my shop, amongst my men and serving maids. The Hall's a different world, as remote as America from what I know. But still," he added, wishing now to change the subject, "why your interest in the Saltmarshes and their patronage of the players?"

  "Because," she replied bluntly, "I wonder if Lady Saltmarsh might have stood more than patron to the boy."

  He did not at first understand. She repeated, and he turned abruptly to her as though she had said something unseemly.

  "What possesses you to think thusly? Lady Saltmarsh is a fine lady. And though such may be given to wander in their affections, I know nought of her that would suggest she is unfaithful to her husband—and the boy only fourteen."

  "Stranger things have passed betwixt a woman and a boy."

  "Aye, and so they may," he said seriously. "And strange beasts I have been told haunt the southern seas but I think not to find them in my tub. Your gossips have been providing you with intelligence across the yard."

  "I bear no tales," she said, offended now by his manner. "Although of such you accuse me oft. It is more of what I sense. The knight's lady is indeed beautiful, with a wealth of gowns and lips that might tempt one higher than her husband to crawl beneath her sheets. Yet I have seen her looks to him and his to hers, and I tell you that there is no love lost betwixt 'em."

  "Well," he said, "it does not follow that she has played her husband false."

  "It does not," she agreed. "And I say not that. What I say, rather, is that she has given her husband cause to suspect her attentions to Richard Mull when she makes the despising of her husband plain to all with eyes."

  " 'Tis not so plain to me," he grumbled. But she had given him much to think on, more than set well with him at the moment. Their conversation lapsed into silence. They did not speak again until the lights of the Hall appeared before them like a cluster of little stars low on the horizon.

  An old servingman dressed in blue livery led them from the entry into the great chamber, its table spread elegantly with white damask cloth and silver cutlery. A fire blazed at one end of the room; at the other a wooden stage had been constructed for the players. The knight and his lady, dressed very finely, were conversing with a man and woman Matthew recognized as a local squire and his wife. When Lady Saltmarsh approached him, he saw from the corner of his eye Joan suppress a curtsy and gasp of admiration. Cecilia Saltmarsh extended a very white hand and held his longer than he should have supposed. Why, she's not more than a girl herself, he thought.

  The Stocks were not seated together at supper, unnatural to them both but, as they supposed, the custom among gentlefolk. From time to time between the courses—there were several sorts of fowl, a large pudding, and a young pig—he glanced sideways at his wife. He was surprised to see her pleasantly engaged with the squire, a tidy little man of about Matthew's own height with ruddy cheeks and tiny eyes. Matthew ate sparingly, his appetite quite gone. When Lady Saltmarsh inquired into his health, he blurted out that it was no worse than it should be, given his age and condition; and he had no sooner done so but felt like the worst fool in the kingdom. This was indeed no place for him.

  She had never seen such a table, and for the first few moments in the great dining hall she could do nothing but gawk like a girl just up from the country. A king's table, she thought, and she looked about for what must be her own place, but saw only the ten settings and no smaller convenience in the corner. Her hands were sweaty and before she took those of Cecilia Saltmarsh she pressed her own against her gown.

  Cecilia Saltmarsh was indeed a beautiful woman. Joan's practiced eye judged the cost of her ladyship's gown and marveled. Then she was ushered to the heavily laden table. When she was introduced to the squire and his wife, she could only nod stupidly. She was painfully aware of the coarseness of her hands and the plainness of her gown.

  At table she had been placed next to the squire and opposite a darkly handsome man introduced to her only as Master Hay forth. Dressed after the French fashion, he kept his eyes on his plate, looking up but once, Joan observed, to answer a question of his host's. She did not recognize his accent, and suspected him of being a Papist, since she had heard that to such the Saltmarshes were sympathetic. Besides, she had detected in his tone a certain clerical whine.

  The squire, on the other hand, proved a jolly sort. She allowed him to talk, grateful that his garrulity permitted her shyness to go unobserved. Her pudding done and the last bit of duck cleaned from her plate, she sat back to let her supper settle and herself to take full view of the stage where the players, having suddenly appeared from some recess of the great house, were beginning to gather.

  " 'Tis my wife who loves plays," Sir Henry was saying in a loud voice. "And what do you think of them, Mistress Stock?"
/>   The question took her by surprise, for until that moment the knight had seemed not to notice her at all. "In faith," she said haltingly after pausing to collect her thoughts, "I have not seen many, but I would gladly leam wherein their particular virtues lie."

  Saltmarsh responded pleasantly, "Then let us hope that this night's entertainment is as edifying as it is delightful."

  "Be it not so," Cecilia Saltmarsh added, " 'twil not be the fault of Master Shipman, for I have his word that his company has practiced much and that they be more likely to forget their names than their lines.'

  The table responded with polite laughter, and Joan looked into her lap to notice how her fingers had interlocked, as though she were at prayer. Then Cecilia Saltmarsh rose and there was a great shuffling of chairs as the guests positioned themselves to see the stage.

  Joan watched admiringly as the young woman walked confidently across the stone floor, noticing the luster of her hair and the shapely curve of her back. When she had returned, the players followed. At their head was he whom Joan took to be their chief, a tall, robust man of about thirty years with full beard and ruddy cheeks. After him came brothers by their looks, and then a small wiry man with black hair, fiery eyes, and hands, she could see at this distance, of a woman's softness. The servingman entered to remove the candles from the table. Sir Henry and his lady turned in their chairs to face the platform; they whispered to one another as conversation at the table subsided and the chief actor mounted to the stage.

  These, then, were the old heathen gods. That he could tell even though Will Shipman wore a fine velvet suit not

  much different from Matthew's own beneath Jupiter's regal purple. The player was seated upon a throne of painted gold, looking every bit the gentleman up from London with silver ringing in his pocket and his beard freshly barbered and perfumed. On his knee dangled his cupbearer and playfellow, Ganymede. Ganymede was no youth at all but nearer to thirty, his beard discernible beneath the layers of white powder.