The Player's Boy is Dead

by Leonard Tourney

  Big Tod took the measure of Gwen's face and figure. She's young, he thought, twelve or thirteen by the eyes and hands. Her hands were soft and freckled.

  "You mean they have little love for each other?"

  "Little that I have seen, though his lordship be as amorous as any Frenchman to hear his wife tell of it—yet not with her. That is her complaint, that she is young and fair but neglected and must pine away like a widow with a cold bed and little hope of remarrying."

  She was thin, flat-chested like a boy, but her eyes were blue and gleamed in the firelight. Aroused, he shifted himself so that their thighs touched near the hearth. She did not move away.

  "And to whom does his lordship take a liking—some lady of the town perhaps?"

  "I cannot be sure," she answered. "We have little company here, save for Master Hayforth, who has this evening come from the coast and will be gone hence in a day or two. He is a priest, I think, for both my master and mistress be of the old faith, although neither is eager to own it."

  "I marked him for that," Big Tod said knowingly.

  She said, "He's no ordinary priest, I can tell you that."

  "What do you mean?" he asked, his curiosity aroused.

  She bent forward and to the side so their foreheads nearly touched and she whispered, "Not a half hour since I saw my mistress go in her nightgown to his chamber. And to my knowledge she remains there still." She leaned back, her lips curled in satisfaction.

  "If he be priest, then maybe she confesses to him as is the custom among Papists."

  "In faith, I think she opens more to him than her heart, for I have seen her look at him, and a proper man he is, though a priest. Can you blame her should she want more comfort in her bed than a cold recollection of her wedding night three years before?"

  He said, "Then I wish her and her like joy of whatever sheets she may find, for even great ladies must needs be satisfied, as they be no different in that regard than their waiting maids."

  She looked up at him sharply, as though to chide his sauciness. Then her face broke into a smile. "You turn insolent."

  "I cry you mercy"—he laughed, appreciating her good humor—"for if I have said aught but what is God's truth may I choke upon it."

  "Well," she said, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "I cannot deny what I have never known of myself. I am a maid."

  "You have no friend here, then?"

  "None. Daniel the servingman has an old wife and more children than he can count. There are other servants, but I see them rarely. I would accompany my mistress to church would she go herself, but since she and the master are of the old faith they will not hear a sermon of one of the new churchmen but claim illness or travel if they are brought to account for their absence. And yet I would and would not have a man. The girl at the inn was of my own years. She loved, I have heard, one of your company and she died from the grief of it, so sad was she at his death. Here I might die not of grief but of loneliness and take my maidenhead with me to the grave."

  "That would be a great pity," he said, smiling.

  "Think you so?" she said.

  "My friends drink late," he said. "Let us heap more logs upon the fire. We'll not be bothered here?"

  " 'Tis unlikely," she said. When he returned with the wood and the fire was blazing again, she drew close to him.

  "I had a sister such as you." He leaned forward and kissed her, pleased to find her lips warm and responsive.

  She said, "I will pretend you are a great bear, such as I saw once in London with my mistress. He stood like a man, but when he roared I felt a fear of him in the base of my spine. He was chained and bleeding. I felt pity for him ... so powerful, and yet to be chained."

  "You are a strange one to think on such things now."

  "Now?" she said, loosening herself from his embrace and facing him squarely. "I think of you as a great bear because you are marvelously strong and a tall man, without fear, I should think. For all I know, you have killed men in your time."

  "Never," he said, laughing, "though I have come close to it."

  "See," she said triumphantly. "You are a bear in truth, for bears be fighters by nature, and they give their enemies great hugs until they die."

  "You think much of death. Is it the girl of the inn whom you think upon?"

  " 'Tis the boy, rather," she said. "For he was wondrous fair of face and parts, almost like a woman, yet he indeed had manly parts about him."

  "And how know you that?" he said to tease her. "Even now you confessed yourself a maid."

  Gwen hesitated, staring into the fire with her back half turned from him. "If you be my friend in truth," she said, "then I shall share a secret with you, but you must promise to tell none other.''

  "You have my promise, though they put me upon the rack."

  "Richard Mull was a great favorite of my mistress. Many times I have seen the two in company, and once when I brought my lady fresh linen I found the two together in her bed. She I could not see, save for two bare arms curled about his back and her gold hair trailing upon the pillow as though it were floating on a stream. He was without his shirt, and I blushed to look upon his naked backsides. My lady moaned softly; he lay still as though he were dead— except that once I saw his ankle jerk."

  "If his back was toward you, how knew you that it was Richard Mull and not some other?"

  "Because when I entered upon them, I let out a gasp of surprise and he quickly withdrew from her and turned upon his side to look me in the face. In faith, he gave me such a look that I believe had he another weapon about his body than that he had just used he would have been my death."

  For a moment he pondered her story, then he asked, "What did your mistress say, being found so inconveniently?"

  "Why not a word. 'Twas as though she had not seen me at all, but lay still moaning softly in her sheets as if she had been given some potion. Would to God I had it, for I would know such pleasure myself.''

  " 'Tis passing strange," he said. "And she said nothing to you thereafter?"

  "Aye, and more so because as I quickly left the chamber I heard Richard Mull mutter to her that they had been seen by the serving girl. At that I heard my mistress laugh and say that if they had been seen by such as I, I might learn to fall upon my back properly when I came of age."

  "You are a wise one for your years," he said.

  "I am not as young as you might think, for I heard my mother say before she died that 'twas not the time but the quality that made one what she was, and in faith I think that's true of my small case. I do not lack the years of knowledge, save, of course, in the matter of my maidenhead, which I have yet to surrender to any man."

  "Ah," he said, "that magic draft your lady took when you found her with Richard beneath the sheets. I am not surprised. Richard, unlike some of us, could have any woman, erect or fallen upon her back, in less time than it took a falcon to scoop up a field mouse. But what of her your lady's husband? Though he be as cold as a dead man's hand, I wonder that he should have suffered such doings."

  "And you should wonder the more did you know that he indeed knew of their lovemaking. Sir Henry was present at the time."

  Big Tod was so astonished at her words that he asked her to repeat them.

  "In the very chamber," she said. "There were three of them, the two upon the bed and the master in his chair at the other side of the room."

  "And they cared not that he watched them?" he asked incredulously.

  "I think not. I could not see his face at his cuckolding but he was there as witness, and I think so prominently that it must have been with his wife's permission."

  "Or at his command," Big Tod suggested. " 'Tis wondrous strange this household that you serve."

  "Aye," she agreed.

  "Sir Henry has said nothing to you about what you saw?"

  "He does not speak to me two words from one week to the other on any account. He may not have heard me gasp for breath, or if he did he may have thought it a mouse in the corner no
t worth regarding at the moment.

  "Another man would have slit Richard's throat, his wife's, and yours too to keep his disgrace well within doors," he mused. "I am fond of you, girl. This is no safe house, for where there's such goings-on murderous thoughts find a ready nest. I advise you to seek work elsewhere."

  She turned to him appealingly. "Where should I go, without friends or family?"

  "Let me think on it," he said. "I will talk to our chief, WillShipman."

  "You will not betray what I have told you?" she pleaded.

  "Nay, I have given my word. I'll not tell your secrets or those of this house, but you must guard this all in your heart, for I would have nothing ill befall you. Be wary of your master and mistress. Tread softly in their presence, and do not go into Sir Henry's alone. I trust not the man, be he magistrate or no."

  She looked at him desperately. "Think you my life's in danger?"

  "I think," he said slowly, "that Richard Mull has paid the price of his pleasures and should your employers suddenly take a mind to keep this business to themselves, your death would follow like a lank hound after a bitch in heat. What I will say to Will Shipman—for he's a good man despite some past differences—is that I know a girl such as yourself handy in the mending of garments, man's and woman's."

  She interrupted. "If you say so, you will say true, for I have such skill."

  "Then you might travel with us. It is not an easy life, yet there are worse. We are sometimes chased from the towns and fall foul of the law or the Puritan folk, but we see much of the country, breathe fresh air, and live by our wits, and there is some joy in that."

  "You have given me much to think upon," she said soberly.

  "And you me," he replied. "We came here by invitation of Sir Henry and his lady, but it may be that God will turn it all to good."

  It was at that moment that big Tod heard the familiar voice of Will Shipman in the corridor. "I think the feast be done. You are best for bed."

  "Alone with only my maidenhood for company?"

  He kissed her full on the mouth. Her lips tasted of sweet malmsey and she kissed soft, not hard like the city girls whose lips were often calloused and full of sores.

  "God keep you," she said.

  He got to his feet awkwardly, his left leg numb from his having sat upon it for such a length of time. From the outer room he heard once again the call of his fellows, and he returned the call with an oath. He gave her a last kiss and said, "Look to your safety. Best tell no other what you have told me."

  She nodded and he joined his comrades, looking back but once to admire her slender silhouette in the firelight.

  Eight

  MATTHEW ROSE early the next morning and dressed as though he knew exactly what he was about. He kissed Joan, stuffed his pockets with cheese and biscuits to eat on the way, then went into the street to find the apprentice boy just finishing his sweeping and the town awakening to another cold gray morning. Greeting a handful of neighbors like him already about their business, he walked past the silversmith's, the greengrocer's, the bondsman's, the scrivener's, and the half dozen apprentices who hung around the bakery to smell bread bake and exchange droll stories on their masters' time. He was near the edge of town before he could fully acknowledge the truth, which was that he had not the slightest notion of where he was going or what, once he got there, he should hope to find. But although perplexed, he could not blame himself again. By now he was weary of regret; he would not again say to himself that he had been presumptuous and foolish to stand for constable, that it would have been best to stay indoors and keep shop, satisfied that an honest clothier stands as nigh to God as a great lord or the old Queen herself. He had heaped enough ashes upon his head. Yet his commission still lay heavily upon his stomach, like too much beef eaten the night before.

  At least, he thought as he walked, the country air might do him some good, might clear his head. Methodically, he inventoried the handful of facts he had established. It was not much of a store. The hostler's story was not beyond suspicion. Richard Mull's motives remained obscure, as did, certainly, the part Sir Henry and his lady might play in all of this. He had first discounted Joan's suspicions; now he was beginning to take them more seriously. And what of the poor girl drowned?

  When he looked up from his musings, he found that he was not far from the inn. Ahead he could see its tall chimneys curling smoke in the brisk morning air. He lengthened his stride, coming atop the rise just as Simon appeared leading the roan mare from the stable toward the field. The hostler did not stop when Matthew hailed him, but led the mare on stolidly, his head to the ground as though it were the end of day rather than a beginning.

  At the second call, the hostler looked up, his lips twisted into a sneer, his eyes blank and hostile.

  "You are fortunate, Master Stock, that your cloth sells itself. Some of God's creatures must work."

  The man's surly manner rankled Matthew, who prided himself on his even temper, but he ignored the hostler's remark, proceeding with the same questions as before. Simon kept walking the mare until they reached the pasture; then, with a slap on its rump, he sent the horse galloping off. The two men sat down on some stones.

  "I have told you what I know," the hostler grumbled.

  "True enough," Matthew replied, "but rehearsing your tale might bring something else to mind."

  Simon cleared his throat and stared sullenly at his hobnail shoes. Mechanically, he began to repeat his story, explaining again how he followed Richard Mull and the scullery maid into the pasture, how Richard had encountered the stranger, and how the stranger and the boy had gone off together into the wood. The hostler said, "I did not hear what 'twas spoken. I did not see the stranger's face. I did not see 'em go."

  Matthew examined the haggard face, taking the measure of the man's honesty as he might have judged a customer's ability to pay an account. The looks of the hostler were mean, rife with repressed violence, but they were no more so than those marking every third man's face, driven down with low wages and high costs. Yet Matthew knew this man was lying, or, at best, telling only part of the truth.

  Matthew asked Simon to show him where the horses had been tethered. The two men trudged across the pasture. The ground was still soft from rain. They entered the trees, a forlorn, desolate spot out of sight of the inn and one Matthew could well imagine as the scene of a murder, especially at night before the moon had risen.

  "Just here," Simon said, pointing to a clump of bushes. "The horses stood there. The boy and the man stood hem."

  Matthew sent the hostler back to his work and waited until Simon had crossed the pasture to the stable before beginning to examine the area. He poked around the bushes and grass, but without success. He could find no evidence of men or of horses. Then thinking the hostler might have been mistaken in the exact spot, the constable began to widen his search, and it was not long until he found a place where the grass had indeed been trampled and there was a confusion of prints in the moist ground. He thought, there must have been a struggle. Then, a short distance away, he saw the cloth, hanging from the branch of a hawthorn like a signal flag. He waded through the weeds to the hawthorn and plucked the cloth from the branch. It was a man's shirt, of good cambric and splendid silk needlework. The shirt had been ripped to shreds and was stained with blood. Matthew threw it aside. He knew whose shirt it had been. He was standing on the very spot the players' boy had been murdered.

  Matthew looked about him, trembling. There was a flat gray sky, not a breath of wind, an eerie stillness that made him sick at heart. He recalled old stories about the spirits of murdered men. How those spirits haunted the places where the murders had occurred. He crossed himself and whispered a prayer. Then he began to move quickly through the damp grass toward the pasture.

  *

  His foot kicked against something and he bent down to pick it up. It was a piece of fine-tooled leather, stirrup leather from a gentleman's saddle, the iron lost somewhere. It could not have been the
re long in the grass. Matthew could smell yet the saddler's oil, feel a hostler's care. He looked again at the trampled earth, the signs of struggle, and his imagination reconstructed the scene: a sudden, sharp thrust, probably from behind and while the boy was off balance mounting the horse and unsuspecting, the horses startled by the violence, by the blood, lurching wildly. In the darkness the murderer or murderers had not noticed the damaged saddle, eager to be off and away as Matthew was now, from this unhallowed place.

  He wiped the mud from the leather and examined it more closely, yes, there was something there, an ornately carved initial now that he looked more closely. The letter S. "Saltmarsh," the constable said aloud, as though someone had whispered it into his ear.

  He folded the leather strap carefully and placed it inside his cloak.

  Big Tod could hardly bear to sleep in the stable since the boy's death. He could not look into the straw but he saw Richard Mull's body. Sometimes he saw it out of the comer of his eye in odd places, propped up in the drinking room of the inn or smiling whimsically from behind the privy. The visions always made him shudder and cross himself, although of religion he had little, believing rather that when a man died that was the end of it. Had he been of a philosophical bent, he would have recognized the incompatibility of his visions and his opinions. But though he had a good heart and merry countenance, he was no philosopher, so he kept his visions and his opinions. And he slept restlessly.

  He had awakened late, long after the crow of the cock. He lay thinking in the straw, thinking of the Welsh girl and her story. He had liked the maid; she had a pleasant wit and a ready smile. He had talked with her easily, as though they had been reared by the same hearth. He wanted to see her again—and safe from the dangers at the Hall.

  His brother emitted a loud snore and started from sleep. Then the two went off to the inn in search of breakfast.

  They were seated together at the window when Big Tod saw the constable approaching from the stable.

  " 'Tis the constable, indeed," Little Tod said when his brother had called his attention to the window. "Let's greet him on our feet."