12 The Bastard's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  ‘Master Wilde,“ she returned passing by.

  ‘… do whatever it takes to keep him out and away from me, short of maiming or killing him,“ Master Wilde went on. ”Maim him and we’ll have the abbot on us. Kill him, we’ll have the crowner.“

  ‘Though, mind you,“ Frevisse said over her shoulder, ”there’s good likelihood the jury would find it was manslaughter rather than murder, being done under provocation. To prove it, you could read out some of his poems to them.“

  She went inside to the sound of Toller laughing. Her quick look around the hall told her Joliffe was not there and that John was busy sorting shoes out of a basket with Giles. Mistress Wilde gave her another doublet to hem and she went to sit alone in her usual place on the bench along the wall, barely started before Joliffe strolled in and over to her. She looked up and he pointed at John across the hall as if asking about him but said, “Did you hear anything of interest last night among the lords?”

  Looking at John, too, she answered, “Nothing, except no one there seemed worried about this army Gloucester is said to be bringing.”

  ‘Because they know he isn’t,“ Joliffe said. ”So you don’t think he’s sickening for anything?“ he asked, not about Gloucester but because the player who would be the Might of Understanding when the time came but was now merely a young man in need of a shave, was going past them.

  ‘No. He had that little cough, but it’s gone,“ Frevisse said unhesitantly. ”He’s fine.“

  Joliffe stood up. “Good then. I’ll—”

  The other player was away and no one else near and Frevisse said quickly, “They expected Gloucester to be here sooner than he is.”

  ‘They who?“

  ‘Dorset said it. He said it was Gloucester’s fault the men were cold on Henow Heath. ’If he’d come when we thought he would‘ is what he said before Suffolk interrupted him.“

  ‘That’s Dorset. Whatever is wrong is always someone else’s fault.“

  ‘What do you think is going to happen?“

  ‘I don’t know, but my guess is that it’s going to happen to Gloucester, rather than by him.“

  ‘Are you supposed to… what did Bishop Beaufort intend you do?“

  ‘Only find out as much as possible about what’s being planned against Gloucester. Because something is. ’What‘ is the question, and the more Bishop Beaufort knows, the more he’ll have to work with if he wants to counter it.“

  ‘Why…“Why would Bishop Beaufort want to counter anything done against his old enemy, Frevisse meant to ask, but Ned Wilde and another player were passing close by and Joliffe said lightly, ”Do you know, I tried to persuade Master Wilde that Lucifer should be in a black churchman’s gown, but he said that would be unwise here and now.“

  ‘Considering who is paying for the play and all,“ said Frevisse dryly, ”yes, I can see his point.“

  Joliffe gave the deep sigh of the gravely misunderstood. “Ah, well.”

  Master Wilde was calling the players to him from the steps of Heaven, but before Joliffe started to move away, Frevisse took the chance to ask, “How would you have found a way to talk with me if I’d not been bringing John to these practices?”

  ‘If nothing else, I’d have lain in wait for you at prayers in the church.“ Joliffe smiled with all Lucifer’s charm. ”That’s always a good way to meet a nun.“

  There wasn’t time to ask him any of the many other things she had in mind. About Arteys, for one. Was he indeed Gloucester’s bastard son? How did Joliffe come to know him? And Bishop Pecock. How were he and Joliffe known so well to one another? More immediately, how much more than what he was telling her did Joliffe know?

  Joane came to take the doublet from her, unfinished though it was. “Master Wilde means to run it with the garments as well as music this afternoon,” she said. “He says if Ned is going to break his leg tripping over the skirts in Lady Soul’s gown, let him do it now so everyone can forget the whole thing and have a rest.”

  ‘Is Ned likely—“

  Joane smile widely. “Not him. You’ll see.”

  Since Arteys had not come with Joliffe today, she presumed he would not come at all, nor did he, or Bishop Pecock either, though she had half-hoped he would. But Brother Lydgate did not appear either and that was just as well; there were troubles enough without him even before they began the play. One of the Devil’s shoes pinched cripplingly and had to be stretched. Another Devil complained his doublet was too small in the waist, would not go around him, until Mistress Wilde pointed out he had Rob’s doublet and Rob had his. Among the Mights there was laughter and grumbling as they fixed and fastened on their womanly long wigs of flaxen hair and then much stumbling and fumbling as they tried out their gowns’ trailing skirts, fuller than the ones they had practiced in. Ned in Lady Soul’s far more full-skirted gown was all-graceful from almost the first and he and Joliffe—sleek in a short, black-damask doublet and crimson hat and hosen—set to showing them what to do and shortly had them sweeping back and forth across the playing place. Master Wilde meanwhile was occupied, first, with setting up the new musicians come to join the company’s piper and drummer, then with practicing the lift and shift of God’s heavy cloth-of-gold robes because although he would be seated throughout the play, at the beginning he had to reach his throne—as yet still the joint stool, not yet replaced by Abbot Babington’s best chair—and at the end come down from it, quickly and gracefully.

  John and Giles sensibly came to sit beside Frevisse, out of the way, until Master Wilde called everyone to their places and began. With her sewing taken away, Frevisse was free to watch as well as listen and was surprised, as always when she had watched players at their work, how whatever seeming confusion there had been fell away once the play began. There might still be confusions—as when Lady Soul crossed to a place she should not be until two speeches later, and Lucifer had to shift his own movements to match hers without losing his lines—but it was a contained confusion and the play went forward despite it, with Master Wilde brooding from above, sometimes forgetting to be Wisdom, especially when the Devils in their dance with the seduced Mights added undignified hops and skips to avoid skirts that had not been there before. By Master Wilde’s down-drawn brows, Frevisse knew that would be rehearsed again.

  Despite of everything they made it to the end without stopping and on the whole more smoothly than yesterday had gone, with time to run through it all again before it was time for Master Wilde to let them go to their suppers. The second time was even better, with little for Master Wilde to say at the end and even a little praise before he went on to remind them to meet in the King’s Hall after supper, to practice tonight where tomorrow they would perform. That was met with a general groaning, even from John and Giles, though more for the form of protest than otherwise, Frevisse thought, because they had all known this was to come.

  Master Wilde, ignoring the groans, went on, “It will be double work tonight, mind you, because besides it being our next-to-only chance to get a feel for the place and see how we fit it, we’ll as well be trying out the smoke and Devil’s stink and everything suchlike for the first time, to find if they’re going to work at all.”

  Giles gave a glad whoop and John, who had been drooping, sat up, instantly no longer tired. Frevisse wished she felt the same.

  Chapter 10

  Long before today Arteys had determined that patience was the greater part of being attendant on any lord or lady. It had assuredly been among his earliest lessons in his father’s household. Beyond being taught to read not only English but French and Latin and the reckoning of accounts, he had likewise learned the manners and graces of a gentleman and the duties that came with them, including to be where your lord needed you, when he needed you, ready to do whatever he needed done, and today that meant riding horseback for a cold two hours southward out of Bury St. Edmunds between winter-plowed and fallow fields under a gray and lowering sky with four grumbling men and a chill wind for company, hoping to meet
with Gloucester riding northward before too many more miles.

  Yesterday Sir Richard had come back with word that Duke Humphrey would spend the night half a day’s ride away and come on in the morning, to be in Bury St. Edmunds for dinner. Master Grene, warden of St. Saviour’s, had been told and orders accordingly passed to the kitchen for readying the welcome feast that even now had people at bustle in St. Saviour’s warm and crowded kitchen—warm being the word on which Arteys particularly dwelled as the cold fingered across the back of his neck and he shifted in the saddle to hitch the cloak higher toward his ears and ease his seat at the same time. His horse shook its head in answer, bored after too many days of being shut up in a stall and wanting to gallop. Arteys ran a hand along its neck to say he felt much the same.

  Behind him Tom and Hal were passing the time playing at knife-parchment-stone, with smothered laughter and slaps at each other’s hands depending on who had won or lost. Ahead, Sir Richard was in talk with Master Needham about Parliament’s present dealings. Master Needham was member of Parliament for Dover but also Duke Humphrey’s receiver of rents in Kent and eastern Sussex and therefore doing his duty today as the duke’s man, come out with the rest of them to join Gloucester’s retinue for its ride through Bury St. Edmunds. Even half-listening as he was, Arteys could hear how wary they were in their talk together. Not of each other, he thought, but of something neither wanted to say straight on.

  It was like the unease Arteys had brought back from his venture into Bury St. Edmunds two days ago. After the players’ practice Joliffe had offered, lightly enough, to walk with him back to St. Saviour’s. Another time Arteys would have welcomed his company but that day he had not known whether he wanted Joliffe’s company for itself or because he was afraid, and if he had accepted, he would never afterward know for certain why he did. So he had refused with thanks and gone out alone into the waning afternoon and the crowd and hurry of homeward-bound people and carts.

  He had had no trouble, but Tom Herbert had been waiting at St. Saviour’s gateway for him, demanding, “Where have you been?” as Arteys came over the bridge.

  He had sounded so much like Arteys’ foster mother when he had come home late from playing in the stream beyond the orchard that Arteys had nearly laughed, as much with his own relief as anything, but only said, “Just into Bury. Why not? You and Hal were.”

  ‘Hal and I were back here at midday. Do you know what’s being said about Gloucester? Didn’t you hear it?“

  ‘Yes, I—“

  ‘Then where have you been?“

  Arteys had seen then, while they were crossing the yard toward the warden’s small, walled garden and the outer stairs to Gloucester’s room, since he had the key to there and it was shorter than going around, that Tom was afraid and had felt better about his own fear, finding he was not alone in it. While they went up the stairs, he explained how he had spent the afternoon, unlocked the door and been greeted by Hal with, “Where’ve you been? We’d have been out looking for you if we’d thought we could find you!”

  Arteys had demanded back at him, “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on? All this about Suffolk mustering men and Gloucester coming with an army didn’t come out of nowhere this morning. You’ve been into town enough these past days to have heard it!”

  ‘Two days ago there wasn’t a word about any of it anywhere,“ Hal protested.

  ‘Yesterday then?“ Arteys challenged.

  Tom and Hal had traded looks compounded of guilt and smothered laughter before Tom said, “Urn, yesterday, yes. There’s this house outside the east gate, see…” and Hal had finished, “The thing is, we didn’t spend time in Bury yesterday.”

  And this afternoon they had been waiting for him to come back before they did anything. By then it had been too close to dark for anyone to set off with word to Gloucester but they had decided that, come morning, Hal would go south by the way he was expected to come, and Arteys and Tom would spend the day in Bury, learning what they could. So Hal had ridden out at first light and Arteys and Tom had spent the forenoon going together from tavern to tavern, alehouse to alehouse, cookstall to cookstall, and back and forth from end to end of Bury’s two marketplaces until they were swilled full of ale and footsore with walking and not much better know-ledged than when they had started. Word was still running that Gloucester was coming with an army, that the men on Henow Heath had been summoned to protect the king against him, that the town gates might need to be shut at any time.

  ‘A pointless move, given the state of the town wall in most places,“ Tom had said glumly.

  Then, at midday, word had started to spread, with much head-shaking and disgruntled laughter, that the men on Henow Heath had been unmustered at mid-morning.

  ‘Told to go home,“ one man was saying to another at the cookstall where Arteys and Tom were sharing a meat pie. ”Just like that. Told there was no more need of them, to clear out.“

  ‘Daft they were there at all,“ his companion had said. ”Only half as much paid them as promised, too, I heard.“

  ‘Why?“ Arteys had said to Tom as they moved on. ”Why send them all away before Gloucester even comes?“

  ‘Maybe Suffolk saw how idiot he was going to look, all those men at his back, when Gloucester rides in with only eighty or so?“

  ‘Why call them up at all?“

  ‘To scare people and turn them against Gloucester? Who knows? Come on. I want to sit down and let my feet pretend today didn’t happen.“

  They had been almost back to St. Saviour’s when Sir Richard and Hal had ridden up beside them. They had met on the road, and although Hal had wanted him to turn back to warn Gloucester of what was happening at Bury, Sir Richard had wanted to see for himself how things were before he stirred up alarm and, “Now there’s no need,” he had said, sitting with his feet toward the fire in Gloucester’s bedchamber, where they could all talk privately together. “This kind of nonsense is what makes Suffolk a problem. His wits are quicker than his good sense. He thinks a thing and does it before he thinks it through. Leaps at the pretty bird before he sees there’s a thorn bush under it.”

  ‘How does he have so much power from the king then?“ Tom had grumbled.

  ‘King Henry became king when he was nine months old and was brought up being told what to do by whatever men were nearest around him. He’s used to it.“ Sir Richard had been more blunt about it than Arteys had ever heard anyone dare to be. ”Now Suffolk is nearest to him, and however poorly he thinks, Suffolk talks beyond ordinarily well. He’s talked himself into favor and no one’s been able to have him out of it. We can just be glad his latest idiot’s trick fell apart before it did harm. When he thinks straight, he knows he can’t touch Gloucester. Gloucester is the king’s uncle and heir. Now, where’s pen and ink? I have to send a message to Need-ham about tomorrow.“

  He had, and this morning when they had ridden into Bury as the abbey bells were ringing to Prime, they had accordingly found Master Needham waiting for them outside the abbey gates and they had all ridden south together, in no haste about it because the farther out they rode, the farther back they would have to come after meeting Gloucester.

  Arteys’ horse pulled at the reins, suggesting they could do more than amble. Arteys wished they could but returned the pull, telling there’d be no galloping this morning. Their duty was to come as gleaming-groomed as possible back into Bury St. Edmunds as part of Gloucester’s retinue, for everyone to see that Gloucester might be out of royal favor but still had power of his own and the royal pride of blood that was his right despite however many upstarts challenged it. Ahead, speaking of exactly that, Master Needham was asking Sir Richard, “Do you think a quieter in-coming might have been better advised, given the way things stand?”

  Sir Richard shook his head against that. “I wouldn’t say so to Gloucester for any price. On the way from Wales he’s been saying he’s as royal as his nephew and why should he pretend he isn’t, just to satisfy ravens and kites like Beaufort,
Suffolk, Dorset, Chichester, and Salisbury.”

  ‘He said that?“ Master Needham’s open dismay matched Arteys’ silent own. ”Not for anyone else but you to hear, I hope.“

  ‘For half the household in hall to hear.“

  ‘Blessed St. Edmund. If he’s coming with that turn °f mind, we’re in for it.“

  ‘We are,“ Sir Richard agreed grimly.

  But his father’s humours could shift with the wind, Arteys told himself. By today, please God, he might well be ready again to be a humble petitioner of King Henry’s mercy for Lady Eleanor. Not that it would help him if whatever spies were in the household—and other lords had spies in Gloucester’s household as surely as he had spies in theirs—had sent word of his rashness on to whoever was paying them—Bishop Beaufort and Suffolk surely, Dorset very probably, and any other lords who saw Gloucester’s royal blood as a threat.

  Arteys had sometimes—maybe, he suspected, more often than he admitted to himself—looked on his own share of royal blood as an ill jest, bastard as it was. But at least it was not—as his father’s was—a danger. In truth, looked at from one way, Arteys suddenly thought, his bastardy was his safety.

  ‘There!“ said Tom, from behind but more forward-looking than any of them just then. ”Foreriders!“

  Indeed, ahead where the road curved into sight around a low-rolled shoulder of hill, three men in Gloucester’s livery colors were just riding into sight, a flare of scarlet against the winter-drab fields, one of them raising a thin traveling trumpet from where he had been carrying it poised like a baton on his hip to sound a frilled ta-rah as warning to clear the way.

  In answer, Sir Richard rose in his stirrups and waved. Another of the foreriders waved back while behind him more of Gloucester’s men were coming into sight with the ducal banner of quartered scarlet and azure with gold lions and lilies and white border bold even under the dull sky. The knights and squires riding behind it matched it for colors in their reds, russets, yellows, greens, and blues, their horses as gaily harnessed, but Gloucester on his tall white palfrey outdoing them all in his ankle-long, full-cut, deep-pleated houpelande of the same strong azure as his royal banner, with miniver at collar, cuffs, and hem, and sleeves hanging halfway to the ground, his horse’s harness of scarlet-dyed leather hung with small, gold-shining bells.