A Play of Treachery Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Author’s Note

  The Middle Ages Come to Life . . . to Bring Us Murder.

  A PLAY OF LORDS

  “Will entertain and confound you with its intricately plotted mystery and richly detailed writing . . . Ms. Frazer knows the fifteenth century and it shows . . . You’ll want to rush out and get the previous books in this wonderful series.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  “[An] amazing wealth of historical detail. While the mystery is compelling, and rooted in a fascinating historical period, it’s the details of everyday life that make the story and characters leap off the page . . . Will appeal to readers who enjoy historical mystery and historical fiction.”

  —CA Reviews

  A PLAY OF DUX MORAUD

  “Deftly drawn characters acting on a stage of intricate and accurate details of medieval life.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “A meticulously researched, well written historical mystery that brings to life a bygone era . . . Historical mystery fans will love this series.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Wonderful . . . As always, the author provides a treasure trove of historical detail . . . [G]ood, solid mystery.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  A PLAY OF ISAAC

  “In the course of the book, we learn a great deal about theatrical customs of the fifteenth century . . . In the hands of a lesser writer, it could seem preachy; for Frazer, it is another element in a rich tapestry.”

  —Contra Costa (CA) Times

  “Careful research and a profusion of details, especially those dealing with staging a fifteenth-century miracle play, bring the sights, smells, and sounds of the era directly to the reader’s senses.”

  —Roundtable Reviews

  “A terrific historical whodunit that will please amateur sleuth and historical mystery fans.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  Praise for the Dame Frevisse Medieval Mysteries

  by two-time Edgar® Award-nominee Margaret Frazer

  “An exceptionally strong series . . . full of the richness of the fifteenth century, handled with the care it deserves.”

  —Minneapolis Star Tribune

  THE SEMPSTER’S TALE

  “What Frazer, a meticulous researcher, gets absolutely right in The Sempster’s Tale are the attitudes of the characters.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  THE WIDOW’S TALE

  “Action-packed . . . A terrific protagonist.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  THE HUNTER’S TALE

  “Will please both Frevisse aficionados and historical mystery readers new to the series.”

  —Booklist

  THE BASTARD’S TALE

  “Anyone who values high historical drama will feel amply rewarded . . . Of note is the poignant and amusing relationship between Joliffe and Dame Frevisse.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  THE CLERK’S TALE

  “As usual, Frazer vividly re-creates the medieval world through meticulous historical detail [and] remarkable scholarship.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  THE SQUIRE’S TALE

  “Meticulous detail that speaks of trustworthy scholarship and a sympathetic imagination.”

  —The New York Times

  THE REEVE’S TALE

  “A brilliantly realized vision of a typical medieval English village.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  THE MAIDEN’S TALE

  “Great fun for all lovers of history with their mystery.”

  —Minneapolis Star Tribune

  THE PRIORESS’ TALE

  “Will delight history buffs and mystery fans alike.”

  —Murder Ink

  THE MURDERER’S TALE

  “The period detail is lavish, and the characters are full-blooded.”

  —Minneapolis Star Tribune

  THE BOY’S TALE

  “This fast-paced historical mystery comes complete with a surprise ending—one that will hopefully lead to another ‘Tale’ of mystery and intrigue.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  THE BISHOP’S TALE

  “Some truly shocking scenes and psychological twists.”

  —Mystery Loves Company

  THE OUTLAW’S TALE

  “A tale well told, filled with intrigue and spiced with romance and rogues.”

  —School Library Journal

  THE SERVANT’S TALE

  “Very authentic . . . The essence of a truly historical story is that the people should feel and believe according to their times. Margaret Frazer has accomplished this extraordinarily well.”

  —Anne Perry

  THE NOVICE’S TALE

  “Frazer uses her extensive knowledge of the period to create an unusual plot . . . appealing characters, and crisp writing.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Margaret Frazer

  Joliffe the Player Mysteries

  A PLAY OF ISAAC

  A PLAY OF DUX MORAUD

  A PLAY OF KNAVES

  A PLAY OF LORDS

  A PLAY OF TREACHERY

  Dame Frevisse Medieval Mysteries

  THE NOVICE’S TALE

  THE SERVANT’S TALE

  THE OUTLAW’S TALE

  THE BISHOP’S TALE

  THE BOY’S TALE

  THE MURDERER’S TALE

  THE PRIORESS’ TALE

  THE MAIDEN’S TALE

  THE REEVE’S TALE

  THE SQUIRE’S TALE

  THE CLERK’S TALE

  THE BASTARD’S TALE

  THE HUNTER’S TALE

  THE WIDOW’S TALE

  THE SEMPSTER’S TALE

  THE TRAITOR’S TALE

  THE APOSTATE’S TALE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the au
thor’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  A PLAY OF TREACHERY

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / December 2009

  Copyright © 2009 by Gail Frazer.

  The Edgar® name is a registered service mark of the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN: 9781101354988

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Chapter 1

  The Christmas holidays had gone prosperously for the players. Not needed this year by their patron Lord Lovell, they had spent most of the twelve days passing from town to town along the sheltering river valley of the upper Thames, playing on village greens (a chilly business) and in the great halls of wealthy gentry (a better business).

  They were a company of six—Basset, master of the company, Ellis, Joliffe, and Gil, who shared the playing work among themselves; Rose, who saw to their clothing and playing garb and feeding them and was Basset’s daughter; and Piers, her half-grown son. There were some bad times behind them, and they all knew better than to look too far ahead because the life of traveling players was nothing if not uncertain, but in this winter of 1435 into 1436, they had good times in hand. Their new play of Saint George, with its slaying of the Saracen, the Giant, and the Dragon (not to mention Saint George, too, but he—as always—was brought back to life with a magical pill), and the rescuing of the fair princess at the end, was met with roars of laughter and cheers everywhere they played it, and they had deliberately ended up in Oxford town for the riotous last days of Christmastide, crowning all with a triumphant Twelfth Night performance of the Saint George in St. Edmund’s Hall.

  “For the great and good of town and gown,” as Joliffe put it. “Or at least for several score of them.”

  Basset, as master of the company, declared the next day a day of rest for the players before they took to the road again. “After six days of labor, God rested,” he said. “Twelve days of labor and then one of rest for us seems reasonable, I think.”

  “Meaning you think we’re half as holy as God?” Joliffe suggested.

  “Ha!” Ellis had said. “Me, maybe. Not you, that’s sure.”

  Joliffe had thrown one of their heavy sitting cushions at him in answer. Ellis had thrown it heartily back, and Rose had said with both threat and promise, “If that rips, one of you mends it.”

  Ellis had forsaken quarreling with Joliffe in favor of kissing her, while Joliffe quickly made show of checking the pillow to be sure it was whole.

  So they stayed one more day in Oxford, and Joliffe took the chance to spend a few hours with the master of St. Edmund’s Hall. He and John Thamys had been friends since the long-past time when their paths had first crossed here in Oxford, and despite how wide apart their ways had gone since then. “I having chosen,” Thamys said as they sat near his comfortable fire in his comfortable room, “to roam the paths of scholarship while you roam the roads of England.”

  “I’m rethinking my choice,” Joliffe said amiably. “You live warm, you live dry, and this is very good wine.”

  He raised the polished pewter goblet to Thamys who raised his in return, saying just as amiably, “You wouldn’t last a month at it and you know it.”

  Joliffe laughed, because it was true. Sitting in Thamys’ chamber with a goblet of warm, spiced wine in hand, a quantity of books in reach, a pleasant fire on the hearth, and his and Thamys’ talk rich with varied thoughts, it was easy to imagine this was a world he, too, could have had, if only he had stayed put.

  It had been that “stay put” part that had defeated him those years ago, and the next day as he left Oxford, walking beside the players’ laden cart pulled by their horse, Tisbe, he knew trying to “stay put” would defeat him just as surely now as it had then. The January morning was crisply chill under a winter-blue sky lightly fretted with dawn-cream clouds, the road was firm underfoot, there was no likelihood of snow that day or next and no certainty of where the players would fetch up that night; and Joliffe had no doubts that he had chosen rightly for his life when he walked away from his life in Oxford those years ago. Just as Thamys had chosen rightly for his. To each their own, and to own their each, as the saying was. Each man had to find for himself what his own way was, and today at least, Joliffe’s way was the high road to Wantage town.

  For one reason and another they did not make it that far that day, but it was no great matter. Toward the afternoon’s end, in the last golden light of the fading day, they played Saint Nicholas and the Thief on a village’s green, earning a few pence by way of halfpennies, plus three half-loaves of bread, and two wedges of cheese. Proportionate to what some wealthier places had paid for their playing, that was very generously done, and Ellis and Piers gave the villagers a show of juggling by way of thanks, while Joliffe and Rose and Gil loaded what little they had taken from the cart for their playing back into it and Basset sought leave from the village’s reeve for them to camp on the edge of the common for the night, there being no inn in so small a place, nor even a sufficient alehouse.

  Permission was readily given, and in the glowing after-light of sunset Basset and Ellis made quick work of setting up their tent, while Joliffe saw to Tisbe—unhitching her from the cart, wiping her down, tethering her to graze for the night—and Gil built a fire with the bundle of fagots bought in Oxford for just this case (since villages closely protected their wood-rights), and Piers fetched water from the village well, and Rose readied their supper that tonight would be thick slices of bacon (likewise bought in Oxford; it kept well in this cold weather) to go with toasted bread and cheese.

  Time had been when they would have had to glean wood from under hedgerows as they traveled along, and bacon would have been a rare treat and the bread and cheese stretched to serve for breakfast as well as supper. But prosperity had come on them when Lord Lovell became their patron, giving them some certainty of income by his favor and a place in a world that could be harsh to landless, lordless men. The boundary between survival and failure was become a little wider, and therefore there was often bacon for supper now and sometimes beef, and they did not have to hoard this evening’s pay of bread and cheese; there were coins enough in the company’s purse to buy more tomorrow.

  So it was with contentment they gathered around the fire to their supper. And it was just then the peddler came plodding out of the last of the gray twilight.

  He looked a hale and hearty man but tired, as well he might be after a day walking under the pack he had on his back, and he asked leave to set down by their fire and sleep out there, saying, “I’m not minded to go knocking on doors at this hour, looking for a roof to sleep under. I’ve my cloak and blanket and was thinking it would be the hedge for me, but if I could share your fire instead, I’d be much obliged.”

  It was courteously asked, and there was no reason to say him nay. He looked a respectable sort of peddler, the kind who made his living at it honestly, not the kind who used their pack as an excuse to wander
in and out of trouble. They welcomed him, he slipped free of his pack and leaned it against a wheel of the cart, took some food of his own from it, and joined them at the fire. While night came on, they sat and ate and talked together, the peddler sharing a sweet cake he had bought that afternoon, the players sharing their ale. With the fire warm on their faces and their cloaks huddled high around their ears against the cold at their backs, they traded news of where he had lately been and what they had heard in Oxford about this and that. He warned them that the next village along their way had little welcome for strangers presently, and they told him the village here was likely to give him good business, being friendly folk. Then the talk turned to telling the kind of stories travelers always had to share, with the peddler able to raise laughter over his own disasters as readily as the players could over theirs, and all in all it was a merry evening, with everyone going to bed later than they would have otherwise and only when the fire was sunk low into its coals.

  It was in the frost-touched morning, while Joliffe was hitching Tisbe to the cart, his breath and hers white in the air, that Basset came to him, bringing the peddler, and said, quiet-voiced for the others not to hear where they were packing away the camp, “He wants to talk to the two of us.”

  Joliffe looked around from the harness buckle he had not quite finished buckling, saw that Basset’s face was too bare of any feeling and that the peddler’s had lost all its easy, merry lines. With a first shiver of warning, Joliffe turned back to the buckle, finished with it, and only then turned fully to face the two men. “Do you?” he said to the peddler.