A Play of Lords Read online

  The roar of laughter that answered that was everything Joliffe had hoped it would be, but the Dauphin flinched, hunching his shoulders as if wishing he could disappear between them, and when the laughter began to fall, drew himself up again to protest, “No! In truth I am! King of France and rightful lord . . .”

  On the burst of renewed laughter, Ellis as the Devil strode into the hall, splendid in red doublet, jaunty black hat, and black hosen. He came confidently up the hall, his hands lifted graciously to the people along the tables along both sides of the hall, nodding to them like a great lord acknowledging their welcome. Only when he was past could they see the long and pointed black tail curving out from under the back of his doublet.

  No matter how poor the company had been in their worst years, the Devil’s tail—used in several plays—had always been a proud thing, its rag-stuffed length run through with a supple wire that gave it almost a life of its own behind its wearer. Now laughter followed that tail up the hall, until the Devil reached the Dauphin not far below the high table and gave him a deep, deep bow, bringing the tail to wave back and forth in a high arc above him so that finally everyone at the high table saw the jest, too, and burst into laughter with everyone else.

  With all his heed set on being the Dauphin, Joliffe had had little chance to see much of the men and women at the high table. He had a sense they were wearing overmuch black, but that would be in mourning for the duke of Bedford, dead less than a month and kin to many of these high-born folk. Of course the black only set off the gold and jewels they wore on fine chains and collars and rings, and the peacock flash of colors at some places along the table were probably the London and foreign merchants, who need not be in mourning, no matter what their regrets might be for the regent’s death. More than that there he had no chance or need to note. What mattered now was their laughter, and if they had been stiff at the evening’s beginning, they most assuredly no longer were, and as their laughter faded, the Devil waved a dismissing hand at them while declaring to the Dauphin, “Forget such as these, my lord. Let you pursue a man whose homage given you will be worth more than anything you might gain here.”

  “Who mean you?”

  “The Duke of Burgundy. Who other could it be?”

  There was hissing again at that, just as hoped for, and onward they went. The Devil convinced the Dauphin of the good of seducing the Duke of Burgundy to their use, and the Duke came forward, still with Lady Honor, to join in talk with the Devil, indignant at first at any thought of joining with the Dauphin. At his most grand, Basset declared, “My father’s murderer? Nay, never! Have I not sworn that he shall be my foe until his dying day?”

  “You did so swear,” Ellis assured him, smooth as oil on water. “And sure it was an oath I took unto my breast with all delight, founder of endless enmity as it must be, and God forbid you should ever be foresworn! But all that was a time and time ago, and times do change and vows grow thin and waste away. Think what a burden on the world it would be if men stayed true to all their vows.”

  That was a jibe that could strike too many ways, and Joliffe had almost left it out, but he had found ere now that men, secure in their own good opinion, rarely took adverse things to mean themselves, and the jibe was met with general laughter here, so that was well enough as the Dauphin joined in, cringing, soothing, and flattering all at once. As the Duke began to sway to the Devil’s will, Lady Honor tried to sway him back, saying the English would take it ill, and he burst out at her, “Am I not man enough to stand against the craven English?” He drew his over-large sword and held it high, declaring, “Surely I am man enough to stand—” The small clasp in the hilt gave to the push of Basset’s finger, and sword’s blade swung downward in sudden wilt from the hilt. Still holding it high, the Duke went boldly on, blind to what had happened, “—against such as they,” over the on-lookers’ laughter and jeers.

  Sometime during that, Piers had slipped blackly into the hall as Dishonor and was skulking behind the diners along the tables, bobbing into sight and out of it. While the play went onward, he reached the high table and crouched down to skitter along in front of it, now and again bobbing up to thrust his leering masked head toward someone before bobbing back out of sight and skulking onward until he was behind the Devil, who had by now brought the Duke of Burgundy to talk to the Dauphin and was prompting them both. None of them gave any sign of seeing Dishonor, and he slipped forward to tug at the hem of the Devil’s doublet for attention. Not looking around, the Devil swatted backward at him.

  During their practice, Basset had warned, “Piers, if you over-play your part, I’ll give Ellis leave to swat you good and proper after the play is done. You hear me?”

  Piers seemed not only to have heard but to have taken it to heart. Despite the laughter he was getting, he held his teasing in check and kept his jigging little dance behind the Devil’s back as small as his grandfather had told him to. He was even right where he was supposed to be when the Devil turned, held out a hand toward him, and declared, “And see, my lord of Burgundy, what dear and delicate lady here abides, to take her place at your regal side.”

  Piers was supposed to come mincing forward then as if he were a lady wearing wide skirts and curtsy to the Duke of Burgundy, but as he moved from the last steps of his jig, he mis-stepped and lurched suddenly and ungracefully to one side, might even have fallen completely down if Ellis had not grabbed him by an upper arm, jerked him upright and into balance again, saying without a missed beat, “A lady all of grace and daintiness,” which was not a line that Joliffe had written but served to bring laughter while Piers played up to Ellis’ words and put in a little extra stumble before Dishonor recovered what passed for dignity with it and made its deep, mocking curtsy to the Duke.

  Burgundy, gazing at a place some several feet over Dishonor’s head as if looking into a lady’s face, exclaimed over her loveliness, declaring it to be much greater than Lady Honor’s. The Devil explained that was because this lady was Lady Greatest Honor, whose love the Duke now had earned by taking the Dauphin for his king. When Lady Honor tried to protest this and point out it was Dishonor the Duke was taking by the hand, the Devil decried her jealousy—“An unfair thing that mars any lady’s loveliness, no matter how fair she seem to be.”—and signaled the Dauphin to take her away.

  The Duke, holding Dishonor by the hand and gazing into a face that was not there, exclaiming over his good fortune at winning so fair a maid, did not see the Dauphin grab Lady Honor by the shoulders and shove her away the whole length of the hall and at the doorway pull up his tattered robe and give her a solid foot on the rear to send her out of sight amid laughter and booing at that by the nearest lookers-on, but he lifted his head high, sniffed down his nose at them, and shuffled back up the hall, dusting his hands as if at a task well done while the Devil and the Duke finished declaiming to each other how wise and wonderful the Duke was at choosing Lady Greatest Honor. Then hand in hand the Duke and Dishonor started down the hall together, the Duke still gazing at the nothing where he thought he saw his lady’s face while Dishonor jigged and minced and mask-leered up at him and around at the lookers-on.

  The Dauphin got out of their way and stood gaping after them, saying as the Devil strolled to join him, “He truly sees her there, truly believes that he leads Lady Greatest Honor by the hand.”

  Scornfully the Devil answered, “There’s none so great who won’t believe the lie they want to live in, nor any fool so great as our great lord of Burgundy. Well away, I am for England now, to lead the English into such hatred of our Duke that they will rob themselves out of the profits of the Flanders’ trade and into poverty instead.” He made a grand flourish with one hand. “And is not that a charitable deed, since holy poverty is strong among the virtues? Come. Let’s to it!” And with a masterful hand he seized the gaping Dauphin by the arm, much as he had seized Dishonor (but this time it was planned) and had him down the hall as briskly as the Dauphin had seen Lady Honor away. The Duke and Dishonor
were gone by then, and at the wide doorway the Devil sent the Dauphin after them with a foot to the rear like that the Dauphin had given Lady Honor, bringing on more laughter (a foot to the rear was always sure for that). With the Dauphin gone, the Devil turned back to give a low and sweeping bow, this time to the hall at large, then turned his back on them all and strolled out as applause burst up from everyone, even among the servants who had been watching from the shadows of the screens passage and from the musicians in the loft above.

  That was good. That was relief. But it was Basset, a few moments later when they were back in the waiting chamber, clustered together congratulating one another and not yet collapsed, who said it all and best, declaring with equal parts triumph and relief, “We survived!”

  Chapter 9

  To relief at surviving was added their fellows’ praise while they changed out of their garb and cleaned their faces, and by Robin Newcum—who had after all not left but lingered to watch from the minstrels’ loft—clapping Basset on the back and saying they would have to talk one of these days, and then—crown to it all—a squire in the earl of Mortain’s livery came to give Basset a purse heavy with coin and, “My lord sends his thanks. Your play and playing was everything that had been hoped.”

  Basset bowed to the man, returning thanks and saying they were glad to have given satisfaction and were honored by the chance to please his lordship; but Joliffe, seeing how expertly Basset weighed the purse in his hand while tucking it into the front of his doublet under his surcoat, guessed that Basset’s glow was maybe less from the honor and more from the purse’s weight.

  Rose was packing the last of their garb and properties into the hamper when Mak and Harry came, ready to carry the hamper away, Mak exclaiming happily, “Saints’ toenails, but I’ve not laughed that hard all at once since Fat Sassie fell down the stairs and ended up heels above head and yelling for a doctor.”

  “I neither,” Harry said. “You put on a right ferly show.”

  Sense of their success came all the stronger when they were back in their room at Lord Lovell’s. With the door barred for the night between them and the world, Basset emptied the purse from Mortain onto the table. In the small lamplight the heap of silver shone and glinted as Basset ran his hand over it, spreading it out across the table’s old, scarred wood. Not Bishop Beaufort’s alluring gold but more than they had ever been paid for any of their work—always leaving aside Bishop Beaufort’s gold, which was another matter altogether—and they left it there on the table, uncounted, while they readied for bed in almost reverent silence. Or maybe it was just the silence of deep weariness. Now that the past days’ surge of need was done, Joliffe found he was almost clumsy with tiredness and had to suppose the others were, too. Nonetheless, he caught himself and them now and again looking toward the table, most often sidewise as if maybe the coins there could disappear if too much believed in.

  It was in that same hush that they gathered around the table, and coin by coin Basset counted the money into even piles, one in front of each of them.

  Even through their lean years, when their playing in a village got them no more than a few pennies and maybe a loaf of bread, he had kept record of their shares of the pennies (they had eaten the bread), but almost all of whatever money they got had gone into simply keeping the company going, with only an occasional penny to each of them to spend as they would. Even when they began to prosper as Lord Lovell’s players, much of every earning was usually kept aside for the company’s purse. But not this time. This time, having counted it all out among them, Basset pushed perhaps a fourth of his own coins toward Joliffe’s with, “That for the writing of the thing.” Joliffe started a protest, but Basset cut him off, saying with great dignity and only a little jest, “I’m master of this company. I pay what I choose to whom I choose. Or,” he added with mock ruefulness, “I do when I have the money to.” Then seriously, “You’ve earned it.” He looked around at the others. “Yes?”

  Smiling, they all of them nodded ready agreement to that. Joliffe, surprised to find himself embarrassed, would have fumbled some sort of thanks, but before he could, Ellis said, “But shouldn’t Piers get less than the rest of us? After all, he’s the only one of us who made trouble, stumbling like he did. Knew his lines but forgot his feet.”

  “Hai!” Piers protested.

  “Well . . .” Basset said as if deeply considering that as a just claim.

  “No!” Piers yelled and pretended to pummel Ellis with both fists. Ellis grabbed him around the middle, tickling, and they went down, happily tangled on the floor wrestling with each other and laughing.

  “Quick!” said Gil. “While they’re busy we can split their share!”

  That brought Ellis and Piers apart to drag him down into their laughing fray. Basset, Rose, and Joliffe shifted to the other side of the table to be clear of them, and Basset said, “Time for the wine, I think?” to Rose.

  That brought the other three up from the floor to help with fetching the cups and the pitcher of wine Rose had bought and hidden while they had done their last practicing in the afternoon, and with wide smiles that none of them could seem to keep off their faces, they tapped the rims of their wooden cups in wish for continued fine fortune and drank deep, then raised their cups in thanks to Saint Genesius for seeing them through and drank to that, then simply drank. Shared among the six of them, and even with Piers not getting as much as he thought he should have, there was not enough wine to be drunk on; the glad, mind-blurring glow with which Joliffe went to bed was not so much from the wine as from their success and his relief.

  He did not know how tired he was until he lay down, but before his mind and body had finished their silent groan of relief, he was asleep.

  When he awoke in the morning, the glow of last night was still with him, but the night’s sleep, rather than resting him, had given the strained effort of the past few days chance to catch up to him. Only necessity dragged him up from his mattress, and by the look and shuffle of them, the rest of the company was in no better case. If Basset had any thought of them doing street-work today, Joliffe thought, he had best think again.

  As it happened, Basset had already thought again. To Ellis asking uneagerly, “Street-work today? Since we have the license and all,” Basset answered firmly, “No street-work today. We’ve earned a day off, and we’re going to have it. A day of cleanliness and leisure. For everyone,” he added pointedly at Rose, who ever had one task or another to hand.

  She laughed at him and said, “I asked Maud Hyche two days ago which bathhouse she thought best. There’s one just outside Ludgate she favors. More than that . . .” She opened one of the hampers and brought out separate bundles of clean shirts and under-braies and hosen. “She took me to the laundress who does her laundry, too, and I had yours done yesterday. Mine, too.” She gave a worried frown toward her father and added, “It was somewhat costly.”

  Basset put his arm around her shoulders, briefly squeezing her while he kissed her cheek. “I’m only pleased you did it.”

  Mostly the players only washed piecemeal. Rose saw to it they kept hands and necks and faces clean, but the rest was difficult in the life they led. Rarely were they clean all over and all at once. Summers were easiest, when there were streams and ponds to swim in, but colder weather did not encourage the taking off of clothing either to swim or to wash all over, and even if they had had a wooden tub large enough for a whole bath, the carrying of sufficient water and the heating of it bucket by bucket was more trouble than even people with houses could trouble to do often. Thus towns of any size had at least one, and often more, bathhouses where the fetching and heating of water was a business and, for money, a person could be warm and washed all at the same time. It was something the players had not always had enough money to do, but when they were in coin and had the chance, they did, and today after breaking their fast, they followed Maud Hyche’s directions to Ludgate and out of the city by a wide way that Rose said Maud said went along the river t
o Westminster, but they shortly turned from it into a lesser street, and Rose pointed to a hanging sign not far along it, painted with a picture of a wooden tub with a happy, apparently naked, man and woman sitting in it with steam rising around them.