The Bastard's Tale Read online

  Frevisse quickly caught back an urge to laugh, then saw that Bishop Pecock was widely smiling and she smiled at him in return. A jest-making bishop was not someone she had encountered before this.

  Joliffe strolled over to them then, Master Wilde having finished with him though not with anyone else, it seemed. Frevisse saw him look sharply at all their faces as he joined them though he said lightly enough, with a bow to Bishop Pecock, “You all look merry. How did you find it?”

  Bishop Pecock, still smiling, said, “I found it far more pleasurable than I’d expected to. Familiar figures presented in a new form or fashion can surprisingly refresh them. Your play does it very well.”

  Joliffe bowed to him again. “We hope so, my lord.”

  ‘But when did you become player rather than clerk, young Joliffe?“

  ‘When Fortune turned her wheel, which no man may escape.“

  ‘A come-down in the world, is it not?“

  ‘No more than it might be said you’re leaving off being a plain priest and master of Whittington College to become a bishop is a come-down in the world, my lord.“

  Smiles were pulling at both their faces but it was Bishop Pecock who laughed outright before he said, “I’ll not argue that point, lest I lose. But about this play. Who wrote it?”

  ‘Someone who wants to go unknown, I’m afraid.“

  ‘Not you?“

  ‘Not me. I swear it.“

  ‘That’s to the good, then. To find you were as shrewd at theology as you are at worldly matters would give me pause.“

  ‘My lord,“ Joliffe said and bowed.

  But Bishop Pecock was away on another thought. “It’s an interesting thing, though, that although all was pretense from first to last here, yet despite of that, some truths were most movingly conveyed.”

  ‘I’d suggest,“ Joliffe said, ”those truths were conveyed ’because‘ rather than ’despite.‘ “

  ‘A point to be considered,“ Bishop Pecock granted. ”That truth can be conveyed by falseness.“ He peered intently at Joliffe. ”On the other hand, my sometime clerk, I find it somewhat unsettling that you can be so convincingly Lucifer.“

  ‘My lord.“ Joliffe laid a hand earnestly over his heart. ”I promise you I can play at being an angel equally well, given the chance.“

  ‘ ’Play, being the word in question, I believe?“

  ‘As surely as ’holy‘ goes with ’bishop,‘ my lord,“ Joliffe answered, hand still over heart. This time they both laughed aloud.

  John joined them then, released and happy, taking Joliffe by the hand and saying to him and Frevisse both, “Master Wilde says if I decide not to be a lord, I can come be a player with him.”

  ‘I’d welcome you in any company of mine,“ Joliffe said before Frevisse could think of a discouraging answer. ”You pay heed to what you’re supposed to do and to what everyone is doing around you. I’ve known any number of players who are never good at that. Mind you, though, that’s a useful skill for lords, too. You should give my lord Bishop Pecock of St. Asaph’s greeting and Master Arteys, too.“

  John immediately did, bowing to both of them, saying correctly, “My lord,” and, “Sir.” They each bent their heads to him in return, but what was neglected, Frevisse noted, was any naming of him as Suffolk’s son in return; nor did she. If Joliffe did not choose to tell them, she would likewise let it go.

  Instead, Joliffe suggested, “John, why don’t you take Bishop Pecock and Master Arteys to Master Wilde? It won’t hurt him to hear from them that it’s going well.”

  Done with his players for a while, the playmaster was standing alone, hands on hips, staring up the floor in front of him, and Bishop Pecock took up Joliffe’s suggestion with, “I’d be pleased to tell him that, from what I’ve seen, I think the play will suit the king very well.”

  ‘And promise him again that we’ll say nothing to anyone about it,“ said Arteys. He had been silent but smiling along with Frevisse at Joliffe’s and Bishop Pecock’s word-trading, with whatever had been taut in him when he had come here loosened, maybe even forgotten behind the pleasure he had had this past while. He held out his hand to John. ”Would you take us to him, please you?“

  John went willingly and Joliffe sat down on the bench, leaned back against the wall, and stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, like a man tired but satisfied with a task well done. Not believing in his apparent ease for even a moment, Frevisse took up her sewing again and said, to take advantage of this chance, finally, to talk with him, “I’ve known you as a player and a minstrel and a player again, and now it seems you’ve been a clerk to a bishop.”

  Toward the rafters rather to her, Joliffe answered, “He was merely master of a college of priests at St. Michael Paternoster in London when I knew him.”

  ‘What else have you been, I wonder?“

  ‘A scholar but never a scullion. A poet but never a peddler. A vagabond but never a villein. A-“

  Rather than find out how long he could keep that up, Frevisse interrupted, “I never even knew your last name until now, Master Noreys.”

  Joliffe made a small sideways tilt of his head. “That’s me for now, anyway.”

  ‘For now?“

  ‘Sometimes I’m… someone else.“

  Behind his lightness there was a challenge, and a thought Frevisse did not want to have stirred forward from the back of her mind. “And ‘Joliffe’?” she asked. “Is that equally ‘sometimes’?”

  ‘ ’Joliffe‘ is mostly. For simplicity’s sake. But,“ he granted, ”sometimes I’m not.“

  ‘Why?“ She was sewing without heeding what she was doing, and although she kept her voice down, she was unable to curb its sharpness. ”Why are you sometimes not Joliffe? Why are you Noreys for now but sometimes someone else?“

  ‘Guess.“

  She stopped sewing and looked at him, the unwanted thought congealing into certainty. “Because you’re Bishop Beaufort’s man. The one he said would find me out if there was need.”

  Joliffe slightly bowed his head to her. “Even as you say, my lady.”

  The thought chilled her, the ugliness of it settling like lead into her mind and under her heart. Of all people, why Joliffe? And how? But her voice held steady, un-revealing, as she asked, “And now there’s need?”

  ‘Best you keep on with your stitchery, lest it seem I’m bothering you.“

  ‘You are bothering me.“ But she returned to sewing. ”What is it you need?“

  ‘You know Suffolk has gathered men to guard the king against Gloucester?“

  ‘So it’s being said among Suffolk’s people. Though no one seems much concerned about it.“

  Joliffe’s body gave no sign of anything but ease; only his voice sharpened as he asked, “No? No unease? No fears or alarm?”

  ‘No.“ She had not heard much when she went for John, but enough. ”Someone said they’d heard the men were mustered. Someone else said it was cold weather for it. Someone else said, well, they’d make hot work for Gloucester if it came to it. Then there was laughter. But no alarm, even among the women.“

  ‘And Lady Alice? Did she say anything?“

  Frevisse nearly retorted she was not going to spy on her own cousin. But she already was, wasn’t she, and said truthfully, “No. She didn’t speak of it at all. What’s being said in town?”

  ‘The rumor is running everywhere that Gloucester is bringing an army to seize the king.“

  ‘An army? To seize the king? No one around Suffolk is saying that. Is Gloucester bringing an army to seize the king?“

  ‘Gloucester is not,“ Joliffe said, flatly certain.

  They traded long, level looks before she said, “I won’t ask how you come to be so sure of that,” and went back to sewing.

  ‘Good. On the regrettable other hand, I’m going to ask you to keep as close an ear as possible on anything being said by Suffolk’s people.“

  Frevisse slightly nodded to show that she would. Joliffe stood up
and moved casually away to meet Bishop Pecock, John, and Arteys coming back toward the bench, and she found she had finished the hem and was started around again. Impatient at herself, she fastened off the thread, snipped it, and rose to take needle, thread, and gown to Mistress Wilde. That done, she called for John to come to her, well-wrapped him into his cloak, and left without more words to anyone except farewell to Toller at the door.

  Not until she and John had gone outside, into the fading late afternoon light, did she have a thought she no more wanted than others she had lately had. “FitzGloucester” was an old way of saying “Gloucester’s son,” a way—sometimes—of naming a bastard-born child, acknowledged by his father but without claim to his father’s name. The duke of Gloucester had no legitimate son but… FitzGloucester. Gloucester’s son. Was that who Arteys was? If so, no wonder Joliffe had thought it best he not be out and about in Bury St. Edmunds today. Nor wonder that Arteys had been so ill at ease.

  Another thought came, equally unwanted.

  For thirty years and more, there had been nothing but rivalry and hatred between Bishop Beaufort and Gloucester. How did Joliffe—Bishop Beaufort’s man— come to know someone who wore the duke of Gloucester’s badge—whether his bastard son or not—well enough to offer him refuge and what looked much like friendship?

  The cold wind, catching at cloaks and veil as she and John came through the Cellarer’s Gateway into the shelterless open of abbey’s Great Court, was less discomforting than the question that came next.

  What was Joliffe playing at?

  Chapter 7

  Crossing, with John’s hand firmly in hers, among the ever-busyness of people coming and going in the abbey’s Great Court toward the stone-built length of buildings that was partly the abbot’s palace, partly wealthy guest rooms, partly offices for abbey officials, Frevisse’s immediate want was to be done with her duty to John and then escape to prayer in one of the abbey’s many chapels until time for Vespers.

  What she also wanted was time to consider Joliffe. He had chosen to tell her who he was when she could not question him well, and she did not think for even half a breath that was by chance. She did think it was because of this Arteys, though. Why was Joliffe befriending him?

  Or seeming to befriend him. Had Bishop Beaufort ordered that? Because if he had and Arteys was indeed Gloucester’s son, it was foul to use him unwittingly against his father. Or was he unwitting? She knew nothing particularly good about Gloucester. Maybe his son was willing to be used against him.

  But more than her questions about Arteys were her ones about Joliffe. How did he come to be working for Bishop Beaufort? Had Bishop Beaufort known she and Joliffe knew each other when he decided on her coming here? If so, what else hadn’t she been told, and wasn’t being told?

  Questions and more questions and she doubted Joliffe would give her any chance to ask them. She was to look, to listen, to tell. That was what Bishop Beaufort had written he wanted from her. But he had to know she would also think. He had made use of her thinking before now and once she had even used it against him.

  But what she most deeply wanted at this moment was simply to be far away from all of this, at least in mind, for a while. She wanted to kneel quietly in prayer, go to Vespers, have supper in the guesthalls refectory, say Compline’s prayers with Dame Perpetua afterward, and then, please God, go simply to bed.

  The penticed walk running the length of the buildings along the courtyard’s east side gave welcome shelter from the wind but even more welcome was escaping it altogether as she and John went inside and up the stairs to the rooms given over to Suffolk and his people. In keeping with Suffolk’s importance, they were among the best the abbey could offer its guests. Large, with polished wooden floors, pattern-painted ceilings, a small fireplace in the middle of the three, and windows overlooking the abbot’s garden and the river, they were presently somewhat crowded with traveling chests lined along the walls and the general clutter of too many people in too small a space, but at this hour of the day less full of people than they often were. As she and John passed through the first room, a few squires rose and bowed. In the second, John’s nurse was sitting on a stool pulled near to the fire with a handkerchief to her nose and two ladies-in-waiting were busy with shaking out a dress that had crumpled while packed and debating whether it would need to be pressed or if hanging it up near the fire would be enough. They gave brief curtsies when Frevisse and John entered and Nurse made to rise but Frevisse said, “No, don’t.”

  The woman gratefully didn’t. Her rheum had bettered but, “That wind,” she had said, snuffling, as she put John’s cloak around him to go to the players today. “It would do my head no good.”

  Frevisse had agreed and now supposed she should encourage Nurse to nurse herself longer and said, taking off John’s cloak and laying it aside on a chest, “You were wise to stay inside today, Nurse. Shall we plan for me to take him tomorrow, too? Even if the wind stops, you don’t want to be out in the cold.”

  ‘If you would, my lady, I’d be so grateful.“ Nurse wiped at her red, raw, running nose with the tired handkerchief and told John, ”You go play, dear,“ pointing him toward a corner and some of his playthings. ”This rheum is just hanging on and on. Poor Master Denham is still in the infirmary.“

  ‘My lady asked to see you when you came in, my lady,“ one of the ladies interrupted. ”If you will.“

  Nurse nodded toward the doorway into the next chamber. “She’s there.” And hastily pressed the handkerchief to her nose again, groaning, “I don’t know. I just don’t know…”

  Leaving her not knowing, Frevisse crossed the room, tapped lightly at the door already standing half-open, and entered the bedchamber. The high, curtained bed took up much of the room, a tree-trunk-long traveling trunk along one wall took up more, and at night when the truckle beds were pulled out from under the bed for John and the more favored servants, there was very little floor left open at all, but this afternoon the lesser beds were out of sight and way and so were the several waiting women usually attendant on Alice. Instead Alice was sitting with a woman Frevisse did not know on the cushioned bench under the window, and Alice greeted her with, “Frevisse. You’re here. Good. Leave your cloak anywhere and come sit with us,” then asked, while Frevisse laid the cloak on the chest and drew a small, curved-back chair to them, “How did it go with John?”

  ‘He knows his part perfectly,“ Frevisse was glad to say. ”You’ll be pleased with him.“

  Smiling at that, Alice nodded toward the other woman. “Mistress Tresham, please you to meet my cousin Dame Frevisse of St. Frideswide’s priory near Banbury.” Frevisse and Mistress Tresham bent their heads to each other while Alice went on, “Mistress Isabella Tresham. Her husband is Speaker for the Commons this Parliament.”

  Both Alice and Mistress Tresham were lovely with all the grace and grooming that wealth and a high place in the world could give. Their elaborate headdresses framed their faces with padded cauls covered with figured satin, gold netting, and a froth of pale veiling so light it floated with the slightest movement of their heads. Their gowns—Alice’s in her favored dark blue, Mistress Tresham’s in rich brown—were both furred with sable around their deep-veed necklines and heaped in excessive yards of fine-woven cloth around their feet.

  Frevisse’s uncomplicated veiling of white wimple around her face and a black veil over it and her outer gown with its plain practicality and reasonable length— although, by courtesy of Alice’s gift, of fine black wool and fur-lined—were severely plain, but it was a plainness Frevisse had chosen and preferred, and matching her cousin’s graciousness, she said, “I believe I met your husband once, Mistress Tresham. At dinner at Lady Alice’s in London. He was to be Speaker then, too, as I remember.”

  From that small ground a few mild exchanges were made, Mistress Tresham asking about St. Frideswide’s and how long Frevisse had been a nun there. In return, Frevisse learned the Treshams were from Northamptonshire. “Not so far a rid
e to here as you had,” Mistress Tresham said. Alice said she had had the shortest ride of the three of them, having come only from Wingfield, perhaps thirty miles away. Then they all agreed that despite the rigors of winter travel, frozen roads were to be preferred to muddy ones, and all the while Frevisse felt that under the surface-seeming she was not the only one uneasy in her thoughts. In both Alice and Mistress Tresham there was something else, and nonetheless she was surprised when, after a pointless comment that spring would be here before they knew it, Alice suddenly said, “Isabella, let me ask her.”

  Mistress Tresham regarded Alice a quiet moment before saying, “Go on then.”

  Alice paused, troubled, then said, “Frevisse, you have a chance to hear things we won’t. What’s being said about the duke of Gloucester? Do people truly believe he’s coming with an army against the king?”