A Play of Dux Moraud (11 page)

But why had Harry Wyot refused to marry her? That had cost him trouble and money; refusing an offered marriage always cost a ward a hearty fine to whoever held his marriage right. Nor could Wyot have known that instead of whatever comfortable marriage portion would come with a wealthy knight’s daughter, he would end up with a wealthy merchant’s daughter instead and no worse off, save that his wife was nowhere near the beauty Mariena was. Even so, there seemed to be affection there, Joliffe thought. Mistress Wyot was the one woman riding pillion, seated sideways behind her husband on a solid grey gelding, her arm around his waist and laughing at something Wyot, smiling, was saying over his shoulder to her.

The riders rode away, out the gateway and across the drawbridge, and Joliffe went onward toward the cartshed, taking his thoughts with him. Whatever quarrel there had been between Sir Edmund and Harry Wyot must be over now, forgiven and forgotten, since Harry was here and had not warned his friend against a marriage he had refused for himself. Or had he warned his friend, only to find Amyas was brave enough to dare what he had not? Brave—or else too foolish to take the warning?

Either way, that was by the way. It was about John Harcourt’s death they needed to know more, to see if there looked to be any threat to Amyas Breche that same way. For that, there was need to fall into talk with other folk here at leisurely length, to learn what else he could about everyone and everything. And surely talk more with Sia, who was so willing to it. Nor did he mind that talk with her would likely lead to something more than talk. No, indeed, he did not mind that at all.

In the meanwhile, he should keep in mind one other thing he had learned from her: Sir Edmund had been enough in debt to need Harry Wyot’s marriage to pay off what he owed. What bearing that might have on anything, Joliffe didn’t know. It was simply something to keep along with the accompanying question of whether Sir Edmund might be in debt again and in need of another prosperous marriage. Had the proposed Harcourt marriage been as rich a one as this Breche one? Could Sir Edmund have found out the Harcourt one was not as rich as he needed it to be but too late for any way out from it but the bridegroom’s death?

Joliffe would have answers to none of those questions from Sia, that was sure, but what of Father Morice? It was maybe time for Basset to find reason to talk with him again. Not that direct answers could be had, since direct questions could not be asked, but Basset might learn something around the edges, as it were.

Joliffe’s thoughts and legs had him back to the cartshed by then, and for next while of the day he worked at writing, and Basset worked with Gil’s speaking, and Ellis and Piers oiled Tisbe’s harness, and Rose mended one of Piers’ hosen, refusing to admit it was out-grown and would only rip again next time he wore it. The carpenter was not at work today, and with all the other manor-sounds muted beyond the buildings and Tisbe slumbering with one twitching ear in the cart-yard’s sunlight, it was as peaceful as their lives ever were. Nearly, Joliffe could have dozed along with Tisbe.

The peace was jarred to an end by the thudding clatter of horses crossing the drawbridge over the moat. Ellis, pausing over a bridle strap, said, “If that’s the hunters, they’re back soon.”

“Maybe it’s some guests come for the betrothal?” Joliffe suggested.

“I’ll see,” said Piers, dropping the rein he was oiling and leaping to his feet.

“Just you stay here,” Ellis ordered. “Don’t . . .” But Piers was already away and Ellis muttered darkly about what he’d do when the whelp came back; but when Piers did, after not very long, Ellis only asked impatiently, “Well? Guests or what?”

“It was Will,” Piers said. “And everybody else. Will took a fall. They had to bring him back.”

“He’s badly hurt?” Basset demanded.

“I’d guess not,” Piers said lightly. “He was on his own feet, anyway, when the women rushed him up the stairs. He was dripping, though, like he’d fallen in water or on boggy ground. But not hurt, no.”

“You will be if you don’t get on with that rein,” Ellis threatened.

“Rein, rein, gives me a sprain,” Piers mocked; but he sat to the work again and something of quiet came back. For a while there were voices and horse-sounds from the nearby stable as the hunters’ mounts were groomed and stalled, but that settled and time passed. The fit of sunshine that had graced the early afternoon was replaced with grey clouds, Ellis and Piers finished with the harness, and Joliffe was come out of the corner to watch Basset lessoning Gil when a house-servant came into the cart-yard, so evidently on an errand that Basset made to stand up from the cushion pile, to receive whatever message the man brought.

Rose’s medicine had eased all but the worst of his arthritic pains but the effort cost him, and when the servant said, “My Lady Benedicta would have you come to her in her chamber to talk about what you’ve planned to play these next days,” Joliffe inwardly winced for Basset’s sake. Lady Benedicta’s chamber was surely up one set of steep stairs or another, and when Basset’s arthritics were flaring like today, stairs were a torment and difficulty. But Basset was equal to the trouble. He gave a single bow of his head in gracious acceptance of the message and said, “It would be my pleasure if I were fit for it. Being somewhat unwell, though, I’ll spare her my presence and send Master Ripon in my stead. He knows my mind in all of it as well as I do.”

Joliffe stepped forward.

The servant shrugged. “It’s all one to me. Just so someone comes.”

While Joliffe straightened his tunic and pulled up his hose to smoothness, Rose made a quick brush down his back, reminded him with “Rump” to brush off where he’d been sitting, gave him a hard look from feet to hair, and nodded he was presentable. He made her a low bow of thanks and gestured to the servant to lead onward. He had no objection at all to seeing closer the heart of the Deneby household and was the more pleased when the man led him across the yard to the stairs up to the round tower.

Stone-built and squat, ungraceful but thick-walled for defense, the tower had probably been there since the earliest days of the manor, its arrow-slit windows showing it was meant to face dangers not likely now in these far more settled days. What had to be the original door—thick oak planks studded with broad-headed nails—stood open at the stair-head. Inside, a single chamber took up the tower at that level. From the brief sight of it he had, Joliffe judged it to be a solar and council chamber, sparely but comfortably furnished, with what had been an arrow-slit in the far wall widened into a fair-sized window, giving the chamber daylight it would otherwise have lacked. Below, in the tower’s windowless lowest level, would be storage. Above would be Sir Edmund’s and Lady Benedicta’s more private chamber, Joliffe guessed as he turned to follow his guide through a narrow, stone-framed doorway and up a long curve of stairs built into the thickness of the tower’s wall. Narrow and dark save where a little daylight fell through an arrow-slit, they were somewhat worn with the several hundred years of use they had probably had and Joliffe went careful-footed, ready for the usual one step made higher than the others to betray an attacker into a stumble, making him easier victim for whoever might be fighting up the stairs in retreat.

The step came and he did not stumble, and at another stone-framed doorway his guide turned into a chamber like the one below, save here was clearly more a woman’s world. Close-woven reed matting covered most of the floor for warmth and comfort, and a window twice larger than in the lower chamber had been cut through the south curve of the tower’s wall. The wide stone windowseat under it was softened with bright cushions, while the ceiling beams were painted a gay yellow and the walls were a deep autumnal red with a hunting scene of galloping riders and leaping stags drawn in white outline all around. Set against one wall was a broad, tall bed hung with blue curtains embroidered in a red chevron pattern, with coverlet that matched. A wooden chest nearly as wide as the bed itself sat at the bedfoot, the Deneby arms deeply carved and brightly painted on its front, a woman’s needlework basket and a folded heap of richly blue cloth sitting on its flat top. Other women’s things were here and there around the room, too, not untidily but giving the sense of a room well-lived-in as well as presently over-crowded, with not only Lady Benedicta there, seated on the bed’s edge, and Mariena standing at the window, but Mistress Wyot, too, perched uneasily on a curve-backed chair with sewing in her hands, and several maidservants bustling, and Will sitting gloomily near the fireplace on a low stool, wrapped to his ears in a fur-collared cloak far too large to be his own.

The fireplace was the least expected thing about the chamber. At some time, the stone around one ancient narrow window had been chipped away to make a hearth and the gap then stone-hooded to chimney the smoke out the window-slit. Though still early in the autumn for a hearth-fire, one was blazing high there just now, surely for Will’s sake, because close by was a high-sided metal tub with soap-scummed bath-water still in it but two maidservants—one of them Sia—beginning to empty it.

Best, of course, would have been sturdy men to carry the tub down the stairs and out to dump it all at once but there was no question of carrying anything the tub’s size and full of water down the tower’s stairs. The water had come up bucketful by bucketful, probably hot from the washhouse and re-warmed beside the fire, and now it would go bucketful by bucketful out the window, with Sia scooping water out with a bucket to pour into another bucket for the other maidservant to carry across the chamber to empty out the window while Sia filled a third bucket to have ready when she returned. Since the tub was large and the buckets, for the sake of not spilling, could not be filled, this was going to take some while.

Will’s fall must have been disastrously wet and muddy to warrant this much trouble, but as Piers had reported, he seemed unhurt, except perhaps in his dignity. He assuredly did not look to be enjoying himself here.

“One of the players, my lady,” Joliffe’s guide said with a bow to Lady Benedicta.

Joliffe bowed, too, but found Lady Benedicta somewhat frowning at him when he straightened.

“It wasn’t you who spoke in the hall yesterday,” she said while making a small beckon at the servant that he should leave. “You’re not the head of your company, are you?”

“No, my lady,” Joliffe said with another, slighter bow. “But Master Basset is somewhat unwell today—a passing rheum—and sent me in his stead. I’m bid to ask your pardon and tell you that I know his mind in the matter—what he intends for your household’s and guests’ pleasure this week.”

Lady Benedicta accepted that with a small bow of her head and, “Tell him I send my regret for his discomfort. Does he have anything to ease it?”

“He does, my lady. My thanks, though, for your asking.”

“Of course. Now draw over that stool. We’ll talk.”

With another small movement of one hand, she showed him a joint stool not far from where Will was sitting. Joliffe fetched it, thinking that Lady Benedicta, with her small movements and short words, was not a giving sort of woman. Her courtesy in letting him sit while they talked was something, though, and Joliffe smiled at Will as he picked up the joint stool. Will gave back an unhappy grimace, then slid around to face his mother and ask, “Can I get dressed and go now?”

“You may not. If you know no better than to fall into mud and water, we must all suffer the consequences.”

“My saddle slipped!” Will sounded as if he had already protested that more than once. “It slid right around and dumped me. It wasn’t my fault!”

“You will learn,” his mother said coldly, “to check your own saddle girth, not trust it to servants.”

“Can’t Sia take him to the kitchen?” said Mariena from the window. Her voice—this first time Joliffe had heard it—was pleasant and a little laughing at her brother. “He’d keep even warmer there and be out of the way.”

“He’ll stay—” Lady Benedicta began.

“I am warm!” Will said.

“—until I’m satisfied he’s taken no harm,” Lady Benedicta finished.

“He’s not hurt. Hear how he keeps whining,” Mariena said. “Send him to whine somewhere else.”

Will threw an angry look at her and opened his mouth to answer, but Lady Benedicta said, “You’re whining more than he is, Mariena. Set to your sewing and be quiet.”

“I’m tired of sewing.”

Mariena did sound truly tired, as if worn with hours of it, but Lady Benedicta answered with asperity, “It was you who wanted this second wedding dress. There’s no reason the rest of us have to suffer for it
without you do, too
.” She slightly turned her head toward Mistress Wyot and said, “Idonea, cease sewing, please.”

Seen nearer, Mistress Wyot was somewhat more pleasing than she had appeared at a distance. Although perhaps a little older than her husband and certainly older than Mariena, she was still very young, with youth’s bright color in her plump cheeks. Or maybe the color was embarrassment as her hands went idle on the sewing in them and her glance flicked unhappily, uneasily, back and forth between Lady Benedicta and Mariena.

Joliffe watched them all with his face correctly blank of thought or feeling. He was here as hardly better than a servant and a servant’s place was to serve, not to hear or see what his betters did among themselves. Servants did see, though, and everything he was seeing told him something of how things were in the heart of the Deneby household, Mistress Wyot looking ill at ease, Will crouched and sullen in the enveloping cloak, Mariena stiff with offense and glaring at her mother, Lady Benedicta sitting straight-backed on the edge of the bed as on a throne, regarding her daughter coldly, waiting for Mariena to choose what she would do.

They were all waiting, even Sia and the other maid, standing unmoving now beside the bath, until finally Mariena, after a long moment of an angry look locked with her mother’s, suddenly shrugged, sat down on the end of the window bench, and took up the sewing waiting there. With that, Mistress Wyot began hers again, Will scooted around on his seat to face the fire, putting his back to everyone, and Joliffe returned his look from Mariena to Lady Benedicta, to find her watching him.