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Authors: Margaret Frazer

BOOK: A Play of Heresy
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With that, he took a few steps back, raced forward, and threw himself headlong into a somersault. His hands never touched the ground, he landed on his feet, paused long enough to say, “Then you fall down like this,” and sprawled backward as if he had been hit by a huge fist. It was not easily seen, unless someone knew how to look, how he caught himself so no part of him hit the paving too hard.
The other boys gaped. Burbage’s older son exclaimed, “Are you hurt?”
“Of course not,” Piers said, springing back to his feet without using his hands. “Because I learned the ways to do it
rightly
.”
Joliffe, choking down mirth at how much Piers sounded like his grandfather, said mildly, “But we’ll start with something simpler than that, I think.”
Chapter 11
 
W
ith Piers full of delight at showing off his skills and surprisingly patient at helping the other boys begin to learn simple tumbling, Joliffe had an easier time with the pack of them than he had feared he would. Whatever Piers had been doing these days of running wild in the town, he had plainly found an acknowledged place among these boys that made them willing to listen to him and follow his lead. Of course the thought of anyone following Piers’ lead in anything was usually cause for alarum, but Joliffe was not about to scorn the present usefulness of it.
When one of the panting boys thought to question why they were doing this, Burbage said, “When Christ comes to open Hell’s gate, and the Devil orders his demons to stop him, and Christ gestures at you, I want something better than the lot of you just falling down and scuttling off the stage.”
“This is the force of Heaven striking the forces of Hell,” Joliffe put in. “It should look like more than just a bunch of clumsy boys falling over.”
“We should be blasted right off the wagon!” Piers exclaimed.
“I was thinking that, yes,” Burbage said. “Have you all fall about, then flee the wagon in all directions and out of sight under it, to leave the Devil suddenly facing Christ alone.”
“But all that will only work credibly,” said Joliffe, “if you learn to fall and tumble well.”
He kept them at it for a while longer and at the end justly praised them for how well they were doing, finishing with, “Piers will let you know when we do it again.”
“Again?” one of the boys protested.
“More of this,” Joliffe confirmed, “but also how to use your spears so you don’t truly stab anyone.”
An answering chorus of “Spears!” gave general approval of the spears at least. At Burbage’s word that they were freed then, they started a general surge away toward the alleyway out of the yard, on their way to whatever mischief they could find next, Joliffe supposed as he moved quickly enough to catch Piers by one arm in his escape. Piers, twisting against his hold and looking up at him, complained, “Ahhhh, Joliffe. I . . .”
“My thanks for your help,” Joliffe said without jest. “You made a large difference how it went with them.”
Piers stared at him, so startled that even when Joliffe released him, he only stood for another moment, still staring, before recovering enough to say brightly, “That’s because you need all the help you can get, surely,” before taking to his heels after the other boys.
Standing with Joliffe to watch them go, Burbage said, sounding well satisfied, “After all that, I have to talk to Master Crowe. He has the rest of the play in hand and will be glad at the chance for some new thoughts on what can be done.”
While he said that, he and Joliffe turned toward the gates and found Eustace Powet standing there, hands thrust into his belt, a distant look in his eyes as he gazed past them across the yard. At Burbage’s good-humoured, “Ho, Powet, come to take deviling lessons with the boys?” he swung his gaze to them, a smile lightening his drawn-down face.
“Nay then. Only I was remembering when I twice played the Devil in the Harrowing. Five and six years ago might have been?”
“More like eight or nine, I’d say,” Burbage offered. “You’ve been Pilate since then a few times.”
“Aye. But the parts are dwindling away, just like me,” Powet said as they all ducked through the door and into the street.
“There’s nothing dwindling about Joseph,” Burbage said, shutting the door behind them.
Deliberately decrepit, Powet croaked from the familiar carol, “Joseph was an old man and an old man was he when he wed Mary in the land of Galilee.”
Burbage gave him a friendly slap on the back of one shoulder as they started along the street. “At least you aren’t stuck with being one of the Doctors in the Temple.
There’s
a part to dull a man to tears.”
“Not when Master Sendell is done with you,” Joliffe declared stoutly.
“Well, we’ll see,” Burbage said, but cheerfully enough.
“It’s Dick he’s going to have to see to,” Powet said, not cheerfully at all. “He was one of the Harrowing’s devils last year and had a fine wild time of it. You remember, Burbage?”
“Oh, I do indeed.” Burbage did not sound as if the memory were an altogether happy one.
“Once he hears what they’re at this year, learning to tumble and all, he’s going to be even more set by than he already is. He says there’s nothing but tedious in being Christ.”
Joliffe felt what was coming next even before Powet looked at him.
“What say you, Master Joliffe? Would you have chance to work some with him? Help him to see the part better than he does now?”
For the form of it, Joliffe demurred, “By rights, that’s Master Sendell’s task. I don’t know he’d care to have me over-step what’s his.” But the back of his mind was clamoring for what might be a chance to be nearer those who must have best known the dead Robert Kydwa and his servant.
“He’s to his neck with seeing about everything else,” Powet said. “I said something about it to him when he came to ask if Cecily will be able to sew for us after . . .” He fumbled briefly. “After things being as they are,” he finished.
“Will she?” Joliffe asked, the matter of Dick momentarily put aside. The new and newly-refurbished garb was going to matter in the play almost as much as having a well-played Christ.
“Oh, aye. She said when Master Sendell asked her that without Robyn they would need the money now more than ever, her father and her. Of course the tears came again then, poor wight, but she’ll do it. Look you, there’s nothing else can be done that way, and that’s why I’ve put mind to Dick and the trouble he’s likely to be.”
“I’d be willing enough to do what I could with him, Master Sendell not minding,” Joliffe granted slowly while thinking rapidly. “The trouble is I’d want to do it at your house, to keep just anyone from blundering in and . . . embarrassing him at the work.” Yes: that sounded almost likely. Putting apology and regret into his voice, he added, “But this doesn’t seem a time for doing that, coming in on everyone’s grief and all.”
“Dick and I will welcome something besides grieving going on,” Powet said in no uncertain terms. “Herry, too, I’ll warrant. It’s the women are at it most. Cecily and Anna. My niece some, too, her having known Robyn’s mother all her life and all.”
They were all stopped at the corner of Powet’s street, trying to stay out of the way of people busily going one way or another. It was here they would part ways if Joliffe was going with Powet, but Burbage paused to ask, sounding as if he already knew the answer, “How is old John Kydwa taking it?”
“I don’t know that he’s taken it at all,” Powet said. “You know how he’s been these few years past. He moves when someone reminds him to. He eats. He makes his way to the privy and usually back again if he’s helped, though sometimes he forgets. All in all, there’s no telling how much reaches him. Certes, little comes from him to let us know.”
Burbage nodded sad acknowledgement of that. “Well, give my sympathy to whoever may want it. I’ll see you this evening likely?”
That was to both Powet and Joliffe, and they both agreed he would. Taking a quick look against running into anyone or being run over, he cut away across the street toward his own, leaving Joliffe and Powet to turn down Much Park.
“Will we find Dick at home?” Joliffe asked as they went.
“His mother told him off this morning for being an idle whiner and set him to spend the day helping Herry in the shop. For which Herry is duly ungrateful,” he added with a grin.
“Not shaping to be mercer, is Dick?” Joliffe asked.
“Shaping to be a great lie-about, according to Herry. But it’s early days yet, and every once in a while I remind Herry of how he was at that same age.” Powet chuckled. “He then says that was all different. But that’s what the young always say when they’re that bit older.”
“What does Dick say?”
They were nearly to the Byfelds’ shop. Ahead, Joliffe could see Dick holding up a bolt of cloth while Herry explained something about it to a man on the outside of the shop board.
“Dick says he wants to be like his old great-uncle Eustace and wander Coventry all day to hear what he can hear what’s afoot with other merchants and bring it home for my niece and Herry to know.”
Joliffe stopped short. A few steps more, he and Powet would be too near the shop to go on with their talk. With effort he leveled his voice to ask with a seeming of no more than good-humoured interest, “Is that what you do? Spy out what other merchants are doing?”
“Oh, aye,” Powet said easily. “It never hurts to know who’s going to where and why, and who’s come back and how they did. Twice or thrice I’ve been able to send Herry off to one place and another on a short word, to nip in ahead of someone where it mattered.” Powet tapped the side of his head midway between eye and ear. “The wits still work fine enough. I’m not just an idle old man wandering through my days, waiting for the churchyard, like most folk think I am.”
Joliffe laughed, both pleased at Powet’s pleasured pride in himself and ready to make use of it. “So. Has Herry been away to anywhere of late to better the family fortune?”
“Nay. I’ve heard nothing worth his going for almost a year now. But I’ve been able to put him on to other things right here in Coventry that have turned to our good. I earn my keep.”
“Unlike poor old John Kydwa,” Joliffe led.
“Ah, there’s as sad a case. Neither decently dead nor decently alive.”
“And now his son is gone, too. What was taking him to Bristol? Do you know?”
“There was word a ship had come in there from Spain. He’d be late getting there, but whatever was left of the lading he might get cheap enough to turn a profit on it here. If nothing else, there’s always something to be had in Bristol to bring back here, if the Spanish ship came to nothing.”
“Herry didn’t see him as a rival?”
“Robyn? Nay, Robyn was a long way from being a rival to us. Truth was that Herry used him as a factor sometimes and would buy what he brought back if it suited. If he—Robyn—had ever got enough to dower Anna with, then there could have been a partnership as well as a marriage there.” Powet shook his head. “It’s all too sad past bearing.”
He walked on. Perforce Joliffe went with him, all the while trying to see a way how he could ask more about who of Coventry had come and gone near to the time Robert—Robyn—Kydwa had been killed. And his servant, although no one here yet knew he was dead, too.
No one but the murderer.
He had too little time to find another question before he and Powet reached the shop. Dick was bundling the length of cloth the man had bought, and Herry was taking his coins. Powet and Joliffe stood aside the few moments until they finished. The man went off, giving a nod and “Master Powet” as he passed, Powet nodding back and saying, “Master Hors-ley,” before going on to say across the shop board to Herry, “Master Joliffe here has said he’ll spend some time with Dick if you’ll give the whelp leave for a while.”
Herry looked around at his brother. “You willing to be freed from one taskmaster to another?”
Apparently not one to consider whether he was leaving the frying pan for the fire, Dick said, “Surely!”
“He’s done well today,” Herry said to Powet and Joliffe. He took Dick by one shoulder and gave him a slight, affectionate shake. “Mind you do as well for them. Go on, then.”
He gave the boy a push toward the door at the side of the shop. As Dick went through it into the passageway, Herry said, again to Powet but not so lightly, “Ned is here again.”
Powet made an impatient sound. “He doesn’t hear what’s said to him, does he?”
“Seems not. Let be it’s too soon on this side of things, any way you see it, what makes him think his people will take kindly to his wooing Anna when they didn’t look kindly on my suit to Goditha?”
Powet had no better answer to that than a shake of his head. Dick came through the outside door into the street. Powet went to turn him back into the passageway.
“Ahhh,” Dick said on the same note of protest Piers had used. “Can’t we away?”
“The rear yard will do well enough,” his uncle said. “Out of the way and all.”
As Powet steered his nephew back inside, Joliffe, following, asked, “Goditha?”

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