A Play of Heresy (25 page)

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Authors: Margaret Frazer

BOOK: A Play of Heresy
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Goditha gasped, pulled one hand free from her mother’s hold, and pressed it over her mouth, her eyes wide. Mistress Eme looked at her, then to Richard, and then up at her husband, her first joy going to confusion, then to horrified understanding. She brought her stare around to Master Fylongley. “You mean he was murdered?” she demanded. “My son was
murdered
?”
“I fear so, mistress,” Master Fylongley said. “There is no doubt of it.”
Joliffe willed him not to tell more of how her son had died. She surely knew he had hanged. She did not need to know the rest. But the bailiff seemed to be already ahead of him in wanting to avoid precisely that, because he went on quickly, “So there are questions we need to ask, the jurors and I. If you all would be so good as to answer them now, it would be a help.”
“Murdered,” Mistress Eme wept, now onto her daughter’s shoulder while her daughter, weeping, too, held her and stared at the bailiff as if he had come from some terrible, strange world where such things as murder might happen, not from her familiar, comfortable, safe world. Yet Goditha was old enough to have clear memory of seven years ago when things had been anything but safe and sure in Coventry, especially for Lollards. Meaning for her own family as well as others. Even if, as Powet said, the Emes were “quiet Lollards,” seven years ago there must have been no knowing how far the government’s vengeance for the revolt would spread, how strongly the Church would demand even the least guilty be sought out and destroyed. It had not come to that, but there had to have been a frightening time until everything had settled. Had the lovely Goditha blotted all that from her mind and feelings?
More likely, Joliffe thought, was that she simply believed terrible things happened only to
other
people, not to herself or her near and dear. He had found that many people stubbornly held that common and comforting belief, but he had never been able to shelter in it. For various reasons, he had always believed terrible things
could
happen to him and to his near and dear. It meant he went through life with an almost constant twitch of wariness at the back of his mind—except for the times, more frequent of late, when the twitch was to his mind’s fore, making him wary of almost everything.
Not that his deep-set wariness had been able to keep him from doing such mad things as becoming a player, let alone a spy.
“Questions?” Master Eme was saying. He sounded stunned. He moved from behind the settle, one hand groping out blindly. Richard, with somewhat more of his wits about him than the rest of his family, quickly shifted the nearby chair, turning it toward the bailiff and jurors, and guided his father to sit in it while Master Eme went on, “Yes. Of course. Anything you want to ask. We’ll tell you whatever we can.”
What Master Fylongley asked then were the expected questions. When had each person in the family last seen Ned? Two evenings ago, at supper. What had his humour seemed to be then? Merry. They all agreed he had been merry. No, they’d thought not much about him not coming home that night to bed or seeing him the next day.
“He has—had friends,” his father said. “He wasn’t wild, but there were times he’d be out and not come back right as he should have.” Master Eme roused to a little fierceness. “If you found who he was with, that might tell you something about how he died, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s the sort of thing that can help, aye,” Master Fylongley granted. Likely for whatever mercy it was, he held back from saying just how long Ned had been hanging there. Some things a family was better off not having to know, if it could be helped. He asked for the names of those with whom Ned might have been. His clerk wrote them down. Master Fylongley asked if Ned had shown unusual concern over anything of late?
“Only over Johanna Byfeld’s girl,” Mistress Eme said with grieving bitterness. “He wouldn’t let it go. It was too soon after that other young man’s death. Ned had waited for her so long, and then instead of him, she wanted that
other
man. I hope she’s satisfied
now
.”
“Mama!” her daughter exclaimed as Master Eme reproved, “Wife!”
Mistress Eme mopped at her eyes, tearfully admitting their reproofs with, “Yes, well, I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have. But there, it’s said, and why couldn’t she have wanted him?”
“You didn’t let me want Herry Byfeld,” Goditha pointed out.
“Of course not,” her brother said sharply. “There would have been words said, too, if Anna had shown herself inclined to Ned, but she didn’t, so it didn’t matter.”
“If he were alive, I wouldn’t mind who he wanted to marry!” Mistress Eme sobbed.
If Ned had been still alive, she would have felt entirely otherwise, Joliffe was sure, but no one gainsaid her. In grief people said what they needed to say, and it was wise of Master Fylongley to let them get on with it. After all, what they might say aside from his questions could be as useful as any answers made to what he asked. Now, though, he did ask, “They’d known each other a long while then, your son and Mistress Deyster?”
“The children, when they were small, used to run together, as children will,” Master Eme answered. “It’s only since—” He shifted what he was going to say. “Only since they grew older that they’ve been—less friends.”
And more desirous to be lovers, Joliffe thought. But he also thought that had not been what Master Eme had first been going to say. What the draper had likely shifted from saying was “only since the rebellion,” when all Lollards had become suspect because of a hot-hearted, idiot few. A quick reckoning back suggested Richard Eme and Herry Byfeld might have been just old enough to be caught up in the foolishness, but the Byfelds were not Lollards, and Joliffe suspected Master Eme kept a firmer hand on his family than to let a then-very-youthful son be drawn into treason.
Of course he had not been able to keep his second son from murdering two men.
If it was Ned who had murdered them. His own murder called that into question, didn’t it?
Master Fylongley was now asking if Ned had quarreled with anyone of late or had long running trouble with anyone. As Master and Mistress Eme were saying no, Richard said, “He and Robyn Kydwa had words a while back. Just before Robyn left for—oh.”
Master Fylongley caught that up quickly. “Just before Master Kydwa left for Bristol and was killed on the way, seemingly by his servant, now fled. Is that what you were going to say?”
“Yes.”
Mistress Eme looked up at her husband in dismay but left it to him to say with darkening brow, “They were to go together. Ned and Robyn. But Robyn was delayed, and Ned went on. We’ve all thought what ill-fortune that was, that if they had gone as they planned, Robyn Kydwa would not have been killed. But what if, instead, they had
both
been killed? What if—” He broke off, seemingly too stunned by his thought to finish.
Master Fylongley did it for him. “What if their deaths are connected? Do you have any reason to think so?”
His look invited all the Emes to answer. Master Eme slowly shook his head, and the others matched him, all looking equally bewildered. “There’s nothing,” Master Eme said. Then sharply questioning and demanding together, “Richard? Is there?”
Seeming startled by his father’s demand, Richard declared, “No!”
There was a pause, everyone seeming to be waiting to see if he would say more, but he only looked blankly from face to face as if wondering what else was wanted from him.
It crossed Joliffe’s mind that Richard Eme would do well enough in the solid life he had as his father’s son and heir, but for the first time Joliffe wondered if Richard Eme chose to be in plays as a way to fill out how much of him there was not. Some people, like Powet, took to playing because there was so much in them that ordinary life was insufficient for them and they sought to set themselves free into other possibilities of being, to stretch themselves wider and deeper than called for by daily life. Other people had so little in themselves that they tried—not seeing what they were doing—to find more by playing parts in plays, as if hoping that engrafting bits of other “lives” onto their own would cure their lack. Not that anyone was ever wholly one or the other, was instead a mix of both—in unequal proportions surely, but nonetheless a mix. Joliffe had a good guess at which portion was larger in himself.
In the moment just before the silence drew out too long, Master Fylongley said, “So. That’s all I need to ask presently.” He looked around at his jurors. “Gentlemen, have you any questions of your own?”
Burbage and Master Waldeve seemed not to, but Joliffe asked, “Was Ned ever in the smiths’ play?”
Burbage looked uncertain and Master Waldeve started to shake his head that he had not, but Mistress Eme said, “Years ago he was. He was one of the demons. He helped to—oh!”
One of the demons who helped to hang Judas. That had to be what she had been going to say, and under remembrance of then and now, she broke down in heavy weeping again. Goditha put both arms around her, and her husband, moving to join in comforting her, said distractedly, “If that’s all, gentlemen, Richard will see you out.”
Master Fylongley and the others all bowed and retreated to the stairs. Richard led them down and toward the front door, the sound of his mother’s weeping loudly following them. Hand to the door, ready to open it, Richard paused to ask the bailiff, “What will you do next? Who else is there to question?”
“Others who knew your brother. Too, we’ll try to learn if anyone saw him going to the smith’s pageant house two evenings ago. Him and anyone else.”
“If he went by the back way, children may have seen him,” Richard said. “That’s probably how he went. We all played back there as children. They probably still do.” A louder wail of weeping from overhead made all of them flinch upward looks. Richard hurriedly opened the door, asking while he did, “But we can get Ned’s body now? The crowner will release it?”
“Whenever you wish,” Master Fylongley assured him. “Your parish priest will likely see to it if asked.”
“Yes. Thank you. That’s probably the best way, yes.”
Richard Eme retreated, closing the door between him and them as if escaping. Master Fylongley regarded the shut door for a moment, then shrugged and turned away to ask at Joliffe, “Why did you ask if our dead man had ever been in the smiths’ play?”
Joliffe, who had been wondering how long it would be until the bailiff released them for at least a while, blinked, steered his wits this other way, and said, “Why did someone choose there to hang him? Was it the one private place he and his murderer both knew? Or was it the only place they both knew?” Which would mean his murderer was someone not familiar with Coventry. But if not familiar with Coventry, how would he know of the smiths’ pageant house at all?” Joliffe set that question aside for now, going on, “Then there’s why he was hung at all, rather than killed some other, more ready way.”
“Stabbed,” Master Waldeve offered. “Or his throat cut.”
“Or bludgeoned,” Burbage suggested.
“I’ve wondered as much,” the bailiff said. “It’s something you’ll all have to think on, isn’t it?” He heaved a sigh, shifted his belt on his hips, and said, “For now, though, you’d all like to be away to your proper work, I’m sure. I have where to find you all when needed. Learn what else you can about this Ned Eme and who might have wanted him dead, and we’ll talk later. I’m away to find what’s kept Master Purefoy all this while.”
He left them at a brisk walk, his clerk falling into step beside him. Joliffe and the others went along the street more slowly, in unspoken agreement to let the bailiff leave them well behind, although Joliffe asked as they went, “Master Purefoy?”
“His fellow bailiff,” Burbage said.
“I wish I’d never gone to the yard last night,” Master Waldeve brooded.
“
I
wish you hadn’t seen fit to come for me instead of haring off for one of your fellow smiths,” Burbage returned, but slapped him on the shoulder in good fellowship and added, “But done is done. Just think how your wife will be pleased with all the news you can bring her when you get home.”
“Think, too, how she’s going to work to drag every bit of it out of me,” Master Waldeve said back at him, “and then want to spread it far and wide.”
Chapter 19
 
T
hey parted at the corner of Much Park Street and Earl Street, Burbage saying he would be glad to get back to his proper work, Master Waldeve muttering glumly that he might as well find out a new rope before he did anything else. Joliffe said nothing but plain farewell to them both. Since Master Waldeve went rightward and Burbage cut slantwise across the street toward his own Bayley Lane, Joliffe went left. What he needed to do now was find Sebastian. Or let Sebastian find him. By now word of Ned Eme’s death had to have spread wide enough through Coventry—albeit in general report still calling it self-murder—that Sebastian had almost surely heard of it.
So where was he likely to be? Not the tavern, since they had already been there together twice. St. Michael’s, then, for a start, and after that a random wandering of streets, Joliffe decided.
His long-strided walk had already carried him past any direct turning to the church. He paused to buy a honey-sticky pastry at a bakeshop and retraced his way to Pepper Lane that served to swing him back toward St. Michael’s. He took his time, eating as he went, half-expecting Sebastian to appear at his elbow, but Sebastian did not. A horse-watering trough in the shade of a yew tree overhanging the churchyard wall served to wash Joliffe’s hands of the last of the sticky pastry before he went into the church to wander, more aware of the masons’ shouts above him and the creak of the great wheel raising stones for the spire than he was of any holiness about the place.

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