A Play of Heresy (29 page)
Authors: Margaret Frazer
Cecily froze, stricken, staring up at him.
“The thing he said that made her so angry at him,” Joliffe prompted.
Powet shoved past him, one shoulder hitting his for no better reason than Powet meant it to as Powet said angrily, “Leave her be.” He took the three heavy Doctors’ robes from her arms. “Go on with Dick,” he said to her. “I’ll bring the rest. Go on.”
Cecily went, snatching up her sewing basket on the way and not looking back as she followed Dick toward the gate. Sendell was still at the wagon, circling it, staring at it, probably considering possibilities and giving no heed to Powet and Joliffe across the yard. To keep it that way, Powet held his voice low despite his open anger as he said at Joliffe, “The girl has enough woe without you badgering her. Leave her be.”
Nothing loathe to use Powet’s anger since it was there, Joliffe said back almost as fiercely, “I’m supposed to believe she was right outside the door and heard nothing?”
“All she would have heard was Anna being angry at Ned.”
“There had to have been words said. She was right there at the rear door.”
“She was coming in the same moment Dick and I were. The most she could have heard was Anna say ‘If he was, what of it? You and yours are clean, aren’t you?’”
“Why didn’t you tell that when Master Fylongley was questioning you?”
“Because we thought Ned had killed himself then, didn’t we? Why make it seem even more Anna’s fault than folk were going to think it? Ned must have said something against Robyn. Nothing else was likely to make her that angry. I thought she must have finally made Ned understand he had no hope of her, and that’s why he’d hung himself. Only—” Powet’s anger faltered. “Only he didn’t, did he?”
Hoping to drive him a little further, Joliffe prodded, “What did she mean by ‘clean’?”
But Powet’s anger was fading rapidly. He shook his head, sighed, shifted the weight of the robes in his arms, and said, “I don’t know. Clean of Robyn’s death, I suppose. How would I know what? What matters is that Ned shouldn’t have been fool enough to speak ill of the dead at all. Nor should I be now. Pray pardon my anger at you. It was seeing Cecily in pain. She has enough to bear as it is. I know you’re only doing what you must.”
“I’d rather that I didn’t,” Joliffe half-lied, making his own apology in answer and acceptance of Powet’s.
Powet nodded sadly. He looked suddenly weighted down by more than his armload of clothing. “I know,” he repeated, turned away, and left, quite plainly not wanting Joliffe’s company.
Nor did Joliffe want his just now and went to join Sendell in contemplation of the wagon, on the chance Sendell might want to talk of what more might be done with the play in the few days they had left, but also with hope that good, clear talk like that might help to cleanse the confusions in his own mind.
Chapter 22
T
he shadow of the stone-towered gateway had barely crept out from the tower’s foot when Joliffe strolled through it the next day, following Spon Street out of Coventry. Sebastian had said to meet him just past mid-day at the Angel. This was as “just past” mid-day as was possible by Joliffe’s reckoning. What he had not known was how far it was to this Angel, but a few hundred yards sufficed for him to see its sign of Saint Michael with his spread wings and spear. The tavern itself was set somewhat back from the road, with a rowan tree to one side throwing a little shade toward the benches set about the yard to take advantage of the warm, fair weather. The ale must be good here, and maybe the food, too: a number of men of various crafts, to guess by their clothing, were sharing benches, with both drink and food in hand. The warm buzz of their talk was all about Joliffe as he threaded through to Sebastian sitting on a short bench in the sun against one corner of the building, a drink in his own hands and a place kept for Joliffe beside him by way of a pitcher, a drinking bowl, and fat cuts of bread and cheese on a wooden plate set there.
he shadow of the stone-towered gateway had barely crept out from the tower’s foot when Joliffe strolled through it the next day, following Spon Street out of Coventry. Sebastian had said to meet him just past mid-day at the Angel. This was as “just past” mid-day as was possible by Joliffe’s reckoning. What he had not known was how far it was to this Angel, but a few hundred yards sufficed for him to see its sign of Saint Michael with his spread wings and spear. The tavern itself was set somewhat back from the road, with a rowan tree to one side throwing a little shade toward the benches set about the yard to take advantage of the warm, fair weather. The ale must be good here, and maybe the food, too: a number of men of various crafts, to guess by their clothing, were sharing benches, with both drink and food in hand. The warm buzz of their talk was all about Joliffe as he threaded through to Sebastian sitting on a short bench in the sun against one corner of the building, a drink in his own hands and a place kept for Joliffe beside him by way of a pitcher, a drinking bowl, and fat cuts of bread and cheese on a wooden plate set there.
Joliffe took up the bowl and plate, shifted the pitcher to be between him and Sebastian, and sat down. “Much thanks,” he said with a nod at the bread and cheese. “More thanks,” he added as Sebastian lifted the pitcher and filled his bowl for him, and asked before taking a large bite of cheese, “So. Learned anything of use?”
Sebastian, who seemed to have finished eating and was doing no more with the ale in his own bowl than swirling it a little, said, “Our Ned Eme seems to have led a singularly blameless life. Except for the odd murder now and again, if we hold to the thought he did for Kydwa and his man.”
“Do we hold to that thought?” Joliffe ask thickly around the cheese.
“So far, yes. I’ve found no reason to shift our thinking there.”
“Yet.”
Sebastian gave him a sharp look. “Have you?”
Joliffe shook his head that, no, he had not.
“Well then,” Sebastian said with something of a glower. “There was talk in plenty to be heard yesterday and last night. Tavern talk and all. You heard none, I suppose?”
“There was practice all the evening, and then I was to bed before curfew.” Joliffe paused a beat to let Sebastian take that for a “no” before going on, “I asked some questions at the practice, though. His brother was there.”
“Despite his brother being dead?” Sebastian asked sharply.
“It was for the play,” Joliffe said evenly, with no hope Sebastian would understand. “The play is all of us. Is more than any one of us. If there’s any way at all you can keep going, you don’t fail the others.”
Sebastian frowned over that for a silent moment, then said, surprising Joliffe, “As with us who serve our lord master the way we do. Mostly we don’t know the others, but we don’t fail them even so. If we can help it.”
“And Kydwa was one of us,” Joliffe said.
“He was. Not by much and among the least but one of us even so. Since you say you’ve found nothing that says Ned Eme didn’t kill him, that leaves us only need to find out who murdered our murderer, because that will lead us to whoever set him on to murder Kydwa, and that will be our link to whatever the Lollards are up to hereabouts.”
“Do we have any proof that they’re up to anything at all?”
“They still have their gatherings. That I found out for certain. The signs and spoor are there to be found if you look for them.” A small current of blame ran under the words. Sebastian had taught Joliffe those “signs and spoor” but knew full well that Joliffe made little, if any, use of them. “The Emes are part of it all. Our Ned was, too.”
“Part of all what?” Joliffe asked.
“Lollard meetings. To do their readings, then talk big against everyone who isn’t them and make complots toward whatever new trouble they next intend.”
“Is there sign”—Joliffe managed to hold off from adding “and spoor”—“that they’re plotting any new trouble?”
Sebastian’s face pinched in, probably with disappointment and regret at having to admit, “Not that I’ve found out yet. But three murders have to mean something is being desperately kept secret.”
Joliffe could not deny the likelihood of that and held silent, chewing steadily at the bread.
“What more have you learned on your side of things?” Sebastian asked.
Joliffe swallowed. “I didn’t say much to you about the Eme and Byfeld families when we last talked. We centered then on what seemed immediate to Ned Eme’s death. I’ve thought more about them since then.”
Sebastian nodded for him to continue.
“Although they’re not friendly with each other, there are links of somewhat long standing among them. A few years ago the Byfeld eldest son was interested in wedding the Eme daughter. Neither family seems to have been pleased at that, the Emes least of all, and his suit went nowhere. On the other side, Ned Eme had wanted the Byfeld daughter even before her first marriage and had hope of winning her in her widowhood, only to lose her to Robyn Kydwa. With Kydwa dead, he had renewed his suit and was pushing it hard.”
“What did the families think of that?”
“From what they say, I think his family was tired of listening to him, would have accepted the marriage if the woman had accepted him. Or maybe they knew they didn’t have to worry, that she would go on rejecting him.”
“That wouldn’t have lasted,” Sebastian said with the glum certainty of someone who had suffered from women’s ways. “She’d have given in later if not sooner.”
“I have to doubt that. Even with him dead, she’s doing none of the usual moaning of ‘if only.’ That’s despite she was heard being very angry at him two days before he—” Joliffe’s mind stumbled on a thought. He fell silent, following it.
“Before he was killed?” Sebastian said.
“Yes.” Joliffe said it slowly, still following his thought. Then he shook his head and said, still caught into his thought, “No.”
“Yes? No? What?” Sebastian prodded.
Joliffe regrouped his wits, stopped staring into the empty air in front of him, and said, heedful again, “Yes. She was heard being very angry at him and admits she was and shows no regret for it. No maidenly pining.”
“What was the quarrel for?”
“She says she was simply refusing him again. Someone else says he heard her say ‘If he was, what of it? You and yours are clean, aren’t you?’ Only it could have been more of a challenge, I suppose, now I come to say it aloud. It might have been ‘You and yours are clean.
Aren’t you?
’ I’ll ask Master Powet about that, now he’s chosen to remember it was said at all.”
Aren’t you?
’ I’ll ask Master Powet about that, now he’s chosen to remember it was said at all.”
“He didn’t tell you that at first? Hiding something, is he?”
“He said he kept it to himself when he thought Ned had killed himself because it might make his niece seem somehow at fault in Ned’s death. Now that’s no worry anymore, he talked of it. Said Ned must have said something against Robyn Kydwa because nothing else was likely to have made her as angry as she was.”
“What did she mean by ‘clean’? Clean of what?”
“I asked Master Powet the same. He said he didn’t know.”
“But they’re not clean. The Emes. They’re Lollards.”
Joliffe suspected that was a hare that would not run, but Sebastian would go on prodding it with a stick until it dropped over dead. Yes, the Emes were Lollards, it seemed, but Joliffe very much doubted they were of the wilder kind. They would believe what they believed and go about their business, would pay their tithes to the Church and speak respectfully to the priest and believe both Church and priest were damned for their ways but leave them to it, satisfied with seeing to their own souls, willing to leave others alone and hoping to be left the same. What Joliffe wanted was to follow the thought that had come to him, not get caught into debate, and he answered Sebastian with a silent nod around a mouthful of cheese and bread.
They talked only a little longer together, to no gain. Least gain came when Joliffe asked what he had wanted to ask for some time. “What of our bishop’s other man here in Coventry? Has he found out anything of use?”
Sebastian returned him a blank face and empty stare and nothing more.
“Ah,” said Joliffe, accepting that was all he would be told. Very probably not even Robyn Kydwa had known who was his fellow spy in Coventry. As Sebastian had said early in his dealing with Joliffe: what you did not know, you could not tell—or sell. So he was not ready even to admit for certain there was another of their fellows here in Coventry. They parted company soon after that, Joliffe leaving Sebastian still sitting there and himself sauntering away as if on his way to waste a Sunday afternoon as easefully as he could.
There was nothing easeful in his thoughts, though, as he betook himself to the riverside path he had followed in his earlier wandering around Coventry. It being a Sunday, there were couples and families strolling there in the warm summer’s day but no one that he knew or who knew him. That left him free while he strolled to sort and shift the pieces of possibility his new thought had brought him. By the time the riverside path had circled him slowly around to come back into Coventry through the Gosford Gate he had decided what he would try. If he was wrong, he would look a fool but at least the matter would be cleared from his mind, leaving room to find another answer.
A better answer than the one he thought he had and did not much want.
By way of his earlier wandering, he knew that not far from the Emes’ house there was a lane that ran south off Gosford Street. Not far from it, on the street’s other side, was the passageway leading to the path that ran behind the smiths’ pageant house and to the river, but while that path was simply a path, the lane that Joliffe now turned into was a proper and paved street, albeit narrow and shadowed under the overhang of its houses. At its other end it came to the White Friars’ monastery, where a turn to the right along the street there headed Joliffe toward Much Park Street with the monastery’s wall on his left and on his right another town orchard like the one the other side of Gosford Street. He was come around two sides of a rectangle: if he turned right again when he reached Much Park Street, he would be on the rectangle’s third side and shortly pass the Byfelds’ house.
Before he came to that corner, though, he found what he expected. On his right, running behind the rear yards of the houses facing onto Much Park Street, was a cart-wide track between those rear yards and the orchard. Surely most used in autumn at orchard harvest time, it would be useful any time to go somewhere more privately than by the street, from neighbor’s to neighbor’s rear doors or farther. Such as around the way Joliffe had just come. At twilight-time or after dark there would be small likelihood of being known while going out this way and around by way of the White Friars’ lane to Gosford Street. There the chance of being seen and known was somewhat more but still slight in the few moments it would take to cross it and disappear into shadows and the path past the smiths’ pageant house.
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