A Play of Isaac (25 page)

“His older brother,” Joliffe said.

“Yes. The heir. Before their father disinherited him.”

“For being a Lollard?”

“What do you think?” Basset said. “Now listen. Master Peter Payne finally had to give up his mastership of St. Edmund Hall . . .”

Joliffe tensed but kept quiet. St. Edmund Hall, where John Thamys was now.

“. . . and go into hiding until finally he escaped overseas in 1413. Or maybe it was 1414. I don’t remember. The point is that he’d talked too much and it was come down to escape or be tried for a heretic. He was a stubborn, bold man. If he were tried, he’d burn and he knew it. So he fled and ever since has worked with that great gathering of heretics in Bohemia, John Huss’ madmen.”

“The ones the Church has lately set crusades against every once in a while,” Joliffe said.

“The same, with thus far the heretics generally having the better of it. For the better chastening of the Church’s pride, I suppose. But to the point here. Master Payne almost came to grief a few years before he fled, in 1409—and that year I remember very well. A letter purporting to be from the University here was sent to these Hussites in Bohemia, saying they had the University’s support of their heresy, and the letter was sealed with the University’s own official seal.”

“Falsely, I take it.”

“Of course falsely. Someone had either forged the seal or made stolen use of it. That was never found out, but after the letter was learned of, Oxford was much like a hen-house with a fox in it. Uproar and flailing about and feathers flying everywhere. It was never proved who had done it, no matter how much they wanted to find Payne guilty, but they came near enough to the truth that Roger Penteney went into hiding and has not been seen in Oxford since then.”

“He’d done it?”

“They were never certain. But they did find out he’d had too much to do with Master Peter Payne. There were a great many folk talking lollardy then, understand. It was only later it became far, far safer not to. Roger’s trouble was that he went further than talk. By a long way.”

“You and Master Penteney were never Lollards, were you?”

“No. Not seriously.”

“Basset, even ‘not seriously’ is enough to get you ear-deep in trouble these days.”

“In those days, too, if you happened to catch a church-man’s eye too boldly,” Basset said grimly. “But all we did was listen to the talk that was going on. It would have been hard not to. Talk was everywhere and not just among addle-witted scholars. You couldn’t avoid it. Roger and Hal and I even joined in now and again for the sport of it. It was never anything more with Hal and me, and before we were too deep in, Hal and I backed off, the way a lot of folk did as soon as the Church started to kick up worse about it all.”

“But Penteney’s brother didn’t back off, I take it.”

“He didn’t,” Basset agreed. “He went right on with it. Then the scandal over the University’s seal broke out, and while Master Payne was talking his way around that trouble, suspicion started to come down on Roger. His father was furious at him, swore he had better clear himself or he’d find himself disinherited as well as damned. Roger’s answer to that was to disappear. Old Master Penteney had to carry through on his threat then, partly to protect the rest of his family from suspicion, partly because he was indeed furious at Roger for being so stupid. There was nothing could stop the scandal, though. Search was made for Roger, of course, and questions asked of anyone who could be suspected with him. Hal and I were ordered in front of the archbishop and questioned because the three of us—Roger and Hal and I—had always been close. Hal’s mother refused to see him until he was cleared and his father swore he’d disinherit him, too, if worse came to worse. Faced with disaster and an archbishop, you never heard two youngsters talk so hard and fast in all your life.”

“You talked your way out of it.”

“We did. We swore Roger had never told us anything about the University seal or that he planned to disappear. We swore that the last time we saw him, we argued with him against lollardy while he argued for it, and we swore he’d never said anything about running off. We swore it to anyone and everyone who asked until finally they believed us—both the archbishop and Hal’s parents.”

That answered much but not all, and carefully Joliffe asked, “Then why this unwillingness now to have anyone know you two know each other, if you were cleared so completely then?”

“Because we’d lied,” Basset said flatly.

“Basset!”

“More than that, I think everyone fairly well knew we’d lied but they couldn’t prove it.”

“You mean you
did
know Roger was going to run.”

“More importantly, we knew more than we wanted to know about that damned University seal. We knew Roger had helped Master Payne do it. We didn’t want to know. The idiot told us. Worse than that, he told us how they had done it and what Payne was planning next. That was why Hal and I decided to lie and say we knew nothing about anything, because if once we admitted to knowing something, nobody would have left off until they had it all. If we were going to tell, we should have told it right off, at the first; but if we had, it might have meant Roger being found and caught. So we lied.”

“And your lies succeeded and it’s been, what, twenty-five years since then? You were cleared. The thing is over and done with and long since forgotten about.”

“We were cleared, yes, but we weren’t
in
the clear. The taint was there and it stayed. Roger was gone but we were still here—the boys who’d been questioned about heresy. Six months later there was still talk and people were still wary of us. Old Master Penteney had been trying to arrange marriages for his sons. Now Hal was sole heir to everything, but nobody was willing to marry a daughter into such a suspect family. His father finally had to deal through acquaintances all the way to Exeter to find someone who had a daughter they’d marry to Hal. About then was when I asked out of my apprenticeship. Old Master Penteney let me go so fast I was out the door and on my own within two days, with the understanding I’d take myself away from Oxford and stay away.”

“You haven’t, though.”

“It was years before I dared come back. Not until I’d heard old Penteney was dead and I was changed enough no one would likely match me with the stripling boy I’d been. But I still kept away from Hal. You see, old Master Penteney had warned me that once I was gone, he’d let it be known I had been cause of all the trouble with his sons. That he’d finally found me out and thrown me out.”

“You were the scapegoat. He put all the sins of the family on you to leave them clean.”

“It was the price for being freed from my apprenticeship. I accepted it because it was worth it. I’d never have been able to buy my way out any other way. Even so it’s always seemed best to stay away from Hal, for both our sakes. Us together would maybe remind people of what’s better unremembered. We aren’t so old that everyone has died off that ever knew about it. Like that fool in the street today. Fat-headed Adam we used to call him and he hasn’t changed. I knew him, even if he didn’t know me. If ever his memory was stirred awake, he’s just one of the people who would make talk that would do neither Hal nor me any good.”

“But you’ve stayed here at the Penteneys’ despite that.”

“Once we were here, it would have looked strange to back out, so Penteney and I have simply played it that we don’t know each other and I don’t doubt there would have been no trouble from it, except Hubert Leonard showed up and got himself murdered.”

“And left outside our door.”

“And that,” Basset agreed. “Nobody would have looked twice at us and we would have been gone tomorrow and no one the wiser that Penteney and I ever knew each other. But now we have to worry someone is going to look too closely at things we’d rather not have looked at and start thinking things we’d rather they didn’t think.”

“Except you didn’t kill Leonard, and I doubt Penteney did.”

“Neither of us did, no.”

“What Master Penteney has done is send his heretic brother money.”

Basset looked surprised. A little too surprised. “Send his brother money? For all these years? Don’t be daft.”

“I didn’t say anything about years,” Joliffe said dryly. “Why couldn’t it have been only once or twice? Except you know better.”

Basset mouthed a silent curse.

Joliffe persisted, “What I’ve guessed is that this Leonard didn’t come here out of nowhere, demanding money by pure happenstance. He knew something about Master Penteney and his brother and money. Now you’ve told me I was right and we can go on from there. Where is this Roger? Where’s he been all this time?”

“Joliffe, this is no business of yours.”

“It’s my business if you’re in danger because of it. Because you in danger puts all of us in danger.”

Basset held silent, considering the ground beside them rather than answering.

“Basset,” Joliffe said.

Without looking up, Basset said, “Roger is in Bohemia. With the heretic Master Payne. He goes by the name John Penning.”

“So all these years, Roger has been in Bohemia, keeping company with heretical Master Payne and demanding money from his brother.”

Basset looked up sharply. “No. Roger has never demanded or asked anything from Hal. After their father died, he let Hal know he was still alive. Penteney chose to send him money and has gone on sending it. In return he gets his brother’s messages of thanks and word that he’s still alive. That’s all.”

“How does he send it?” Since it was hardly something that could be done openly.

“By Lollards. From what Penteney told me—and he didn’t tell me much, I’m guessing some of this—there’s a net of heretics across Europe, working with each other, helping and hiding each other when there’s need, passing along information when they can.”

“Information and money.”

“And money.”

“But Master Penteney isn’t a Lollard himself? His only interest is in helping his brother?”

“Yes. But that’s meant he’s had to deal secretly with Lollards all these years. If ever that’s found out, he’s ruined.”

“So Leonard was here to pick up the present payment to Penteney’s brother and . . .”

“No.” Basset said. “Penteney isn’t fool enough to have any of this come close to here. He does it all when he’s away to other places about his usual business. He’s even dealt through Leonard before now, because Leonard was exactly what Penteney said he was—a Lollard agent. The thing is that Leonard knew better than to be here at all. Whatever he said, I’ll warrant he wasn’t here for Roger, he was here to force money for himself.”

And his being here had opened Penteney up to a danger he had been keeping distant all these years. That could have been reason enough for killing the man. But it was not a reason for bringing the body from wherever Leonard had been killed and leaving it lying in his own yard. That was someone else’s doing. Someone who knew about Penteney and his brother and wanted to make trouble. It was probably that someone who had killed Leonard, too. But
why
this someone had killed Leonard and
why
they wanted to make trouble for Master Penteney, Joliffe had not even a guess as yet.

What immediately mattered—and it was danger enough—was that someone very probably knew about Penteney’s present dealings with heretics.

“Maybe,” Joliffe said with a thought so sudden he said it aloud, “he was killed simply for being here.”

“Penteney didn’t kill him.” Basset said hotly.

“No, I know that. I mean, he was here trying to get the money from Penteney at an unsafe time and place. He can’t be the only Lollard in Oxford. Maybe one of them found out what he was up to, decided he’d put them all in danger by it, and killed him for his recklessness.”

“Or more than one,” Basset said. “We don’t know there was only one person in at his death. But, yes, whoever it was knew he had something to do with Penteney or the body wouldn’t have been dumped here, and if they knew that, they knew about the lollardy side of it all.”

“But if his coming to Penteney was the trouble he was killed for, why make the link with Penteney obvious by bringing the body here?”

“Good point and good question,” Basset said. “Any good answer?”

“No.”

“Then let’s leave it where it is. It won’t take Master Barentyne long to decide that either there’s nothing against us or that he can’t find it if there is, and then he’ll give us leave to go. For now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll have another nap.” Basset shifted around and lay down. Only as he tucked his head comfortably onto the crook of his arm did he add, “And why don’t you be a good lad and forget the whole thing, now that I’ve answered your curiosity and there’s nothing more you can do?”

Chapter 15

Rose, Ellis, and Piers returned in good time, and while Joliffe fetched everyone’s supper from the kitchen again, the others changed into their street-playing garb. Rose’s rose-colored gown that she wore for her tumbling had the skirts gored with bright blue cloth so that the color flashed out as she somersaulted and spun. The same blue cloth—they had been paid with a length of it when they performed at a cloth merchant’s wedding a few years ago—made Piers’s tabard, setting off his blue eyes and golden curls. “And what we’re to do when he outgrows it altogether, I don’t know,” Rose had lamented a year ago when adding a width of green cloth around the hem to lengthen it. “At least he’s growing up instead of out.”

He was doing both now and the tabard would soon fit him in no direction at all, but it served for the present, and the rest of the blue cloth had been used for half of Ellis’s doublet and one of his hosen, parti-colored on the other half and other leg with onion-yellow cloth that Rose had bought cheaply and dyed herself. They made a bright threesome, readily eye-catching and therefore more likely to be coin-catching, too. As Basset said, “There’s no point performing if no one’s looking and likely to pay you for it.”