A Play of Isaac (26 page)

Basset, on the contrary, was soberly dressed in his everyday brown surcoat and black hosen. When they played in the street, his part was to be an ordinary passer-by caught in the middle of the other’s sporting, at first bewildered by Rose and Piers spinning and tumbling around him, then indignant and offended as Ellis juggled balls over and around his head. The sight of his blustering always brought the lookers-on to high merriment, and then just when it seemed he would explode with indignation, he would snatch the balls out of the air and be juggling them himself and Piers would go skipping about with his cap, collecting coins from the laughing crowd. If they were fortunate enough to have a crowd.

Tonight, in the hall, they would play it differently, the others performing until interrupted by Basset coming in as if to make a formal speech to the high table. Offended at being interrupted, they would start performing around him and things would go as usual from there. Then Rose would tumble, and Basset and Ellis and Piers would juggle, and at the end Piers would sing a merry song as the rest of them left and then run out after them.

Joliffe, being a poor tumbler and a worse juggler, usually made do with wandering with his lute and singing. He did not make as much as the others but “some is better than naught” Basset said, and he balanced his lack in street-playing by his skill at changing plays to their use. This evening his plan was to play music for the children to dance by and set them to chasing games until they had worn themselves out, then tell them stories until he was rescued.

“You could juggle, too,” Piers said as they left the barn. “Then they could wear themselves out laughing.”

“I’ll wear you out with hickory stick one of these days,” Joliffe said. At least he was comfortable in his everyday doublet, letting the bright ribbons hung from the neck of the lute be color enough.

Because he had been told when he went to the kitchen that the children were to have their supper and spend the warm evening with its long summer’s twilight in the garden, he parted company from the others in the yard, leaving them to go on to the hall while he took the back way to the garden, shouts and laughter telling the children were already there. He stopped outside the garden’s gate, unseen himself, to watch them a while and to judge into how much trouble he was bound. At least he wouldn’t be facing them alone. A comfortably rounded woman in a plain gown, apron, wimple, and veil sat on one of the benches watching them swarm across the grass in some sort of tag-game. After counting several times, Joliffe decided there were eight of them and that none of them looked to be above ten years old, with Master Richard’s little boy Giles the youngest. He did not know which were the Lovell children and which were some of this evening’s guests’ offspring but that did not matter. Of more interest was that there was no Lewis. That would make things easier and Joliffe did not mind things being easier, but why could Lewis be at tonight’s meal but not last night’s?

Confident that the nurse would have the answer and that he would have chance to ask her in good time, he shoved open the gate, announced his arrival with a loud strum of the lute, closed the gate behind him with his foot, and strode into the garden, starting to sing, “Upon a time a shepherd I was,” a carol he expected the children would know.

They did. Or enough of them did. Already running toward him, they grabbed each other’s hands and made a circle around him, dancing as they joined in the chorus, “With my fol de rol, a the riddle oddy O, With my fol de rol iday!”

He went through every verse he knew, the children dancing all the different ways the song called for—up on their toes through one verse, looking from side to side through another, then with backs to the circle’s middle, and with baby steps, and giant steps, and with their eyes closed—until at the end they all collapsed with laughter and dizziness. He had them immediately on their feet again with another song that kept them dancing long enough that when he finished and said, “Whoever wants a story, sit down,” everyone sat promptly down on the grass, willing to rest a while.

He sat down on the bench beside the nurse, they all scooted around to face him, and he told them, in varied voices and gestures, spinning it out, a tale about a Maiden, a Wizard, and a Ring. He had just finished when servants brought trays of food and drink, setting them on the grass for the children to help themselves while the maidservant who had talked with Joliffe in the kitchen yesterday set her tray on the bench between him and the nurse, ignoring the nurse but giving him a sidelong, eyelash-fluttered look. In answer he deliberately brushed his hand against hers where it lingered on the near edge of the tray as he reached for a piece of bread. She blushed very prettily, and he thought that having to stay a few days more at the Penteneys might have possibilities.

“How goes it in the hall?” The nurse asked her.

Without quite looking away from Joliffe, the girl said, “Oh, well enough. The second remove goes in soon.”

“Master Fairfield? Is he behaving?”

The girl gave a shrug of her shoulders. “As much as always. Dav came back to the kitchen complaining he’d spilled the green mustard sauce all over the table but Master Simon and Kathryn are used to that, I suppose.”

She was still looking more at Joliffe than the nurse as she answered and he was looking back. If he could find chance of time with her tonight . . .

Somewhat tartly the nurse said, “You’d best be back to the kitchen, girl. Everyone else is going.”

The other servants were, and the girl did, with a little wave over her shoulder at Joliffe, who made a little wave back at her.

“She’s betrothed,” said the nurse, reaching for the pitcher.

Joliffe took it before she could, pouring a cup of ale while he twitched his mind clear of the girl, saying, “Poor man. He won’t rest easy.”

He handed the cup to the nurse. She took it with an appreciative crinkling around her eyes. “You see that, do you?” she said.

“And a good deal more. What I don’t see is why Master Fairfield dines in the hall tonight when he didn’t last night.”

They were both setting to the food while they talked. The wine-cooked chicken looked particularly good but Joliffe took one of the mushroom pasties first.

“That’s easy enough,” Nurse said; but she had been watching the children while she talked and broke off to call, “Giles, no. Remember your manners.” She waited a moment to be sure he did, and then went on, setting down her cup and reaching for a mushroom pasty for herself. “Last night was all business and folk to be impressed. Tonight it’s folk who’ve known our Lewis all his life and will go on knowing him once he’s married to our Kathryn.” She briefly crossed herself. “The blessed St. Anne have mercy on our girl. So it’s only right they’re reminded now and again that he’s family and to be treated as such. Besides, last night the silly thing fretted himself near into a fit, being left out of things. My little Kathryn had to leave all behind at the end of the feast and spend the rest of the evening with him in the nursery. Missed all the dancing she so dearly loves. Well, there’s no help for that and she’ll miss more than dancing ere long, since they’re to be wed at Lammas, God willing.”

“That soon,” said Joliffe.

“Best to have it done and over with before she comes to understand all it’s going to cost her, poor lamb.”

“You don’t favor the marriage?”

“Well, it’s a shame she can’t marry Simon instead, and everybody says so that says anything at all, but there it is. And once she’s been betrothed to Lewis, even if he dies then, she’ll never be able to marry Simon, Church law being what it is. Still,” she said, looking to the better side of it, “some day she’ll have her widowhood and a goodly dower to make merry on. She can find herself a better husband then. Though it would be good if she has an heir or two by Lewis first,” she finished thoughtfully.

So the Penteneys could keep control of the Fairfield lands and all, Joliffe thought. Nurse was only being practical, but something under her voice made him ask again, “You don’t favor the marriage, though?”

“It makes sense from all the ways it should make sense.” She gave him a hard look and added, “To men anyway.”

“But not,” he said gently, meeting her look, “to any woman who can understand what the true cost is going to be to Kathryn.”

The nurse regarded him with pursed lips, then gave a curt nod, approving of him as well as agreeing with what he had said. “The only present mercy is that I doubt she understands yet, and won’t until it’s too late for weeping over, poor lamb. Still, there’s good chance the men-folk won’t have it all their own way.” She gave Joliffe a heavy wink. “My Kathryn knows her own mind about things, she does, and when the time comes they think to rule and run the Fairfield lands for her, she’ll maybe surprise them with what she wants to do for herself. Giles! That’s not what bread is for! Where did you learn that?”

She rose and bustled away to stop his happy throwing of wadded bread pellets at another child before anyone else took up the sport. Joliffe hastily finished his share of an herb custard, gulped the rest of his ale, stood up, and taking his lute, strolled around the children, singing a nonsense song that diverted them through the rest of their meal. Then he put his lute aside and set them to a run-and-chase game that tired them enough that they sat willingly down again for him to tell them another story.

He was to the point where the hero was about to face the dragon when a Penteney servingman came hurriedly out the rear door and along the path toward Nurse, again sitting on the bench. He might only have been coming for the trays, but something more than that was in his haste. Without faltering in the story, Joliffe kept half an eye on him and, indeed, the man ignored the trays and said something to Nurse that brought her to her feet. Joliffe looked openly toward her. “I have to go in,” she called. “Can you see to them on your own?”

He nodded back that he could—it was a good thing she hadn’t asked if he wanted to, because he didn’t; he disliked being so badly outnumbered—and she hurried away with the servingman.

He spun the story out as long as he could, thinking she would soon be back. The hero took longer than usual to triumph over the dragon and was trying to decide if he would take the rescued maiden home to her father the king and marry her, or go on his adventuring way and leave her to get home by herself, when one of the boys protested, “That’s not the way the story goes!” Joliffe deliberately set up a merry quarrel with him over it, drew the other children into the argument, and soon had them all laughing. But his sense was growing that something was wrong. The garden was too far removed from the hall and yard for him to hear anything for certain, but the nurse did not return, nor anyone else come out of the house, and he only hoped someone would remember him and come to his rescue, because even the long midsummer’s twilight was not going to last forever. What would he do if darkness came and he was still here with the children?

He started a circle game with much chasing of the children by each other. His thought was that if he was going to be worn out soon, best they be, too, and they were hard at it and he was standing aside, cheering them on, when Piers came into the garden. He did not look nearly so jaunty as when Joliffe had last seen him. His face was strained and white, and Joliffe took a few backward steps, putting more distance between himself and the children so that when Piers came to his side, he could demand, low-voiced enough to be unheard by anyone else. “Piers, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Keeping his own voice low but his fear showing, Piers said, “They’re sick. Everyone in the hall. Horribly sick and throwing up.”

“Everyone?” Joliffe demanded, not letting his face do anything but smile. The children had to be kept playing and unfrightened, no matter what fear was gibbering up inside himself. “Bassett and the rest and servants and all?”

“N . . . no.” Piers was more shaken than Joliffe had ever seen him. “No, not them. They’re helping. But everyone who was feasting. Almost everyone. They’re all cramped over in pain and throwing up. Joliffe, if it’s plague . . .”

“I’ve never heard of a plague that started with throwing up,” Joliffe said strongly. Which did not mean there was not one. Or a new one. But plague did not bear thinking about and he said, “It sounds like the food has done it, that’s all.”

But that wasn’t all. In the hot weather food could go off easily enough and sicken anyone who ate it, even kill them, God forbid; but two days ago someone had left a dead body in the Penteney’s yard. That had been a deliberate making of trouble for the Penteneys. What if this were a deliberate poisoning, to make more trouble?

But if Basset, Rose, and Ellis were all right then it wasn’t so bad as it might be, and he said to Piers, “There’s no one dead?”

“No. But they’re all throwing up. There’s mess everywhere and . . .”

“Yes, fine.” Joliffe did not particularly want to hear more than that about it. “Can you stay here? I’m going to need help with this lot.”

Fresh air and being away from the hall were rapidly returning Piers to himself and color to his face. “I’m not going back in there, sure,” he said, and together they were able to keep the children busy until, when the first stars were pricking out, Nurse came into the garden again. Seeing her, Joliffe went to meet her, leaving Piers showing how to do a cartwheel. Her white wimple, veil, and apron were moth-pale in the gathering dark and so was her face when he was near enough to see it.

“How goes it?” he asked quietly, quickly. “I’ve heard what’s happening.”

“It’s bettering.” Her voice shook a little. “The worst seems passed but, dear St. Frideswide, it was terrible for a time.” She shuddered. “Twenty people all sick as sick could be, all at the same time. None of us could move fast enough to keep up. The hall . . . it’s not good . . . everyone . . .”

She needed a strong drink of something to steady her, but Joliffe had nothing to offer but distraction and said, “I’ve kept the children as best I could, but it’s getting late for them. They’re tiring.” Not to mention that so was he.