The Servant’s Tale (13 page)

She gave a silent prayer of thanks for so much help from her boys—or from Hewe, if that was the case—and picked up her cloak. They had told her at the priory that there was no need for her to come back the day after her husband’s burying, but with the holiday there was always extra kitchen work to hand. She would be needed, and the priory was a better place to be than here.

There was no trace of last night’s sleet. Thin, unwarm sunlight gave brightness to the frozen road and village, but Meg hardly bothered noticing. There was the field path that cut from her end of the village along the hedgerows to come out on the road near the priory gate. That was her usual way to the priory, but as she crossed the road toward it, she glanced leftward toward the village green beyond the church. This time of year there were rarely gatherings of any size outdoors, but from what she could see a goodly portion of the village was clustered on the green. The church hid whatever they were looking at, and with plain curiosity and a little fear Meg turned that way.

But there was nothing fearful. The travelers from the priory had set up some sort of wooden framework on the green, a little taller than a tall man, twice as wide as it was high, and hung with thick red curtains that showed their fading and patching in the sunlight. The villagers were gathered in front of it, and the older man among the travelers was standing before the curtains saying in a powerful, clear voice, “… so by your lady prioress’s leave we give to you this day the play of
The Statue of St. Nicholas,
that it may please you good folk of Prior Byfield.”

He swept as elegant a bow as Meg had ever seen and disappeared around the end of the framework, behind the curtain. Meg had seen players once; some had come to the village when she was a girl. They had been funny, she remembered. And they had wanted money at the end of their performing. So would these, she supposed, and would not have stopped to watch except that she saw Hewe near one edge of the crowd and after a moment’s hesitation went to join him.

He gave her a brief look and smile but returned his attention to the curtain as a man came from behind it. This one wore a high-collared, scarlet robe that swept to his feet and was patterned all over with gold-painted crosses and lambs. He carried a fancy curve-topped staff in one hand and wore a tall mitred hat to show he was a bishop, and his face was all immobile with solemnity, his eyes gazing off somewhere above everybody’s head as if to Heaven. The crowd murmured with admiration.

Ignoring them, he stepped up on a low box waiting in front of the curtain and struck a pose, his free hand raised in blessing, and froze there. Immediately a lady came from behind the curtain, willowy and fair, her long blue dress trailing on the grass behind her. She was carrying a small chest. Coming roundabout with stately, light-footed grace to the waiting man, she knelt and set the chest on the ground in front of him, then clasped her hands together as if in prayer, raised her eyes to him imploringly and said in an affected, high voice, “O Nicholas, I must a journey make. Guard thou my wealth for Jesu’s sake. No other may I trust but thee. Help me as thou did the virgins three. Thou wilt ever my favor earn, if my wealth is here when I return.”

The man did not move or answer but the lady seemed satisfied. She rose and turned away toward the curtain, gracefully swirling her gown. Meg, seeing her face plainly for the first time, realized with a start that the lady was the pale-haired young man called Joliffe. She leaned to comment on that to Hewe, but as the “lady‘’ went away behind one end of the curtain, another player appeared promptly at its other end. Dark-browed and skulking, wrapped in a black cloak, he peered around him and apparently saw no one, though the nearest of the crowd was hardly ten paces from him and some were already calling out warnings to the lady to come back. Chuckling wickedly, he slunk toward the motionless man, peered around again and snatched up the chest.

“No, no,” Meg complained under her breath. “Why doesn’t St. Nicholas see him and stop him? The lady told him to watch her treasure.”

Hewe, without taking his eyes from the players, leaned near to her ear and whispered, “He’s a statue of St. Nicholas, that’s why. He can’t move. All he can do is stand there. Isn’t he grand? Doesn’t he hold still as a statue grandly?”

The thief, clutching the chest, slunk out of sight, back the way he had come. As he went around the curtain, Rose appeared at its other end, wearing a saffron yellow gown that fit closely down to her hips and then flared into full skirts embroidered with green around the hem. Without pause she did three backward flips across the front of the curtains, made a quick, clever curtsey to the crowd, and went the way the thief had gone.

The “lady” reappeared, wearing a traveler’s cloak. She came toward the statue, saw the chest was gone, looked around for it frantically, then threw up her hands in dismay and cried out, “O heavy, cruel chance! My treasures are fled! Now I must live in want and dread. Money and goods I entrusted to you, but like all mankind, you have failed me, too. To you I gave prayers and all my trust. Revenge I’ll take, as I surely must.” She reached under the near edge of the curtain and drew out a short riding whip. “I shall beat you, day and night, until my treasures are back in my sight.”

The women cheered and the men booed as she pretended to beat the statue about the back and shoulders. But Meg quickly saw that none of the blows actually hit the statue, and the men began to laugh and the women to jeer. But St. Nicholas never flinched and the lady finally threw down the whip with a sobbing cry and fell to her knees, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking with grief. As she did, the thief reappeared at the far end of the curtain, still clutching the chest. He looked around, seemed to see no one, came further into the open and set the chest on the ground. Opening it, he began to gloat over its contents. Meg craned her neck but could not see what it held, and then was distracted as St. Nicholas, who had been so motionless all this while, stirred. With an awful majesty, he lowered his upraised hand until it was pointing at the thief and in a deep and angry voice he said, “Wretched man, you’re not unseen.” The thief straightened with a huge start; the crowd laughed. St. Nicholas went on, “Your crime is not unknown. For you my back has beaten been. Bring back these stolen things whose loss has caused such sorrow—” The lady gave a loud, trembling sob. “—or surely on a gibbet high will you be hanged tomorrow.”

The thief had turned a terrified gaze on the saint while he spoke, and gradually sank horrified and penitent under the threatening words and voice. Now, in scrambling haste, he grabbed up the chest, sprang to his feet, and hurriedly came to set it down between the crying lady and St. Nicholas who, after a slow, approving, lordly nod, returned to his former statue pose. The thief scurried out of sight and the lady, after a few more fading sobs, raised her head to see the chest set on the ground in front of her. She cried out in delight, “Here is my treasure come again! Joy of my heart, where have you been? Excellent saint, guardian of all, what was lost is here in full. My thanks to you will never dull.”

The saint’s head inclined to her and he said in the same solemn voice he had used to the thief, “Pray not to me, good sister, but rather only to God. He made the heavens, he made the earth, and by his power is this restored. Leave off your love of worldly ways and turn your love to God.”

As he spoke the lady had fallen back in wondering astonishment. When he finished, she stood up, clasped her hands, and exclaimed joyfully, “Here will be no hesitation. This message is a visitation. I will give these goods to all the poor, and serve sweet Jesu evermore. With his blessing I will no more sin, and a treasure in Heaven I will win.”

Behind the curtain someone began to play a glad carol on a recorder. The lady reached up to St. Nicholas, who took her hand to step down from his box. Together they turned to face the crowd, and the thief came from behind the curtain to join them, grinning, as Rose came from behind the other side, playing the recorder. The three men bowed to the villagers’ ragged but cheerful applause, and Meg realized the play was done. Rose changed to another merry tune, and the saint, the lady, and the thief spread out among the crowd, the former thief holding out his cap, the saint and lady the front of their gowns to collect whatever coins might come their way. Most folk merely drew back, shaking their heads and holding up empty hands, but some dug into pouches for coins. A little glitter of halfpennies gathered in cap and skirts. Not many— coin was scarce in the village—but some; and Constance, who lived in the nearest cottage, hurried inside and hurried back with a good-sized half loaf. She gave it to the saint, who thanked her with so elegant a kiss on the hand that she giggled. Jenet of the forge, liking the look of that, hasted off to bring back an end of bacon. She offered it to the thief and was given a gallant kiss of her own.

The players were taking whatever was offered cheerfully, though Meg noticed the saint tended to find out the older women; the thief seemed mostly to go among the girls, collecting kisses when he could not have a coin; and Joliffe, still playing the lady, teased the men into giving their coins. Gilbey Dunn, boisterously laughing at “her” flirting, tossed a whole penny in his lap and clapped Joliffe on the shoulder in such high good humor it nearly knocked him down.

“Ho, Gilbey,” Thad the smith called out. “Is it her fair face or tiny feet you’re liking?”

Gilbey’s grin broadened. “Mind your tongue or your face won’t be so fair, either, my lad,” he answered.

There was general laughter for that, because Thad was years past being a lad and his face was as gnarled and knotted as an old hedge stump.

Meanwhile Ellis had made his way to pretty Tibby, the alewife’s daughter, and gave her another kiss, not on the hand, and willingly received.

Meg had not seen Sym until then; but now he was there, coming from somewhere to stand behind the girl, a little too closely, a little too possessively. The flush of red up his face at the player’s boldness was darker than Tibby’s pleased, laughing blush, and Meg with a sudden pang knew, from the way he looked more than ever like his father, what he was meaning to do next. She called out, “Don’t, Sym!” but it was already too late.

Reaching over Tibby’s shoulder, he gave Ellis a hard shove and said, “There’s enough of that. Go kiss your own lady and leave mine alone.”

That brought laughter from the villagers around them, and someone called out for Joliffe to come kiss “yon handsome thief.” Tibby, used to village ways, stepped quickly out from between Sym and Ellis, leaving them facing each other. Ellis, without taking his gaze from Sym, held his cap out sidewise.

Joliffe, suddenly there, took it and faded backwards in one easy motion, his arm linked through Tibby’s to draw her with him further out of reach.

Ellis, left in a suddenly opened space among the villagers, made no threatening move, only said in a peaceable voice, “I was only admiring a fair face, not seeking to take her away. No harm in that.”

“There’s maybe harm and maybe not,” Sym said sullenly, with a slur to his voice that told Meg he had already been to the alehouse this morning. “What about the harm to my father, thief? How much harm did you do him?”

“No harm at all except to lift him out of a frozen ditch and take him to help.”

“But who put him in that ditch, hey? What do you know about that, that you’re not telling? Who put him there in the first place? That’s what I’m asking.”

“I’d guess he got there the same way you’ve come here,” Ellis replied coolly. “By way of an alehouse and a few too many emptied cups.”

Hewe pulled against Meg’s fingers digging into shoulders. She let him go and pushed past him toward Sym. If she could get her hands on him, distract him—

She was too late. Stung and out of words, Sym lunged at Ellis. The player stepped back from him without apparent haste or fear, and abruptly Sym was sitting on the ground, looking astonished.

Meg stopped, cowed by fright, not understanding what had happened, only that it was uncanny. But the villagers were laughing, especially the men and even Hewe. It had all come too suddenly, and now before Sym could rise, the player saint had his hand on Ellis’s shoulder, drawing him away. Joliffe was already well out of it, to the side of the crowd with Tibby, whispering something in her ear that was making her smile and flirt her eyes at him, not heeding Ellis, or Sym, anymore at all. Rose had gathered up the box and chest and was going behind the curtain. It was over, except for the laughter.

But Sym gave a gutteral grunt and began to scramble to his feet, clearly intent on continuing the fight. Meg pushed her way between the useless village men and flung herself at him, meaning to shove him down again if she could. “Stop it!” she exclaimed. “You’ll not be brawling like a lout with their kind! And on the green in front of everyone. Stop it!”

Sym pushed back at her, too deep in his anger to care. “They’re thieves!” he yelled. “Thieves and murderers! Da’d be alive except for them and you’re going to let them go their ways, them and their indecent woman and their bastard brat, leaving Da dead in his grave!”

Meg clutched his arm and was dragged around as he tried to shove past her. It was Rose’s white, rigid face she saw first, standing beside the curtains beyond the crowd. And then she saw Ellis, wrenched free from Thomas Bassett, coming for Sym with murder in his furious eyes.

Chapter 12

Thomas Bassett moved more quickly than seemed possible for one his age and weight. Bursting from among the villagers, he shouldered in front of Ellis, pushed him back one-handed and thundered in St. Nicholas’s rich voice, “That’s enough! Back off, the two of you! Ellis, there’s the frame to take down and Piers waiting back at the nunnery for us. Come on.”