A Play of Dux Moraud by Margaret Frazer Read Free Book Online Page A

way?”
    “My thanks,” Basset said, “but I think my daughter has provided for us.”
    Used to the deep country darkness that came with nightfall, Rose had indeed brought their own lantern with its panes of thin-cut horn. It had been between her feet in the alehouse and now she handed it from under her cloak to Ellis, who lighted its candle-stub at the alehouse lantern’s while Basset made them known, each by name, to Father Morice, who said how much he looked forward to seeing them play. Then he and Basset made their cordial farewells and he went homeward with confidence through the familiar darkness between the alehouse and his own doorstep.
    With less confidence, the players headed back toward the common, enclosed in their own yellow circle of lantern-light, fretted with their shadows so the ground was uncertain underfoot. Nor did they talk until they were as sure as they might be in the dark that they were alone, when Ellis, holding the lantern high but his other arm around Rose’s waist, said, “The priest came in knowing all about us, but did I hear right that he’d been at the manor all day, dealing over this marriage business?”
    “He was and didn’t much want to talk about it,” Basset said. “Tired of it, I suppose. But, yes, everyone has heard we’re here and will be there tomorrow because, as we well guessed, the young man who wanted us to play again is Will Deneby, Sir Edmund’s heir. He’s also Father Morice’s student, though presently unlessoned while Father Morice helps with the marriage talks, and Father Morice speaks of him with affection and some praise as an estimable and worthy young man.”
    “You drank too much,” Rose said. Observing, not accusing. An over-flourish of words was always sign that Basset had gone somewhat beyond sober limits.
    “I did, but the last several cups were paid for by our good Father Morice . . .”
    “Which ensures him being ‘good Father Morice’ for some time to come,” said Joliffe.
    “. . . and while you younglings indulged in idle listening to all and sundry, I plied our priest for information at length about Sir Edmund and his family.”
    “Did you learn anything?” Ellis demanded.
    “That Sir Edmund is a generous lord, who sits his own manor-court,” when that task was often left to a manor’s steward or bailiff or reeve, “and against whom there are no great complaints.”
    “But . . . ?” asked Joliffe, not of what Basset had said, but of the shadow faintly behind the words.
    “But,” Basset echoed. “Yes. But. I don’t know the but. Nor am I sure it’s against Sir Edmund. And of Lady Benedicta, the wife, Father Morice would not talk at all beyond granting her to be a gracious lady, a good lady, a—”
    “A lady he’d best not say anything bad about?” Joliffe suggested.
    Although Joliffe could not see Basset’s face in the shadows, there was a thoughtful frown in his voice as he answered, “Maybe that. Or maybe she’s a lady about whom nothing can be said at all, she is so slight a being, of naught but gowns and gauds, of little wit and less—”
    “What about this marriage?” Ellis asked. “Are we going to be playing to people who are glad about it or unglad?” Because there were few things more disheartening than playing to folk set into a determined dark humour, not only unready to be diverted but sometimes ready to be angry at anyone who tried it.
    “Ah, the marriage,” Basset said in the mellow tones that told he was about to wax eloquent.
    Rose, as able as anyone to see it coming, said briskly, “Hush. We’ll be waking Piers. Tell us tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow,” Basset said. “The other day that haunts our dreams and hopes for evermore. The day that—”
    “The marriage,” Ellis whispered fiercely, not willing to wait for tomorrow.
    “Happiness all around,” Basset whispered back, “and everyone in haste to have it happen.”
    Which left only the matter of why Lord Lovell had set them to spy here,