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

Joliffe thought.

Chapter 4
    The manor of Deneby was set in a wide valley among low, sheep-cropped hills thickly banded along their foot by a stretch of forest. The village with its squat-towered church sat near the valley’s lower end, the hedge-bordered great fields spread out around it, with Sir Edmund’s manor house farther on, marked by a round tower above a tight cluster of slate-roofed great hall and thatch-roofed lesser buildings, all surrounded by a tall stone wall and a wide moat fed by the stream.
    Moats could be stinking things, stagnant and foul, but the stream’s flow had this one running clear. Joliffe could see the green ripple of water plants and the shadowy movement of fish in its depths as the company crossed over the wooden bridge from road to manor gateway. Ahead of him Basset and Ellis were juggling bright fountains of balls and behind them Piers and Gil were deeply bowing and sweeping their hats to either side as if already being applauded by the folk just beginning to gather into the yard to see them arrive. Joliffe came playing his lute behind them, dancing a little to his own lively music, while Rose brought up the rear with Tisbe and the cart. Over breakfast Basset had talked of getting yellow and red ribbons for Tisbe’s harness, to match the cart’s hood now it was so grand, but presently Tisbe was her plain self, while the rest of them had put on their best street-garb—parti-colored tunics and hosen, gaudy-dyed shoes, over-large hats for Basset, Ellis, and Joliffe, a parti-colored gown for Rose. Piers had been outgrowing the tabard that usually served over his daily clothing at these times—“He grows too much from one day to the next to bother the cost of making him better just yet,” Basset had grumbled months ago—but still had his cap with a green popinjay feather and today along with the men and his mother was wearing the proud Lovell tabard.
    To Gil, because there had been neither time nor any chance to do better for him, was left Piers’ old tabard, laughably too short on him but the best they could do at present. All the way to the manor he had been pulling down on its lower edge as if somehow he could make it cover more of his other clothing; but now that there were people to see him—servants and other household folk gathering into the manor yard—he’d begun to use the tabard’s shortness, bringing laughter at himself with a flaunt of hip here, a buttock-revealing bow there, a sudden feigned shyness and renewed tugging at the tabard when he caught a girl’s gaze on him.
    Joliffe had started the day heavy with wondering what they would find once they were at the manor hall. For all that everything had seemed well enough in talk in the village, Lord Lovell was no fool, to be seeing trouble where there wasn’t any, and to that had been added worry at how Gil would be. Because no one else had been showing their probably like-worry, he had kept his own to himself, but now—watching Gil caper and play to the lookers-on—his own spirits rose past pretended merriment into true. If Gil proved to be anything like so good as he so far seemed to be, they would owe Lord Lovell far more than they already did, whatever bother there might be with Denebys in the meanwhile.
    Supposing Gil was what he seemed and not a spy set on them by Lord Lovell.
    That was a thought Joliffe wished his mind had not bothered to have.
    Their little band of merriment drew up in the middle of the yard beyond the gatehouse. Perhaps fifty yards from end to end and almost as wide, the yard was surrounded on three sides by various byres and sheds and stables, while directly across from the gateway was the high-roofed, tall-windowed great hall, not so new as Lord Lovell’s lately built at Minster Lovell but fine enough to tell the Denebys were no slight family. The round, stone-built tower seen from down the valley, standing at the hall’s right end, was older than the hall, with stark, plain lines and