Read Online A Play of Isaac by Margaret Frazer - Free Book Online Page A

Basset was right; it had been some few months since they had done it and the sooner they found out what they had forgotten, the better.
    Dusk was thickening into dark now. Summer nights were short, there was small point in wasting candles to light them when sleep would be a better way to spend the time, and at Basset’s word, they made ready to go to bed, Joliffe finding out just how tired he was now he had stopped moving. It seemed to be the same way with the others; even Ellis was forgetful of his ale-thirst and rolled into his bed willingly enough, with very little restless rustling from anyone before sleep soundly took them.
     
 
Joliffe awoke in darkness with no way to tell what the hour might be, but when he rolled his head sideways and looked at the gap around the barn’s door, the line of paling gray in the darkness told him the night was nearly done. No one else was stirring, though, and seeing no need to be the first, he settled more deeply into the straw with quite an unreasonable sense of holiday, despite that holiday was likely the last thing the next few days were going to be. Not with an extra performance of The Steward and the Devil if it happened Lewis would be allowed to do it, and The Pride of Life to sharpen up, and Abraham and Isaac to finish perfecting, along with need to be sure all was well with everything they would wear and use for those plays and making right anything that was not.
    But not to be loading and unloading the cart every day, and walking miles between one hope of work and the next with never certainty the work would be there when the time came—instead sleeping in the same place five nights in a row and certain of every meal—that looked like holiday to him.
    The feeling stayed with him even after he rose with everyone else to go through the morning business of putting on the hosen and doublet he’d taken off for sleep last night, seeing to his body’s needs, washing his face and hands in the waiting water bucket, and combing his hair because Rose was firm on them looking no more unseemly than could be helped.
    So as not to spoil the pleasure she took in ordering them around, he carefully kept from her that he at least—he would not answer for Ellis and Piers—would have done it anyway.
    Only when Basset sat them down and said, “Now. The Pride of Life . From the beginning,” did the sense of holiday not so much fade as die a brutal death, as all too quickly it became plain that neither Ellis nor Joliffe had a firm hold on their lines anymore. Worse, Basset did have firm hold, and Rose, prompting from the script, shook her head over how often she had to give Ellis and Joliffe, turn and turnabout, a word or words to keep them going, until Basset stood up with a frustrated roar, swore at Ellis and Joliffe both for wash-brained idiots, said he was going to breakfast and that they’d better, too, though, “I’ll be mazed if either one of you has wits enough to keep straight the difference between chewing your food and breathing,” he snarled.
    If Ellis had any better answer to that than Joliffe did, he wisely kept as silent as Joliffe, neither of them moving as Basset stalked out the barn door, Piers beside him, their backs matchingly eloquent with indignation. Even Rose held silent while she put the script away in the box where all their scripts were kept, only giving Ellis a sideways look that Ellis answered with an uncomfortable, sheepish shrug; but she relented before she left, saying as she moved toward the door, “Come on then. You won’t do any better for being starved.”
    “I think I’ll stay,” said Joliffe. “I’ll go in after you’ve come back. Someone should stay to keep an eye on things here.”
    Ellis said, “Come on. Basset won’t bite your head off in front of others. We all went in to supper last night.”
    “That was last night. By now all the Penteney servants and everyone up and down the street if not half of Oxford know we’re here. I don’t