Read Online A Play of Knaves by Margaret Frazer - Free Book Online
Authors: Margaret Frazer
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back and said with attempted lightness, “If it helps, Rose, just think that it’s a lack of wits with Ellis rather than a lack of love.”
From where she was laying turf onto the coals, Rose snapped back at him, “You’ve no place to talk. You do as much as he does when you have the chance, meaning you must lack wits, too.”
“Ah, there’s a difference,” Joliffe returned. “I have no one woman all my own to love the way he does, do I?”
“True,” Rose granted tartly. She lifted her head, her face mostly in shadow but with enough upward cast of low red light from the dying fire for him to see her bitter smile. “God in his mercy has spared some poor woman that misery.”
Joliffe clutched a hand over his heart as if she had given him a hard blow there, said lightly, “Well struck, my lady. Well struck,” and ducked to safety in the tent.
Chapter 4
The morning was cool, with mist writhed thickly along the stream and thinly across the meadow, so that both the fire—roused from its banked coals into flames again—and the hearty breakfast of last night’s trenchers were welcome. More welcome than Ellis was, that was sure.
He had come back sometime in the night. His settling into his blankets had disturbed Joliffe’s sleep only a little, and if anyone else awoke, they had said no more to him than Joliffe did. The trouble was that this morning there was still no one speaking to him. It wasn’t anger on the men’s part, merely wariness. None of them wanted to find himself between Ellis and whatever anger Rose had stored against him.
That Ellis brought a defiant strut to the morning did not help. Nor did Joliffe by saying aside to Basset, just loud enough for both Ellis and Gil to hear, “Being cock of the walk doesn’t keep the cockerel out of the stew pot when the time comes.”
That earned him a glare from both Ellis and Basset, while Gil had to turn laughter into a choking cough that brought him a sharp look from Rose as if maybe considering him for a dose of hot honey water. But she kept to her stiff silence as she saw to her morning work with no look at all—so far as Joliffe saw—at Ellis, who in his turn seemed in no hurry to have her “see” him.
They all knew she could keep in that silence for hours, and if everyone was fortunate, she would, for her own sake as well as Ellis’, Joliffe thought, because better cold silence than hot words that could not be taken back when the anger was gone.
It was while they were gathered about the fire, taking turns at toasting their shares of the trenchers and passing around the leather bottle of ale, that Ellis broke under the strain of her silence and said somewhat too loudly and too near defiantly, “I learned a few things last night.”
Hard though it was, Joliffe held back from saying, She must have been good; I thought you knew it all.
Ellis, oblivious, went on, “I found out there’s bad blood between the Ashewells and the Medcotes. Bad blood as in murder.”
That got him looked at by everyone save Rose, who went on tending to the trencher presently toasting as if he had said nothing at all.
A little lessened by that, Ellis said, “Or a chance-death anyway. Not outright murder, like. Young Nicholas Ashewell killed the cousin of Medcote’s wife a few years back, when he was nine years old or thereabouts.”
“When Nicholas was nine years old?” Basset asked. “That’s young to have been killing someone.”
“Seems he was out birding with a small crossbow, bird-shooting along the stream here, the way boys do. This cousin happened by, just riding the bounds of his land that meet up with Ashewell’s not far off, and took a birding-bolt just under one collarbone.”
“That was a killing wound?” Joliffe said. “From a birding-bolt?”
“He didn’t die right off. Seems he must have been bleeding inwardly, though. He died of a sudden a few days later, just when it was thought he was on the mend.”
“It would have been
From where she was laying turf onto the coals, Rose snapped back at him, “You’ve no place to talk. You do as much as he does when you have the chance, meaning you must lack wits, too.”
“Ah, there’s a difference,” Joliffe returned. “I have no one woman all my own to love the way he does, do I?”
“True,” Rose granted tartly. She lifted her head, her face mostly in shadow but with enough upward cast of low red light from the dying fire for him to see her bitter smile. “God in his mercy has spared some poor woman that misery.”
Joliffe clutched a hand over his heart as if she had given him a hard blow there, said lightly, “Well struck, my lady. Well struck,” and ducked to safety in the tent.
Chapter 4
The morning was cool, with mist writhed thickly along the stream and thinly across the meadow, so that both the fire—roused from its banked coals into flames again—and the hearty breakfast of last night’s trenchers were welcome. More welcome than Ellis was, that was sure.
He had come back sometime in the night. His settling into his blankets had disturbed Joliffe’s sleep only a little, and if anyone else awoke, they had said no more to him than Joliffe did. The trouble was that this morning there was still no one speaking to him. It wasn’t anger on the men’s part, merely wariness. None of them wanted to find himself between Ellis and whatever anger Rose had stored against him.
That Ellis brought a defiant strut to the morning did not help. Nor did Joliffe by saying aside to Basset, just loud enough for both Ellis and Gil to hear, “Being cock of the walk doesn’t keep the cockerel out of the stew pot when the time comes.”
That earned him a glare from both Ellis and Basset, while Gil had to turn laughter into a choking cough that brought him a sharp look from Rose as if maybe considering him for a dose of hot honey water. But she kept to her stiff silence as she saw to her morning work with no look at all—so far as Joliffe saw—at Ellis, who in his turn seemed in no hurry to have her “see” him.
They all knew she could keep in that silence for hours, and if everyone was fortunate, she would, for her own sake as well as Ellis’, Joliffe thought, because better cold silence than hot words that could not be taken back when the anger was gone.
It was while they were gathered about the fire, taking turns at toasting their shares of the trenchers and passing around the leather bottle of ale, that Ellis broke under the strain of her silence and said somewhat too loudly and too near defiantly, “I learned a few things last night.”
Hard though it was, Joliffe held back from saying, She must have been good; I thought you knew it all.
Ellis, oblivious, went on, “I found out there’s bad blood between the Ashewells and the Medcotes. Bad blood as in murder.”
That got him looked at by everyone save Rose, who went on tending to the trencher presently toasting as if he had said nothing at all.
A little lessened by that, Ellis said, “Or a chance-death anyway. Not outright murder, like. Young Nicholas Ashewell killed the cousin of Medcote’s wife a few years back, when he was nine years old or thereabouts.”
“When Nicholas was nine years old?” Basset asked. “That’s young to have been killing someone.”
“Seems he was out birding with a small crossbow, bird-shooting along the stream here, the way boys do. This cousin happened by, just riding the bounds of his land that meet up with Ashewell’s not far off, and took a birding-bolt just under one collarbone.”
“That was a killing wound?” Joliffe said. “From a birding-bolt?”
“He didn’t die right off. Seems he must have been bleeding inwardly, though. He died of a sudden a few days later, just when it was thought he was on the mend.”
“It would have been
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