A Play Of Heresy Part 15

Richard Eme's face had fallen immediately into lineaments of grief at mention of his brother. Now his voice had a sorrowful tremble tinged with anger as he said, "Anything. Anything that can help to find who did this to him and tried to shame our family."

That gave Joliffe a thread to try and he said, "Is there someone who would want to do that-make such trouble for your family, even if it meant killing your brother?"

"We're n.o.body!" He thought better of that; changed it to, "My father is high among the drapers, has been on the guild council, will likely be on the city's council one of these years soon. There's nothing in any of that. He's made no enemies. He doesn't have the push to make enemies. We live quietly."

"What of Ned? I know he traveled for your father."

"Because I'm needed more here at the heart of things."

"Certainly. So it was your brother who went to Bristol and saw to the family holdings outside of Coventry, yes?"

Joliffe had carefully linked the first, which was something he could be a.s.sumed to know from Ned's talk of it after Robyn Kydwa's body was found, to the second, which was unlikely for him to know. As he had hoped, Eme accepted him knowing both and readily answered. "Yes. Ned was ever happier than when out and about. Doing something, as he liked to say. As if sitting at the center of everything, seeing that all goes as it should, isn't doing something." The words were bitter, the grievance seemingly a long one between the brothers. But probably remembering he was after all speaking of someone now dead, Eme shifted back to his grieving voice. "He was good at that side of things. He's going to be missed that way."

But any other way? Joliffe wondered. Still, a vast difference between brothers did not mean a lack of affection, and he said evenly, "It did give him more chance to get into some manner of trouble without his family knowing of it."

"It might, but I don't see that he did. There's no sign of it. The books and money all tally as they should, both with each other and with reports from our factor in Bristol and the steward at the manor."

So, for all the talk of confidence placed in him, a close watch had been kept on the younger son. Not close enough, if he had indeed killed Kydwa and his servant, but close enough, it seemed, that any large pattern of trouble would have been found out. But, "What of here in Coventry?" Joliffe persisted. "Was he ever in trouble with gambling or drinking or anything else that could have made him an enemy?"

Eme had begun shaking his head while Joliffe was speaking, was still shaking it as he answered, "Nothing like that. He wasn't given to gambling or drinking or anything like that."

"What of the Byfelds? Was there particular close friendship there?"

"No. Nothing particular. Less than with some other families. The most we ever had to do with them was when all of us were small and played together. A whole band of children, I mean, not simply us and Herry and her. Then it was grammar school for the boys and dame school for the girls, and our ways parted. We were too grown."

"By *her' you mean Mistress Deyster."

Eme's face stiffened with some in-held feeling, then twisted with the pain of giving way as he exclaimed with raw regret, "I mocked him. About her. Saint Michael, judge of souls, forgive me. I meant nothing by it. I swear I meant nothing. When we thought he'd hung himself, I thought-" He broke off, unable to say what he had thought. He pressed a hand over his mouth to stop its trembling and mumbled past it, "I thought I'd goaded him to killing himself."

That was the most open, honest feeling Joliffe had ever seen from him. To see there was honest grief somewhere in the man bettered Joliffe's thoughts toward him but did not stop him saying, "It's known Herry Byfeld wanted to marry your sister."

Eme's hand and open grief both dropped away. Stiffly, he declared, "That would never have been allowed."

"Why not? It would seem a very reasonable marriage between two prospering families."

"It wouldn't have been." Firm-voiced until then, Eme went to a mutter. "It was two years ago and nothing to do with Ned's death."

"Yet your family would have countenanced him marrying Anna Deyster?"

"Not happily, no. But Ned was less to be bid the right way than G.o.ditha is."

Joliffe was forestalled from asking more by Hew coming to say Cecily wanted their Prophets' robes and the Doctors were to try their gowns.

The play and its attendant matters took up the rest of the time in the yard, giving Joliffe no other chance for questions. It was just as well that garb and growing used to the wagon took up most of the time, because his lines as Prophet and Ane were not to the fore of his mind though he tried, not very successfully, to take refuge in the work, away from all his questions and the few answers he had. None of the latter told him enough, not even somewhere else to look than just at the Emes and Byfelds. There had to have been more to Ned's life than only a narrow living between the two families and working on the play. If so, Sebastian might be finding it out. Or it might be that for these few weeks that mattered, those had been the bounds of Ned's life. If that were so and the reason for his death came from somewhere outside those bounds, answers would be harder to find. As yet there was not even hint of such a thread. Would Sebastian have to find it out in Bristol? Was that where the murderer had come from? Was Ned's death for something he had done-or not done-in Bristol?

But if Ned had been meeting someone from Bristol, the smiths' pageant house would have to have been Ned's choice. Joliffe could come up with various reasons both for and against Ned choosing the pageant wagon yard for that, and the hanging remained troublesome. Had it been a thing of the moment, with the rope and Judas tree simply to hand in a burst of anger? But nearly every man wore a dagger most of the time. A burst of anger was more likely to lead to a drawn dagger and a quick stabbing than to the more difficult business of hanging. No. There was something deliberate and intended in the choice of hanging, and that the Judas tree was used strongly suggested the choice had been someone's of Coventry rather than anyone's from Bristol. There might be something that ran between Ned's death here and Bristol, but one end of that something was surely deeply rooted here in Coventry. What Sebastian might be finding out, Joliffe was not even going to guess at.

What most frustrated him presently was that tomorrow was Sunday. There would be no practice and therefore no chance of questioning anyone as easily as he had done this evening. He thought that taking d.i.c.k and Cecily and Richard Eme almost unawares had helped in having answers from them he might not otherwise have had. Like chance would probably not come again, since after Sunday there were only three days to go through until Corpus Christi. For those days, practice would be intense with polishing the play to its highest and best, with no time for "idle" talk around the edges.

Awareness of that may have been why Joliffe was less than subtle at practice's end, when finally, in the blue gloaming of deep twilight, Sendell said they were done for now. Simeon and the two Angels were already gone, released earlier when their part of the play had been run. Joliffe could have gone then, too, but had hung about to watch. Now Tom dropped from being Mary and left, whistling, while the Doctors in the Temple were taking off their robes. They had worn them though their part of the play tonight because, being cut very full, the robes' hanging sleeves were in constant danger of tangling with each other as the Doctors moved around on the wagon's limited s.p.a.ce, and Burbage, Eme, and Master Smale had wanted more time to grow used to them. Because of that, Cecily was still there, too, unable to sew in the faded light but waiting to take the Doctors' robes away for finishing.

Richard Eme was fastest out of his, stripping it off and tossing it onto the bench near Cecily, taking up his doublet in the same motion and putting it on as he headed for the gate and away. Burbage and Master Smale took off theirs with somewhat greater care, aware some of the st.i.tching was only loose basting. While Cecily helped them, Joliffe went to see to Eme's, shaking it out carefully, folding it, setting it down beside the other carefully piled garb. Powet was already stacking an armload on d.i.c.k to help in carrying home, telling him, "You wait and go with us."

Burbage, hooking his doublet closed and his back to everyone else, said quietly as Joliffe came to him, "Did you learn anything new?"

"Ah." Joliffe could not quite keep his mingled amus.e.m.e.nt and guilt out of his voice. "You noted what I was doing."

"You saved me doing it. Did you learn anything of use?"

"Nothing. No one knows any reason why someone would want to kill Ned."

"We'll have to see what gossip my wife turns up," Burbage said. "I told her to ask freely. She said all she'd probably need do is listen."

"That will probably prove of more use than anything. Here, I'll put your robe with the rest. You'll be wanting to hie home."

Burbage handed over the robe with thanks and went, a prosperous man with home and family mattering more in his life than murder. Joliffe, taking their robes to Cecily, was all too sharply aware how wide was the gap between Burbage's life and his. Their shared effort in the play and their easy talk together was a bridge between them but a frail one. Joliffe felt a momentary sadness for that, then let it go as he handed Cecily the gown and asked her, after she had thanked him, "Have you remembered anything else you might have heard said between Ned Eme and Mistress Deyster?"

Cecily froze, stricken, staring up at him.

"The thing he said that made her so angry at him," Joliffe prompted.

Powet shoved past him, one shoulder hitting his for no better reason than Powet meant it to as Powet said angrily, "Leave her be." He took the three heavy Doctors' robes from her arms. "Go on with d.i.c.k," he said to her. "I'll bring the rest. Go on."

Cecily went, s.n.a.t.c.hing up her sewing basket on the way and not looking back as she followed d.i.c.k toward the gate. Sendell was still at the wagon, circling it, staring at it, probably considering possibilities and giving no heed to Powet and Joliffe across the yard. To keep it that way, Powet held his voice low despite his open anger as he said at Joliffe, "The girl has enough woe without you badgering her. Leave her be."

Nothing loathe to use Powet's anger since it was there, Joliffe said back almost as fiercely, "I'm supposed to believe she was right outside the door and heard nothing?"

"All she would have heard was Anna being angry at Ned."

"There had to have been words said. She was right there at the rear door."

"She was coming in the same moment d.i.c.k and I were. The most she could have heard was Anna say *If he was, what of it? You and yours are clean, aren't you?'"

"Why didn't you tell that when Master Fylongley was questioning you?"

"Because we thought Ned had killed himself then, didn't we? Why make it seem even more Anna's fault than folk were going to think it? Ned must have said something against Robyn. Nothing else was likely to make her that angry. I thought she must have finally made Ned understand he had no hope of her, and that's why he'd hung himself. Only-" Powet's anger faltered. "Only he didn't, did he?"

Hoping to drive him a little further, Joliffe prodded, "What did she mean by *clean'?"

But Powet's anger was fading rapidly. He shook his head, sighed, shifted the weight of the robes in his arms, and said, "I don't know. Clean of Robyn's death, I suppose. How would I know what? What matters is that Ned shouldn't have been fool enough to speak ill of the dead at all. Nor should I be now. Pray pardon my anger at you. It was seeing Cecily in pain. She has enough to bear as it is. I know you're only doing what you must."

"I'd rather that I didn't," Joliffe half-lied, making his own apology in answer and acceptance of Powet's.

Powet nodded sadly. He looked suddenly weighted down by more than his armload of clothing. "I know," he repeated, turned away, and left, quite plainly not wanting Joliffe's company.

Nor did Joliffe want his just now and went to join Sendell in contemplation of the wagon, on the chance Sendell might want to talk of what more might be done with the play in the few days they had left, but also with hope that good, clear talk like that might help to cleanse the confusions in his own mind.

Chapter 22.

The shadow of the stone-towered gateway had barely crept out from the tower's foot when Joliffe strolled through it the next day, following Spon Street out of Coventry. Sebastian had said to meet him just past mid-day at the Angel. This was as "just past" mid-day as was possible by Joliffe's reckoning. What he had not known was how far it was to this Angel, but a few hundred yards sufficed for him to see its sign of Saint Michael with his spread wings and spear. The tavern itself was set somewhat back from the road, with a rowan tree to one side throwing a little shade toward the benches set about the yard to take advantage of the warm, fair weather. The ale must be good here, and maybe the food, too: a number of men of various crafts, to guess by their clothing, were sharing benches, with both drink and food in hand. The warm buzz of their talk was all about Joliffe as he threaded through to Sebastian sitting on a short bench in the sun against one corner of the building, a drink in his own hands and a place kept for Joliffe beside him by way of a pitcher, a drinking bowl, and fat cuts of bread and cheese on a wooden plate set there.

Joliffe took up the bowl and plate, shifted the pitcher to be between him and Sebastian, and sat down. "Much thanks," he said with a nod at the bread and cheese. "More thanks," he added as Sebastian lifted the pitcher and filled his bowl for him, and asked before taking a large bite of cheese, "So. Learned anything of use?"

Sebastian, who seemed to have finished eating and was doing no more with the ale in his own bowl than swirling it a little, said, "Our Ned Eme seems to have led a singularly blameless life. Except for the odd murder now and again, if we hold to the thought he did for Kydwa and his man."

"Do we hold to that thought?" Joliffe ask thickly around the cheese.

"So far, yes. I've found no reason to shift our thinking there."

"Yet."

Sebastian gave him a sharp look. "Have you?"

Joliffe shook his head that, no, he had not.

"Well then," Sebastian said with something of a glower. "There was talk in plenty to be heard yesterday and last night. Tavern talk and all. You heard none, I suppose?"

"There was practice all the evening, and then I was to bed before curfew." Joliffe paused a beat to let Sebastian take that for a "no" before going on, "I asked some questions at the practice, though. His brother was there."

"Despite his brother being dead?" Sebastian asked sharply.

"It was for the play," Joliffe said evenly, with no hope Sebastian would understand. "The play is all of us. Is more than any one of us. If there's any way at all you can keep going, you don't fail the others."

Sebastian frowned over that for a silent moment, then said, surprising Joliffe, "As with us who serve our lord master the way we do. Mostly we don't know the others, but we don't fail them even so. If we can help it."

"And Kydwa was one of us," Joliffe said.

"He was. Not by much and among the least but one of us even so. Since you say you've found nothing that says Ned Eme didn't kill him, that leaves us only need to find out who murdered our murderer, because that will lead us to whoever set him on to murder Kydwa, and that will be our link to whatever the Lollards are up to hereabouts."

"Do we have any proof that they're up to anything at all?"

"They still have their gatherings. That I found out for certain. The signs and spoor are there to be found if you look for them." A small current of blame ran under the words. Sebastian had taught Joliffe those "signs and spoor" but knew full well that Joliffe made little, if any, use of them. "The Emes are part of it all. Our Ned was, too."

"Part of all what?" Joliffe asked.

"Lollard meetings. To do their readings, then talk big against everyone who isn't them and make complots toward whatever new trouble they next intend."

"Is there sign"-Joliffe managed to hold off from adding "and spoor"-"that they're plotting any new trouble?"

Sebastian's face pinched in, probably with disappointment and regret at having to admit, "Not that I've found out yet. But three murders have to mean something is being desperately kept secret."

Joliffe could not deny the likelihood of that and held silent, chewing steadily at the bread.

"What more have you learned on your side of things?" Sebastian asked.

Joliffe swallowed. "I didn't say much to you about the Eme and Byfeld families when we last talked. We centered then on what seemed immediate to Ned Eme's death. I've thought more about them since then."

Sebastian nodded for him to continue.

"Although they're not friendly with each other, there are links of somewhat long standing among them. A few years ago the Byfeld eldest son was interested in wedding the Eme daughter. Neither family seems to have been pleased at that, the Emes least of all, and his suit went nowhere. On the other side, Ned Eme had wanted the Byfeld daughter even before her first marriage and had hope of winning her in her widowhood, only to lose her to Robyn Kydwa. With Kydwa dead, he had renewed his suit and was pushing it hard."

"What did the families think of that?"

"From what they say, I think his family was tired of listening to him, would have accepted the marriage if the woman had accepted him. Or maybe they knew they didn't have to worry, that she would go on rejecting him."

"That wouldn't have lasted," Sebastian said with the glum certainty of someone who had suffered from women's ways. "She'd have given in later if not sooner."

"I have to doubt that. Even with him dead, she's doing none of the usual moaning of *if only.' That's despite she was heard being very angry at him two days before he-" Joliffe's mind stumbled on a thought. He fell silent, following it.

"Before he was killed?" Sebastian said.

"Yes." Joliffe said it slowly, still following his thought. Then he shook his head and said, still caught into his thought, "No."

"Yes? No? What?" Sebastian prodded.

Joliffe regrouped his wits, stopped staring into the empty air in front of him, and said, heedful again, "Yes. She was heard being very angry at him and admits she was and shows no regret for it. No maidenly pining."

"What was the quarrel for?"

"She says she was simply refusing him again. Someone else says he heard her say *If he was, what of it? You and yours are clean, aren't you?' Only it could have been more of a challenge, I suppose, now I come to say it aloud. It might have been *You and yours are clean. Aren't you?' I'll ask Master Powet about that, now he's chosen to remember it was said at all."

"He didn't tell you that at first? Hiding something, is he?"

"He said he kept it to himself when he thought Ned had killed himself because it might make his niece seem somehow at fault in Ned's death. Now that's no worry anymore, he talked of it. Said Ned must have said something against Robyn Kydwa because nothing else was likely to have made her as angry as she was."

"What did she mean by *clean'? Clean of what?"

"I asked Master Powet the same. He said he didn't know."

"But they're not clean. The Emes. They're Lollards."

Joliffe suspected that was a hare that would not run, but Sebastian would go on prodding it with a stick until it dropped over dead. Yes, the Emes were Lollards, it seemed, but Joliffe very much doubted they were of the wilder kind. They would believe what they believed and go about their business, would pay their t.i.thes to the Church and speak respectfully to the priest and believe both Church and priest were d.a.m.ned for their ways but leave them to it, satisfied with seeing to their own souls, willing to leave others alone and hoping to be left the same. What Joliffe wanted was to follow the thought that had come to him, not get caught into debate, and he answered Sebastian with a silent nod around a mouthful of cheese and bread.

They talked only a little longer together, to no gain. Least gain came when Joliffe asked what he had wanted to ask for some time. "What of our bishop's other man here in Coventry? Has he found out anything of use?"

Sebastian returned him a blank face and empty stare and nothing more.

"Ah," said Joliffe, accepting that was all he would be told. Very probably not even Robyn Kydwa had known who was his fellow spy in Coventry. As Sebastian had said early in his dealing with Joliffe: what you did not know, you could not tell-or sell. So he was not ready even to admit for certain there was another of their fellows here in Coventry. They parted company soon after that, Joliffe leaving Sebastian still sitting there and himself sauntering away as if on his way to waste a Sunday afternoon as easefully as he could.

There was nothing easeful in his thoughts, though, as he betook himself to the riverside path he had followed in his earlier wandering around Coventry. It being a Sunday, there were couples and families strolling there in the warm summer's day but no one that he knew or who knew him. That left him free while he strolled to sort and shift the pieces of possibility his new thought had brought him. By the time the riverside path had circled him slowly around to come back into Coventry through the Gosford Gate he had decided what he would try. If he was wrong, he would look a fool but at least the matter would be cleared from his mind, leaving room to find another answer.

A better answer than the one he thought he had and did not much want.