A Play of Treachery (13 page)

Joliffe considered before saying, “Not now. But later, surely.”

“Until later, then. If anyone asks why I’ve kept you so long in talk, best say I was making harangue at you about your duties and what your place here is. No one will doubt I do that.”

B
ecause of Master Wyderville’s talk at him, Joliffe took several new layers of curiosity with him as he returned up the stairs to Lady Jacquetta’s parlor that evening. Another man than Foulke was on duty outside the door but let him in without question, only for him to find no one was there, the soft light of a single candle on a table showing all the chaos tidied away, the shutters closed across the window. Beyond the slightly open door to the next room, though, there were voices and light and he crossed to it. Under several people’s sudden laughter, his uncertain tap on the doorframe went unheard, and rather than try again, he eased through the gap into the room that clearly served—as was usual in great houses—as both withdrawing room and bedchamber for the duchess. Brightly woven tapestries showing lords and ladies riding and walking in flowered fields covered the walls, and on the wide hearth of a stone-mantled fireplace a fire burned among thick logs, denying all winter’s creeping cold, while a dozen candles in a polished golden-brass candlestand spread warm light over the gathering of black-clad young women and men of varied ages standing and sitting here and there between him and the red and white canopied-and-curtained bed on the room’s far side.

As heads and stares began to turn his way, Joliffe was suddenly, unaccustomedly, uncertain what he should do next. If he had been summoned there as himself, he would have known his part and how to play it—a smile, a low and flourished bow, a grand greeting to “My lords and ladies,” and a bold announcement of why he was come. Come as John Ripon, he was less certain what he should do, how he should be. Then one of the women, vaguely familiar to him from this afternoon, said happily, turning toward the bed, “It’s the secretary, my lady. The new one. He’s here as you bade him be.”

There was a small shifting aside among the women and men, and Joliffe saw Lady Jacquetta sitting on a long, low, cushioned chest at the foot of the wide bed. Two men were sitting at her right side, one beyond the other. She had been in talk with them, or listening to them, it seemed, because it was away from them she looked toward Joliffe.

“Master secretary,” she said and raised a hand in slight beckon for him to come to her.

Joliffe made a low bow, crossed to her, and went down on one knee in before her, doubting it was possible to show too much respect here. She had changed her gown since the afternoon. She still wore black, of course—there were months of mourning left to her—but her present gown was of cut-velvet, its curving patterns sumptuously black on black, its fullness gathered in by a wide belt just below her fine, high breasts, between which the deep-veed neckline of the gown was open to show her undergown of black silk embroidered with gold and silver flowers. She no longer wore the throat-covering surround of her widow’s wimple or the heavy-hanging veil of this afternoon. Instead, a veil of black gauze floated lightly behind her, pinned with silver-headed pins to a band of black gauze that curved softly under her chin and left her white neck bare, swan-smooth against her outer gown’s wide collar of thick sable fur.

It was the finest display of wealth and young loveliness Joliffe had ever seen, let alone been close to—close enough that the drift of her flowered scent reached him as she asked, all this afternoon’s sharpness gone from her voice, “You are ready to read to us, master secretary?”

“I am, my lady, if you please.”

“We please, do we not?” she asked, smiling, of the two young men beside her.

Like everyone else there, they were in mourning-black, their fur-trimmed surcoats open-fronted to show well-cut doublets and close-fitted hosen, but it was the men themselves Joliffe most noted. Both were comely beyond the ordinary. The man favored to be nearest Lady Jacquetta had deeply red hair and a long and oval face, made handsome by its strong bones and sharp eagerness. The other man was—Joliffe forced himself away from staring at him—perhaps the most beautifully-faced man he had ever seen, golden-haired and with a confidently easy air as he joined the other in assuring Lady Jacquetta they were as pleased to be read to as she was. Surely knowing they would have assured her of anything she asked, she laughed at them and said to one of her women, “That book, then. The one I chose.” She gestured for Joliffe to rise. “Master Ripon, choose where you wish to stand.”

Joliffe chose to stand where the candlelight fell well. He understood how William Strugge might have been a poor reader when brought to stand to it with a roomful of eyes on him, but Joliffe was used to doing words in front of people, usually straight from his memory and with the added tangle of pretending to be someone else while he did it. Simply to stand and read words from a book was nothing to unnerve him, even as “John Ripon” because he saw no reason why John Ripon should not be a good aloud-reader. Especially if Master Wydeville wished him to be.

More than that, when the lady-in-waiting gave the book to him and he saw what it was, he doubted he could have resisted the urge to read well.
Reynard the Fox
was too great fun to spoil.

There were many tales of Master Reynard the Fox, made over no-one-knew how many years by no-one-knew how many tellers. The fox was a cheat, a liar, a villain, and a murderer, yet was always able to convince King Lion of his good-hearted innocence and end with himself free and his victims both unsatisfied and often laughed at, if not actually dead. Mostly the stories were passed aloud, teller to teller, changing as they went, but now and again some were gathered together and written down, although Joliffe had never seen them in so fine a book as this one, with its straightly ruled lines of very black ink on pale parchment, a gilded letter at the first tale’s beginning, and an array of bright-garbed animals doing various things along the bottom of the page among curved and gilded foliage.

Rather than give those the close look he would have liked, he looked to Lady Jacquetta and asked, “Which tale will you have, my lady?”

“We have not heard any for a time. Begin at the beginning.”

Talk fell away through the chamber. As everyone turned his way, he tried to stand as if at least a little abashed at being the center of that much attention, but when he began to read and found the first tale was the one where various animals came to King Lion to complain against Reynard for tricks and wrongs he had done them, he let the story take him. His voice changed from animal to animal—from King Lion’s deep and rolling tones to Isegrim the Wolf’s growling malice, to Bruyn the Bear’s slow grumbling, to Tybert the Cat’s meowling, and finally Reynard’s own quick, sharp charm.

Holding the book limited Joliffe’s gestures but he stood straight with head proudly raised when it was King Lion’s words he was reading; moved as if wanting restlessly to pace when he was being Isegrim; hunched his shoulders and lowered his head as Bruyn; twitched his hips as if swinging Tybert’s tail; shifted restlessly from foot to foot when Reynard was thinking hard about how to escape the consequences of his mischief. Laughter rewarded him, and when he ended the tale and looked toward Lady Jacquetta to see if she wanted another, she clapped her hands together twice and exclaimed, forgetting her English in her delight,
“Bon! Bon! Merci, maître!”

That was chorused through the room. Joliffe bowed to her, and she gestured for her lady that had brought him the book to take it back from him. Talk was starting up again around the room, and as the lady took the book, the red-haired gallant said something that drew Lady Jacquetta’s heed. Joliffe moved to take himself quietly away, able to tell that they were done with him for the evening, but two of Lady Jacquetta’s ladies came into his way, smiling. One of them, holding out a goblet of pale wine, said in French, “You are thirsty after that?”

He made a bow to them both, smiling back at them. “I am,” he granted and took the offered goblet. He was used enough to drawing women’s eyes—and sometimes more—to him, but had not expected such particular notice here. So far, either in Strugge’s company or this afternoon and evening, he had allowed himself no more than passing looks at Lady Jacquetta’s ladies, knowing how far above him such high-blooded girls and women were. There were seven of them, all near their lady’s own young years and all of them variously lovely in the ways that youth and wealth-bred care made possible. These two in front of him looked to be the youngest, and now a third joined them, a little older and probably there to urge the others away, Joliffe thought. But she joined in talking with him, still in French, until he stumbled badly over a word and one of the younger girls laughed. Joliffe smiled, acknowledging his foolishness, but the third girl chided, “Guillemete, that is unkind.”

Guillemete shrugged prettily, prettily pouted, said, “Pooh,” then immediately smiled again and said in English, “We shall speak English, and he will laugh at
me
.” She leaned a little toward Joliffe and said as if sharing a secret, “Alizon always wants to be correct.”

It was Alizon’s turn to shrug prettily. “Just as Guillemete never wants to be.”

The third girl laughed at them both. They were all gowned in black of course, but unlike Lady Jacquetta, their long hair flowed loose down their backs in token of their maidenhood. More than that was alike between Guillemete and Alizon, though, and Joliffe said in discovery, “You two are sisters.”

Guillemete merrily admitted they were, while Alizon agreed more mockingly, as if it was wearisome burden. Then they laughed together.

Joliffe was finding the advantages of being a secretary. Lowly though a secretary might be in the general way of things, he was assuredly better placed than a player. As a player, he would have been seen immediately out at his work’s end, a hireling who had done his work and was expected to leave, with a coin put in his hand by some servant on his way into the night. Neither wine nor talk with demoiselles would have been offered.

He thought he could get used to the difference.

Certainly these three were ready with their welcome, happily telling him about themselves—the third was named Marie—until Guillemete said sadly, “All was better here before my lord of Bedford died. Everything has been all black since then. Even Christmas. We’ve had more laughter tonight than in weeks and weeks.” Plucking discontentedly at her skirts, she added glumly, “Now, soon, it will be Lent.”

“Even in Lent we will have Master Ripon to read to us,” Marie pointed out.

“And you all look lovely in black,” Joliffe offered.

Guillemete dimpled at him, but then gave a heart-deep sigh and, “But M’dame will have him read only holy books in Lent.”

“We are all still in mourning,” Alizon pointed out. “It is not even a half year since my lord the duke died. My lady still feels her loss.”

Joliffe took the chance to ask, trying to make it seem more like simple curiosity than unseemly probing, “Was there true affection between the duke and duchess, then? Enough that her mourning is from the heart?”

The girls looked at one another as if each thought the other would have the better answer, before Alizon said, “The marriage was to take her from the duke of Burgundy. That everyone knows. To take her from whatever plan he might make at her. With her.” Alizon gave a small shake of her head, impatient at her search for the right word. “Around her. You see.”

“I see,” Joliffe agreed.

“She seemed content enough with it,” Marie said. “She never wept or complained.”

“My lord of Bedford gave her lovely gifts,” Guillemete sighed. “
I
would have been content. Even if he was so old.” She brightened. “But now she’s a widow and very wealthy. Once the mourning year is done, all will be good again.”

“Guillemete,” her sister said despairingly and added something in French that Joliffe did not follow.

Guillemete rolled her eyes.

Before they could go further that way, Joliffe said, “There’s a young man glowering at us.”

“Glowering? That is what?” Guillemete demanded.

Joliffe shifted his eyes sideways without turning his head. “That is glowering.”

The three demoiselles turned their heads to look at a slight-built, dark-haired youth standing alone near one of the tapestried walls. Marie gave a light laugh. Guillemete made an impatient sound and turned her back deliberately toward him, while Alizon said, “Glowering. Yes. That is Alain. Master Queton.”

Marie waggled fingers at him. Scowling more, he turned away. Alizon said, “He glowers whenever Guillemete talks to a man not him. We wish my lord bishop would take him into his household. Then, like these others, he would not be here so much.”

“These men aren’t of Lady Jacquetta’s household?” Joliffe asked.

“Most of them, no,” Alizon said. “My lord her uncle likes such of his young men who are not to be priests to learn their manners in the company of ladies as well as in that of churchmen. So they spend some evenings here.”

“Also to spy on Lady Jacquetta,” Guillemete said with a confiding nod. “Some of them. For her uncle.”

“Guillemete,” Alizon sighed. “That is not to be said.”

“But it is truth.”

“Truth is not to be said when it is something we are not supposed to know.”

“But everyone knows it!”

“Guillemete!”

Guillemete rolled her eyes. Marie laughed.

Joliffe ventured, “He was glowering at the men sitting with Lady Jacquetta, too.”

“He would be,” Guillemete said. “When he is not sighing for me, he is sighing for her. He is not faithful.”

“What of those men sitting with Lady Jacquetta? Are they her uncle’s, too?”

“Remon Durevis is,” Alizon answered. “Sir Richard was of my lord of Bedford’s household and is come into hers because his father . . .”