The Servant's Tale

21

THROUGH THE REST of the morning, Frevisse saw to her guesthall duties, leaving her thoughts to work themselves out without her conscious help. The servants were well trained to her ways, but there was never harm in letting her people see that she was paying heed to them. As always there were small matters that needed her word or advice, and with one thing and another, she was kept busy until the bell called her to Nones. She finished agreeing with Eda in the old guesthall over who should see to scrubbing out the water buckets and excused herself to go to the service, a little delayed and so intent on hurrying through the hall without seeing the players that she nearly blundered into two men coming in the guesthall door as she was going out. She did not know them and vaguely supposed them Montfort’s without thinking about it.

Her apologies and theirs mingled and she went on until, halfway across the courtyard she realized why they were there, and spun around to see them coming out again, Joliffe between them now, his arms firmly in their grasp and no gentleness in their hold on him.

Nearly she started back toward them. But the bell was still demanding that she come to prayers. And there was nothing she could do to change what was coming. All she had were unanswered or ill-answered questions, and none of them would do Joliffe any good.

Helpless, her feelings at war against her thoughts, she watched Montfort’s men drag Joliffe up the steps to the new guesthall. He kept his feet, but only barely, having to fight against their hold to do it. She saw them twist his arms, hurting him to keep their hold. Answering anger and fear surged in her. Fiercely, she did not want Joliffe hurt.

And that very fierceness was a warning, set against Domina Edith’s earlier one. She was caring too much about Joliffe, instead of about the truth. She was supposed to find the truth, let the guilt lie where it might. The players should be no concern of hers beyond that.

Finally, fully, she faced it. Domina Edith was right, these people had roused in her a long-dormant love for the endless journeying of her youth. They had brought alive again a part of herself she had loved and never fully left. She wanted them free to go their way, as she was no longer free to go.

But Joliffe had lied to her.

Grimly, she turned away to hurry into the cloister, away from Joliffe and the rest, if not away from her thoughts.

Crowded with the other nuns in the warming room, her head bent in what was supposed to be prayer, she stared down at her thick black gown, and felt her wimple’s tightness along her temples and under her chin. In the years she had worn them, they had become too familiar to be noticed; they were a part of herself. But now she felt their constriction and their meaning. Knew what they gave her. And what they denied her.

No, she said in her mind. No, this is where I belong, and this is what I should be doing. Here. Now is when I’m living, not in some memory of my childhood.

Forcing out of her mind her remembrance of Joliffe dragged between Montfort’s men, she gave herself to the service beginning around her, losing herself in the chanted repetition of the psalms, soaking in the words with her mind and soul, listening with a novice’s fervor for answers that had to be there.

And found a part of them in the New Testament lesson: “‘Wherefore…give diligence to make your calling and election sure; for if you do these things, you shall never fall.’”

And she had been near to falling. Not from her vows, surely, but from her devotion to her life. From her obedience and her acceptance.

But there, with the thought in clear words, she knew that danger was past. Feelings came and went, but her surety of why she was here was in her mind and in her heart deeper than feelings or a day’s passing inclination.

At the office’s end, she felt as cleansed and clear as if she was come from Easter Mass and communion, her thoughts no longer warring against her inclinations, but set and settled on what she had to do.

Dinner came after Nones. Frevisse said grace with the others in the refectory, sat in her place on the bench, and determined to heed the day’s reading rather than her own thoughts for a while. They were still hearing the history of the English people as written by St. Bede and still read poorly by Sister Thomasine.

“‘In Northumbria, there was a head of a family,’” Thomasine intoned, “‘who led a devout life, with all his household. He fell ill, his condition steadily deteriorating until the crisis came, and he died in the early hours of the night. But at daybreak he returned to life and sat up, to the consternation of those weeping about his body.’”

As was to be expected, thought Frevisse, dipping her bread in her mutton stew to soften and flavor it. We would be shocked and frightened if Sister Fiacre sat up and spoke to us. It would be hours before we’d have our wits about us enough to rejoice at the miracle.

Thomasine droned on. The Northumbrian divided his property into three parts and gave a third to his wife, a third to his sons, and a third to the poor before going off to become a monk.

What would a resurrected Fiacre do, being already a nun? Frevisse wondered.

Visitors came to the man, to hear stories of his experience in the world beyond the grave, and he told of seeing damned souls leaping from flame to bitter frost and back again in a fruitless search for comfort, and of a wonderful, fragrant countryside for the saved. “‘“I was most reluctant to return to my body, for I was entranced by the pleasantness and beauty of the place.”’” Sister Thomasine read, Bede quoting the man. “‘“But I did not dare to question my guide, and I suddenly found myself alive among men once more.”’”

Sister Fiacre, too, might be unhappy at her return, weeping and wringing her hands to find herself among ordinary people again.

The man was described as living in great severity in his monastery, breaking ice to plunge himself into a wintertime river, standing up to his neck in the flowing water, reciting psalms, until he could no longer bear it and must climb out, but refusing to change his wet clothes, saying to those who questioned him that he had seen it worse in another place.

Here Sister Thomasine stopped, not to savor the grim joke, but to say, “Tu autem, Domine, miserere nobis,” meaning that she had finished the reading.

Frevisse responded with the rest of the nuns, “Deo gracias,” but dinner was not quite over. The meal continued in silence, and without a voice to listen to, Frevisse’s thoughts went on their own way. Had that man truly been right and good in what he did? She had seen it happen-a person resolutely using punishment and privation to drive out the ability to enjoy life’s good things. Though didn’t that also make it impossible to enjoy the pleasures of the fragrant meadow promised to the saved? Having set their heart on earth to miseries, might not such people be happier in the rigors of Hell?

Frevisse caught the thought and suppressed its strangeness sternly. There was no doubt that strict disciplines could lead to sainthood, all authority agreed on that.

Unable to meditate on the reading to any purpose, she found her mind wandering to the murders. Was Domina Edith right? Could there be two murderers about, one with a knife and the other with a club?

And wandering past the murders to what Montfort was doing to Joliffe now.

Harshly, she jerked away from that thought. She had to find an answer-answers-to these murders and soon.

The need for immediate answers tightened in her. She laid her bread down, unable to swallow.

One of the murderers must be Gilbey Dunn. He hated Sym, who stood between him and his gain. Would Annie Lauder lie to save him if he promised to pay her leyrwite? And where was Father Henry, he with the answers to questions she needed to ask? He had been gone all morning. Out rabbiting again, she thought bitterly, while I’m trapped here. Almost always St. Frideswide’s walls were shelter and boundary to her, not limitations, but now she had a wild longing to leap clear of them, to follow where her questioning wanted to go, to the village, to Lord Warenne’s, to anywhere rather than going on circling here helplessly, blocked by the Rule.

Her fingers stopped squashing her bread into a formless wad. Rabbiting. With his hound.

Her excitement nearly brought her to her feet. Only barely she contained herself the little while left until the meal was done. With choked eagerness, she recited the grace with the others, rose with them, and moved quietly away from the table and out of the refectory into the cloister walk. But there, as the nuns separated to their afternoon duties, she swung sharply around and caught Dame Alys before she could disappear back to the kitchen.

With quick signs Frevisse asked her to come along to the slipe, the narrow passage that ran out into the orchard. Short conversations that could not wait for other times or better places were allowed there, and as soon as they were in its shelter Frevisse said, “About Domina Edith’s rabbit pie…”

“I’ve done the crust for it myself and if some fool hasn’t spoiled the meat with too much salt while I’ve been gone…”

Knowing better than to let Dame Alys warm to that theme, Frevisse cut across her. “It was yesterday Father Henry brought you the rabbit?” Dame Alys made a curt, surprised nod. “When yesterday?”

“Just before supper. Came skulking in all guilty, like a schoolboy caught out when he should have been at lessons, and I had to be the one that told him Sister Fiacre was dead. He was so upset he nearly forgot to hand over the rabbit, would have walked right out of the kitchen with it in his fist if I hadn’t snatched it. A holy man, maybe, but a great gawp in the bargain, I’ve often said…”

“You said he goes rabbiting with a hound?”

“A little spotted dog, called a hound only because that’s what it’s most nearly like. He keeps it in the miller’s house in the village, for Domina wouldn’t let him keep so raggedy a creature here-”

“Thank you!” Frevisse said and left Dame Alys standing with mouth open, surprised all over again at her rudeness.

On her way to the new guesthall, she stopped a servant in the yard and asked him to find Father Henry for her. “I need to see him as soon as may be. I’ll be with the crowner awhile, but after that he’ll have to look for me. Tell him I need to see him very soon.”

The man nodded and ran off, and she went on. It might have been better to wait until she had actually talked with Father Henry, but she wanted to know how far Montfort had gone in questioning Joliffe, and learn, if she could, what he had found out that she had been unable to.

He was in his chamber, the new guesthall’s best room, standing close to the fire and looking pleased with himself. His clerk sat at a table across the room, hunched over a parchment he was reading instead of scribbling on.

Montfort glanced toward her and almost smiled. “I told you I’d solve this, and promptly.”

“Has someone confessed, then? The player?”

“Ha! Not him. Not that it matters. Just one or two more people I want to talk to and all will be done and I can return to Lord Lovel’s.”

“Who is it you need to speak with?”

“Not you, Dame. Though you might see to stirring up your servants. I’ve been kept waiting.”

“Is it one of our servants you want to see?”

“Hardly. It’s that fellow from the village. The one who quarreled with the dead boy.”

“Gilbey Dunn?”

“Yes, that’s the villein. They’re telling me no one can find him. They say he’s not been seen since yesterday and that’s nonsense. He’s a villein, not some noble gone to his other manor halfway across the country.”

Frevisse felt a stir of hope. Gilbey Dunn had taken himself off somewhere and no one knew where?

Montfort, backing a little nearer to the fire, said, “There’s some who would have me believe he’s the guilty one, that he ran off to escape justice. But I’ve got my murderer safe in hand, and all I need to do is settle matters about this Gilbey person, so I can leave. Lord Lovel expects me for Twelfth Night.”

Frevisse made impressed sounds at this second dropping of the Lovel name, and asked as if in total ignorance, “Which one of them have you in hand?”

“The fair-haired player. Joliffe, he’s called. He had reasons against both the dead man and your nun and was seen both places, village and church, near when the killings happened.”

As if truly seeking clarification, and not in argument, Frevisse said, “But I was told he was with a woman in the village at the time Sym was murdered. Tibby, her name is.”

Montfort waved dismissively. “Ah, yes, Tibby. She’d lie in God’s face for the sake of the player’s pretty face, I’ve no doubt, so her word is no use at all.”

Frevisse wanted information and forebore to argue with him, asking instead, “He was seen going into the church? By whom?”

“The dead boy’s mother. That stringy bit of a woman-” Montfort waved his hand vaguely, unable to remember her name. “So scared of talking to me, I thought she’d puddle in front of my eyes, but she spoke her piece. Came, in fact, of her own will to tell me. That was enough to settle it.”

“I heard him say he wasn’t in the priory the afternoon Sister Fiacre died,” Frevisse dared to point out.

“He’s said the same to me, but he’s a liar, all players are. That’s their trade. He was seen going toward the church, and probably hid in there, waiting his chance. When he saw her there alone, he took it.”

“Why?”

“For vengeance on her brother!” Master Montfort let his impatience show.

“And his reason for following Sym home and killing him?”

“They’d been in a fight, and by all accounts Sym was a bad-tempered brute. The player was afraid Sym would come after him later, bringing half the village louts with him. Look what happened, in fact-they did come seeking him. They knew him for what he was. The matter is clear and simple. They’re a debased lot, these lordless player folk, worse than the worst of the villeins. Facts are facts and I think we’ve found our murderer.”

“So except that you’re missing Gilbey Dunn, the matter is settled?”

Montfort frowned. “Except that,” he agreed shortly. He glared at her, suddenly suspicious. “Did you have some purpose in coming here to see me, Dame?”

“To ask if everything is satisfactory to your comfort here”-which was true, it was one of her tasks as hosteler-“and to ask if it would be possible for Joliffe to perform this evening with his company. They’re to do a play in the old guesthall.”

“A play? Here?” Montfort was surprised.

“We do our poor best to honor the season,” murmured Frevisse, surprised by his interest.

“Well, I never expected such a thing in a place such as this!” Montfort’s enthusiasm lightened his face. He rubbed his hands with satisfaction. “A play, you say? Which one?”

“I don’t know its name, but it’s about the Magi, the Three Kings.”

“And, of course, you need three men for that. Well, there’s guards enough, I suppose. We could bar the gates to the courtyard, he could be escorted there, and then all the ways out guarded. It should be possible.” His expression sank back to its usual displeasure. “Let’s hope these players are better than they look to be. I know a good play when I see one.”

Frevisse was nonplussed at this unexpected aspect of the crowner. Before she could collect her thoughts for a reply, a modest tapping came at the door.

“Yes?” Montfort barked. Father Henry came in.

Before he completed his bow to Master Montfort, she was standing in front of him. “Where have you been? I’ve needed to see you!”

Her suddenness took both the priest and Montfort unprepared. Father Henry looked uncertainly toward Montfort, whose face was reddening, but Frevisse pressed on before he could interrupt, “Were you out rabbiting yesterday? After you’d been to the village, did you go out rabbiting?”

Father Henry flushed his hearty pink of embarrassment and fumbled, “Yes. A little while. I wasn’t gone long.”

“Did you see anyone while you were out? Did anyone see you? Or your dog? Where is your dog? What does he look like?”

Father Henry gaped, mentally stumbling over so many questions, then caught up the last one and said, “He’s not very tall.” The priest dropped the flat of his palm a little below knee level. “Rough coated, white with tan spots. Not a blood dog,” he hastened to assure Montfort. “Naught like that. Just a mixed breed, with enough hound in him that he’ll course small game. Hal the miller keeps him for me and since I was already out there yesterday…”

“And a fine rabbit you brought home for Domina Edith’s New Year’s treat and no harm done,” Frevisse said encouragingly. “But did you see anyone while you were out? Anyone in the fields?”

“Oh, aye. One of the player folk. The fair-haired one. I didn’t hail him. I don’t have much time for players, and this one, well, he’s a bit…more like a girl than a man.” Father Henry shrugged his own manly shoulders and flushed a little more. “And maybe a bit soft?” He tapped his forehead. “Walking alone, he was, talking to himself, gesturing like a friar preaching a sermon, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying.”

“But he didn’t see you?” Montfort was interested despite himself.

The priest’s blush deepened. “I was lying low in a thicket just then, not wanting to be seen. He saw Trey, though. My dog. Is that what this is about? My hunting? Is Domina Edith unhappy with me?”

“You are in no trouble,” Frevisse assured him. “When was it you saw him, and where?”

“Over by Long Hill, near the ford at the end of the meadow.”

“How far from here is that, walking time?”

He thought on it hard before answering, “A full half hour at the fastest walk if you come through the village. Longer if you come around.”

Joliffe, who was seeking solitude, did not come through the village or someone would have seen him.

“And how long before Vespers was that?”

Father Henry rolled his eyes to the ceiling, considering. “An hour maybe? By the sun it was maybe an hour.”

“And you’re sure it was that particular player?” Montfort demanded.

Father Henry nodded solidly, pleased to be sure of something. “There’s no doubting him. The one who dresses like a woman in his acting.”

Frevisse turned to Montfort. “But Meg said she saw Joliffe going toward the church three-quarters of an hour before Vespers, by the sun. Even if Joliffe came through the village he couldn’t have reached here by then.”

“So she was mistaken. He did the murder before he went out wandering the fields,” Montfort said. “Yes, and that’s why he went out alone. To say prayers, to think on penitence, to-”

“She was not mistaken in her time of seeing him, she showed me with her fingers how low the sun was. And it isn’t possible Sister Fiacre was murdered earlier. She would have been discovered-by Meg herself, if not one of us.”

“So the woman was mistaken? Whom did she see instead?”

“I don’t think there’s anyone else here at the priory who looks very much like that fellow,” offered Father Henry.

“By any reckoning, Joliffe is cleared of Sister Fiacre’s death.” Frevisse pressed her point.

Montfort, frowning at the floor, said sullenly, “Seemingly. But that doesn’t mean he and his fellows are not guilty of some lawbreaking. They are not ill-thought-of for nothing, you know.”

Frevisse let that pass and said instead, “Meanwhile there’s still Gilbey Dunn to consider.”

“Ah, him. The trouble is, what reason would he be having for killing a nun?”

Nearly Frevisse brought out Domina Edith’s thought that maybe there were two murderers, or a single madman, but Montfort suddenly smacked his hands together with great satisfaction. “Unless of course there was something between this Gilbey Dunn and Sister Fiacre that we don’t know of yet!”

Father Henry’s blankly astonished face was doubtless the mirror of Frevisse’s own at the wholly improbable thought of Sister Fiacre and Gilbey Dunn finding common ground.

But Montfort, too pleased with his idea to bother noticing their reactions, went on, “Yes! There’s the path I have to take! That’s the man I need to talk to!” He almost smiled at Frevisse. “Doubtless you’re right, Gilbey Dunn is guilty of doing away with an obstacle to his gain, to wit, Sym. And now, it appears, he’s taken his murderous ways into this holy place.” His pleasure turned sour. “But this is no business of yours. You stay out of my way, or I shall complain of you to your mistress.”

This encouraged Frevisse not to mention Annie Lauder’s story of Gilbey’s whereabouts that night. She bowed her head humbly and eased toward the door. “As you will. But at least there’ll be no need to guard the player tonight. He can be set free now, can’t he?”

Despite her seeming humility, Montfort read something that made him send a glare that should have blistered her. But then he shook it off and over his shoulder he snapped at his clerk, “See to his release. Now if you’ll be good enough, Father, to take this interfering woman away so I may get on with my work?”

With Father Henry panting behind her she hurried from the chamber and out of the guesthall. In the yard she paused, meaning to thank the priest for his timely appearance.

But he was still full of their recent experience. Grinning with embarrassment and hilarity, he said, “Sister Fiacre and Gilbey Dunn? How can he think that?”

Frevisse shook her head. “I don’t know how he thinks anything.”

“And if it wasn’t the player Meg saw going to the church, who was it?”

Frevisse thought, pressing her fingers to her eyelids. In the cold of the courtyard, her head had begun to ache. “One of the other players in a wig perhaps? But why? Unless a conspiracy-no, then Joliffe would surely have made a point of being seen wandering so far from the church at the time.”

“The only other person as fair as Joliffe is Hewe.”

“But Hewe’s a child, nowhere near as tall as Joliffe. Unless-”

“Unless what?”

“Meg saw Hewe, perhaps. And knew that if she saw him, another might. Better to say she saw a tall, fair-haired man like Joliffe going to the church than say she saw her son. So that another witness, saying he saw Hewe, or at least a fair-haired boy, could be contradicted by Meg. Because a mother should know her own son, and saying it was a man she saw might confuse things enough to protect her son.”

Father Henry looked confused already.

She would talk to Hewe. Had he in fact gone into the church?

Father Henry said, “Meg was angry with Joliffe, for hurting Sym in the alehouse.”

“Yes, you’re right.” That, too, may have entered into this lying business. A great many facts perhaps did or did not enter into this business. Too many. She wanted the truth. “Did you talk to Gilbey Dunn and learn what he was doing when Sym was killed?”

Looking, as always, a little surprised at any sudden change of conversational direction, Father Henry shook his head. “I couldn’t find him at his croft this morning, nor anywhere. He’s not been seen around the village since yesterday early.”

So it was true, Gilbey Dunn had disappeared. Unease stirred in Frevisse’s mind, but Father Henry went on, “But about that night, some of the men say he was at the alehouse for a while but went out sometime, they couldn’t say when. I know he wasn’t there when I came in but that’s all anyone knows. And I couldn’t find him to ask. Should I tell Master Montfort all of that?”

“If he sends for you. If you go to him from me, he may say I am interfering again.” She walked away and did not see the appreciative grin Father Henry aimed at her back.

Her turn to keep watch by Sister Fiacre’s body with Sister Emma came soon after that. She was not sorry for an excuse to stay away from the guesthalls and everyone else for the rest of the afternoon, and made a fairly competent job of losing herself in praying for Sister Fiacre’s soul and that of her murderer, who was surely in greater need of prayers than his victim.

She was somewhat quieter in her mind when time came for Vespers and she was released.

She asked and was given permission to leave supper early, to go be sure that all was ready for the play before Domina Edith and the others came. The day’s early dark was gathering in as she crossed the yard, and the cold deepening with it. Frevisse hurried past two menservants struggling to carry Domina Edith’s second-best chair toward the guesthall. She must see to a chair for Montfort’s comfort, too. It would be better to keep him as unoffended as possible just now.

Inside the guesthall everything was ready. A few of the priory’s servants had slipped away early from their tasks and were standing along one wall, eyeing the players’ curtains and talking cheerfully among themselves. They fell silent when she came in but she merely nodded to them and surveyed the hall, ignoring them, and they went back to their talking. The lanterns were waiting to be lighted on either side of the playing area. In the shadowy hall all sign of the players’ belongings were gone except for their curtained poles. The players themselves were nowhere to be seen, but sounds of them came from behind the curtain and, satisfied that everything was ready, Frevisse turned to direct the men where to set Domina Edith’s chair, sent them to the new guesthall to fetch one for the crowner, told another servant to light the candles, and decided to go herself to tell Montfort in courtesy that Domina Edith would be coming soon.

He received the message with satisfaction. “Good. Good. A fit diversion for the holidays and certainly not expected here. I’ll come directly.”

The nuns were just coming out the cloister door as she returned to the yard. Domina Edith, deeply wrapped in furred cloaks and supported on either side by Sister Lucy and Dame Claire, walked at their head, her slow pace setting their own. As inconspicuously as possible, Frevisse slipped into her place in the double line and entered with the rest.

The priory servants were all gathered there now, drawn back along the walls to leave the nearest places for the nuns. While Sister Lucy and Dame Claire settled Domina Edith into her chair at the edge of the playing area, Frevisse had time to notice Roger Naylor standing to one side. Beside him was a small, dark-haired woman. Her hands and his were resting on the shoulders of two small girls and a slightly older sturdy young boy standing in front of them. His family, Frevisse thought, and realized that while she had seen the children around the priory, she had never connected them with Naylor before.

Then Montfort and his men arrived, the crowner striding forward to make a perfunctory bow to Domina Edith and take his place in his chair to her right. While his men faded to one side, apart from the priory people, he leaned over to make some sort of comment to Domina Edith, who nodded and murmured something back before they both straightened in their chairs and were still.

The pause then was disturbed only by a few whispers from along the walls and the rustle of reeds under shifting feet, before a small flute began to play behind the curtain, so softly it was at first barely heard. But the listeners gradually hushed, and its music strengthened into a soft weave of melody sweet and clear in the hall’s quiet. Except for the music’s movement everything was still and waiting in the candles’ gold light until from behind the curtain a silver-shining star rose with slow majesty into view, held in Piers’s small hand, followed by Piers himself. But he was no longer Piers. In place of the small, grinning boy was a serene, winged, shining Angel who gazed out at the gathered folk, the star lifted above him with one hand, his other hand-Frevisse suspected-holding to the cross pole of the stage for his balance atop the stacked packing baskets that had let him mount to Heaven. But the practicalities left her as Piers began to sing, “Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus…” his voice so clear and piercingly sweet it might indeed have been coming from somewhere above the world.

The hall was utterly hushed now, everyone rapt beyond movement, held by the angelic vision. For just the length of a short-drawn breath when the song had ended, the Angel gazed out upon his audience in the shimmering silence, and then said in a clear, carrying voice, “Wise Magi, know that He is born. God is made Man on this holy morn. He wills that at Bethlehem you go see the holy Child that sets Man free. Come this way, go see Him now. It is God’s will you should to Him bow.”

Around one end of the curtain Thomas Bassett appeared in his guise as the First King, looking as splendid as if his gown were truly blue silk embroidered in every color and lined with ermine instead of painted linen lined with rabbit, and the gems in his painted crown were not glass. He carried a golden box in his hands, and in his rich, rolling voice declared to the audience, “Now blessed be God of His sweet Son! For yonder a fair, bright star I see. Now is He come to us among, as the prophet said that it should be. He said there should a Babe be born to save mankind that was forlorn. He grant me grace, by yonder star, that I may come unto that place, to worship before His holy face.”

He struck a pose as if searching for something in the far distance, and Ellis strode from around the curtain, gowned in somber gray, black, and silver, bearing a box painted blood red and penitential purple. He looked around, unhappy and nervous, and declared, “Out of my way I fear I am, for signs of my country can I none see. Now, God, that on earth made Man, send me some knowledge of where I be!” He turned and saw the star still held aloft in Piers’s steady hand and exclaimed happily, “There it shines! A fair, bright star above I see, sure sign God’s Son shall set Man free. To worship that Child is my intent. Surely for such was God’s sign sent.” Turning to go, he saw the First King and added, “What is this I see this blessed day? Another King upon his way. Hark, comely King! I you pray, whither do you journey this fair day?”

“To seek a Child is my intent. The time is come, now is He sent, by yonder star here may you see.”

“Then, pray you, let us ride together through this fair and frosty weather.”

As Ellis went to stand by Bassett, Joliffe as the Third King came from behind the curtain. He wore a short cotehardie of a rich purple that showed off his fair coloring to perfection, and hose of deep green close fitted to his long legs. He carried a purse that clinked suggestively and his head seemed to carry the crown on it as naturally as if he had been born to it. His voice, higher and clearer than either Bassett’s or Ellis’s, seemed as golden as the candlelight. “I ride wandering in ways wide. Now, King of all Kings, send me such guide that I may go where I would be, to kneel at Your throne and Your glory see.”

In his turn he saw the star, exclaimed at it and, turning to go, saw the other Kings and joined them. In unison, to the audience, they then said, “To almighty God now pray we that His precious person we may see.”

They separated, Bassett and Ellis to one side, Joliffe to the other, and faced around toward the curtains that parted on cue, drawn by a hidden cord-not by Piers; he and his star still shone over all.

And not Rose, for there, on a chest covered with a richly brocaded cloth of gold and silver-or painted canvas, more likely-she sat, the swaddled form of a baby in her arms.

Such was the magic of that moment, that it was not an acrobat in a cheap blue gown holding a pillow tightly wrapped, but the Virgin herself, and her Babe. Her long hair spread around her shoulders, haloed by candles set behind her and the infant cradled lovingly to her breast, Rose was a very worshipful icon.

An enthralled sigh passed through the watchers. The three Kings knelt and in effective speeches offered their gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold. Mary held out her hand to them in acceptance and each came forward to gaze at the Child. While they held the tableau, the Angel sang the Gloria again. Then the curtains swung down across the scene, and Angel and star slipped down from view and it was over.

For a breath-held moment there was no movement or sound in the hall. Then Montfort said firmly, “Well done. Well done.” Domina Edith began a clapping that was immediately joined by every pair of hands in the room. Voices added complimentary remarks as the applause died, a small child began to cry, and the three Kings and the Angel appeared from behind the curtains to take their bows, setting the applause off again.

With a fine sense of what was suitable, Mary did not appear, partly to allow the vision of her to remain untouched, and partly because, as a woman, she ought not to have been in the play to start with.

When everything had sorted itself out to a kind of order and the actors had disappeared again behind their curtains, Domina Edith rose to her feet. The priory servants and Montfort’s men eased back to the walls again as the prioress began her slow way toward the door and her nuns moved into place behind her. Frevisse, glancing around the hall, saw Roger Naylor with one of his daughters in his arms, both of them smiling at each other. Annie Lauder stood with a clot of women all exclaiming over the wonderfulness of what they had just seen. Meg’s Hewe stuck his head out around the edge of the players’ curtains, and ducked back as soon as he saw himself observed. He was grinning like a boy who has just gotten away with a whole tray of sweets.

Beside her Dame Alys was muttering about the warm spiced cider waiting for them by Domina Edith’s orders when they had finished Compline. “There’ll be none left for Shrovetide, mark my words, and then you’ll hear complaining.”

Frevisse forbore to point out that since she was hearing complaints anyway, she might as well have the spiced cider to go with them, and shut out Dame Alys’s voice, wanting to keep some of the gladness the play had made in her. Players were good, they gave harmless pleasure and even holy inspiration with mere words and posings. She would not believe they were damned for their trumpery, even if every bishop in England declared it to be so.