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.
22
DAWN CAME LATE and reluctantly, graying the walls. A cluster of bells near the dormitory door was jangled by a servant, the wake-up call to Prime. The air was damply chill and immediately sank through flesh into bone the moment the covers were thrown back. The nuns dressed in shivering, snuffling, coughing haste, and huddled themselves into a brief double line that hurried to the warming room where no fire had yet been built and so was even colder than the dormitory. Their shivering did not ease until they were in the refectory, which, being next door to the kitchen, was warm and fragrant from the ovens’ discharge of fresh-baked bread, though that treat would not come until dinner. Frevisse wrapped both hands around this morning’s sole nourishment, a hot, sweet, sharp-flavored drink made of honey and rose hips, that soothed both face and inside with drinking it.
Afterwards, she crowded with the rest near to the new-built fire in the warming room until chapter, and eased her stool back toward the heat after it began. She did not in the least object, even mentally, to the meeting’s length today, because she was storing up heat. She likely would not have another chance to get near a fire until long after midday when she must spend three frozen hours in the church keeping watch by Sister Fiacre’s coffin.
Chapter over, going out was inevitable, and Frevisse decided she would do the more pleasurable of her duties first and crossed the yard to the old guesthall. Inside, all of last night’s trappings were gone, packed away into the chests and baskets set against the wall. The players were again in their plain clothes, gathered near to the fire, with Piers lying on a stack of blankets beside his mother, his head in her lap, and Ellis sitting nearby, stabbing his dagger into a hapless log, jerking it out, and stabbing it in again, while Bassett and Joliffe were in close talk with Hewe. She wanted to speak to him presently. From Bassett’s gesturing, Frevisse thought he was telling the boy a story; and thought, too, it would be a long time after the players were gone before their glamour would fade for the boy.
Joliffe saw her first, raised a hand in greeting, and started to speak, but Ellis jumped to his feet and demanded, “Any word from the crowner? We thought he’d let us out of here today and all the word we’ve had is that he’s not done with us, we have to stay.”
Frevisse shook her head. “He’s still asking questions.”
“It’s not right.” Ellis flung back onto the floor and assaulted the log again.
Hewe, with a stubborn set to his face, did not try to fade into the background, though neither did he look toward Frevisse, but continued talking softly with Bassett.
Piers raised a languid hand to scratch his nose and Frevisse said to him, “You sang very beautifully last night. You’re not ill again, I hope?”
Piers shook his head as his mother lifted an edge of a blanket to tuck it across his knees. “No. I’m well. Only she”-he rolled his eyes toward his mother-“says it’s too cold to risk me going outdoors to play.” His disgust was plain.
“We’ve not cosseted you all these days so you can go and sicken again,” Rose said. “The cold is bitter today. We can only hope there’ll be snow to soften it.”
“Oh, yes. Snow so we can’t go anywhere even if that visiting idiot gives us leave,” Ellis grumbled.
Meanwhile, Hewe was heard to exclaim suddenly, “But I could do that part! I could be Herod! I’d tear a passion like you’ve never seen before. Let me show you!”
He sprang to his feet and began to assume a pose of amazing ferocity. But Bassett laughed and took him by one lifted arm to say, friendly-wise, “No you don’t, cockerel. Herod’s part is for a full-grown man, such as me, when our company has grown enough to do it. You’re still an unfleshed stripling.”
“He could be a servant to my Wise Man,” Joliffe said. “We’ve got a gown that might fit him, if the hem were raised.” Hewe turned to him, bright with eagerness. With a stir of unease Frevisse saw that Bassett and Joliffe weren’t altogether teasing. And Hewe was not jesting at all.
“I think,” she said carefully, “you may be forgetting he’s Lord Lovel’s villein and not free to take to the high road, with or without you. Let alone what his mother would say to the matter.”
Hewe swung around to her, his face darkening again with stubbornness. “Lord Lovel has villeins in plenty,” he declared. “His steward won’t miss me, he won’t even look for me. And Mam will marry old Gilbey, so she’ll be taken care of, too.”
“She means you to be a priest,” Frevisse said, aware that she should take offense at his too-presuming speech. “Have you been going into the priory church lately?”
Hewe kicked sullenly at the rushes. “I stay away from churches so my mother won’t think I’m weakening. She may mean for me to be a priest, but I don’t.” He looked up eagerly at Bassett. “I want to be a player!”
“Hewe,” said Meg from the doorway. “You don’t.”
They all turned toward her standing there, her bare hands tucked up into her armpits, her shoulders hunched down to conserve her meager body’s warmth. She had no cloak or hood, only her rough dress and her kitchen-spotted apron. Her face was raw red with cold and her voice hoarse, but her gaze was rigid on her son as she said, “I told you and told you to stay with your brother. There’s villagers coming to take him home soon; for shame if they find him all alone.”
“But the crowner-” began Hewe.
“The crowner’s given leave for us to take him home. There’s to be the wake today and you are to stay with him until they come, so you can tell me they are here.”