Nor did I understand the ending of it, at least not then. The woman extended her arms, keeping them close together, and showed her open hands to him. He stepped forward and took them in his own and looked down at the palms. So they stood there together for a brief time and then he released her hands and turned away and came towards us, but uncertainly, like one who has looked too long into the light and does not fully see his way.
He spoke no word to me either then or on the way back to the inn. I cast some glances at his face but it was empty of expression. The others, except for Stephen, were already back in the inn-yard. It was half-dark now and there was a low moon in a bank of cloud. We had to talk of what we had discovered and plan changes to our play and the time for this was short. Martin surprised us by speaking first and breaking the order.
'She is innocent,' he said. 'At that distance, in that light... he could not have seen her face.' On his own face was a light, a radiance of intention, like that it had worn when he spoke for Brendan, who had been wordless too. 'She was hooded against the weather,' he said. He made a swift gesture of drawing a hood close round the face, but he did it in such a way that it did not seem to be against the bite of cold but more in fear of blindness, as at some beauty or dazzlement too strong for eyes, and I remembered the gesture the beggar had made and I knew that Martin was stricken with love for this girl, her face and form were still before him. 'She says she was never near the road,' he said.
'Says?' I looked at him a moment, then round at the others. 'The girl can neither hear nor speak,' I said. 'We went to the prison to see her. Her father says no money was found there. He was not there that night, he was away from home and there are witnesses to prove it.' I told them of my visit to the Weaver, what he had said, what manner of man he was. 'He says it was for him they came, not knowing he was from home. He preaches the Last Days and has a following among the people.'
'When the Monk held the purse up, it was too late to change the plan.' Straw mimed the dismay of the Benedictine, flinging his arms wide, spreading his hands. 'Oh cruel Fortune,' he said. 'To wait long for opportunity, then find it just at the time the Weaver was not there.'
Springer laughed at the mime and after a moment Straw laughed too, but he glanced uneasily about him. 'But how did the opportunity come?' he said.
Step by step we were moving towards evil and all of us knew it. Aided and encouraged each by the others, in that barn of twisting shapes and shadows of masks and hanging costumes and weapons that would not wound, to the sound of bells from the church above us and clatter from the yard outside, we were moving towards knowledge of evil.
'So then,' Martin said, 'having found the purse, the Monk would have to give a reason, explain why he went to the house and took a man with him, and so he said he saw her near the road. It is all lies, she was never there.' He looked at us in turn and there was appeal in his look: he was pleading with us to see the girl's innocence. 'She was given light,' he said, as if to himself. 'Perhaps there is someone ...'
'Martin, they will hang her for all that we can do,' Tobias said, and there was pity in his voice, though it was not for the girl.
'The boy had no sign of frost or freezing anywhere about him,' Margaret said. 'I found Flint again and he found me, and glad enough he was. When Flint came upon Thomas Wells he was stiff and cold but he had no touch of frost. The grass was nipped with it but not a touch on the boy. Flint noticed nothing of this at the time, being taken up by finding the body, but he is quite certain in his memory.'
'Good souls,' Tobias said, 'if the money was taken only to be found again, robbery was not the reason for his killing.'
'The Monk and the boy were travelling the same road together at the same time of the day,' Springer said in his high, clear voice. 'It might be that the Monk questioned him. Thomas Wells would speak the truth to a man in authority, he would show the purse, he would be proud of the trust placed in him ...'
'So the Monk saw a way to silence the Weaver,' Straw said. 'That would explain the strangle-marks. It is a way of killing that the Weaver might have used.'
'The girl showed me her hands,' Martin said. 'They are rough with work, rougher than mine.' He opened his hands and looked down into them. 'Her hands are narrow and the bones small,' he said.
None knew how best to answer this because of the daze on his face. And perhaps we were glad to think no further, for the moment at least, about the scene we had created among us: the lonely road, the sense of night not far, the kindly questioning of the Monk, the boy's eagerness to answer ...
Springer and Straw had gone up to the castle together and played and sung at the gates and in the first forecourt. They had talked to women washing clothes and to the soldiers in the guardhouse inside the gates.
'No one cared so much about the boy's death,' Straw said. 'They knew of it, but they have a different life up there. The talk was all of the jousting that begins tomorrow and the dancing there will be on Christmas Day.'
'Sir Richard and his lady will start the dance as soon as ever they come in from Mass,' Springer said. 'All the talk was of that, and of the young lord's pining, that is the only son of the house and is named William. They say he is handsome and a very valiant knight and plays well on the viol.'
'What pining is that?'
'They do not know what it is. Some say he is wasting for love. He has not been seen for some days but keeps to his room. He has not been out to pace his steed for the tilting or see to his arms, and that is strange for one who all say is passionate for these tourneys and noted for his skill in them — and the more strange as this would be a chance to win honour, with knights from many parts attending.'
'Well, the whims of the nobles are of more interest to their scullions than the murder of a child,' Martin said, and for the first time since our return his face lost that daze of love and took on a look of bitterness. 'Yes,' he said, 'so he keeps to his room according to his humour. Compared to this lord's indisposition it counts for nothing that she will be hanged on the word of a lying monk.' He groaned suddenly and his hand went to shield his face. 'She will be hanged,' he said.
At this moment, in the midst of our consternation at his suffering, Stephen entered and cursed when he caught his foot against the door. He was drunk and not quite steady on his feet but his voice was clear enough as he greeted us. He had wandered through the town for a while and then gone into an ale-house not far from the church, not for any particular reason it seemed, but only to drink. This was his way when troubled or frightened. He did not think it manly to confess to such feelings and he had not the resource of Springer or Straw or even Tobias, who could find relief in fooling.
While there he had recognized the grave-digger, he who had made Brendan's grave and also that of Thomas Wells. He had spoken to this man and they had drunk together, largely at Stephen's expense, and become confidential.
'The boy's grave was paid for,' he said now, sitting with his long legs stretched out before him and his back against the wall. 'This grave-digger says that the Lord's steward paid the priest. He says he saw them together. The church door was a little open and they were inside, standing near the font. He saw them talk together, he saw money change hands. Afterwards the priest gave him twopence for the work. He dug the grave but he did not see the boy put into the ground.'
'How was that?' Springer's eyes were as round as an owl's. 'Was it some witchcraft?' he said.
'It was the day before we buried Brendan.' Stephen paused and the light glinted on his dark stubble. 'The day we came to this cursed place,' he said. 'He was brought and buried that same evening. When the grave-digger came next morning to finish the digging of Brendan's grave, the boy's was already covered over. He does not know who did this work, or whether the boy was buried in linen or sacking. No one spoke of it to him and he did not venture to ask, having seen the Lord's steward there.'
'They fear the Lord's displeasure and with good reason,' I said, remembering the two labourers chained in the dungeon. It stru
ck me as very strange and fearful that while we were arriving here, perhaps during our procession through the town, or later when we were giving our Play of Adam, someone had been lowering the boy down in the darkness of night, covering him over, and we all the time unknowing. There had been such haste in the business; the corpse of Thomas Wells had barely been two days above ground. Who had seen the boy's body? The killer, Flint, the Lord's steward. Surely the mother too had seen it...
'He told me something else.' Stephen moved his tongue inside his mouth in the manner of the drunken. 'In this twelvemonth past there have been four boys gone from this town and the country around.' He paused and looked before him and again moved his tongue slowly in his mouth. 'Four that are known and named,' he said. He sat forward and made the orator's gesture of strong statement, right arm extended before him and moved sharply across the body from left to right. 'Before that, nothing,' he said.
There was a brief silence among us. As before, when Martin had first spoken of making a play out of this murder, a hush seemed to fall over us, in which small noises sounded louder, the movement of creatures in the straw, the breathing of the dog asleep over Tobias's legs. Then Springer leaned forward into the light. 'Gone?' he said. 'Gone where?'
'Vanished,' Stephen said, and his speech had thickened, weariness adding to drunkenness. He raised his hands in the movements of conjuring but did it badly, heavily.
'They will be those the beggar spoke of,' I said. 'We thought it was only the rambling of his mind.'
'This one was found,' Martin said. 'This one was killed and his purse was taken. The time is not long. We must think how to play it, how to show that she is innocent.'
He wanted us not to be led away, he wanted us to think about the one boy, the one play, he wanted us to help him save the woman. And the force of his wish was great with us, also the perversity of this desire for her, which had come on him like an illness.
And so we fell to talking of how it might be done. There was little enough time, either for talking or practising. It was decided to begin in the same form as before and to go in the same manner to the point where the woman, still played by Straw, changed to her demon-mask. At that moment, when the woman's guilt seemed beyond doubting, Truth would intervene, halt the proceedings and question the players, who would answer as it came to mind, their answers pointing towards the Benedictine. In a third scene, with Truth still in attendance, the true story would be played in mime by Martin as the Monk and Springer as Thomas Wells. Tobias and myself would have the same parts as before. This left no one but Stephen to play Truth and there were some doubts on this score among us, not because he was drunk — it seemed that he often played his usual roles when drunk, God the Father, the King of Persia, the Pope, his air of majesty unimpaired, even enhanced. And he could keep his memory of the lines. But his wits were not thought to be quick enough, whether drunk or sober, for exchanges of speech that were not prepared, and there was a fear he might flounder. However, he was loudly confident of his ability and there was no other way that anyone could see, Tobias not having the stature for it.
'We will do what we can,' Martin said. 'Tomorrow we shall be better in our parts, we shall learn from our -'
'We will not be here tomorrow.' Stephen's voice was loud in that confined place. 'By this time tomorrow we will be well on our way to Durham.'
'It is too dangerous,' Tobias said. 'The Lord's confessor, the Lord's steward ... if it was not the girl who killed him, the one who did it is out there still. The feeling grows on me that he is protected ...' He looked directly at Martin and again there was something of pity in his look. 'We never set out to save the girl, it is you who have taken this idea into your head.'
'Yes, it is you, Martin.' Straw, as usual, was swept by the tide of feeling among us. 'You are always heedless of us when there is something you want,' he said. 'We are in danger here. A knife through the hamstring, tad and our day is over. I have known it done once by a lord who was jealous of another's players.'
'We cannot save the girl,' I said. 'How could we? This Justice that is come to town, perhaps he intends to inquire into the matter.'
'What is it to him?' In the passion of being opposed, all colour had gone from Martin's face. 'What does he care for poor folk?' 'It is her best hope nevertheless.'
Springer, the peacemaker, spoke next and he spoke for us all. 'We want to leave this town,' he said gently to Martin. 'We never wanted to come here, it was only for Brendan, and then we spent our money. After tonight we will have money aplenty, more than ever we had together at one time. It is enough, Martin. We are afraid. Every thread draws us deeper into this devil's web.' For a moment his clear voice shook a little. 'We are afraid,' he repeated. 'I would be for leaving tonight after the play, if it were not for the dark and the snow.'
'Yes, then we would not need to pay that arse-faced innkeeper for the barn again,' Stephen said.
And so in the end it was decided among us, with all voting save Martin: we would leave the town as soon as the play was over, travel by torchlight until we came to the cover of woodland, then wait as best we could for the morning light. Martin too had to agree, though there was wretchedness on his face. Whether he would have kept to it is something we were never to learn.
CHAPTER TWELVE
We had decided for the inn-yard again, because everything was there already and so it saved time. Stephen wentto the gate to shout the True Play of Thomas Wells, shortly to begin. And we made ready to do it.
This time we set the curtain-posts farther apart to make a greater space for changing and we made it in the middle instead of the corner, with torches set on either side. We would enter into view from the sides so that the people would not be aware of a new player till he came forward into the light. Martin marked the playing-space with pegs and a rope, so that none of the people would come on to the ground needed for the players.
All this was done by Martin's invention and design. He set himself to prepare the play with a passion of earnestness greater than I had ever seen in him. He seemed recovered now from his defeat in the voting; and in this seeming recovery, had we but known it, there was mortal danger to us all. That the play and the life outside it were not clearly distinguished in his mind, this we knew; that he hoped still to save the girl we knew too, though we thought it a hope forlorn. But none of us knew how far he would go to save her, what was in his mind to say and do that night, not even those who had been with him longest and knew the extremes of his nature.
I had again the part of Good Counsel in this new play. As before, I had to give my sermon to the boy setting out and I was dressed and ready in my priest's habit and black hat. Peeping through the opening where the curtains joined, I watched the people enter by the gate. Stephen was still shouting the play and Margaret was taking the money, with the innkeeper's man beside her watching everything her hands did. It was useful in some respects to have this fellow, as he knew those who had business there and those who merely said so in order to avoid paying. Also, he barred known troublemakers and the obviously drunken, which Margaret might not have been so well able to do.
The people came in without rowdiness. There was an air of expectation, but it was not altogether the privileged expectation of spectators. It was as though they were gathering for a meeting in which each was expected to play his part.
'They are too quiet,' Straw said. He was dressed already in the bonnet and padded gown of the boy's mother. Springer stood beside him in the drab brown of Thomas Wells. 'They are coming in as if it were church,' he said.
'Stephen should be here now,' I said, 'if he is to be in time for his scene in the tavern.'
We were all nervous, though showing it in different ways. Martin came out to say the Prologue. He was in his usual clothes still and without a mask. He had made up new lines for this, though without saying to us what they were. Perhaps it was only now, with the sound of them filling the yard, that I realized fully what we were embarked on.
'Gentles, we have
pondered further. This grim and grievous deed of murder Which proven seemed to one and all And pointed clear to woman's fall...'
But there was no time now for second thoughts. There was no time for anything but the playing. We began in the same way as before, with the entrusting of the money and the boy's setting forth. However, Good Counsel had more to do now, my scene of exhortation took up more time, and this was at Martin's direction. 'They will be more bound to the play if they are made to wait,' he said, 'now that the ending is thrown into doubt.'
So Tobias, in a demon's mask and carrying a stick with an inflated pig's bladder fastened to the end of it, was also now a part of this scene. Thomas Wells would listen and nod and appear to be persuaded by my words. But then the demon would steal upon me and buffet me with the bladder and I would be distracted into pursuit of the demon and meanwhile the woman would do her mime of pleasures and Thomas Wells would take steps towards her until stayed by some further admonition from me. This made a pattern of movement and gesture very effective and it provoked laughter, which is a welcome thing as saving from silence, but also frightening when there are many laughing together - it is then a sea with strange tides. Players swim in the rise and fall of it and if they lose the mastery they drown.
This laughter sounded near and far, like a shell held to the ear. I moved before the people and tried to do my part. I felt no great ease or confidence in my movements, there had been too little time for practising beforehand and the timing of things was not easy; the words of the sermon, which I spoke as they came to mind, the gesture of startlement at the touch of the bladder, the breaking off, the turning, the loose-wristed gesture of shooing away, the blundering pursuit. All this had to be done slowly so as to give Straw time for his miming of pleasures. 'You must do it as if wearing a loose blindfold,' Martin had said to me. 'You can see, but not quite clearly. Then you will have an uncertain, groping kind of movement that will slow you and give Straw the time he needs. Also, your blundering will give the demon more seeming of nimbleness.'