A PLAY OF PIETY

Chapter Two

From somewhere along the line of stalls someone croaked loudly, “’Ware sister!”

As if guilty of something, Joliffe stood sharply up.  Basset laughed at him.  From the far end of the line of stalls a woman said, friendliwise and for everyone to hear, “You mind your tongue, Deke, or there’ll be gravel in your pottage next thing you know.”

That brought a scattering of laughter and croaking chuckles along the hall, and the old man beyond the curtain beside Basset’s bed called, “That’ll clear your bowels for you, Deke.”

Whoever was in the bed across from Basset’s moaned and began to mumble, sounding confused, his voice rising.

“There now,” the woman said in warning to everyone, yet kindly enough.  Quiet-footed, she came hurriedly, with a soft rush of skirts, between the stalls to the moaning man’s bedside.  She set the basket she had been carrying on the small table there and was taking something from it even while she bent over the man, saying something to him in a low, questioning voice.  His head thrashed weakly side to side on his pillow, not so much in answer, Joliffe thought, as keeping time with his moaning.  Despite the day’s warmth, he was covered to his naked upper chest by sheet and blanket.  A white cloth wrapped around the crown of his head hid his hair.  The woman laid a hand on his forehead, then along the side of his face, still talking to him, and he quieted a little.  She took that for chance to unstopper the small vial she had taken from the basket.  Using one hand under his chin to tilt his head a little back and then to draw his mouth open, she put the vial to his lips with her other hand and quickly tipped into him whatever it held, closed his mouth with her other hand still under his chin and kept it closed, gentle but firm, to be sure of his swallowing whatever she had given him.

Watching her from across the way, seeing her from the back, Joliffe could nearly have thought her a well-grown girl, small-built as she was in height and all; but the deft, sure way she moved made him think she was a grown woman, and when she had settled the man against his pillows and smoothed the sheet and blanket over him, picked up her basket, and turned from the bed, Joliffe saw he was right.  She wore a gray gown, plainly cut, with no excess of cloth, the sleeves straight, and the skirt somewhat short, leaving her plain-shoed feet clear.  A white apron covered it from throat to below her knees, but she had neither wimple nor veil covering her neck and hair, only -- like a servant -- a long headkerchief over a close-fitted coif to hide her hair.  But she was no servant, any more than she was a girl.  She was a woman somewhere in her vigorous middle years, probably closer to Basset’s age than Joliffe’s, with brown, bright eyes sharp with confident intelligence as she took in Joliffe’s presence, assessed him, and said even as he started a bow to her, “You’re Thomas’ friend.  The one he said might come.”

“I am, my lady.”

“Sister,” she said, putting aside the lady.  “Sister Margaret.”

“Sister Margaret,” Joliffe repeated obediently, knowing that here “sister” meant not a nun but a nurse.

“And you?” she asked.

“Joliffe Norreys.”  Because “Norreys” was the name he had been called by for these past three months and it came first to mind.

“Joliffe Norreys,” Sister Margaret repeated.  “You are likely hungry and may want to wash off some of your travel and the day’s heat.  I’ll be busy here in the hall this while, but if you go there – “  She bent her head toward the hall’s far end.  “ -- and turn rightward, you should find your way to the kitchen easily enough.  Sister Ursula will see to you then.”

“You’ll likely find Rose there, too,” said Basset.

Joliffe gave him a nod and Sister Margaret another bow and edged out of Basset’s stall.  She stood aside while he did, but then went forward, saying, brisk with business, “Now, Thomas, how does it go with you this afternoon?”

Keeping his smile inward, Joliffe went away up the hall, making no haste of his going, giving anyone there as alert as Basset’s neighbor the chance to have sight of him if they wanted it.  There were few enough pastimes here, he supposed, and he was used to diverting people in harder ways than this; but he also took the chance for a good look for himself to see in passing what there was to see.  All the eight narrow beds had someone in them, all men, although no one else was sitting as up as Basset had been, and two were lying as flatly as the man just attended to by Sister Margaret and so maybe in as bad a case. 

Joliffe wondered if there was a separate hall for women, or had the place’s founder only seen fit to provide for men.  Anyway, the place was as cleanly kept as he had first thought, with no more smell of sickness than there had to be among so many bedridden men – most of them old men, he thought from his glances at the them as he went.  Men come to the worn-out end of their days and fortunate to be here.  Which probably added to the reasons Basset must hate being here.  For all he had put a good face to it, being daily reminded he might be come, early, to the worn-out end of his own days could hardly be welcome.

The far end of the hall where – in an ordinary hall of a household -- there might be a door or even two leading to the lord’s more private chambers, there was indeed a door toward one end of the wall, but in the wall’s middle a wide arch had been made, opening into a small chapel.  Because a hospital was meant to be a place of healing for souls as well as of bodies, a priest or priests were as surely part of one as physicians and nursing-sisters were, and a chapel at the end of a hospital’s hall was the usual thing, its altar meant to be seen from every bed, as it would be here when the curtains beside each bed were pushed back, for every patient to see the priest at Mass for reminder that even if their bodies could not be saved, their souls might be.

The chapel was long for its width, windowless and flat-ceilinged, as if there might be a room above it, more evidence this place had not begun as a hospital but as someone’s manor hall.  Despite that, the chapel was lovely; in shadow now, but by the small lamp hung from the blue-painted ceiling beams above the altar Joliffe could see painted, on the white-plastered wall behind the altar, the Virgin in her blue cloak and St. Giles with his deer and arrow, while the Seven Acts of Corporeal Mercy covered the side walls. 

He did not take closer look at them, only paused to bow to the altar and give a short prayer of thanks that Basset had come to this safe harbor in his need, before he went in search of the kitchen and, hopefully, Rose.  A doorway standing open near the last bed on the right side of the hall led him into a short passage with doors standing open at either end.  To his right was the roofed walk he had seen from its other end when coming from the yard, so he went left instead of back toward the yard, and beyond another doorway came indeed into the kitchen, a broad, high room with a heavy wooden work table square in its middle, a wide-hearthed fireplace in the farther wall, and a tall louver in the roof.  A use-blackened kettle big enough to cook the pottages and gruels that were likely the main food of the patients here was hung from a swinging iron arm over the low fire on the hearth, and Rose was stirring whatever was in it with a large iron spoon, her back to him.  He circled the table toward her, was nearly to her as she finished her stirring and turned from the kettle, spoon still in hand.  Not having heard him coming, she cried out with surprise and swung the spoon back, ready to hit with it.  In a life spent traveling, she had learned not to be helpless.  But then knew him and her exclaim turned to delight as she flung her arms around him, still holding the spoon, crying, “You found us!"

Surprised both at her great gladness and at his own at seeing her again, he hugged her back.  Only as they stepped apart, Rose smiling up at him, did he see the other woman, watching them from a doorway on the room’s far end, eyebrows raised.  She was maybe much the same age as Sister Margaret was and dressed likewise in a gray gown and white apron, plain coif and headkerchief.  Another of the nursing-sisters then, Joliffe thought, with a pang that the gladness between him and Rose might be mistaken and Rose be in trouble for it, but as the woman came forward he saw the mischief twinkling in her dark eyes even before Rose said happily, “Sister Ursula!  See who’s here!”

“Your missing lamb, come back to the flock,” Sister Ursula said, eyeing him up and down.  “Certainly not the fatted calf.  Are you hungry, fellow?  There’s bread and cheese and new ale.”  Even as she asked, she was fetching a loaf from one of the shelves along the wall where a line of other loaves waited, and she added with a nod of her head toward the bench beside the table, “Sit down.  How long have you been on the road?   Rose, bring him a cup.”

Joliffe sat.  “Four days,” he said.  Which was not quite true but would do.

“Nor eating well on the way?”  Sister Ursula asked as she took up a knife lying ready to her hand on the table.

“Not so well,” Joliffe granted, although he had never gone hungry.

Sister Ursula deftly cut a thick slice from the bread and flipped it toward him from the knife’s blade, asking, “Name?”

“Joliffe Norreys,” he answered, catching the slice and not glancing at Rose, depending on her to show no more surprise at the name than Basset had.

“Are you willing to work?” Sister Ursula demanded as she returned the bread to its shelf.

Behind Sister Ursula’s back, he slid a look toward Rose, questioning what this was about as he answered, “Yes.”

Also behind Sister Ursula’s back, Rose gave him a shrug and a smile, while saying aloud, “Sister Ursula is huswife here in St. Giles.  She sees to everything and everybody being as they should be.”

Now bringing a cloth-covered cheese on a cutting board to the table, Sister Ursula said, “I try to see to it, though there are times I think herding cats would be an easier task.  Just now there’s Ivo gone off when he shouldn’t have, and I’m in need of someone to take his place.”  She paused in cutting a large wedge from the cheese and gave Joliffe an assessing look.  “You seem fit enough, but are you willing?”

Joliffe looked rapidly back and forth between her and Rose.  “To work, yes,” he said.  “At what?  What did Ivo do?”

 “Everything.”  Sister Ursula impaled the cut of cheese with the knife and held it out to Joliffe.  He took it from the knife point as she went on, “He was the extra pair of hands that’s always needed around a place.  Someone to lift, shift, fetch, and carry.  He’s gone off to seek his fortune somewhere, may he have a plague of boils, and there’s no one else to be had, they’re all at the harvest.”

She was returning the cheese to its place on a shelf, and Joliffe took the chance behind her back to question Rose with a look, asking whether this was a good offer or not.  She gave him a quick, single nod, and when Sister Ursula turned back to him, he held off from the bread and cheese long enough to ask, “You mean I’d be working here around the hospital, not at the harvest?”

“Here, yes, and stay here, too, rather than with your fellows, because you’ll be needed in the night sometimes.  So a bed and your food and drink come with the work.  And a penny a day.”

“I’ll only be here so long as we have to be,” Joliffe said.  “I’m away when the rest of them go.”

“Better to have you a while than not at all,” Sister Ursula answered with firm practicality.  “Maybe Ivo will have shifted himself back here by the time you all leave.  Or the harvest will be done and there’ll be someone else to hire.”

Harvesting would pay better in coin, Joliffe thought, but hurt more in body.  Better, what with one consideration and another, to work around here than sweating at the harvest -- with the added benefit that Ellis would be irked he was not breaking his back with the rest of them. 

“Done, then,” he said.  “I’m yours for the while.”

“Good.  Rose will show you where to bed and all.  Tomorrow you can start.  You’ve no horse we need see to, do you?”

“No horse.”

“Good.”  She nodded at the bread and cheese he held.  “Eat up.  Rose, everything’s in hand here?”

“All’s well,” Rose said.

“Bless you.  Time I was away to Mistress Thorncoffyn then.”

And she was gone out of the kitchen and away.  Gazing at the doorway through which she had vanished, Joliffe asked somewhat wonderingly, “Is she always so brisk?”

“Always,” Rose assured him.  “Always brisk, always definite, always generous- hearted.  Mind you – “  Rose raised the spoon to emphasize her warning.  “ -- she doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”

Joliffe sat down on a stool beside the table.  “Fortunate then that I’m not a fool.”

“Um,” said Rose, not committing herself to that one way or the other but smiling at him before she turned back to the pot over the fire.

Joliffe chewed through a mouthful of bread and cheese, then asked very quietly, “How is it with Basset?  How is it truly?”

Rose swung the pot to the edge of the fire and hung the spoon on a waiting hook before she faced him, to answer gravely, “He’s far better than he was.  When it was at the worst, he could barely bear to move.  The pains in his hips and knees and even the bones of his feet were terrible, but if he didn’t move, his joints stiffened, and then he could hardly move even when he had to, and that was worse.  So he had to move but was in barely bearable pain when he did.  It was beyond anything I could do to ease or better it.  We were fortunate to come on this place when we did.  They’ve helped him as I never could.”

“How long, at a guess, until he’s fit to leave?”

Rose took too long to answer that.  If she had not been strong of will and mind and brave-hearted into the bargain, she would not have lasted in the life the players led, but still she took too long to say anything, and Joliffe stood up, leaving the bread and cheese, and went around the table to her, just in time to put his arms around her as her tears spilled over.   She leaned her forehead against his shoulder, letting herself be held, but only for a moment before she drew a trembling breath and straightened away from him, swept tears from her cheeks with firm fingers and said, “I’m sorry.”

“Rose,” Joliffe said gently.  “Just how bad is it?  Worse than he told me, yes?”

“We don’t know.”  Her voice was steady, the tears gone.  “That’s the trouble.  No one can say how far better he’s going to be.  How he is now – this may be the best he’ll ever be.” 

And that was not good enough for him to go on as a player.  If he could hardly walk, that was the end of playing for him and the end of the company. 

“I’ve given you nothing to drink,” Rose said suddenly and made a bustle of fetching a cup of what proved to be good new ale, setting it on the table beside him, and going to put the kettle over the fire again, asking as she went, “It went well?  Your business?”

“It did,” Joliffe said.

“You’re not needed . . . somewhere else sometime soon?”

“Not that anyone’s said.  That smells good.  They eat well here?”

Understanding he had told her all he was going to tell just then, she answered, “They do,” and went on to talk of where the players had been after he left them and where they had been going when Basset’s necessity had stopped them here.  “It being harvest time and workers always needed, they’re as grateful for us just now as we are for them.  Father told you what the others and even Tisbe are doing?”

“He did.  What happened to this Ivo whose place I’m taking?”

“Oh, it seems he tired of being paid his penny a day here when fieldwork would earn him more.  So he took himself off to elsewhere.  Sister Ursula says he’ll likely be back sometime.  He does this almost every year.”  And in despite of the statutes there were forbidding workers wandering in search of better pay when they could get work where they were, he could be sure of finding work somewhere at better pay than a penny a day, because at harvest time no one ever had enough workers.  Rose looked at Joliffe.  “How did you come from wherever you were without being set to work somewhere?”

Joliffe patted the leather purse hanging from his belt.  “A signed, sealed permission from Lord Lovell giving me leave, as his man, to go as I must, without let or hindrance.”

“Very useful,” Rose said, with plain memory of times before they were Lord Lovell’s players when such a thing would have greatly eased their lives.  She swung the pot away from the fire.  “There.  That’s done, I think.  Now let me show you where you’ll sleep and warn you of a few things.”

READ CHAPTER THREE