Free A Play of Knaves by Margaret Frazer

started to protest, “Why can’t I . . .”
    Basset stopped him with, “No, Gil. You’re not coming. Your ankle can do with that much more mending since there’s chance for it, and the cart and all shouldn’t be left to only Rose the day long. We’ll only be doing our lighter street work anyway. The juggling and suchlike, to draw people’s heed and laughter and leave them wanting more, so they’ll come on Sunday.”
    Given no choice, Gil watched, disgruntled, while Ellis, Joliffe, and Piers changed into their bright, parti-colored playing garb and Basset put on his Lovell tabard, and set out, with Rose waving good-bye to at least Basset, Joliffe, and Piers. As soon as Ellis raised his hand with the others to wave back, she dropped her own hand and turned away.
    Aside from that, it was a fine spring day. The mist was already gone, the morning sky lightly fretted with white clouds, the sun just clearing the tops of the hedgerows that seemed more green and open-leaved than they had yesterday. The thumb-sized daisies were thicker than ever in the wayside grasses, white stitchwort and red campion were blooming, and plovers were sweeping and calling over the ploughed fields. There was a warm heaviness to the fitful wind that made Joliffe suspect there would be rain before the day was done, but weather was something about which—like so much in life—he could do nothing except enjoy it, endure it, or ignore it. The rain would come or it would not, and meanwhile he had the pleasure of the kind of day when he remembered why he had left behind the other possibilities his life had held—of settled work and certain livelihood, of daily roof and walls and meals—for the one he had instead and presently would have changed for no other.
    Mind you, if the weather turned back to cold and wet and the tent leaked tonight and his feet began to hurt, he would surely feel differently, but he was not such a fool as to let that knowing spoil the moment as it was.
    At one place and another along the way to Faringdon, Ellis and Piers did brief juggling, Joliffe sang short and usually bawdy songs while playing on his lute, and Basset announced the church ale and promised a play. A few times Joliffe caught a grumble about “that priest and his money-getting ways,” but the promise of a play seemed to outweigh any dislike of Father Hewgo. The miles went easily and they reached Faringdon on its hill a little past noontide, when people were just starting back to work from their dinners or else to the afternoon’s shopping and either way were ready to stop a while and be entertained.
    This far from Ashewell and no longer in its parish, Joliffe heard only welcoming cheers and nothing about Father Hewgo when Basset declared their business, nor were people behindhand in dropping coins in the bag Piers offered them. As usual he made use of his wide blue eyes and fair curls to charm women into pity for his plight as a poor little boy a-wander in the world in need of care and mothering. That seemed always good for extra coins, but Joliffe was already seeing a few years ahead to when the trouble Ellis now gave them would be nothing to the havoc Piers was likely to cause when he could do more than look winsomely at women.
    From many other times, the players knew that, gaudily dressed as they were, sitting down in a tavern or anywhere else to eat and drink rarely went well, and they waited while Basset shed his tabard and went to buy the bread and other things Rose had asked him to fetch back, then went all together, following their noses, into a side street off the marketplace to a bakeshop where they bought meat pasties both to eat as they headed back to camp and for supper.
    Leaving the bakeshop, they went on along the street, knowing it would take them back to the road out of town. In the lead, Basset shifted aside to make way for a woman going the other way, leading a small boy-child by the hand, a market basket on her other arm. She was dressed