Free A Play of Dux Moraud by Margaret Frazer Page B

if not an outright problem.
    Probably thinking they had had enough out of Will for now, Basset said, “But you didn’t come to talk, Master William. You came to see what we’re doing, and what we’re doing is teaching young Gil here how to be a player. Do you want to watch?”
    Will did and went willingly where Basset pointed him, to sit on the ground with his back against a cartwheel, out of the way. Joliffe went beyond the cart to the corner he’d chosen, put down the cushion, and sat himself down cross-legged to his work. By long practice, he could shut out what the others were doing when need be and did so now, only distantly aware of Basset and Ellis showing Gil the different stances a player might strike, depending on what sort of person he was playing. In time, if Gil lasted as a player, he would take the needed stance with hardly thinking about it, but for now it would be all dull and driven work for him.
    Joliffe had decided yet again that whoever had first written Dux Moraud had little interest in people, only in preaching, and was trying to give the daughter something better to say than “Your will be mine in this, my lord and father” when ordered to kill the baby she’d had by him, when Piers gave a whoop of laughter on the other side of the cart and cried out, “You look like you’ve split something in your gut!”
    Bending over with his head almost to the ground to look under the cart, Joliffe saw Gil in a straddle-legged stance probably meant to be heroic but closer to what Piers had said. Surely stung by Piers’ laughter, he jerked his feet together, but Basset said sternly at Piers, “You hold your tongue. I’d rather work at pulling someone back from overdoing than at trying to make some stiff-sinewed log of a fellow move at all. It’s easier to trim than add on, as your mother will tell you about sewing. Gil, give Piers no more heed than you would a cricket chirping. Ellis, show him again.”
    Basset somewhat overstated the case for over-playing, but this was not the time to damage Gil’s confidence. That, Joliffe well knew from his own young days of Basset’s training, would come later when Gil started to be too cock-sure of himself. He’d then hear far worse about himself from Basset than what Piers had just said.
    Ellis was just taking a heroic stand again for Gil’s benefit when a manservant—Joliffe thought the one who had been with Will yesterday in the village—came into the cart-yard. Will was scrambling to his feet even before the man started firmly at him, “You’ve been missed, Master Will. Best you come before your lady mother begins to worry.”
    “Well enough, yes, I’m coming, Deykus,” Will agreed hurriedly, but he paused in his leaving long enough to tell Basset, “Thank you for letting me watch.”
    “Our pleasure and honor, sir,” Basset said with a bow that Ellis and Piers and Gil copied.
    Will almost bowed back but remembered in time they were only players and settled for raising a hand in farewell as he left.
    Joliffe sat up straight again and put himself back to work, but shortly Basset said, “Skirts now, I think,” and called, “Joliffe, time to take your turn at this.”
    “Coming,” Joliffe agreed, and while he stoppered the inkpot and cleaned the quill’s point and stored everything back in his box, Rose got out two of their damsel-skirts from a hamper, was fastening one around Gil’s waist when Joliffe stowed the box back into the cart.
    Piers, a little more cautious after his grandfather’s warning, ventured, albeit grinning, “Gil’s blushing.”
    “At least he’s not whining his head off,” Joliffe said, starting to put on the other skirt. “The way you do whenever you have to play Griselda’s daughter. You’d swear,” he added, mock-confidingly to Gil, whose face was indeed trying to reach the rich color of beets, “that he was being gelded instead of girled.”
    “It’s just as bad,” Piers muttered.
    “You get over