Free A Play of Heresy by Margaret Frazer

to talk to besides himself. That’s useful,” Joliffe pointed out. “And, no, the size of the parts doesn’t trouble me. Like always, I’ll try to play them the best I can. That’s what matters.”
    Powet made a humphing sound that neither accepted nor rejected any of that and shifted to stare at the cobbles in front of his feet. Mindful that the man knew Coventry better than anyone with whom he had yet had chance to talk alone, Joliffe said, in hope of drawing him on, “You’re a weaver, then?”
    “Nay. I’m a mercer of sorts, although these days I mostly stand front for my niece, she having the greater skill and her husband being dead and all.”
    “So the guilds aren’t tight about who can be in their plays? Only mercers in the mercers’? Only butchers in the butchers’?”
    Joliffe would have been surprised if that was the way of it. The plays were too important for the guilds to hobble themselves like that. He simply wanted to keep Powet talking, and the man obliged with, “Nay, nothing like that. They all just want the best they can get. Mind, if you’re good and your guild has a place for you in their own play, that’s where you go before elsewhere, but there’s more who want to be in the plays than there are parts for, so those as direct have some chance to choose who they want. I’ve been in the mercers’ play more than once in my day, but other guilds’ plays, too. Good parts in all of them. Have been Christ twice. Pontius Pilate three times. The Devil more than once. Four times one and another of the Three Kings. God himself in the Doomsday one year. Like that. I was good enough to be wanted. Now—” He shook his head. “Now the knees are not to be trusted, and I’ve lost strength in my voice. Not fit for anything anymore but old, doddering Joseph, and soon I likely won’t even be up to playing old and doddering. I’ll just be old and doddering, no play about it at all. They all know I’m past my best. That’s why I’m here in this play. Nobody else wanted me this year.”
    Mindful of how well Powet had read Joseph, Joliffe said carefully, “You need a new best. That’s all.”
    “Oh, you’re young. You don’t know yet there comes a time when there’s no more ‘best’ to be had. Only ‘not so bad’ followed by ‘not so bad as it might be’ followed by ‘that’s the end then.’ ”
    Having long since learned there was never sufficient answer to “You’re young. You don’t know,” Joliffe made none. The best he could hope for was that someday he would be old enough to say it to someone and irk them as much as it irked him now.
    Powet went gloomily on, brooding at his hands twisting together between his knees, “Last year I was the prophet Elias and faced off with the Antichrist. That wasn’t so bad, but I knew I got the part because I’m aging out of all the rest. Can’t sing well enough to be Simeon, so there I am. Down to Joseph or nothing. Comic old Joseph.” He looked at Joliffe and demanded, “Come. It must fret you, you being who you are—making your living by playing and all—to be cramped into little parts like your dull prophet and Ane.”
    Sensing a right answer might make great difference to Powet, Joliffe paused before trying, “I don’t feel cramped. For one thing, what are called ‘small’ parts matter as much in a play as something large. What’s hard to see from the outside is that ‘small’ parts can take as much skill as I have to make them work well.” Not scrupling to choose someone Powet knew, he smiled evilly and added, “Just think how someone like Richard Eme can make a large part into something not worth spitting at.”
    Powet gave a barked laugh of both surprise and recognition. “Saint Swithin, yes! All you ever see of what he does is Richard Eme. Large part or small. Though God help whoever tries to give him a small part!”
    “And I’ll warrant there’s no one so fond of Richard Eme—save himself and maybe his