Morality Play Read online

  'The man will have betrayed her,' Margaret said, as if there could only be that one reason. She too had come to join us at the door. 'He will have played fast and loose with her.'

  'But if already she is found guilty,' I said to the ostler, 'what brings the Justice with his retinue here?'

  He made no answer to this, but shook his head only and went quickly from us, passing through the arches and so into the inn.

  'There is swift justice in this town,' Straw said. 'Only two days since he was found on the road and the woman is tried and condemned already.'

  No more was said about the matter then and I thought we would have no more to do with this murder, but I was wrong.

  Martin and Tobias now returned, each in his different way affected by what they had to say to us, Tobias seeming abstracted and more interested in his dog than anything else, Martin white-faced with rage. The priest, a fat, slothful fellow with a thick tongue, he said - this a piece of scorn very typical for anyone not neat in movement and nimble of speech - this priest had demanded four shillings for burying Brendan. They had gone to seek him at the church and been told by a man cutting holly for Christmas where he lived. A young woman had come to answer.

  'His leman,' Tobias said.

  'To be a priest's whore,' Margaret said, with a toss of her head. 'She was not dressed for keeping house, I dare say.'

  It was more than any of us had thought possible. He had asked a shilling for the ground, twopence for the grave-digger and two shillings and tenpence for himself.

  'Two weeks' wages for a labouring man.' Straw brushed a ragged sleeve over the glinting stubble on his face. 'For mumbling over a hole in the earth and the lump of clay they fill it with.'

  'It has brought us low in the common money,' Martin said. 'We are left with eighteen pence and one halfpenny.'

  'You have agreed then?' Stephen said. He was one of those who must cavil and question and Martin's fury turned on him now.

  'Do you start carping again?' he said. In rage he was a man to beware of. He had no relief from it in gesture or shouting, which was strange, for he was accomplished in all the gestures of feigned emotion, also that emotion of players that becomes real by feigning. But passion felt directly was like a suffering he had to contain. He had no expression for it save this pain of stillness. Beyond the pain - and only a touch beyond - there was violence.

  'We agreed together before ever we came here,' Springer said. 'Do you not remember, Stephen?'

  'We did not set a limit on the price,' I said, joining in debate for the first time, as I felt now to be my right. 'Just as it is true that ignorantia juris non excusat, so also it can be said of the price, pretium, and this is a principle very important both in -'

  'I knew we would get a ladleful of Latin before long,' Stephen said, glowering at me, but I was not offended because I saw that for him this diversion had been opportune, even necessary. And it came to me then that all the members of this company were playing parts even when there was no one by but themselves. Each had lines of his own and was expected to say them. Without this no debate could be conducted, here among us or anywhere else in the wide world. The parts perhaps had been chosen once, fanatical Martin, Springer the timid and affectionate, Stephen the disputatious, Straw wavering and wild, Tobias with his proverbs and his voice of common sense; but the time of this choosing lay outside memory. Now I too had taken my part within this company. I had my lines to say. It was my role to moralize and lard my talk with Latin and turn all to abstraction, so that Straw could pinch his nose and nod wisely in mockery of me and Stephen could glare and Springer laugh and Martin's anger be muzzled. The only one without a part was Margaret, who had neither public voice before the people nor private one among us.

  Martin took his eyes from Stephen slowly. 'These worms that eat the common body,' he said. 'As ignorant of doctrine as of grace. They know only how to sleep through a confession and drink a flagon and exact their dues. And the better to do this they work with the nobles and keep folk tied to the land.'

  His words were insulting to the Church, but I made no protest. To say truth, since I had embraced this trade of player, I wanted to succeed in it, and a sure way to fail was to mark myself off from them. To serve the time is the mark of wisdom, as Tobias might have said; and the time had made me a man for songs, not sermons.

  Besides, what he said about priests in country parishes is true in large measure - at least it is true of a great many. Many are unlettered and incapable of expounding a text. They live in open concubinage and charge the people for their services. In some parishes the priest will not perform the Eucharist without being paid beforehand in cash or kind.

  As to his other charge, of aiding the lords in securing land services, I said nothing to this either, but it is the merchants and men of business in the Commons who make statutes to keep wages down and prevent men from offering their services to new employers. Men are taken and branded as fugitives, on the forehead for all to see, only for leaving their lord's land without permission. But it is not the Church that makes these laws. It is true, of course, that the Church frowns on travelling folk and works always to keep men in their place. Where sufficiency is, there is stability, and where stability is, there is religion, ubi stabilitas ibi religio.

  As I have said, I did not argue for priests. I did not want to defend this one, who asked so much money, because we all suffered alike from his cupidity. On the other hand, they knew I was in Orders, they would register my silence, they would think me craven. 'Priests vary in their nature as do other men,' I said. 'They are as various as players are.'

  Tobias spoke now, for the first time since his return. 'There is good and bad in every kind,' he said, 'and all are needed to make up the world. Speaking of priests, there has been a murder in the town. A woman is condemned for it and it was a monk brought her to be questioned.'

  Martin turned to this as if he needed the change. 'We heard them speaking of it in the porch of the church,' he said. He spoke softly and in his eyes was a vagueness as of strong feeling past. 'He is the Lord's confessor and lives there with them in the castle. He is a Benedictine.'

  That word comes back to me now and his look saying it, spent with his rage, and the gleam of torchlight on the straw we sat on. I could hear the moving and breathing of the cows. The smell of their dung and their pissy straw was strong in the barn and this was mingled with the dark smell of Brendan in his corner. Margaret sat with spread legs mending a rent in Adam's smock, her face turned to the light. This parting of her legs under the skirt disturbed my mind and I prayed within myself to be delivered from evil. From hooks and nails in the barn there hung our masks and curtain stuff and costumes, the Serpent's wings, the Pope's hat, the shoulder-pieces of the Fool, the horse-hair suit hanging from the rafter like a great bat. The barn had been made into a place of strangeness. The sheet of copper rested against one wall and the torchlight moved in eddies over it, as if the surface melted colours, blue and gold and red from Eve's wig and her glass beads that were hanging up together. My sight was troubled by these shifting colours and reflections and by the blurring fumes of the torch.

  'We were talking of it to the ostler.' Straw looked round, his eyes unsteady, his wild hair glinting in the light. 'He did not like to talk of it,' he said, 'though he was ready enough to talk otherwise.'

  'It was a robbery,' Tobias said. 'They found the money in her house. The Monk found it.'

  'They have always a good nose for that,' Stephen said.

  There was no time for more talk, we had to dress ourselves and prepare to put on the Play of Adam. And I was nervous, there was a tightness in my chest, I had no mind for other thoughts. But the shadow of this crime was over us already, though I did not know it then. It is over me yet.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The troubles of that day were not over. While we were preparing to put on our play a band of jongleurs came to the inn to the sound of drums and bagpipes, and began at once to set out their pitch against the
wall of the yard, opposite the entrance - the best place. Martin, already in the short white smock of Adam before the Fall, emerged from the byre to find a bear tethered to the wall, rope-walkers putting down their mats and a strongman unloading chains from a hand-cart. For some moments he stood there, bare-legged in the cold, as if unable to believe his eyes. Then he moved quickly towards them. Stephen and I followed, he already in God's long robe. We were much outnumbered - there was a fire-swallower there also, busy lighting his brazier, and a family of tumblers.

  Jongleurs travel in groups and entertain people wherever they can, in great halls, at tournaments and archery contests, at fairs and market-places. In this they resemble players, but unlike us they have no leader and there is no general meaning in what they do, they can combine together or break away.

  Because there was no leader it was difficult for Martin to find someone to dispute the place with. But he settled on the tumblers, as they were a family — man and woman and two shivering shaven-headed boys. He told the man that the space was already taken, speaking at first in a tone of explanation, not roughly but with a visible effort of control. But the man began to argue and the woman broke in shrilly to support him, and the strongman, understanding what was happening, dropped his chains with a great clatter on the paving-stones and came towards us. This man was very big, taller than Stephen and thicker in body, though much of it was fat. He was bald and very ugly and he wore a copper ring in one ear. He snorted like a wrestler as he drew near and raised his hands as if he would take Martin in a grip. This I think was meant more in threat than in earnest, in order to inspire fear in us, but when he was still two yards off Martin took a step and launched a kick at him, turning slightly so that his foot struck the man's body heel first, and very high for a standing kick - it caught the man on the left side, just below the heart. He did not fall but leaned heavily forward and sought for breath deep within him and all could hear this searching.

  How the fighting would have gone on from this I do not know. Stephen, who was a brawler by nature, had pressed forward. Martin had raised a fist and might have struck again while the advantage was with him. But then the innkeeper came with a stout serving man at his side and he said the place was ours because it had been promised, also because we had hired the cow-shed in the yard and he got money from that whereas he got nothing at all from the jongleurs and knew moreover that he could not extract anything from such people because they do not charge anything for entrance but take round a hat, which we also did when there was no enclosure of the space, but here in the yard there was a way to come in.

  The rope-walkers began taking up their mats again, the tumblers talked sullenly among themselves. The strongman backed away to his cart, cursing us and promising revenge. The innkeeper, seeing his advantage, now demanded from us a quarter of the takings for the use of the yard and for having defended our rights.

  The blood had drained from Martin's face, though whether this was because of the dispute with the jongleurs or the innkeeper's demands I could not determine - he was passionate about money as he was passionate about all things. I expected he would speak in protest but strong feeling had for the moment disabled him, as it does with some natures, and he remained white-faced and silent.

  The others had come up now and each was affected in his own way. Springer, already in the costume of Eve, his eyes round with fear below the flaxen wig, sought to distract us from quarrel by strutting and preening. Straw was speechless, I think by sympathetic closeness to Martin - he had a nature like a loadstone for the feelings of others, they gathered within him and the casing of his body was too thin for them. He was staring now and clutching himself in agitation and this was strange to see, dressed as he was in the robe and wings of the Serpent before the Fall. Tobias, who knew Martin better than any, put an arm round his shoulder and spoke quietly to him. It was left to Margaret to bargain with the innkeeper. She said he should not get anything more because he had not asked for it before, when we had agreed together for the barn and the use of the yard. He replied, with the reasonable air of one who deems himself well in the right, that he had not known then that the space would be disputed.

  At this I could not forbear breaking in. This cheating innkeeper was also a fool in logic, a fault I find hard to overlook. 'It is in the nature of all contracts that the parties to it should have a mutual sense of posse as well as esse* I told him. 'A promise provisional on circumstances, when these are not stated, is not a promise at all, but mere blandishment and deceit. There could be no faith in any bond if all behaved as you do.'

  For only reply he called me a prating fool. In the end he agreed to twopence in every shilling. He said he would set one of his people to stand at the entrance to the yard to keep away the drunken and any that were known to be troublemakers, but his real reason was to keep watch on the money that was taken. This thief of an innkeeper, had he been the one at Bethlehem, would have taken every groat from Joseph and Mary even for that poor stable where Christ had his nativity. Judas, they say, was born that same night...

  We had lost time over this and had to make haste - people were already coming in. My fear of failure had been growing as the time approached. With the dark we had set torches against the wall so that the people would see us edged by light, beings of flame. This was Martin's idea. For the moment only two of the torches, those in the middle, had been lit. The Fatal Tree was against the wall, with a paper apple stuck on a twig. We had the barn for a changing-room, which meant that we would have to pass through the people.

  When all was ready, Martin as Adam came through the people to speak the Prologue. He came and stood with the two lighted brands directly behind him. He had on a black cloak over his smock. Waiting in the barn, we heard his clear voice:

  'I pray you give your ears and eyes. See Eden lost by Satan's lies ...'

  I looked round the barn door and watched him standing there with the light behind him. There was some talk and laughter from the people, not much. They had not come in great numbers, a glance was enough to show that; the yard was less than half-full. I was dressed for the first of my roles, that of an attendant demon, in a horned mask and a red, belted tunic with a rope tail attached, at the end of which was an iron spike. I carried with me a devil's trident for roasting the damned. I had nothing to say for this first part, I had merely to attend to Satan and make forays among the people, hissing and jabbing with my fork so as to create alarm. This I thought of as fortunate, as it accustomed me to being in public view before my more important role of Devil's Fool.

  When Martin had said his lines he moved quickly away from the light, made his way to the far corner of the space and lay down there. Covered by the dark cloak, with his face hidden, he seemed to disappear. This too had been his idea; he had thought of it when first we saw the way the brands were set against the wall. In all concerning spectacle he was clever and quick beyond any of the others.

  Now it was time for Stephen to appear as God the Father and make his slow, majestic way through the people. In order to increase the impact of his presence he walked on six-inch stilts, tied to his legs below the robe. The gait of a stilt-walker has a sway of majesty about it, something stiff and slightly hindered, as God might move among men, and quarrelsome Stephen looked truly like the King of Heaven with his gilded mask and triple crown, as he paced from light to dark and back again, delivering his monologue.

  'I, God, great in majesty

  In whom no first or last can be

  But ever was and aye shall be,

  Heaven and earth is made through me.

  At my bidding now be light...'

  On this, Tobias, in his first role of an attendant angel, in wig and half-mask and wings briefly borrowed from the Serpent, came through the people with a flame and lit all the brands along the wall and so made a flood of light over everything. God walked now in the light of his Creation and the dark heap of Adam was visible in the corner.

  'Now man we make to our likeness

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sp; With breath and body him to bless

  Over all beasts great and less

  For to hold sway ...'

  Adam crept out from under his cloak, rubbing his eyes, his naked legs shapely, though pimpled with cold. And now Straw appeared as the Serpent before the Curse, in wings hastily recovered from Tobias and a round and smiling sun-mask. He came through the people and he was singing as he came, a crooning chant that women sing at the spinning-wheel. Adam was lulled to sleep by this song, but not very quickly. He kept catching himself up with a start every time the Serpent paused in his singing and the Serpent grew impatient at this and turned to the people to make the sign of impatience, which is done by raising the hands to shoulder height with the fingers pressed back and turning the head stiffly from side to side.

  While the people were watching this lulling of Adam, Eve came quietly along the side of the yard with a dark shawl over her head. When Adam finally slept, God swayed forward on his stilts and raised his right hand and turned it quickly at the wrist in the sign of conjuring, and at this Eve dropped her shawl and stepped in her yellow wig and white smock into the brighter space, and was born. She was bare-legged also. She caused laughter and lewdness among the people by her vanity and preening and by the sway of her boy's buttocks as she walked before Adam when God was not looking. When God retired to rest, there was a game of catch between them, he clumsily reaching for her, she evading.

  Now came the time for me to follow Satan, played by Tobias in the red robe that also served for Herod and a very hideous red and yellow mask with four horns. I hissed and jabbed and made sorties among the people and flipped up my spiked tail behind. I put much energy into this performance and some effect it had -several of those watching hissed back at me, a child started to cry loudly and the child's mother shouted words of abuse. This I took for success, my first as a player. But it came to me again that the people were not so many, and I knew this thought would also be in the minds of the others.