A Play of Dux Moraud Read Online Free

pleasant-featured enough, with straw-brown hair and a well-limbed body, compact enough that it might never take him through a gawking, awkward time. All that, at least, was to the good. More, including his voice and whether he was trainable, would have to wait. Basset was saying, surely while making his own judgment, “You do? To Deneby? That will be a help. You’re Gil, I take it?”
    The boy ducked his head in awkward acknowledgment, thought better of that, and tried a slight bow from his waist instead, more awkward because of the bundle clutched to him. As he straightened, his gaze flickered to all of them looking back at him, and Joliffe remembered his own first moment of joining Basset’s company. That had been before the disaster had come on them, so there were more people looking at him—five men and Rose and another woman—but the feeling must be the same for this Gil as it had been for him: the lone outsider being judged by a close-grown group who knew each other, did not know him, and were unsure they wanted to. Basset had done then just as he did now—said with hearty goodwill, “Welcome, young man—” and went on to make them all known to him. “Ellis Halowe, who does our villains and heroes, depending on which we need. Joliffe Ripon, who mostly plays our women’s roles as well as anything else that’s needed. My daughter Rose, who’ll keep you clothed and teach you your share of the cooking. Her son Piers, who’ll make trouble for you, just as he does for the rest of us.”
    Gil smiled and nodded at each of them. They smiled and nodded back.
    “It’s your last name we don’t know,” Basset said.
    “Densell, if you please, sir,” Gil said.
    “Well, Gil Densell, it’s time we were on our way. That’s all your gear?” Basset asked. “Put it in the back of the cart. Show him where, Piers.”
    “There’s a meat pie on the top,” Gil said. “For all of . . . us.” He offered that “us” uncertainly. “From my mother,” he added, abashed.
    “Then doubly welcome,” Basset said heartily.
    Young Gil would learn soon enough, thought Joliffe, that food from anyone for any reason was always welcome among them.
    But even now, with Piers showing Gil where to stow his bag and no reason left not to be on their way, Rose said, “There’s one more thing.”
    Joliffe, going to Tisbe’s head to start her away, turned back to see Piers handing his mother a folded cloth that must have been lying at the cart’s back. He and his mother and Ellis were all smiling as if to burst, and before Joliffe or Basset could ask why, Rose shook out the cloth and held it up, showing it was a tabard of strong red cloth painted with Lord Lovell’s badge of a silver wolf-dog—playing off Latin lupellus and Lovell—stitched on its front. Slipped over the head, the tabard would hang loose in back and front and by the Lovell badge tell to the world whose players they were.
    “From Lady Lovell,” Rose said. “There’s one for each of you and Piers and Ellis, too.”
    “The Lord and St. Anne and the blessed Virgin love her,” Basset breathed, staring much as the Israelites must have stared at the manna from heaven. “I . . .”
    Words failed him. Joliffe did not even try for any. A few months ago they had been near to ruin and now they were a lord’s players, with all the marks of honor that could go with being so.
    “We’ll wear them,” Basset said. “As we leave. To let my lady know we honor her gift.”
    “And then put them away for later,” Rose said firmly. While Piers tossed folded cloths to Ellis and Joliffe, she went to her father and slipped the tabard over his head, settling and straightening it as she had his surcoat. He struck a pose and she nodded at him, smiling approval. Then she turned to Ellis, waiting for her help though he did not need it; and when she had the tabard on him, her hands lingered on his shoulders, and he put his hands over hers, the both of them smiling at each other with