A Play of Isaac Read Free Page A

patiently.
    “Or time for them,” Richard said, not quite so patiently. “Not with everyone who’s coming and everything that has to be done this week. Nobody is going to have time or place for players on our hands.”
    “I have time. I have place,” Lewis insisted. “There’s lots of places.”
    What Simon would have said to that, Richard cut off with, “There aren’t places. Everywhere is going to be full in a few days. Now come on. We’re expected home. We’ve been here long enough.”
    “I want them!” Lewis said. He crossed his arms over his chest and dropped solid-rumped to the floor, defying anyone to change his mind or make him move.
    Simon made a small gesture at Richard and Geva to stay quiet and sat down on his heels to come eye-to-eye with Lewis. Lewis looked scowlingly at him, but Simon said slowly, calmly, “Lewis, we have to go home now and the players can’t come with us. It’s no good worrying at them and no good worrying at us. They have other things to do. They can’t,” firmly, “come with us.”
    Intent on the dealing with Lewis, Joliffe had not noticed Basset come back from his dealings with Master Norton, but from the doorway he said now in the mellow, warm, commanding voice he used when he played God, a prophet, an apostle, or a saint in a kindly humour, “Not necessarily so, my good lord. Not necessarily so at all.”
    He must have been listening long enough to know something of what was toward, and with everyone now looking at him, he finished his entrance like the practiced player that he was, bowed first to Richard’s wife, then to Richard, and finally to Lewis and Simon. In his younger days a strong-built man, Basset was, with years and gray hair, gone somewhat to bulk but carried his years well when he chose, and now, at his top of dignity, turned all his heed to Richard with yet another bow, deeper than the first, and said, “If there’s some way we could oblige the young lord, we’ll be more than merely glad to do so, sir.”
    Half-wit he might be but Lewis knew an ally when he heard one and scrambled to his feet so fast he nearly over-set Simon who rose somewhat more slowly and with a shading of . . . relief, Joliffe thought. At the same time he wondered at what Basset was aiming. Lewis, not bothered with any wondering, said, simply happy, “They can come! They can come!”
    “That’s not what he said, Lewis,” said Richard, whose rapidly shifting expressions betrayed he was looking for his best way out of the tangle in which he suddenly found himself. He took the shortest one by saying to Basset, “What do you mean?”
    If it had been to a cue written in a play, Basset’s answer could not have come more pat. “Why, simply, that we’re not tied to anything or anywhere these few days from now to Corpus Christi. If it would make the young lord happy . . .”
    “Master Fairfield,” Richard said. “His name is Master Fairfield. Not ‘lord’.”
    “Lord, Lord,” Lewis burbled happily.
    “. . . Master Fairfield,” Basset smoothly amended. He had taught Joliffe early on that you never went wrong giving someone a title higher than was actually their own. They would correct you, but they would remember the pleasure you had given them. “If having us to hand would please him for that while, we could make do with anywhere given us to stay. A corner of a stable. A loft somewhere?”
    “Loft, lost, loft,” Lewis said, close to singing now.
    “It isn’t . . .” Richard began.
    But Simon moved away from Lewis to Richard, taking him by the arm and turning him aside to say, low-voiced, “Listen a moment. You know as well as I do what it’s worth to tell Lewis he can’t have a thing he’s set to. If he thinks we’re giving in, he’ll come home with us, and when it comes out he’s not having what he wants, he’ll throw his fit there instead of here with everyone to see him.” Simon suddenly smiled. “Besides, there’s always the chance your father will