The Playmaker Read Free Page A

little?”
    “How is that, sir?”
    “Why, in any London uprising the battle cry is, ‘First, we kill the lawyers!'” At my puzzled look, he explained. “Just a line from a play, lad. My fellow clerks are not amused by it. I take it you read and write?”
    “I do, sir. Our village rector credits me with a fairer hand than his.”
    “How's your Latin?”
    “Passable, sir. The rector says I learned all he could teach me, and that readily.”
    “Where lives this admiring rector, then?” I heard the amusement in his voice and thought it best to trim my sails.
    “Just a trifling place in Lincolnshire, sir. Village of Alford.”
    “Ah.” He glanced my way. “Did you say your name, lad?” “No, sir. 'Tis Richard Malory, sir.”
    My companion stumbled in his clumsy wooden pattens, striking the beefy arm of a leather-clad carter, which sent his book and papers flying. A bloody curse escaped him, and as we scrambled for the spilled papers his swearing continued, with some invention I thought: “By all the spiteful, sportive spirits—By the milk-white hands of the Virgin Mary—”
    “Here, sir.” I gathered all the loose papers I could reach and handed them over. He stuffed them into what I had thought was a book, but was actually a worn leather portfolio stamped with a rose.
    “By the tortured Greek syntax of St. Paul!” He straightened, histassel bouncing with the emphatic shake of his head, clutching another sheaf of papers. I spied one more, which a cart had just run over, and picked it up. While glancing over the damage, I chanced to read some of the words on it: “By order of Philip Shackleford, Lord H—”
    His hand came down on my wrist, gripping so hard I cried out. “Did your rector not teach you manners, then?”
    “Yes, sir. F-forgive me, sir.” He let go of my wrist to snatch the paper. Then he riffled through the contents of the portfolio with a distressed look and surveyed the area once more. Any loose papers would already have been trampled to shreds.
    “No lasting harm done, then, just the usual dung and filth.” His words rolled blandly, but he was nearly panting, as though he'd just come off a run. As for me, I kept my eyes on the ground, chafing my wrist. He was stronger than he looked. “Well—Richard, did you say? We must part soon, but let me offer a word of advice.”
    He continued his progress and I fell in beside him as before— unwilling to part company, but now rather wary of him, too.
    “Is your heart set upon the law?” he asked.
    “I … don't know, sir.” Strangely, this was a question I had never pondered. “My mother thought it would suit me.”
    “Your mother. That's ofttimes the case. Well, would she be heartbroken if you chose another profession?”
    I swallowed. “Not likely, sir. She's dead.”
    “I see.” He stopped, and turned to me, and in one keen look seemed to grasp everything there was to know about that simplestatement. Once again I felt that pull toward him, an inclination that defied reason. After a moment he nodded briefly, then walked on. I blessed him for saying no more. In my present condition, weak and weary and dispirited, any expression of sympathy might have reduced me to a puddle on the street. “You will wonder at what I'm going to tell you now, Richard, but trust me on it, as far as you can trust a stranger. It is this: do not attempt to join yourself to Martin Feather.”
    “Sir?”
    We had reached the end of the lane, and my companion drew off a little from me, as if determined that here our ways should part. “I can tell you no more than this: he is a … precarious person to know. Even this much is in confidence—keep it close.”
    “What am I to do, then?” I blurted. “I must have a position!”
    “Of course. Of course.” He rubbed one side of his nose with an ink-stained finger, in the manner of certain scholarly men when they are thinking. I gazed upon that finger as though expecting my salvation to come from it. “Here