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 strong-man unloading chains from a handcart. For some moments he stood there, bare-legged in the cold, as if unable to believe his eyes. Then he moved quickly toward 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 marketplaces. 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 strong-man, understanding what was happening, dropped his chains with great clatter on the paving stones and came toward 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 cowshed 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 strong-man 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 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, 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

      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 barelegged 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.

I had to get quickly back to the barn and change into the mask and motley of the Devil’s Fool and take the tambourine, because Satan retires to Hell and sulks when Eve refuses at first to take the fruit and he has to be comforted. There was hostility toward me from the people. A man tried to pull off my demon’s mask as I went by but I avoided him. Despite the cold of the evening, I was sweating.

There was only God inside the barn, sitting on the straw, drinking ale. He seemed depressed and did not speak to me. It took little more than a minute to strip off my demon’s dress and put on the Fool’s tunic and shoulder pieces and the cap and bells. But it was long enough for me to become aware again of Brendan’s presence under his heap of straw in the corner. My mask now was a plain white one, full face, with a long nosepiece like the beak of a bird. I shook my bells and struck the tambourine as I went back through the people. I was a different person now, they did not hate me. They knew me for a japer, not a demon. I understood then, as I passed through the people and shook my bells and saw them smile, what all players come to know very well, how quickly shifting are our loves and hates, how they depend on mocks and disguises. With a horned mask and a wooden trident I was their fear of hellfire. Two minutes later, still the same timorous creature as before, with a fool’s cap and a white mask, I was their hope of laughter.

I was discovering also the danger of disguise for the player. A mask confers the terror of freedom, it is very easy to forget who you are. I felt it now, this slipping of the soul, and I was confused because in body I was the more restricted—the mask did not admit much light to my eyes and I could see nothing at all to the sides. Close before me, through my narrow slits, I saw the ornate and fearsome mask of Satan and I heard the strangely remote and hollowed voice of Tobias bemoaning his failure and loss.

      “Ghostly paradise I was in

      But thence I fell through my sin.

      Earthly paradise by God’s gift

      Man and Woman dwell within.

      I have tried all in vain

      By my wiles to bring them pain …”

I had learned Brendan’s song and now I sang it and I shook the tambourine in time to the song and sang as sweetly as I was able, to soothe the Devil. I quavered at first, through fear, and this caused some laughter. But my voice strengthened as I went on and the fear fell away. When fear dies, daring is born. I finished the song but instead of saying the lines I had learned I made the three-fingered sign to Tobias to show I would speak my own words.

      “If the world belonged to thee

      Lord of all things wouldst thou be

      Lord of life …”

It was the Fool tempting the Devil with the World, a reversal of roles. Something new. Tobias answered with words of his own also, having had some moments to think.

      “If the world belonged to me

      Women all would ready be

      To harken to the Devil.”

Saying this, he made the two-handed gesture of copulation. By some instinct, instead of remaining still I began to circle round him, speaking now the lines I had learned, trying to remember the movements of hands and body that I had been taught. Tobias, though he had not known I would behave thus, made a comic business of it, craning round his horned mask to follow the tinkle of my bells, looking always the wrong way, always startled by the new direction of my voice. There was laughter at this and I joined in this laughter at the Devil and pointed and then tripped and fell, as I had been taught to do, but jarred my left elbow a little, and the laughter grew and it was sweet to me, I will not deny it. Turning into the light I was dazzled and for some moments I could see nothing and the laughter sounded in my ears …