He stepped on the hem of the best trailing brocade gown once too often, and I lost my temper. I don’t do that often. And being wardrobe, seamstress, third male lead, fourth female lead, psaltery or drum depending and chief maker of props, plus copier of scripts and deviser of pageants for My Lord Wallingford’s Men, tried the patience like nothing else could. Saints would wax wrath and start clipping ears. There might be thunderbolts.
The young man took a step backwards as he saw my face, but I wasn’t letting him get away with that. I grabbed him by both shoulders, rushed him to my own wagon, sat him down and flung the gown over his lap.
‘You, Christopher Maybloom, are going to start mending what you destroy,’ I said quietly. ‘Then perchance you will take care when I ask you to!’
‘I can’t sew!’ he protested, turning up his shapely face and making his full red lips into a pout.
‘Then you’ll learn,’ I said. I had a solid leather belt in my hands, and I struck the side of the wagon with it until it rang. He jumped. It had obviously been far too long since I laid down any manner of law to these rascals of players.
‘Lord bless us, Dafydd, what’s to do?’ asked our player in chief, Robert Yeates, puffing a little. He wouldn’t want anything to happen to his prettiest boy.
‘Kit is learning how to sew,’ I said.
‘And the belt?’
‘I’m encouraging him,’ I answered.
Kit looked up imploringly into Robert’s eyes. This had always worked. But lately Kit had sulked, flounced and been destructive, and moreover had nearly ruined Yeates’ big speech in King Lear. However pretty he looked as Cordelia, Robert would never allow his players to act unprofessionally on stage, whatever they got up to off stage.
‘About time he learned another skill,’ said Robert. ‘For when he needs a profession. Quite soon, in fact. Might keep him off the streets,’ he added, and went away to gloat in decent privacy. The company had no such compunction. They stood in a curved line around my wagon, giggling. Kit looked around wildly and saw that he had, for the moment, no friends. I recalled his attention by slapping the wagon again.
‘This is a needle,’ I said to him. ‘This is a thread. Here is a piece of calico. This is how to make a stitch. If you lose my needle, you will be sorry.’
The reason why no one has actually murdered Kit, though frequently threatening to slaughter him, is that he knows when he is wrong and also when he is beaten. He picked up the needle, threaded it after only two tries, and began to stitch. Cat-scratch at first, as had been my own. Once I was sure that he wasn’t going to run, I sat next to him and began to mend the brocade gown. He was deft. He was also warm and smooth next to me as we sat thigh to thigh on my wagon step. He leaned a little into me as we worked.
But seduction wasn’t going to work on me. Not that I didn’t want him. It was just impossible to trust him. And no reason why he should want me on his own account. I’m nothing special, being older, an ex-sailor, and Welsh.
‘Where did you learn to sew?’ he asked me. ‘I’ve run out of thread.’
‘You tie it off like this, bite the thread, good, now thread it again. Try to make all the stitches the same length. Yes, like that. On board a ship. I was in the Queen’s navy. The stitches you’re making - they’re what we use to sew a sail together. You will find that knowing how to sew is always useful.’
‘Tell me,’ said Kit, refining his skill by the stitch.
So I told him stories about life at sea and he learned the rudiments of stitching. And after that, he was more careful of his costumes, but he also came and sat with me when I was making or mending, sewing a proper eight stitches to the inch as regular and neat as my own. He seemed to like my company. And over a month or two, I fell hopelessly in love with him. HIs elegance, his grace, his beautiful tenor voice, his sweetness of character when he wasn’t being annoying - all of him. My Christopher Maybloom. My Rose of Sharon and my Lily of the Valleys. But not mine, of course.
Thus I was half destroyed when they told me that in the mad rush out of Taynesbrook, we had lost Kit.
The Puritans, especially strong in this benighted village, had spread the word that we were thieves, blasphemers, whores, sheep stealers, and plague carriers. We had barely passed the Parish boundary before we were descended upon by a roaring mob and forced back onto the high road by a couple of very worried Shire Reeves. They knew that Lord Wallingford would be offended if they murdered his players, so they wanted us out of there before there was a Breach of the Peace. So we went. Not wishing to be the recipients of said breach. And they flung stones after us. We deciphered their message. We were not welcome in Taynesbrook.
Then we missed Kit. Yeates was wringing his hands but all of the players had been seen. They could not go back, or they would risk instant arrest if they were lucky and being torn to pieces by a maddened mob if not.
‘They haven’t seen me,’ I said. ‘I was in the wagon. You go on to Walstead. I’ll go back for him.’
‘Dafydd Gwillim, what will we tell my Lord when you don’t come back? That’s like diving from the frying pan into the coals of Hell!’ protested Robert.
‘I’ll tell him myself,’ I said. I was not confident. But I could not leave my Kit to torture and death. And by myself I might be able to bluff him out.
I stripped off my coloured doublet and donned one of unrelieved black, usually worn by mourning royalty. I found the black hood which belonged to Richard III. I took my cloak, a bible, my sewing supplies and a half-made doublet. I had, of sorts, a plan.
I saw the others away, commended myself to Dewi Sant in a brief but fervent prayer, and walked back into Taynesbrook.
As I came into the main square I saw my Kit, bound and gagged, kneeling at the feet of a puritan in a grey gown. I stalked up to him, dropped my bag and extended my denouncing finger.
‘Woe be to ye, who oppress the widow and the fatherless!’ in my most Welsh voice.
He stepped back. I pressed close to him, poking him in the chest.
‘Oh generation of vipers!’ I shouted.
‘Who are you?’ he gasped. Fat, jowly, paling from the colour of an old apple. Used to his little brief authority. Kit shuffled close to my legs, shuddering.
‘Master Dafydd Gwilyn, honest tailor and man of God, and you have stolen my sister’s son. That is my nephew!’ I declaimed. ‘Release him! ‘
‘Tailor? That boy’s a whore, a rogue and vagabond, an actor, a mountebank, he’s no tailor!’ he sneered. ‘And neither are you.’
Glaring at him without pause, I spilled my bible, sewing materials and the half-finished garment onto my spare cloak. He swallowed. The villagers murmured. I reached down with my sewing stiletto and sliced my Christopher free, pulling off the gag. He sat up, rubbing his wrists. I dropped the doublet into his lap, gave him thread and a needle, and cuffed him lightly around the ears. He shot me one glance, bright with terror, then bent to his work. The preacher huffed. A woman in grey - probably his wife - looked down. She watched the easy, fluent movement, the exact stitches. Then she helped Kit to his feet, quite gently, and brushed him down. Her husband started a phrase and she shot him a look which would have kindled charcoal. He shut his mouth. The rest of the villagers retreated. If asked, they were never there in the first place. I know mobs.
Kit folded his work carefully, with the needle inside, and gave it back to me to re-pack. I slung the black cloak over his shoulders and slapped him again.
‘Bad boy,’ I reproved roughly. ‘Wearing the customer’s clothes! It’s bread and water for you! For a week!’
‘Oh, master,’ whined Kit in exactly the right voice and accent, plucking at my severe sleeve.
‘Come along,’ I ordered, and he fell in at heel, head hanging, and we walked out of Taynesbrook.
And we kept walking at the same even pace. Kit’s hand crept into mine, and at the warm clasp, he sobbed aloud. I put an arm around him as we walked, and he sagged against me, rubbing his wet face against my black doublet.
‘Oh, my Dafydd,’ he murmured, ‘I am yours! Oh my sweet, my honey, how did you think of such a thing, and how did you dare it?’
‘I would dare anything for you, cariad bach,’ I told him.
He sobbed again and then he giggled and soon we were laughing.
‘That was the most monumental piece of bluff I have ever seen or heard of,’ he said, stopping me after we were half way to Walstead. ‘And I thank you for my rescue,’ he kissed me ‘for my life,’ another kiss ‘and ask you for the honour of your regard,’ kiss.
‘It is yours,’ I said, and kissed him back. ‘And my love is yours, as is my heart.’
We walked along a little further. We saw the wagons grouped outside Walstead. Fires had been lit, our dogs were barking a welcome, Yeates, who was standing in the roadway wringing his hands, saw us and gave a shout. The whole company came running.
‘You did it! How?’ he demanded, dragging us both into a bear hug. A jack of mead was thrust into my hand. I drank and could not reply. It was strong stuff.
‘It is as my Master Dafydd told me,’ said Christopher Maybloom primly, never releasing my hand for a moment. ‘Knowing how to sew is always useful.’