"No," Joliffe had to agree. "Even if he was there for an honest reason, it still gave him chance to know where and when he"d have the best chance to deal with Robyn Kydwa and his man with no one to see it happen."
Even as he said it, he remembered the surprising beauty of Ned"s voice twining with young Hew"s in the Angels" song, and his hand gracefully outstretched in blessing when, as Gabriel, he spoke with Mary. To think of that hand murdering . . .
"And where to hide their bodies after it was done," he said, the feeling in his belly now of sickness.
"That, too. And where it was safe to hide them and himself during the day, since he likely would wait until dark to do the rest."
"Although that"s not to say he did any of it," Joliffe tried.
"Found out someone else who was gone from here at the right time, have you?" Sebastian asked acidly. "And knew the place where the bodies were put? And had reason to kill Kydwa?"
"It"s not much of a reason," Joliffe said. "Jealousy over a woman."
He heard the foolishness of saying that even as he said it. People stupid enough to murder someone were stupid enough to murder for jealousy as readily as for any other reason.
Sebastian matched his thought with a mocking laugh and, "It"s as good as any other. Not that it may be the reason-or only reason in this." He seemed to grudge granting that. "You"ve said the Emes are some of your *quiet" Lollards. What if they aren"t? What if Kydwa found them out-them or some others of their kind-and had to be *quieted" in his turn?"
"That"s-possible." If nothing else, it gave a better reason-a reason that could at least pa.s.s for "better" than plain, idiot jealousy-for killing Kydwa and his man. Having gathered the various wide-ranging strands of his thoughts, Joliffe said, "Right enough, then. It"s Ned Eme we have to look at more nearly. One thing, though. We"ve a week until Corpus Christi and doing the plays. Even if we get the full proof we need against him, can we hold off using it until after then? He"s needed in the play I"m in, and there"s no likelihood he"ll run, since he has no thought of being suspected."
Sebastian regarded him with a look both dour and mocking. "We can wait. The servant can go on rotting as readily where he is as somewhere else." Joliffe winced at that as Sebastian had meant him to, while Sebastian went on, "Always supposing we find proof enough to satisfy a jury. Any thoughts how to do that?"
"None," Joliffe said. "I"ve made no effort to be friends with him. Mayhap I"ll have to." Or-Saint Genesius forbid-with Richard Eme.
Practice that evening was strange from start to end for Joliffe. What he did outwardly had little to do with where his mind was, which was pity for more reasons than one, first and foremost being that Sendell had decreed they would run the entire play without stop for the first time, beginning at the beginning and going straight through to the end. "So we can see the shape of it. To see how well it plays as a whole," he told them all before they began, adding aside to Joliffe in an undertone, "To see if it plays at all."
Deep in work that had been going well, Sendell had been free of that manner of gloom these past days. Given the beating his life had taken these past years, for the gloom to come again now and again was no surprise, but Joliffe might have taken more note of it surfacing again if he had not been so wound into his thoughts and the effort not to show them. Happily, Sendell was given no grounds for gloom. The two Prophets kept up the pace of their speeches, Joliffe having at last goaded Richard Eme into moving his words along instead of wallowing in them. Simeon in his turn gave his speech just the right weight that Joliffe should have time, when the time came they had their playing garb, to change from Prophet to Ane. His time with Simeon done, he returned to a bench, watched Simeon and his Clerk carry through their parts at a goodly pace, then had to school his face to carefully nothing but interest while Ned as the angel Gabriel spoke with Mary.
As Gabriel Ned was competent and smooth, not exciting but a very satisfactory angel. Tom Maydeford played Mary as sweet and strong, remaining humble before G.o.d"s messenger while knowing the wrapped bundle of supposed child in her arms gave her high place in the world. The lighter word-play between her and Joseph made relief from the solemnity of what went before it, with Tom and Powet playing perfectly Mary"s affection for Joseph and his love for his young wife even as he gently vexed her. It made more touching Joseph"s honest complaint of utter weariness when he was left alone to find the doves they must take to the temple. But Hew as the Angel brought the small cage with its (false) doves to him and renewed his strength.
At the Temple, Simeon, Ane, the Clerk, Mary, Joseph, and the Angels carried through their parts almost faultlessly. Simeon fumbled one of his long speeches but recovered and kept going with no need to be prompted, and when time came for singing of the Nunc Dimittis, the soaring of Gabriel"s voice in antiphon to Simeon"s made Joliffe"s chest clench. How could Ned, standing there with hands spread in blessing toward them all, singing with such piercing beauty, be guilty of what everything seemed to say he was? And yet . . . and yet . . .
Mary and Joseph left the playing s.p.a.ce. On the wagon itself, they would go into the stage house, to wait out of sight while Simeon, Ane, and the Clerk finished and left in their turn, the town musician with his organ playing Temple-solemn music as they went but a moment later changing it to something merrier for Mary and Joseph to return, now with the young Jesus beside them, twelve years old and visiting Jerusalem for the first time.
Their going out would leave room in the stage house for Master Smale to be helped into a Doctor"s long, full robe over his Clerk"s garb, readying him to go out with Burbage and Richard Eme. That was going to take adroit shifting and some practice for all of them-including two Angels and their wings-to fit into the stage house"s cramped s.p.a.ce, but tonight there was no need, and as Mary, Joseph, and young Jesus moved into the playing s.p.a.ce, Joliffe looked around for Ned Eme. Like it or not, time was come to strike up better acquaintance with him.
Not liking it at all, Joliffe had braced himself to suggest they go out for a drink tonight when they were done here, and so he was disconcerted not to see Ned anywhere in the yard. Thinking he was probably gone to the jakes, Joliffe watched Burbage, Richard Eme, and Master Smale readying to move into the playing s.p.a.ce as the Doctors and forgot Ned for the while, the more easily because the Doctors were not playing as smoothly as they might have. Neither Burbage nor Master Smale were at ease with their words yet. Burbage missed out an entire middle part of one of his speeches, which threw d.i.c.k off balance for his own next one, it coming sooner than he was set for it. They fumbled and faltered but did not lose place entirely and, importantly, kept going, so that at the end Sendell said, "None so bad at all. Well done with your save, d.i.c.k." The boy stood straighter, glowing with the praise. "Burbage . . ."
Burbage, easily able to know what was coming, held up both hands in surrender. "I"ll have every word fixed into my head by next practice. I swear it."
Sendell nodded his satisfaction with that and turned to give a wide smile around at all of them. They were waiting for what else he had to say and surely tomorrow he would have suggestions and corrections and additions to make, but for now he settled wisely on straight praise, saying, "It"s coming together. We"ve a very good play despite it all. The tavern keepers are going to be very displeased with us." That brought laughter all around, as he surely meant it to, and he set them free, sending them home feeling good about themselves and their work.
But Ned Eme was not there, had not come back from wherever he had gone, and Joliffe went aside to Sendell to ask, "What happened to Ned? He disappeared well before we were done."
"Before we started he asked if he could leave when his part was finished," Sendell said easily. "I said if everything went well, he could. He went."
So much for hoping to strike up talk with him tonight. Joliffe did not hide his guilty relief from himself while asking Sendell, "Join me in a drink to celebrate we"ve made it this far and it"s looking well?"
"I think that if we try," said Sendell merrily, "we might even make it several drinks before curfew. I, at least, am in need of them."
They got their several drinks, and went their separate ways to bed, and on the morrow Joliffe spent the day doing nothing to Sebastian"s purpose. He knew he might try to find Ned Eme but made no effort to think of an excuse he could give Ned if he did. Instead, tired of Coventry"s streets and taverns and not wanting to meet Sebastian even by chance, he dug the horse brush out of the cart and went out again to see Tisbe and Ramus in their pasture. Both he and they enjoyed the while he spent grooming them, although Tisbe, as ever, showed her displeasure at having to share him with Ramus by b.u.t.ting Joliffe hard with her head and snapping at Ramus" flank. Despite she might have been grateful to share the pulling of the players" cart with another horse and despite the months they had been together, she never forgot there had been a time when she had had Joliffe"s heed all to herself. Joliffe, to rea.s.sure her she was still the best of horses, spent a long time combing out her mane, talking to her all the while, leaving her mellow and drowsy-eyed when he finished.
He spent the rest of the day loitering along a stream among willow shadows at the pasture"s edge, with a meat pasty he had brought on his way out of Coventry and his book of Hoccleve"s poetry for company, although he read little, content with watching the water purling and listening to the day"s small wind among the willow trees. He stayed until nearly suppertime and came back into the town by way of Gosford Gate, not all that far from Mill Lane. He got his supper at a cookshop and strolled on to the yard, coming somewhat early for rehearsal and regretfully bracing himself to the necessity of being particularly friendly with Ned.
He found the pageant wagon had been drawn out of its house into the middle of the yard. Sendell and Burbage were atop it, wrestling an upright post into place at its far end, to finish the frame of the playing house that-later hung all around with cloth for walls-would give the players somewhere to disappear when their parts were done and to change garb. The boards that would become its flat roof-to be set with the high altar of the Temple and likewise give the angels somewhere "heavenly" to appear-and the stairs that would go up to it were in a careful pile on the remaining long open bed of the wagon, with the wooden pegs to fasten it all together probably in the basket standing beside them. The steps that allowed players to come down from the wagon to the street and up again were already attached to the wagon"s rear end, hinged so they could be swung up onto the wagon while the wagon was pulled from playing place to playing place through the town.
Delighted excitement stirred all through Joliffe at the sight. He had seen, once, the great pageant of plays done in the city of York. York, being larger and richer than Coventry, had more plays, beginning not in the New Testament but with the Creation of the world and running on through both Testaments and to Judgment Day itself. Besides the thrill of the stories, what had stayed with Joliffe through the years-he had been, what, eleven years old or maybe twelve the time his family made that almost-pilgrimage to see the plays?-was the flare of delight at the sound of one pageant wagon, its play finished at one place, rumbling away along the street to its next playing place while the following wagon rumbled up, pulled by laughing apprentices and journeymen of whichever guild the play belonged to. Each wagon had promised new and unforeseen delights, and something of that long-past gladness leaped up in Joliffe at simply seeing "his" wagon here. But if he was feeling that gladness again, then it was not long-past, was it? He paused on that unexpected thought. Did gladness last as surely in the heart as sorrow seemed to?
When great sorrow came, it always seemed to shatter all gladness there had been, but that was a false seeming. Somewhere in the heart and mind the gladness still was. Did sorrow so often seem the stronger because people dwelt in it, clung to it, rather than turn to the gladness there had been and hold whole-heartedly to it? Was sorrow easier to have than joy? It was sorrow"s pain that gave sorrow such strength, he supposed. Pain in its first, terrible moments had a way of taking the mind away from everything else, and the worse the pain, the longer it held the mind. But to never let go of it? Never return to the gladness that still was if the mind and heart still held it?
There were things in his own life he would sorrow for until his death, almost all of them entwined beyond separating from some gladness that had gone before. Both were there in his heart and mind, so why let the sorrows outweigh the gladnesses? He had found all too terribly how sorrow could cling to mind and heart like a poisonous vine, but he had also found that treasured gladness could be a burning sun that withered sorrow, stopped its smothering growth. He would have his sorrows forever, yes, but he would hold to his gladnesses, too, treasuring them for their light and joy against sorrow"s darkness.
And thinking of sorrow"s darkness, he saw Cecily Kydwa sitting on a bench against a far wall of the yard. All the benches that had outlined the playing s.p.a.ce these past days were gathered there now, out of the wagon"s way. Folded piles of clothing were set out along them, and Cecily was st.i.tching at a seam in a length of dark cloth laid across her lap. Instantly guessing everything there was playing garb, Joliffe went to see it. The girl briefly looked up at him and quickly bent her head to her work again. She was not presently crying but Joliffe had glimpsed the swollen redness around her eyes and the strain of grief tightening her face. For her, alas, now was far too soon for any remembered gladness to be more than pain, he thought, but schooled his voice to ordinary curiosity as he asked, "So is this the last of the garb?"
"Most of them are only roughly together," the girl said, st.i.tching steadily without looking up again. "For you all to try on tonight. Then if they"re right, I"ll finish them."
Voices from the gateway behind him told others were come in. For form"s sake, knowing it was of little use to her, he said gently, "I"m very sorry for your brother"s death."
"Thank you," she choked softly, still to her lap and hands, and Joliffe went to head off Hew and d.i.c.k and Tom crossing the yard to see the garb in their turn.
"We have to leave her alone," he told them. "Else she won"t finish with what she needs to."
Sendell and Burbage had finished with the frame for the playing house and now demanded Joliffe and Master Smale come help with putting the stairs together, with Hew and d.i.c.k to hand over the wooden pegs and mallets for pounding them when need be. While they worked, the rest of the company came in, singly and by pairs, and were swerved from going to look at their garb by Sendell, still struggling with the stairs, immediately calling for them to come put up and fasten down the boards for the playing house"s roof that would make the upper playing s.p.a.ce. "Because I doubt our angels want to truly try hovering on air there," he said.
Sight of the pageant wagon and the promise of trying on their garb seemed to work on everyone the same glad way it had on Joliffe. They joined to the work eagerly, and maybe Joliffe was the only one to notice that neither of the Emes were there yet. Only as the last pegs on stairs and boards were being knocked into place did Richard Eme stalk into the yard and over to the wagon.
"Here at last, are you?" said Sendell, tossing his mallet into the now-empty basket but not sounding particularly irked as he wiped sweat from his forehead. "You chose a good evening for being somewhat late. Where"s your brother?"
Richard Eme frowned around the yard as if expecting his brother to conjure himself out of thin air. When Ned failed to, Richard said, very irked, "I don"t know. I was hoping he would be here. f.e.c.kless as always, the fool."
Now Sendell was frowning, too. "This isn"t the time for him to turn f.e.c.kless if that"s what it is. Ah! I don"t need this now of all times!"
Powet put in easily, "Likely he"ll show up soon. He"s lost track of the time or some such foolery. He won"t miss a chance to wear those wings, that"s sure."
Sendell gave an unwilling laugh at that, recovered at least his outward demeanor, and said, "You"ve G.o.d"s truth there. Come. Let"s try the garb. No," he ordered, slowing everyone"s surge toward the benches. "Keep your hands off it all until Cecily gives you what"s yours. Prophets first. The rest of you after that as you come on in your parts."
By then Cecily had finished and folded the robe she had been sewing, had set it beside the others along the benches, and now, still with downcast eyes, began taking up garb to hand to each man and boy as they came forward. She had given Joliffe and Richard Eme and Hew their robes and was handing over Simeon"s when a man Joliffe did not know came into the yard. He gave a quick look around, then crossed directly to Burbage, last in line, who did not see him coming until the fellow took hold on his elbow. Burbage startled. The man leaned near to say something close into his ear. A moment later Burbage snapped his head around, stared at him for one frozen instant, then veered out of line.
"I have to see to something," he said to Sendell.
Sendell, frowning, had been opening his mouth toward protest, but at the urgency in Burbage"s voice, he closed off his protest and nodded acceptance of his leaving.
Spurred by Burbage"s urgency and with no better reason than his perhaps d.a.m.nable curiosity, Joliffe dumped his prophet"s robe onto the one in Richard Eme"s arms, said, "Here. Hold it for me. Thanks," and followed Burbage without even the courtesy of excusing himself to Sendell.
He briefly wondered if it was not an oversight on the theologians" part to have failed to include Curiosity among the Deadly Sins.
Burbage and the man who had come for him were going out the gate at a walk not quite a run. With his longer legs, Joliffe was able to overtake them in the street, asking as he did, "Burbage, what is it? Not one of your sons?"
Instead of Burbage, the other man answered, too rattled to keep it in. "It"s Ned Eme. He"s hanging on our pageant wagon."
Chapter 15.
The smiths had begun readying their pageant wagon, too, but had yet to roll it out of its shed into the yard. Their shed being higher than the weavers", they had been able, so far, to work sheltered against the likely chance of rain. With the westering sunlight slanting low and long into the shed, Joliffe could see the steps from the wagon to the ground were already in place and that the stage house"s frame at the wagon"s far end was up. Deeply involved in his own work as he had been, he had not yet taken in much about other guilds" plays, but here a thick post fixed to one side of the wagon, a high crosspiece thrusting out to one side, could only be the "tree" from which Judas was said to have hung himself in his despair and guilt. That meant the smiths" pageant must be Christ"s Pa.s.sion and Crucifixion, that being the play that usually had Judas" death. When the wagon was rolled out of the pageant house, that cross-arm would thrust out over the yard and then over the street. Here it thrust merely toward a wall. And here and now it should have been bare, no more than an empty possibility of a gallows.
Instead a body hung from it.
The man who had come for Burbage had been gabbling all the way across the yard, saying he had come to measure for a new board needed to replace a broken one for the wagon"s floor, that he"d swung the doors wide to have enough light, had seen the body hanging and thought it was someone"s ill jest, a counterfeit man hanging there.
"Then I found it wasn"t. It"s Ned Eme. I swear it. I looked into his face. Even strangled, I could tell it"s him, Christ have mercy and all the saints defend us."
He crossed himself, then fell abruptly silent as the three of them stopped together in the doorway, both he and Burbage apparently as unwilling as Joliffe was to go in. To go in was to take the first step toward everything that would come afterward, and everything that came afterward was going to be terrible.
But there was no going back from where they were. There was only onward.
Still, Joliffe held where he was, waiting for one of the other men to go first because it was not his place. He was an outsider, a looker-on to all these people"s lives-and now death. And yet when Burbage finally went forward, Joliffe could not help himself but followed immediately on his heels. Burbage gave a backward glance at him but did not protest his company. The other man stayed in the doorway, probably having seen enough. Nor did it take long for Joliffe to see enough, too.
A strangled man"s face was a mockery of his face alive. Blackened and swollen out of shape with gathered blood, tongue thrust out, eyes in a glazed glare . . .
Despite all that, there was no doubt. It was Ned Eme hanging there.
"Christ have mercy," Burbage said in echo of the other man, as he and Joliffe, almost as one, signed the cross on themselves and stepped farther back from the dangling body.
From the doorway the man said, his voice shaking as the horror of it began to go deeper into him, "I should go for the bailiffs, shouldn"t I? I should have gone for them first. But I knew you were just across the way. I thought . . . I thought . . ." He probably had not known what he was thinking, had simply wanted not to be alone in this, had wanted someone to know besides himself.
"Yes," Burbage said tightly. "This is for the bailiffs and the crowner." It was to be noted he did not say a priest. He turned sharply around to add, "But no one else. Not his family. Not yet."
"Yes. Right enough. Yes," the man agreed, already in retreat, then gone.
Left alone with the body, neither Joliffe nor Burbage immediately looked at it again, Burbage keeping his gaze outward to the yard, Joliffe looking elsewhere. He was beginning to remember the problems that would come from having let himself be a first finder of a corpse. By law, being a first finder laid certain duties on a man that could not be avoided. Sebastian would not be pleased. Or maybe, over all, he would be. If this was self-murder, their problem of bringing Ned Eme to justice for two murders was done. Except Sebastian"s interest was not so much in justice as in Lollards.
Then Joliffe"s mind tripped on itself and tracked backward. If it was self-murder?
"Should we take him down?" Burbage asked, still looking outward from the shed, then answered himself before Joliffe could. "No. Best wait for the bailiffs and crowner. If he"s in town. The crowner. He might be. The bailiffs will know."
Burbage was talking to cover the dreadful silence of the hanging man behind them. Joliffe made some sort of agreeing sound, no more wishing to look at Ned than Burbage was. That did not stop him looking inward at other things, though, and that "if" was taking harder hold in his mind.
He understood well enough how Judas" hanging would be faked in the play. The rope would be already set, one end wrapped around a double-p.r.o.nged hook on the upright, the other end with the noose looped back to lay along the crosspiece, held up by a plain hook so that all the man playing Judas need do as he said his final speech of despair and guilt was loose the noose and put it around his neck. "Demons" would be there, capering "invisibly" around him, mimicking joy at his d.a.m.nation, one of them merrily helping him put the noose around his neck as if to hurry his destruction but in truth making sure it was safely fastened into the harness the man playing Judas wore under his clothing, a harness that kept the rope from truly throttling him as he flung himself off the edge of the wagon.
Had it been in despair and guilt matching Judas" that Ned Eme had put this noose around his neck, no harness to save him, and stepped off the wagon"s edge? How far into despair and guilt did a man have to be for that, knowing neither the fall nor the noose would break his neck and he would slowly strangle to his death? And how great would his despair be if-having committed to such sin and agony-a man wanted, too late, to undo it?
As a man could have undone it here, Joliffe saw with an abrupt jerk of his thoughts. He looked around at the gallows and body to be sure. Yes. Here if a man"s mind changed-if after all he had a last moment loss of determination to die, he could save himself. The cross-arm of the gallows-tree was short. If a hanging man reached out, he could easily grab the upright timber, pull himself to it, and wrap an arm around it, holding himself safe while he loosed the rope from his neck. Whoever played Judas of course would do no such thing, might feign a broken neck, would probably thrash and jerk a little to thrill the onlookers, then go limp in "death."
Ned, though, had put the noose around his neck, stepped or thrown himself off the wagon, and hung there without any last moment desire to live after all.
Joliffe heard himself ask aloud, "Why here?"
Burbage gave a shuddering shrug. "Is one place better than another to d.a.m.n your soul to h.e.l.l? The true question is why did he do it at all?"
Joliffe offered hesitantly, "There"s a woman who won"t have him."
"When it comes to it, it"s always a woman. Anna Deyster this time."
"It"s not a secret, then, that he had hope of her."
"Not a secret he wanted her. I wouldn"t have said there was much hope of it myself, but I gather he wouldn"t be told." Burbage glanced over his left shoulder at the hanging body, jerked his gaze away, crossed himself. "Only, Christ have mercy, he must have come to believe it after all." Then with sharp urgency he exclaimed, "Christ"s bones! You"re going to have to tell Master Sendell he"s lost his Gabriel!"
That jarred a different thought into Joliffe"s mind. Saint Genesius, patron saint of players, how distracted was he to have thought first of Sebastian"s displeasure and only now, belatedly, of what Ned Eme"s death meant to the play? How much of himself had he lost with becoming Bishop Beaufort"s man?
Or should the question be: how much of himself had he found that otherwise he might never have?
And was that finding a good thing or an ill?
But true ill was Ned Eme"s soul d.a.m.ned to h.e.l.l for self-murder. Of course if Joliffe and Sebastian had it right, then Ned was already d.a.m.ned for the murders of Robyn Kydwa and his man, but at least while he lived, there could always have been hope of repentance, confession, absolution by the Church, and the saving of his soul from h.e.l.l if not his body from the law. Now both his body and soul were lost. Joliffe began to say the one prayer that seemed presently of greatest use. Christ have mercy. G.o.d have mercy. Christ have mercy. Over and over. Mercy not only on Ned Eme"s soul, but on the hearts of all those whose grief would be all the worse for him dying this hopeless way.
The man who had got them into this returned with one of the bailiffs and the crowner-"We were dining together," the crowner said grumpily-and word the other bailiff was being sought.
That much explained, the crowner gave a nod to Burbage, said, "Master Burbage. I regret I can"t say good evening to you, since openly it"s not," and shifted his look to Joliffe. "You I don"t know."
Burbage said who he was before Joliffe could answer for himself.
"Why is he here?" the crowner asked, not hostile, simply wanting what he had a right to know.
Joliffe, seeing Burbage start to wonder the same thing now that someone thought to ask it, said quickly, "We were already missing one man at rehearsal. When Master Burbage made to leave, I wanted to be sure it wouldn"t be for long. Or, if it was, I could go back to tell Master Sendell the reason."
That sounded good. He could nearly believe it himself. The crowner accepted it, anyway. So did Burbage.
The bailiff, standing near at hand, staring into the shed the while, said, "The fellow looks dead from here well enough. Do we have to look closer?"
"I do," the crowner said. "Then you"ll have to help take him down."
The bailiff grimaced but said nothing. The crowner went into the shed for his closer look. Joliffe approved the way he took in the place in general as he approached the body. The time he then spent looking at the body itself was short but reasonable. He even circled it although that meant squeezing against the shed"s wooden wall to pa.s.s the body on that side. His foot slipped on something there and he lurched, nearly grabbed at a hanging leg for support but caught his hand back and steadied on his feet without help.
He came out of the shed, saying, "He can come down now. Best have it done before the light fails further."
His gaze went between Joliffe"s and Burbage"s shoulders toward the gate and sharpened in a way that made both of them look around. Burbage said, "Oh, no," and moved to head off young Hew just sliding past the barely open gate.
The boy called at him and Joliffe together, "Master Sendell wants to know where you got yourselves away to and why you"re not back yet." He had to have already taken in the gathering of men in the yard but hopefully was unable to see past them before Burbage reached him and turned him back toward the gate with a hand on his shoulder. He did not seem to know the crowner and bailiff for who they were, since he took whatever Burbage said to him and went out the gate without any backward craning of his neck for a longer look at anything.
Burbage came back saying, "Saints! That was a near thing. I told him to say we"d be there shortly." He looked to the crowner as if hoping to have that confirmed.
The crowner started, "I"ll need men to carry-" He broke off as two men came into the yard and instead said to the bailiff, "Here"s your fellow and the man I sent for him. With them and"-he nodded at the man who had come for Burbage-"him, there"s enough to carry the body to my place. You can be the one who goes to tell the dead man"s people. You know where they live?"
The bailiff granted glumly that he did.