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journeymen. Mary, Joseph, and Gabriel would be no problem (even with the wings), but Joliffe quickly saw that for this play there would have to be some sort of stage house on the wagon, making the playing area smaller, and in that smaller playing space Joseph and Mary had to journey to Bethlehem, go into the stable—beyond doubt the stage house in this case—where Mary stayed while Joseph went in search of a midwife. He presumably closed a curtain to hide Mary, because with him gone, three Shepherds were to come on, meeting each other supposedly out in the hills somewhere to talk and eat and drink and then be awed by a suddenly appearing star and then by Angels singing.
    They were still there, being awed, as Joseph came back to the stable to find (putting aside the curtain Joliffe supposed would be there) that the Child had been born. The Angels were then to tell the Shepherds to seek out the Child. They would go as they were bid and afterward leave the stage, while Joseph had to close the curtain again because now Herod and his Messenger were to come on for Herod to boast of how great a king he was. Loud music was called for, to accompany him when he went off. Then the Three Kings were to appear “in the street,” the script said, to show they have come from afar, but they were to join Herod and Messenger on the stage. Having ordered them to find the Child, Herod and Messenger were to leave, while the Three Kings went the perforce very short distance to the stage house to present their gifts to the Child. Warned afterward by the Angel to escape Herod, they then left, and Herod and Messenger came back on for the Messenger to tell Herod the Three Kings were gone. Helpfully, the script said that Herod was then to do his famous raging not simply on the wagon but in the street as well, ending by ordering his Soldiers (come on from somewhere) to kill the children in Bethlehem. Herod, Messenger, and Soldiers then had to all go somewhere out of sight because the Angel reappeared to warn Mary and Joseph to flee, which they did as the women of Bethlehem came on, singing to their doomed children until the Soldiers returned and slaughtered the Innocents, the play then ending with Herod learning the holy family had fled to Egypt and violently swearing he would follow them.
    Joliffe wished Basset luck with it. In the wrong hands, it would be a wallowing beast of a play.
    Fortunately for the play and its guild, Basset’s were likely to be the right hands, because whoever had first written this play had had skill at both words and stagecraft. It could be made to work beautifully, and Joliffe saw why Basset was pleased to have it. With the wealth and ambition of the shearmen and tailors behind him, he would surely make the most of its possibilities, would turn it into something rich and rare.
    Always supposing he had men who could play the parts well enough, not strut like idiots and mangle the language past hope.
    Still, Basset had seemed unworried about that part of the business, so maybe he was in luck there, too.
    Joliffe rolled back through the scroll to Herod and the Messenger. The latter’s part was nothing much. The writer had probably seen little point in troubling to do much with only a messenger when it was Herod’s rage that everyone was waiting to see. Joliffe had yet to watch a Herod who did not thrash and rage all over the stage in over-played fury. It was what Herod, any Herod, was expected to do, and all the lookers-on were waiting for it, ready to laugh and jeer and cheer. Whoever had written this play had understood the Messenger was there only because someone had to report one thing and another to Herod so Herod could fall into one and another of his expected rages.
    Nonetheless Joliffe could see possibilities and began to scribble on a scrap of parchment on the slant-topped box that served him for a desk and held his quills, stoppered bottle of ink, and such paper and parchment as he had. By the time his belly told