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him that the morning was well gone toward dinnertime, he was satisfied with what he had so far done. With no qualm about leaving it for later finishing, he put everything away and crawled from the cart. Stiff with having sat still for so long, he stretched and bent and stretched again, careful of his bruised ribs but not careful enough. He straightened with a wince, and behind him Basset said, “What’s that for? That wince?”
    Putting an easy smile on his face, Joliffe turned to him. “Just a bruised rib or two. I bumped into something harder than I am.” Or, more correctly, the pommel of someone’s sword had been driven hard against his side. Not that he much complained about that: if Joliffe had been less quick to close with him, it would have been the blade in his side. A little carelessness in his questioning about why Lord Ferrers was gathering such a large affinity of men had made one of Lord Ferrers’ men suspicious and then angry at Joliffe one drunken evening. It had come to blows, but since it was the man who was drunk and Joliffe not, nothing worse had come of it than bruised ribs and a need for Joliffe to leave that particular place before the next dawn. None of that being something he meant to tell Basset, he went lightly on, “I must learn to stagger less when I’m drunk.”
    “Taken to heavy drinking, have you?” Basset said dryly, letting his doubt show but not pressing the matter, saying instead, “How goes it between you and my Messenger?”
    “Your Messenger is become a wry-witted man who knows very well what a fool his master is and lets the lookers-on know he knows it, while all the while seeming nothing but respectful to his king.”
    Basset brightened. “Yes! Good! I can play that more easily than the flat nothing he’s been. Are you ready for your dinner?”
    Joliffe looked along the yard toward the kitchen door from where good smells and an occasional bustling servant were coming. “Here?”
    “Not for you, I fear. I spoke with Mistress Silcok this morning. You’re welcome to sleeping space with us, but since you’re no part of the play, she does not feel it right they do more. You’re on your own for meals.”
    Joliffe had foreseen that. The last of yesterday’s bread and cheese from his belt pouch had done for today’s breakfast, and he had coins enough to see him through for a goodly while to come. Besides, going one place and another around Coventry for his meals would give him chance to do more of what Sebastian had wanted. So he shrugged easily and offered, “Shall I take you out to dinner, then? My paying.”
    Basset gave him a half bow. “I’ve always taught that a player never turns down an offer to be fed. To be true to my teaching and set you a proper example, I must perforce accept your offer.”
    Joliffe half bowed in return. “You are most kind, as well as faithful to your word.”
    “Also,” Basset added briskly, “I know where Will Sendell is likely to be dining.”
    Joliffe committed himself to no more than, “Ah,” being still uncertain how he felt about meeting up with Sendell after all this while.
    Out of the yard and into the street, they turned the opposite way from the tavern where Joliffe had stopped yesterday. A slight early morning rain followed by a clearing sky had Coventry shining in warm summer sunlight, and the scattered crowd of various folk bustling about late morning errands or heading home or elsewhere to their own dinners seemed in a general good humour. Weaving their way among them, Joliffe said as much to Basset who agreed, adding, “This is their time of year, as it were. With Corpus Christi coming and the weather promising to go on as it has been, there’ll be hundreds of out-comers pouring into town for the plays, spending money to make the merchants, innkeepers, tavern-holders, and everyone who works for them joyous with prosperity.”
    “And us.”
    “I am already joyous with prosperity,” Basset said. “They can only make