The play I most remember was a comedy about a master and his servant. The actors were strangers, with accents like the Instrument Maker has. In the play, the master didn’t want to marry a woman he had got with child, so he made his servant change places with him. There was lots of play with juggling and tumbling, but also lots of play with words. The servant made one joke about the apples on his master’s tree, which could mean either the bastard the master made or his bollocks. It made all the folk listening laugh.

The actors were all men, even the one playing the woman with child. That actor was clean-shaven and painted his face with white lead, like the Painted Pig. I remember she said the paint poisoned her skin. That’s what happened to Paul. If he started playing women when he was my age, he might have passed ten years wearing white lead on his face and hands. But the Painted Pig’s face wasn’t nearly so spoiled as Paul’s. Mayhap it’s different for different folk.

The afternoon wears on. The tent walls all get staked down, and rich fabrics are hung on their insides to cover the plain canvas. Tables are set for the feast with centrepieces on them, mostly green branches tied with violets or large feathers. In the centre of the branches are little towers with the banners of Queen Bethany and the Norman prince. Other folk hang giant candle sconces that look like deer antlers from the tentpoles. It’s pretty and an awful lot of work.

Musicians arrive with lutes, viols, and even a trumpet. I wonder if they’re the musicians from the Domus Conversorum. I look for the Instrument Maker and his chest rumbler, but he’s not with them.

Frederick and the other actors greet the musicians. Then the actors walk around the stage and call out words to indicate when the musicians are meant to make music during the play. Paul, I notice, has gone. It must be getting towards evening.

Suddenly I hear a strong voice. It’s the richly dressed overseer with not just one but a whole gaggle of clerks. The overseer barks something and the clerks spread out, looking over all the tables and chairs and centrepieces, straightening this and fixing that and making sure everything is in its place. I pick up my piss pail and go before they reach me.

I nip along the edge of the main tent to the back, where there’s a curtained doorway into the small tent for plating up food. It leads out-of-doors to the field kitchen and the jakes beyond.