The Nicholas Bracewell Collection

by Edward Marston

  ‘That is unkind, sir.’

  ‘Only to the white mare.’

  ‘Has Master Firethorn known her for long?’

  ‘An hour at a time.’

  ‘They are old bedfellows, then?’

  ‘Bedfellowship was their invention.’

  Barnaby Gill was riding beside the waggon which was now being driven by Christopher Millfield. The other sharers and the apprentices were seated among the baggage but the hired men were forced to trudge in the rear. It was a hot day with no wind to cool the fevered brow. Gill used the occasion to unleash some tart misogyny.

  ‘She is the very epitome of her sex, is she not?’

  ‘Mistress Becket?’

  ‘She’ll prove a shrewd archbishop to his majesty there beside her. Though we ride to York, she’ll take him on a pilgrimage to Canterbury this night and show him all her sacred relics. When Master Firethorn plunges into her baptismal font, he’ll sink to his armpits in the swill of her passion and will have to pray to the holy blissful martyr to haul him out again!’

  ‘You do not like the lady,’ said Millfield drily.

  ‘Not this, nor any other of her kind.’

  ‘Your reasoning, Master Gill?’

  ‘Women have no place beside players.’

  ‘Not even underneath them?’

  ‘They are vile distractions, sir.’

  ‘Would you not keep them for ornament?’

  ‘Only in a privy for that’s their natural region.’

  ‘You are harsh, master.’

  ‘Can any sane man truly love women?’

  Christopher Millfield laughed by way of reply. He liked Barnaby Gill and had learned much from watching the comedian in action on the stage, but he could not share his disgust with womanhood. Millfield aroused feminine interest wherever he went and he basked in it, viewing it as one of the few legitimate spoils of war for an actor.

  Gill looked across at the handsome profile.

  ‘May I put a question to you, sir?’

  ‘Do not hesitate.’

  ‘How came it that you knew Pomeroy Manor?’

  ‘I knew but of it, Master Gill.’

  ‘By what means?’

  ‘The Admiral’s Men.’

  ‘Untalented rascals!’

  ‘They had not your quality, ’tis true,’ said the other tactfully, ‘but they were able enough. And they knew where to earn the next meal when we were in the country. One of their number kept a list in his mind of every house in England where players were welcome.’

  ‘That list was not too long to memorise,’ said Gill ruefully. ‘Far more doors are slammed in our faces than ever open to our entertainment.’

  ‘Even so, sir. That is why I took some pains to con the list myself. Master Neville Pomeroy was on it along with others in the county of Hertfordshire.’

  ‘And this friend of his in York?’

  ‘Sir Clarence Marmion was also on that list. I think the Admiral’s Men did play there during the last outbreak of the pestilence. But there are other houses where we may look for friendship, both here in this county and in Yorkshire itself.’

  ‘We’ll try your list some more.’

  Gill’s attention was diverted by a sight which made his nose wrinkle with distaste. Lawrence Firethorn burst into ribald laughter and leaned over to squeeze the shoulders of the mirthful Susan Becket. Their joviality set them apart from Westfield’s Men who were still worrying about the kidnap of Richard Honeydew and the effect it would have on the standard of their work.

  ‘Look at them!’ snorted Gill.

  ‘Like turtle doves,’ said Millfield tolerantly.

  ‘Pigs in a trough, sir! When they have finished gobbling their own discourse, they will roll together in the slime and he will tickle the teats of that old sow.’

  ‘Mistress Becket is neither so low nor beastly.’

  ‘She is a monster. Put her on the stage and you would need three boys to play her, stuffed together in the one dress like rabbits in a sack. While Martin Yeo would personate her, John Tallis would serve in the office of one buttock and Stephen Judd t’other. It is a pity that Dick Honeydew is not here or he could take on the role of her left breast and wear that gross beauty spot.’

  ‘For shame, Master Gill!’

  ‘I speak but as I feel.’

  ‘Her tavern gave us good food and rest.’

  ‘So would any other where we paid.’

  ‘I like the lady.’

  ‘I took you for a man of finer taste.’

  Millfield looked at Firethorn and his companion.

  ‘She keeps him much amused.’

  ‘Any woman can do that.’

  ‘Does his wife raise no objection?’

  ‘A hundred by the minute, sir, but she is back in Shoreditch and he is here. Were Margery to view this scene before us, she would pluck off his stones and wear them as earrings to ward off any other women. Alas, she is not here. She defends his castle in London.’

  ‘Stoutly?’

  ‘As any army under siege. I pity the man who tries to take her fortress, Master Millfield. Though he bring the biggest battering ram in Christendom, it will not suffice. Margery will drown him in boiling oil.’

  ‘Out, you rogue! Away, you rascal, you hedge-bird, you pannier-man’s whelp! Do not wave your paltry reckoning at me, you pimp, you dog’s-head, you trendle-tail! Marry, look off, sir! Go, snuff after some other prey! Poxed already you are, I can tell by that sheep-biting face, and I hope to see you plagued one day, you snotty nose!’

  ‘I come but for my due, good madam.’

  ‘Hold forth thy mangy head and I will give it thee with this broom! Or bend over, and I will sink a foot of my handle where’ll you’ll feel it most and remember me as a tidy housewife.’

  ‘Calm down, Mistress Firethorn.’

  ‘Only when your greasy face has gone!’

  The tailor was a small, sweating, diffident man who was no match for Margery Firethorn. When he came to present his bill to her, he walked into the same hurricane as his predecessors. Backing away from the threshold of the house in Shoreditch, he summoned up enough courage to issue a threat of legal action.

  ‘I have the law upon my side, mistress.’

  ‘And you stay, I’ll gum your silks with water!’

  ‘Pay up now to stave off a worser fate.’

  ‘Do you want that pate split open with my broom?’

  ‘I’d bring an action of battery against you.’

  ‘Your widow might, for you’d not live to do so.’

  ‘I am not married,’ he confessed.

  ‘What woman would take you?’ she jeered. ‘I can see it in your visage, you insolent slave! You’re a miserable tailor’s remnant of a man, a pair of breeches without a codpiece, a dunghill cock with no cause to crow or fright any hen from her modesty. Away, you gelding!’

  ‘Leave off, you shrew!’

  ‘Then go before I snip with your scissors!’

  ‘’Tis a cucking-stool you need,’ he said. ‘That’s what they use for ducking scolds.’

  ‘Yaaaaaaaa!’

  Margery ran at him with her broom at the ready and he took to his heels and ran for his life. As he raced off down the road, she yelled some more abuse at him to spur him on then relaxed and went back into the house. The tailor was the fifth creditor in the last two days and he came on the heels of a draper, a hat-maker, a cobbler and a goldsmith. All presented her with reckonings that she simply could not meet, large bills recklessly run up by Lawrence Firethorn in the knowledge that he would be leaving London soon and therefore able to outrun his debts. Margery was left in the line of fire. Five had been dispatched but all five would return again with the law to strengthen their arm. And there would be more. Her husband was nothing if not extravagant. On the eve of his departure, he had run up debts all over London.

  Pulsating with fury, she stormed upstairs to their bedchamber and grabbed the cloak. It was the answer to all her problems. Not only would its sa
le bring in enough money to pay off all outstanding accounts, it would be a severe blow to Firethorn. The second-best cloak was much more than a mere garment. It was a due reward for his artistic endeavour, a seal of approval from his patron. The actor had worn it onstage several times and it was a glittering storehouse of theatrical memories. Though he had left it for her to sell, he had banked on her keeping it for reasons of pride and nostalgia. Those reasons now battled with feelings of outrage.

  Margery was betrayed. Struggling along without him was a trial enough but he had made her predicament much more awkward. It was typical of him and she cursed herself for not foreseeing this eventuality. No word had yet come from Firethorn and, when it did, she was sure that no money would accompany it. She was on her own with mouths to feed and tradesmen to stave off.

  She fingered the cloak with swirling anger. It would serve him right if he came back to find it gone. Margery crossed to the door with the garment over her arm then stopped in her tracks. Conscience troubled her. She would be meeting one betrayal with a far greater one. Whatever vices her husband had, there was one overriding virtue that drew her to him. He loved the theatre. With a passion that amounted to an obsession, he adored every aspect of his chosen profession and savoured every prize and memento that had come his way. Even at the height of her rage, she did not have the heart to stab Firethorn in the back through the silk of his second-best cloak.

  Shaking with frustration, she threw it aside.

  ‘Doll!’ she yelled.

  ‘Yes, mistress?’ called a girlish voice.

  ‘Come here at once!’

  ‘In haste!’

  The servant girl knew better than to keep Margery waiting. She had watched through a window as each of the five creditors had been sent packing with their ears on fire. Doll lived in the house and had nowhere else to go. Total obedience was the only way to appease her mistress.

  She stumbled breathlessly into the bedchamber.

  ‘Hurry, girl!’

  ‘I am here, mistress.’

  ‘Then go from me again.’

  ‘How now?’

  ‘Fetch me pen and ink.’

  ‘It shall be done directly.’

  ‘And something I may write upon.’

  ‘I fly.’

  ‘Faster, girl!’

  Margery Firethorn would grasp another possibility. She would write a letter.

  Nicholas Bracewell was in no position to parley. Greatly outnumbered and clearly in the wrong, his only hope lay in a swift escape. Half-a-dozen brawny gypsies were closing in on him, their scowls hidden by the paint on their faces but their gestures eloquent. The boy himself continued to shout at Nicholas then grabbed a handful of dust to throw up into his face. Blinded for a second, the book holder swung his sword in a wide arc to fend off the gypsies who moved in quickly upon him. As his eyes cleared, he saw another man running towards them with a branding iron in his hand, patently intent on murder. Nicholas rightly identified him as the boy’s father and did not linger to discuss the youth’s skill as a dancer.

  Swishing his sword again to create more space, he then spun around and sprinted off. One of the gypsies had sneaked up behind him and tried to block his way but Nicholas knocked him out of the way with his shoulder. Pursuit was immediate and it was accompanied by all kinds of wild cries. A few dogs joined in the fun of the chase.

  Nicholas was running at full pelt but found an extra yard of pace when a long knife embedded itself in a tree only inches from his face. When he reached his horse, he had no time for a leisurely mount with the stirrup. Vaulting into the saddle, he tugged the rein free of its branch and let the horse feel his urgency.

  He galloped away with howls of anguish ringing in his ears. Three of them followed him and kept him within sight for a mile or more but he finally managed to shake them off and gain the cover of a wood. With time at last to catch his breath, he measured the cost of his journey. It was expensive. He had wasted valuable time, created a band of dangerous enemies and collected an aching bruise on his shoulder. Irony ruled. Believing that the gypsies had stolen a young boy from him, he finished up by doing the same to them. Guilt lay exclusively with him and he had no excuse. Nicholas knew that he had deserved the bite that was still smarting on his arm. He was lucky to have escaped with his life.

  Catching up with the company was now his prime concern and he did not spare his mount on the return journey. When he reached the Smith and Anvil, he watered the horse and checked to see what time the others had left, then he was back in the saddle and riding off once more. It was now mid-afternoon and the sun was at its height, compensating for the torrential rain earlier in the week by baking the land dry. Both Nicholas and the horse were dripping with perspiration. As the River Trent came into sight, he slowed his mount to a rising trot. The cool water shimmered ahead of him. Its appeal was quite irresistible to the exhausted traveller.

  He reined in his horse when the water was lapping at its fetlocks then dismounted. After tethering the animal to the branch of an overhanging tree, he slipped behind a bush and peeled off his sticky clothes. Nobody was about as he ran naked to the edge of the bank and plunged straight into the river. It was a wonderful feeling, both relaxing and invigorating, easing his pain and restoring his vitality. He swam powerfully towards the middle of the river then rolled over on his back and floated on the surface of the water. His arms were outstretched and the sun gilded his hair and body. He let time stand still.

  Eleanor Budden emerged from the bushes on the other side of the river and watched the apparition that was floating slowly towards her. She had been sitting beside the Trent in deep contemplation when she first heard the splash. Her mind had been on her mission and she had been waiting for another sign from above.

  That sign had now come. What she saw on the water was no fatigued book holder washing off the dirt of a long journey. She witnessed a miracle. Eyes closed, arms nailed to some invisible cross, body limp yet beautiful. Fair hair combed by the sunlight. Here was no stranger but her closest friend in the world. She had last seen him in the lancet window at the church of St Stephen.

  Eleanor Budden waded happily into the water.

  ‘Lord Jesus,’ she cried. ‘Take me to Jerusalem!’

  Nottingham was the first sizeable town they had been in since they had left and it gave them an immediate sense of reassurance. It was tiny by comparison with London but that did not worry them. The place was a vast improvement on villages that turned them away and hamlets which could not raise an audience worth the bother. Nottingham was civilisation. They were back in business.

  Lodging his company at the Saracen’s Head near the centre of the town, Lawrence Firethorn put on his best apparel and went to call on the Mayor. Permission to play was readily granted and the Town Hall was the designated venue. The Mayor was a keen playgoer himself and he was delighted that Westfield’s Men were gracing the town with a visit. Money was discussed and Firethorn left in much higher spirits. The performance of Robin Hood was set for the morrow which gave them ample time to rehearse the piece, to recruit journeymen as extras and – in the event of Richard Honeydew’s continued absence – recast the role of Maid Marion. All seemed to be well.

  The actor-manager then returned to the inn and his world caved in around him.

  ‘Again! This is a double insult!’

  ‘I saw the playbill myself, Master Firethorn.’

  ‘Did you witness the performance?’

  ‘I could not bear to, sir. My loyalty is to you.’

  ‘It does you credit, Mistress Hendrik.’ He thumped the settle on which he was perched. ‘By heavens, I’ll not bear it! Giles Randolph is as arrant a knave as ever walked the face of the earth. Sure, he cannot have come from any lawful issue but was engendered by two toads on a hot day in some slimy place or other.’ He jumped to his feet. ‘And did he really play Pompey the Great?’

  ‘But two days ago.’

  ‘Treachery in the highest degree!’

  Anne
Hendrik had tracked the company down to the inn and reported her news. The long-faced Edmund Hoode sat in on the debate along with Barnaby Gill. All three of them waited until Firethorn had ranted his full and described fifteen different ways in which he would put his rival to death. Having departed from their original route in order to shake off Banbury’s Men, it was dispiriting to find that they had come in their wake after all. Firethorn’s beloved role had been purloined, Hoode’s play had been misappropriated and all the kudos that should have gone to Westfield’s Men had been diverted to lesser mortals.

  The actor-manager would have raved for an hour or more had he not been interrupted by the landlord who told him that another guest wished to have private audience with him. Firethorn stalked off like Pompey on his way to clear the Mediterranean of pirates.

  Anne Hendrik was able to ask after Nicholas.

  ‘Is he not with you here?’

  ‘Not yet, mistress,’ said Hoode. ‘Dick Honeydew was taken by the gypsies and Nicholas went to rescue him.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘He would not hear of company,’ said Gill.

  ‘But there are such perils.’

  ‘Nicholas will make light of those,’ assured Hoode, then turned to the question that really vexed him. ‘Tell me now, for this is like a dagger in my heart, what player with Banbury’s Men did dare to take my part?’

  ‘Your part, sir? In Pompey the Great?’

  ‘Sicinius.’

  ‘I cannot say, Master Hoode.’

  ‘It matters not,’ said Gill dismissively. ‘The role is of no account and hardly noticed in performance.’

  ‘That is not true, Barnaby!’

  ‘Take it away and who would miss it?’

  ‘I would, man! I would!’

  ‘Sicinius is a mean part for any man.’

  ‘It is mine!’ wailed Hoode. ‘I wrote it and I play it. Sicinius is me. I would not have myself stolen like this. So tell me – who took the part?’

  Mark Scruton lifted his dagger and stabbed his victim in the back with cruel deliberation. The man fell on to his face, twitched for a few horrifying seconds, then lay motionless. Wiping the blood from his weapon, the murderer gave a malevolent smile then strode calmly away.