The Nicholas Bracewell Collection

by Edward Marston

  Another rehearsal came to an end.

  Kynaston Hall was the largest private house at which Banbury’s Men had performed since the tour began and it offered them the best facilities. They had free use of the hall for rehearsal, the assistance of four liveried servants and regular maids from the kitchen. It was all very gratifying and no member of the company savoured it more than Mark Scruton. He was being given his first chance to take an important role. The play was one of their own this time, The Renegade, a dark and blood-soaked tragedy on a revenge theme. It enabled Giles Randolph to shine in a title role that really suited his talents and it brought Scruton forward into the light.

  ‘Excellent work, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Master Randolph.’

  ‘You prosper in the role.’

  ‘I hope the audience shares your view.’

  ‘Trust it well.’

  ‘Have you no criticism?’

  ‘None,’ said Randolph languidly. ‘Except that you stayed too long upon the stage once you had stabbed me. The murder of the Duke is of more dramatic significance than the reaction of his killer. Once you have dispatched me with your dagger, quit the stage.’

  ‘I will, sir.’

  ‘My corpse will be a soliloquy in itself.’

  They were in the Great Hall and the stagekeepers were scampering around moving the scenery and props. Giles Randolph was very satisfied with the way that everything was going. On and off the stage, revenge was proving to be his best suit. He was about to move away when Scruton detained him by plucking at his sleeve.

  ‘A word, sir.’

  ‘It is not a convenient time.’

  ‘This will take but a second.’

  ‘Very well.’ Randolph shrugged. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I am bold to put you in mind of my contract.’

  ‘It has not been forgot.’

  ‘When may I view it, sir?’

  ‘When I have drawn it up.’

  ‘And when will that be?’

  ‘The other sharers have to be persuaded first.’

  Scruton frowned. ‘My understanding was that you could carry the business alone.’

  ‘Well, yes, indeed. No question but that I can.’

  ‘Why then the delay?’

  ‘I am no lawyer, Mark. The terms must be drawn up properly and the Earl himself must take note of them. It is a big translation for you.’

  ‘You know that I have earned it, Master Randolph.’

  ‘No man more so.’

  ‘Give me then a date. It was your promise.’

  Giles Randolph gave him the enigmatic smile that was part of his stock-in-trade then walked slowly around him in a circle. Scruton did not like being kept waiting. His willing smile took on a forced look. Randolph faced him again and came to a decision.

  ‘York.’

  ‘What say you?’

  ‘That is when the articles will be signed.’

  ‘I have that for certain?’

  ‘My hand upon it!’ They exchanged a handshake. ‘You will become a sharer with Banbury’s Men and taste the sweeter fruit of our profession.’

  ‘Thank you!’ said Scruton with feeling. ‘I did not doubt you for a moment. This gives me true happiness.’

  ‘Wait but for York.’

  ‘It will be my place of pilgrimage.’

  ‘Bear your cross until then.’

  Mark Scruton grinned. He was almost there.

  It took Nicholas Bracewell fifteen minutes to convince her that he was not Jesus Christ and even then she had lingering reservations. When he saw her wading out to meet him in mid-river, he immediately lowered his body so that he could tread water. He had never been accosted by such a strange yet beautiful woman before, especially one who kept calling on him to baptise her in the Jordan. He took an age to persuade her to return to her bank then he swam back to where he had left his clothes and dried himself off as best he could before dressing. Restored and refreshed, he rode over the bridge and back along the bank to Eleanor Budden. Her wet shift was clinging to her body like a doting lover and he noticed that it had been repaired near the shoulder. Nicholas dismounted out of politeness and touched his cap.

  ‘May I see you safe home, mistress?’

  ‘All the way to Jerusalem.’

  ‘I have told you. I am with Westfield’s Men.’

  ‘Our meeting today was foretold.’

  ‘Not to me.’

  ‘We were destined to cross paths, Master Bracewell.’

  ‘In the middle of the River Trent?’

  ‘Tax not divine appointment.’

  ‘Let me escort you to your house.’

  ‘I have resolved to leave it for ever.’

  ‘Yet you spoke of a husband and of children.’

  ‘They will have to make shift without me.’

  ‘Does duty not prompt you?’ he said.

  ‘Aye, sir. To follow the voice of God.’

  Nicholas had met religious maniacs before. More than one of his fellow-sailors on the voyage with Drake had found the privations too hard to bear. They had taken refuge in a kind of relentless Christianity that shaped their lives anew and consisted in a display of good deeds and profuse quotations from the Bible. Eleanor Budden was not of this mould. Her obsession had a quieter and more rational base. That increased its danger.

  ‘The Lord has brought us together,’ she said.

  ‘Has he?’

  ‘Do you not feel it?’

  ‘Honesty compels me to deny it.’

  ‘Where you lead, I will follow.’

  ‘That is out of the question,’ he said in alarm.

  ‘You have been sent as my guide.’

  ‘But we are not going to Jerusalem, I fear.’

  ‘What, then, is your destination?’

  ‘York.’

  ‘I knew it!’

  Eleanor flung herself to her knees and bent down to kiss his shoes. Nicholas backed away in embarrassment as she tried to clutch at him. Facing up to a band of angry gypsies had been nothing to this. Eleanor was a model of persistence, a burr that stuck firmly to his clothing.

  ‘I must come with you, Master Bracewell.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To York. I must see the Archbishop.’

  ‘Travel to the city by some other means.’

  ‘You are my appointed guardian.’

  ‘Mistress, I am part of a company.’

  ‘Then I will go with you and your fellows.’

  ‘That is not possible.’

  ‘Why, sir?’

  ‘For a dozen reasons,’ he said, wishing he could call some of them to mind. ‘Chiefly, for that we are all men who ride together. No woman may join our train.’

  ‘That is a rule which God can change.’

  ‘Master Firethorn will not permit it.’

  ‘Let me but talk with him.’

  ‘It will be of no avail.’

  Eleanor Budden got to her feet and turned her blue eyes on him with undisguised ardour. She stepped in close and her long wet strands of hair brushed his cheek.

  ‘You have to take me to York,’ she insisted.

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘I love you.’

  Nicholas Bracewell quailed. He foresaw trouble.

  Lawrence Firethorn was slowly enthralled. More to the point, he smelled money. Oliver Quilley had invited him up to his room to put a proposition to him, and, after rejecting it out of hand, the actor-manager was slowly being won over.

  The artist expatiated on his work. Strutting about the room in his finery like a turkey-cock, the dwarfish dandy explained why he had become a miniaturist.

  ‘Limning is a thing apart from all other painting and drawing, and it excelleth all other art whatsoever in sundry points.’

  ‘Discover more to me.’

  ‘The technique of painting portrait miniatures comes from manuscript illumination. Hence the term “limning”. Yet Master Holbein, the first of our breed, painted in the tradition of full-size p
ortraits that were scaled down.’

  ‘And you, Master Quilley?’

  ‘My style is unique, sir.’

  ‘Do you acknowledge no mentors?’

  ‘I take a little from Holbein and a little more from Hilliard but Oliver Quilley is a man apart from all other limners. This you shall judge for yourself.’

  He opened his leather pouch and took out four tiny miniatures that were wrapped in pieces of velvet. He removed the material and set them out on the table. Firethorn was overwhelmed by their brilliance. Three were portraits of women and the fourth of a man. All were executed with stunning confidence in colours that were uncannily lifelike. Quilley read his mind and had an explanation to hand.

  ‘The principal part of drawing or painting after life consists in the truth of the line.’ He pointed at his work. ‘You see, sir? No shadowing is here. I believe in the sovereignty of the line and the magic of colour.’

  ‘They are quite magnificent!’

  ‘All paintings imitate nature or the life, but the perfection is to imitate the face of mankind.’

  ‘And womankind,’ said Firethorn, ogling the loveliest of the women. ‘Who is the lady, sir?’

  ‘A French Countess. And the other is her sister.’

  ‘The third?’

  ‘Lady Delahaye. I was commissioned by her husband to have it ready in time for her wedding. It is all but finished and I can deliver it when I return to London.’

  Firethorn warmed to the little man, sensing that he was in the presence of a fellow-artist, one who consorted with the nobility and whose work was worn as pendants or brooches at court, and yet who had made no fortune from his wondrous talents. The actor knew that story all too well because it was his own. Exceptional ability that went unrewarded in its proper degree. That sense of living hand-to-mouth which compromised the scope of his art and silenced its true resonance.

  ‘Marry, sir, what a case is this!’ he said. ‘Here we are together. Men of genius who are packed off out of London to scrabble for every penny we get.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Quilley. ‘Then to have it taken from us by some murderous highwaymen. Had they taken these miniatures instead, I had been ruined.’

  A thought took on form in Firethorn’s mind.

  ‘You wish to travel in our company, you say?’

  ‘Only for safety’s sake, as far as York.’

  ‘We do not carry passengers in our company.’

  ‘I’d pay my way, Master Firethorn, be assured.’

  ‘That is what I come to, sir.’ He tried to work out which was the better profile to present to the artist. ‘Is it possible – I ask but in the spirit of unbiased enquiry – that you could paint such a portrait of me?’

  ‘Of you or of any man, sir. For a fee.’

  ‘A guarantee of your safety?’

  ‘I’d need a horse of my own.’

  ‘Done, sir!’

  ‘And a bedchamber to myself at every stop we make?’

  ‘It shall be the first article of our agreement.’

  ‘We understand each other, sir.’

  ‘Such a portrait would be very precious to me.’

  ‘And to me, Master Firethorn,’ said Quilley with elfin seriousness. ‘The terms of the work can be talked over at a later date but I give you this as a sign of good faith.’ He handed over the miniature of the man. ‘It is worth much more than I will cost you. I am but small and very light to carry.’

  Firethorn looked down at the exquisite oval painting that lay in his palm. It had such fire and elegance and detail. The man stared up at him with a pride that was matched by his poise. Firethorn was overcome by the generosity of the artist.

  ‘This is for me, sir?’

  ‘To seal our friendship and buy me safe passage.’

  ‘It is the very perfection of art, sir.’

  ‘My work is never less than that.’

  ‘But will not the subject want it for himself?’

  ‘I fear not, sir.’

  ‘I would hate to take his personal property away.’

  ‘The fellow has no need of it now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that is Anthony Rickwood in your hand.’

  ‘The name is familiar.’

  ‘You have seen his portrait before, I think.’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘It is the work of another famous artist.’

  ‘What is his name?’

  ‘Sir Francis Walsingham,’ said Quilley. ‘He paints his subjects upon spikes. You may have seen poor Master Rickwood on display above Bishopsgate.’

  ‘The man was a traitor?’ gulped Firethorn.

  ‘A staunch Roman Catholic.’

  ‘I am holding a corpse?’

  ‘That is the essence of Walsingham’s art.’

  Quilley gave a mischievous smile that only caused the actor further discomfort. Firethorn had now changed his mind about the gift. Instead of being a treasured object, it was burning his palm like molten metal.

  Chapter Seven

  Robert Rawlins shuffled quietly into York Minster through the Great West Door and walked slowly down the centre of the nave. Sunlight streamed in through the magnificent window at his back, throwing its curvilinear tracery, with its central Heart of Yorkshire, into sharper relief and freshening the colours of the stained glass. Rawlins was dwarfed by it all, a grey, inoffensive little mouse amid the huge white pillars. Almost a hundred feet above his head, the superb gold bosses in the vaulted roof portrayed critical events in the Christian story. Here was both celebration and warning, a lasting tribute to what had gone before and a clear direction as to what should come in the future.

  Standing in the aisle, Rawlins looked around and took in the wonder of it all, at once inspired and abashed, as he always was, by this architectural marvel dedicated to the glory of God, and highly conscious of the number of lives that had gone into its construction. He fell to his knees on the bruising stone and offered up a prayer of supplication. Anxious and beset by danger, he came in to search for sanctuary and was soon deep in conversation with his Maker.

  An hour passed. The rustling silence was then broken by the sweetest of sounds. Behind the choir screen with its row of kings surmounted by stucco angels, the Minster choristers had taken up their position in their gleaming stalls. Voices of sublime harmony were raised in a Mass. In his extremity, it seemed to Robert Rawlins as if the angels themselves were singing in unison. He listened transfixed to the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei, mouthing old Latin words that were sung with such beauty and expression by young throats, and sharing in the perfection of earthly worship. It was such balm to his ears and succour to his soul that tears of joy soon trickled down his face.

  The choirmaster now decided to rehearse a hymn. When the voices rose again to fill the whole cathedral with a mellifluous sound, they achieved a different result.

  All people that on earth do dwell

  Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;

  Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell,

  Come ye before him, and rejoice.

  Robert Rawlins got to his feet in horror. It was not only because the singing of hymns had been introduced by the Puritans as part of their denigration of the priests and their eagerness to involve the congregation in the divine service. What stuck in his craw was this version of Psalm 100 – Jubilate Deo. Rendered into the vernacular from the Latin that Rawlins loved, it was the work of one William Kethe, a hymn-writer who fled from England during Mary’s reign and lived as a refugee in Geneva with such extremists as John Knox, Goodman, Whittingham and Foxe. Such names, such beliefs and such associations were quite obnoxious to Robert Rawlins and he felt it was sacrilege to sing that hymn in that place.

  Spinning around, he trotted back down the nave to the Great West Door. The comfort which he sought had been denied him. God was deaf to his entreaties.

  He went out once more into a hostile world.

  The enormous pleasure of seeing Anne H
endrik again was tempered by the fact that he had no leisure time to spend alone with her. Nicholas Bracewell was forced to chat with her while helping to construct a makeshift tree for use in the forthcoming performance of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. In a corner of the inn yard, the book holder was an emergency carpenter with the dubious assistance of George Dart. Conversation with Anne Hendrik was therefore punctuated by the rasp of the saw and the banging of the hammer. It ruled out any romantic element.

  ‘I cannot believe my luck in meeting you,’ she said.

  ‘I told you it would happen, Anne.’

  ‘If only the circumstances were happier.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Is there no news at all of Dick Honeydew?’

  ‘None, I fear.’

  ‘Who could have taken him?’

  ‘All sorts of people,’ said Nicholas with a sigh. ‘He is a comely youth and takes the eye wherever we stop. Dick would not be the first apprentice who was snatched away because someone conceived a fancy for the lad.’

  ‘Is he in danger?’

  ‘We must hope that he is not.’

  ‘Where do you think he could be, Nick?’

  ‘I have cudgelled my brain to give me an answer to that question, but it refuses. All I have is guesswork and suspicion.’

  ‘And what do they tell you?’

  ‘Banbury’s Men.’

  ‘Would they commit such a crime?’

  ‘They have stolen both our plays and our audiences,’ he argued. ‘Why should they stop there? In stealing young Dick as well, they deal us a far harder blow.’

  ‘You think the boy is with them?’

  ‘Master Randolph is too clever for that. If he has ordered the abduction – and every instinct about me says that he did – then he would have assigned the task to some underling and told the man to keep Dick well away from the company for fear of detection.’

  Anne’s maternalism was thoroughly roused by now. She knew all the apprentices well, none more so than Richard Honeydew, and she felt a mother’s distress at his untimely disappearance. Imagination only increased her fright.

  ‘Will they harm the boy?’