‘I would be most interested to see it.’
‘In time, sir. All in good time.’
Nicholas remembered something. ‘I am glad we have met,’ he said. ‘Andrew Mompesson. Was not he your father-in-law?’
‘Indeed, he was. A sterling fellow and a bookseller of high repute. He taught me much.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘And he entrusted me with the best volume on his shelves when he gave me the hand of his daughter.’
Nicholas smiled, but he was not sure that Hay would make such a gallant remark about his wife in the woman’s presence. Joan Hay had the look of someone who had been starved of compliments for a considerable time.
‘It is an unusual name,’ said Nicholas. ‘That is why it stuck in my mind. Andrew Mompesson. He was among the signatories on that petition against the opening of a public theatre in Blackfriars.’
‘Your memory serves you well. My father-in-law helped to draw up that petition. He allowed me to make a fair copy of it, which is what I was able to show you.’
‘Did he live to see the present theatre opened?’
‘Mercifully, no,’ said Hay. ‘It would have broken his heart. The precinct was still unsullied by a playhouse when he died. No sound of drums and trumpets disturbed his peace. No swarming crowds went past his front door seven days a week. No actors mocked the spirit of Blackfriars with their blasphemy and lewd behaviour. He died happy. How many of us will be able to say that?’
‘Not many.’
‘Not poor Cyril Fulbeck, certainly. God rest his soul!’ Head to one side, he looked up at Nicholas. ‘Is that what has brought you here once more? The hunt for his murderer?’
‘Yes, Master Hay.’
‘And are you any closer to catching him?’
‘I believe so.’
‘That is excellent news.’
‘It is only a matter of time now.’
‘You deserve great credit for taking this task upon yourself when the Master of the Chapel meant nothing to you.’ He heaved a sigh of regret. ‘If only I had strength enough for it. Cyril Fulbeck was kind to me. I have many reasons to avenge his death but lack the means to do so.’
‘But for him, you might still be incarcerated.’
A hollow laugh. ‘That is more than possible.’
‘Which prison did they lock you in?’
‘The Clink.’
The approach of feet deflected their attention to the other side of the yard. Choristers from the Chapel Royal were processing towards the theatre with their heads bowed in reverential silence. Philip Robinson was at the front of the column as it wended its way in through the main door. Caleb Hay was duly horrified.
‘There surely cannot be a performance this evening!’
‘A short rehearsal only.’
‘On the Sabbath? In the wake of a funeral?’
‘Raphael Parsons is allowing me to watch them.’
‘Then I will take myself away,’ said the old man as he put his telescope into his pocket. ‘This is no place for me. Choristers making a foul spectacle of themselves upon a stage! Sanctity and sin are one under the instruction of Raphael Parsons. There’s your killer, sir. That man will murder the Sabbath itself.’
Hay made a dignified exit from the Great Yard. Nicholas made his way across to the theatre and explained to the porter why he had come. Geoffrey Bless surprised him.
‘Then you will have seen Master Ingram,’ he said.
‘When?’
‘A few minutes ago when he left the theatre.’
‘He was here?’
‘Talking to me even as you are now.’
‘I saw no sign of him.’
‘You could not have missed him,’ said the porter. ‘If you came across the Great Yard, you would need to be blind to miss him. I wonder that Master Ingram did not hail you.’
Nicholas was wondering the same thing. He decided that Ingram must have seen him first and concealed himself in one of the angles of the building. It was strange behaviour for a friend. He went swiftly back through the main door and looked around, but Ingram was nowhere to be seen. Nicholas concluded that he might not yet have left the premises. He returned to the ancient porter.
‘What was James doing here?’
‘He called in to see me, sir,’ said Geoffrey. ‘To talk over old times when Blackfriars was a happier place to be.’
‘How long was he here?’
‘Above an hour.’
‘Did he know that there was a rehearsal this evening?’
‘I told him so.’
‘What was his reaction?’
‘He thought it wrong, sir. On the day of the funeral.’
The porter’s eyes moistened. He was old and tired. Murder in the Blackfriars Theatre had taken all the spirit out of him. Alert and watchful before, Geoffrey Bless was now a broken man. It would not be difficult for someone like James Ingram to slip unnoticed back into the building.
Nicholas went up the staircase and let himself into the theatre as quietly as he could. Raphael Parsons was standing on stage, clapping his hands to summon his actors. Having changed into costume for the rehearsal, they drifted out from the tiring-house. Philip Robinson was the last to come, wearing a dress and pulling on an auburn wig. Nicholas took a seat at the very back of the auditorium. Parsons and his young company seemed unaware of his presence.
‘We’ll rehearse the Trial Scene,’ announced the manager. ‘Philip Robinson?’
‘Yes, sir?’ said the boy.
‘You must carry the action here. All depends on you.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Regal bearing, Philip. Remember that. You may be in chains but you are still a queen. Regal bearing even in the face of adversity. Clear the stage. Set the scene.’
Parsons jumped down into the auditorium and caught sight of Nicholas. He gave his visitor a noncommittal nod before turning back to his work. The stagekeeper set a table and benches on stage, then vacated it quickly.
‘Begin!’ ordered the manager.
Three judges came on stage in procession and took their places behind the table. Two soldiers, wearing armour and holding pikes, stood either side of the commission in order to signal its importance and to enforce its decisions.
‘Bring in the prisoner!’ called Parsons.
The gaoler dragged in the hapless Queen with a rope. Philip Robinson did his best to suggest wounded dignity. He stood before his accusers without flinching. The charges were read out, then one of the judges addressed the prisoner.
judge: What have you to say?
queen: The charges against me are false.
judge: That is for us to decide.
queen: You have no power over me, sir. I am a queen and answer to a higher authority than any you can muster here. I’ll not be subject to this mean court like any common malefactor. Do you dare to sit in judgement on God’s anointed? By what perverse and unnatural right do you presume to put the crown of England on trial here?
The speech was long and impassioned. Philip Robinson began slowly but soon hit his stride, delivering the prose with a clear voice that rang around the theatre. Nicholas was impressed. It was more than a mere recitation of the lines. The boy was a true actor. Of the apprentices with Westfield’s Men, only Richard Honeydew could have handled the trial speech with equal skill and righteous indignation.
Having cowed his accused with his majesty, the boy flung himself dramatically to the ground before the judicial bench and challenged them to strike off his royal head. Before the judges could reply, a voice roared out from the back of the theatre.
‘Philip! What on earth have they done to you?’
Ambrose Robinson stood in the open doorway looking with horror at his son. The sight of the dress and the wig ignited him to fever pitch. He went storming towards the stage with his hand stretched out.
‘Come away!’ he shouted. ‘Come with your father. I’m here to rescue you from this vile place. Come home!’
But the boy showed no inclination to return
to Bankside. As his father bore down on him, Philip Robinson leapt to his feet and backed away. Snatching his wig off, he cried out in fear:
‘I am happy here, Father! Leave me be!’
‘Come with me!’
‘No,’ said the boy. ‘I will not!’
He fled into the tiring-house and Robinson tried to clamber upon the stage to pursue him. The manager moved in quickly to restrain the angry parent.
‘Stop, sir! There is no place for you here.’
‘I want my son.’
‘Philip is a lawful member of the Chapel Children. You may not touch him. I am Raphael Parsons and I manage this theatre. I must ask you to leave at-’
‘Parsons!’
Robinson turned on the man he saw as the author of his misery. He went berserk. Shrugging Parsons off, he pulled the cleaver from beneath his coat and struck at him with all his force, catching him on the shoulder and opening up a fearful wound that sent blood cascading all over him. The manager fell to the floor in agony and the butcher stood over him to hack him into pieces.
The young actors were too frightened to move, but Nicholas Bracewell was already sprinting down the auditorium. Before the cleaver could strike again, he dived into Robinson with such force that the butcher was knocked flying. As the two of them hit the wooden floor with a thud, the weapon jerked out of Robinson’s hand and spun crazily away. He now turned his manic anger upon Nicholas, rolling over to get a grip on his neck and trying to throttle the life out of him.
Rage lent the butcher extra power, but Nicholas was the more experienced fighter, twisting himself free to deliver a relay of punches to the contorted face, then grabbing the man by the hair to dash his head against the floor. As the two of them grappled once more, footsteps came running towards them and James Ingram hurled himself on top of Robinson to help Nicholas to subdue him. The assistance was not needed. The butcher stopped struggling.
Realising where he was and what he had done, Robinson seemed to come out of a trance. He began to wail piteously. The porter came panting into the hall with two constables.
‘I tried to stop him,’ he said, ‘but he pushed past me. I ran for help.’ He almost fainted at the sight of Parsons. ‘Dear God! What new horror is here!’
Nicholas got to his feet. With Ingram’s help, he pulled Robinson upright and handed him over to the constables. As they marched him out of the theatre, the butcher was still crying with remorse. Raphael Parsons lay on the floor in a widening pool of blood. Nicholas turned to the porter.
‘Fetch a surgeon!’ he ordered.
‘I’ll go,’ volunteered Ingram. ‘Faster legs than Geoffrey’s are needed for this errand.’
The actor went running off towards the staircase, but his journey would be in vain. Nicholas could see that Parsons was well beyond the reach of medicine. Groaning with pain, the manager lay on his back with half his shoulder severed from his body. Nicholas tried to stem the flow of blood but it was a hopeless task. Parsons revived briefly. He looked up through bleary eyes.
‘Who is it?’
‘Nicholas Bracewell.’
‘I am fading. Beware, sir.’
‘Of what?’
‘The theatre. A dangerous profession. It killed Cyril Fulbeck and now it sends me after him.’ He clutched at Nicholas. ‘Will you do me a service?’
‘Willingly.’
‘Discreetly, too.’
‘I understand,’ said Nicholas. ‘Ireland Yard.’
‘Number fourteen. Commend me to the lady. Explain why I am kept away. Do it gently.’
‘I will, Master Parsons.’
The manager was suddenly convulsed with pain. Nicholas thought he had passed away, but then life flickered once more. Parsons’s lips moved but only the faintest sound emerged. Nicholas put his ear close to the man’s mouth.
‘One favour…deserves another,’ murmured Parsons.
‘Speak on.’
‘I did not…hang…Applegarth.’
‘I know that now,’ said Nicholas.
‘But I…tried to…tried to…’
‘Yes?’
‘Tried to…kill…’
His breathing stopped and his mouth fell slack. Raphael Parsons took leave of the world with confession on his lips. One mystery was solved. He was the man who threw the dagger at Jonas Applegarth’s unprotected back. The playwright had not been stalked that day by a discontented actor with a grudge against him but by a furious theatre manager with an injured pride.
Nicholas could never bring himself to like Raphael Parsons. The man was too malignant and devious. As he looked down at the corpse, however, he felt compassion for him. There was a crude symmetry about his death. Having attempted to commit murder, he had himself been cut down in the most brutal way. On the very day that he bade farewell to the Master of the Chapel, he was sent off in pursuit of him. While rehearsing a trial scene with a favoured son, he was arraigned by a father who appointed himself judge, jury and executioner.
By the time Ingram arrived with a surgeon, Nicholas had taken charge with cool efficiency. The dead body had been covered with a cloak, the weeping porter had been led away, and the actors had been taken to the tiring-house to be comforted. Nicholas did not forget his promise to call on a house in Ireland Yard, but sad tidings had first to be broken to someone else. He took Philip Robinson to a quiet corner backstage where they might speak alone.
‘You must be brave, Philip,’ he said.
‘Who are you, sir?’
‘Nicholas Bracewell. A friend of Mistress Hendrik.’
‘She was kind to me when my mother died.’
‘I know,’ said Nicholas. ‘But it is about your father that I must now talk, I fear.’
‘What happened, sir? I heard a fearful yell.’
‘He attacked Master Parsons with a meat-cleaver.’
The boy burst into tears and it took some time to soothe him. Nicholas gave him a brief account of what had taken place. He did not conceal the truth from him.
‘Your father will have to pay for his crime.’
‘I know, sir. I know.’
‘One death may be answered by another.’
‘And the two can be laid at my door!’
‘No, Philip.’
‘I killed them both! If I had not been here, Master Parsons would still be alive and my father would not soon be facing the public hangman.’
‘You were not to blame,’ insisted Nicholas. ‘You are the victim and not the cause of this crime.’ He held the boy until his sobbing gradually eased off. ‘You like it here in the theatre, do you not?’
‘I do, sir.’
‘You were happy out on that stage.’
‘Very happy.’
‘So you did not write to your father to say how much you hated Blackfriars?’
‘I did not write at all.’
‘Would you rather be in the Chapel Royal or at home?’
‘In the Chapel!’ affirmed the boy. ‘Anywhere but home.’
‘Why is that?’
The boy felt the pull of family loyalties. Unhappy with his father, he did not want to divulge the full details of that unhappiness. Ambrose Robinson would soon be tried for murder and removed for ever from his son’s life. The boy wanted to cling to a positive memory.
‘My father loved me, I am sure,’ he said.
‘No question of that.’
‘But it was not the same after my mother died. He told me I was all that he had. It made him watch me every moment of the day. That came to weigh down on me, sir.’
Nicholas understood. Philip Robinson was oppressed at home. The Chapel Royal had been his sanctuary. The boy looked around him in despair.
‘What will happen to me?’ he wondered.
‘You will remain where you are.’
‘But will they still want me after this, sir? I am the son of a murderer. They will expel me straight.’
‘I think not.’
‘Master Fulbeck was my friend. He looked after me. Who will d
o that now that he has gone?’ His face was pale and haunted. ‘What will happen to the theatre with Master Parsons dead? Chapel and theatre were my life.’
‘They may still be so again.’
‘It will never be the same.’
Philip Robinson was right. Cyril Fulbeck had been a father to him, and notwithstanding his strictness, Raphael Parsons had been an excellent tutor. Having lost both along with his own father, the boy was truly floundering.
‘Which did you prefer, Philip?’ asked Nicholas.
‘Prefer?’
‘Singing in the Chapel Royal or acting at Blackfriars?’
‘Acting, sir, without a doubt.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because I may get better at that in time,’ he said. ‘In the Chapel, I can only sing. On the stage, I can sing, dance, declaim the finest verse ever written and move all who watch to tears or laughter. I long to be an actor. But how can I do that without a theatre?’
Nicholas thought of the broken voice of John Tallis.
‘Let me see if I can find you one,’ he said.
Chapter Twelve
The day of rest was the least restful day of the week for Margery Firethorn. Tolled out of bed by the sonorous bells of Shoreditch, she had to rouse the remainder of the household, see them washed and dressed, lead them off to Matins at the parish church of St Leonard’s, and smack them awake again when any of them dozed off during the service. Apart from the four apprentices and the two servants, she had three actors staying at the house until they could find a more suitable lodging. Thirteen mouths, including the ever-open ones of her children, had thus to be fed throughout the day. Since the servants tended to bungle some of the chores and burn all the food, Margery ended up doing more cleaning and cooking than was good for her temper.
When she got back from Evensong with her flock in tow, she was vexed by the irreligious thought that the Sabbath had been invented as a punishment for anyone foolish enough to embrace marriage and succumb to motherhood. Margery looked ahead grimly to an evening laden with even more tasks and groaned inwardly. It was not the most auspicious time to call on her. Edmund Hoode felt the full force of rumbling dissatisfaction.
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