The Counterfeit Crank

by Edward Marston

  ‘Do you look for an early release?’

  ‘Where would I go?’

  ‘Back to your family.’

  The old woman grimaced. ‘What family? They all starved to death.’

  Dorothea was one of nine women in the room, all wearing the same blue dress and slaving away at a task that she found both tedious and tiring. Her hands and shoulders were already beginning to ache. Yet she dared not stop. One of the keepers, a burly man with an arrogant strut, walked through the room at regular intervals to make sure that they did their allotted work properly. Dorothea glanced around. As well as being the youngest person there, she was by far the healthiest. The old woman beside her had a face that was pitted with disease and a body that was hooped by age. Weak eyesight meant that she could barely see to thread the wool with her skeletal fingers.

  It was the same with the others. All were disfigured by a lifetime of poverty and deprived of any spirit. Dorothea was horrified to think that she belonged in such a hideous place alongside such broken women. The high hopes with which she and Hywel had set out for London had now turned sour. Her greatest fear was that she might never see him again. Hywel had rescued her and changed her life. As fond thoughts of him came flooding back, Dorothea let her hands fall to her lap. She soon came out of her reverie when the old woman’s elbow jabbed her in the ribs.

  Striding down the room was the keeper. Before his gaze fell on her, Dorothea quickly resumed her work but he nevertheless stopped beside her. He was not alone. His companion was a tall, wiry, gaunt individual in his thirties. The flamboyant colours of his doublet and hose were in stark contrast to the bleakness of the surroundings for the room, high and vaulted, had only the meanest furniture in it. As she worked on, Dorothea could feel the newcomer’s eyes upon her but she dared not look up. The wounds on her back still smarted and she did not wish to invite another whipping.

  ‘What is your name, child?’ asked the stranger.

  ‘Dorothea Tate, sir,’ she whimpered.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Seventeen, sir.’

  ‘Let me see you properly.’

  With a finger under her chin, her turned her head towards him and stared at her with an intensity that unnerved her. The frankness of his scrutiny brought a blush to her cheeks. Pulling his hand away, the man let out a soft laugh.

  ‘We will see more of you, Dorothea,’ he said. ‘I look forward to it.’

  One of the many things that Anne Hendrik admired about him was his ability to stick to any task that he set himself. After a full day at the Queen’s Head, he had come back to the house in Bankside that evening with a new play under his arm, determined to read it before he went to bed. She did not disturb him. Seated opposite Nicholas at the table, she studied her designs for new hats while he applied himself to The Siege of Troy. His expression gave nothing away and she could not tell whether the play that Michael Grammaticus had given him was good, bad or a mixture of both. All that she could hear was the crisp rustle of parchment as he turned over each page.

  Nicholas was so involved in what he was doing that he did not even notice when the shutters were closed and the candles lighted. Oblivious to all else, he read on by their dancing glow. When he eventually came to the final speech, he studied it for a moment before closing his eyes. Anne thought at first that he had gone to sleep but his lids soon opened once more. He gave her a smile of apology.

  ‘I did not mean to keep you up so late, Anne,’ he said.

  ‘I was happy to keep you company.’

  ‘You must have thought it selfish of me to lose myself in a play like that.’

  ‘I am interested to hear what you thought about it,’ she said. ‘Do you agree with Lawrence’s opinion of the work?’

  ‘He has no opinion of it for he has not yet seen it. Lawrence wanted me to be the first to read the play and so did Michael Grammaticus. They value my judgement.’

  ‘And so they should, Nick. You have an eye for quality.’

  ‘Indeed, I have,’ he said with a fond smile, ‘and you are the clearest proof that my judgement is sound. I could not have chosen better, Anne. Had you been a play, you would hold an audience spellbound for hours on end. Like me, they would never tire of watching you.’

  ‘But I would very soon tire of being watched.’

  ‘Then you will never be an actor. They thrive on attention.’

  ‘Women are not allowed on the stage,’ she observed. ‘It is a man’s preserve. We have to see ourselves portrayed by the likes of Dick Honeydew and the other apprentices. That is no reproach. We marvel at their skills. But, even if we were invited to play our part, I’d decline the offer. The very thought of it would make me tremble.’

  ‘Read The Siege of Troy and you might change your mind.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it would make anyone eager to clamber up on stage.’

  ‘Including you?’

  ‘I was on fire while I read it.’

  ‘There was no sign of the flames in your face.’

  ‘They were crackling within, Anne,’ he explained. ‘I do not know why Michael was so reluctant to let us read this. It’s a stirring piece of work and I’ve no doubt that Lawrence will think the same.’

  ‘How does it compare with Caesar’s Fall?’

  ‘Favourably.’

  ‘That’s high praise.’

  ‘I’d go further in my commendation,’ he said, gazing down at the sheets of parchment. ‘We hoped to have a new comedy from Edmund Hoode but we are offered a tragedy by Michael Grammaticus in its stead. There is no loss here. I love Edmund dearly and admire his work as much as anyone, but truth must out.’ He looked up at her. ‘I think that The Siege of Troy is a better play than any he could write.’

  Chapter Five

  Owen Elias was among the last to arrive at the Queen’s Head on the following morning. He was clearly in some kind of distress. His normally jaunty stride was now no more than a gentle shuffle, and he kept putting a weary hand to his head. Instead of greeting the others with his usual affability, he could manage no more than a forced smile of acknowledgment. As soon as he had entered the inn yard, he leant against a wall for support. Nicholas Bracewell noticed the difference in him at once. He hurried anxiously across to the Welshman.

  ‘What is wrong with you, Owen?’ he asked.

  ‘Please!’ said the other, recoiling slightly. ‘Not so loud, Nick. Your voice is like a cannon in my ear. It makes my head pound.’

  ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘I’m all but ready for my coffin. Place an order for it now.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Even worse than I must look.’

  ‘Be more precise,’ said Nicholas. ‘I pray to God that you are not stricken by the same disease as poor Edmund. Where is the pain? Do you have a fever? Why are you so unsteady on your feet today?’

  ‘It is all my own fault, Nick.’

  ‘What ails you?’

  ‘Too much ale ails me most,’ confessed Elias. ‘Add greed and revelry to that and you have the truth about my sorry condition. I went too far.’

  ‘In what direction?’

  ‘Pleasure.’ He peered uncertainly at Nicholas through bleary eyes. ‘That’s what you see before you. I suffer the searing pain that follows too much pleasure. It was naked greed that took me to his room again. I had such a lust to win.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Nicholas, relaxing. ‘I begin to understand. This is no malady. You went to play cards with Master Lavery.’

  ‘No, Nick. I had a darker ambition. I went to take his money from him.’

  ‘And did you succeed?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I got back every penny I’d lost the night before and won another seven shillings. What else could I do but celebrate with friends? We drank until it was late, then I called on a certain lady to share my good news with her.’ He gave a tired grin. ‘You may guess the rest. We revelled the night away in each other’s arms. Had she not shaken me awake this morning, I’d
have slept for a week.’

  Nicholas was relieved to hear that he was suffering from no disease, but he was disappointed in his friend. He had never seen him in such a state before. As a rule, Elias thrived on long nights with demanding lovers. A single man with a determination to live life to the full, he had the constitution that allowed him to indulge himself. Evidently, on this occasion, even his remarkable vigour had been exhausted.

  ‘Lawrence will take you to task for this,’ warned Nicholas.

  Elias blenched. ‘Keep him away from me, Nick,’ he begged. ‘If Lawrence bellows at me as he is like to do, my eardrums will burst and my head will split asunder.’

  ‘It’s no more than you deserve, Owen. We play Vincentio’s Revenge today, and you take one of the leading parts. You’ll need to be at your best to carry it.’

  ‘I look to have recovered my zest by then.’

  ‘You should not have lost it in the first place.’

  ‘Blame that on the ale.’

  ‘I’d sooner blame it on the itch that took you to the card table,’ said Nicholas. ‘That is where this all started. You were so elated by your win that you had to spend the money at once. It was gained too easily to stay in your purse.’

  ‘Good fortune sat beside me.’

  ‘Well, it did not do the same for Nathan Curtis or Hugh Wegges. Both of them lost heavily at cards. Others, no doubt, will do the same.’

  ‘Do not ask me to weep for them,’ said Elias with a hint of truculence. ‘Everyone knows the risk. Like me, they take their chance. Master Lavery makes that clear.’

  ‘What manner of man is he?’

  ‘A marvellous strange one, Nick.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Look at him and you would not believe that Philomen Lavery had ever seen a pack of cards. You would be more likely to take him for a lawyer, if not a priest. There is a weird innocence about the fellow.’

  ‘Does he dissemble?’ wondered Nicholas.

  ‘I think not,’ replied Elias. ‘I have been in many gaming houses and know how to smell out a cony-catcher. Master Lavery is not one of them. The first thing he did was to let me inspect his cards to see for myself that they were not marked in any way. How many would do that?’

  ‘Very few, Owen. Unless they work by the quickness of their hand.’

  ‘I take him for an honest man. How else could I have won?’

  ‘I see that I will have to talk to Master Lavery myself,’ said Nicholas, curiosity sparked by what he had heard. ‘But leaving him aside, have you had any sight of those young beggars we met the other day?’

  ‘The counterfeit crank and his girl?’

  ‘Yes, Owen.’

  ‘No, I’ve not spied them. What about you?’

  ‘I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of them. The pity of it is that I found them both a place here at the Queen’s Head. As a favour to me, Adam Crowmere would have given them work, food, and shelter. They would have been rescued from the street.’ Nicholas thought about them for a moment and felt a surge of compassion. ‘I fear for them, Owen. They are strangers here. They do not know the perils of the city.’

  ‘You forget something,’ said Elias airily. ‘Hywel Rees is Welsh. He has the same unquenchable spirit I do. That will see him through.’

  ‘I do not descry any of that unquenchable spirit in you now,’ said Nicholas with amusement.

  Elias mustered some defiance. ‘It is still there, I promise you,’ he said, thrusting out his jaw. ‘But have no qualms about Hywel and his pretty Dorothea. They will survive. Whatever troubles they meet in London, I am sure they will overcome them.’

  Though he could neither read nor write, Hywel Rees had a great capacity for learning. His ears were sharp, and what they did not pick up, his other senses somehow gleaned. In his short time in Bridewell, he had gathered a deal of information about the place, much of it profoundly troubling. It was both a house of correction and a workhouse, an institution that took in children of the poor, capable of nothing more than manual labour, invalids who were sufficiently recovered to undertake light employment, and vagrants. It was a severe blow to Hywel’s pride that he and Dorothea were considered to belong to the group of sturdy rogues and loose women who had been convicted by a court.

  Bridewell was also the home of captives from the Spanish Armada as well as those who were persecuted for their religion. Like Dorothea, he had heard the anguished cries of nameless Roman Catholics and the occasional Puritan as they were put to the torture in order to extract confessions from them. It disturbed him that he was under the same roof as these unfortunate prisoners and therefore might be subject to the same punishment. Yet the keeper who stood over him while he toiled with the other men told Hywel that he was there to be cured. Hard labour seemed to him a cruel medicine.

  ‘How many of us are there?’ he asked.

  ‘Less than there used to be.’

  ‘They let people out, then?’

  ‘Dozens of them, Hywel. My brother was one of them.’

  ‘Why did they discharge him?’

  ‘Less mouths to feed,’ said the boy.

  Hywel’s companion was no more than twelve, a scrawny lad with a habit of glancing nervously over his shoulder as if expecting to be hit at any moment. The bruises on his face and bare arms suggested that his apprehension was well founded. His name was Ned Griddle, and he had been in Bridewell for almost three years. He and Hywel were unloading a cart in one of the courtyards, carrying heavy wooden boxes between them to the kitchens. The smell of fresh fish in one box was so strong and appetising that it brought an involuntary smile to Hywel’s face.

  ‘Not for the likes of us,’ warned Griddle. ‘They’d sooner see us starve.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Those that have taken over the place. Master Beechcroft is the worst of them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He treats us like dirt.’

  They left the box of fish in the kitchen and went back out into the courtyard. Hywel kept scanning the windows all around him, hoping for a glimpse of Dorothea. He was desperate to get in touch with her but did not even know where she was. They reached the cart and manoeuvred another box off it. Hywel glanced at the casks of wine.

  ‘What is all this food and drink for, Ned?’ he wondered.

  ‘Master Beechcroft and the others will have another feast.’

  ‘There is enough here to feed dozens of people.’

  ‘There always is.’

  ‘Who are the guests?’

  ‘Not you and me, Hywel.’

  ‘Will anyone in Bridewell be invited to the feast?’

  ‘Only if they are pretty enough’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Griddle was about to reply when he suddenly received one of the blows he had feared. A stocky man hit him across the back with a stick and ordered him to get on with his work. The boy was too frightened to speak after that, and Hywel was left to speculate on what he had meant by his remark about the feast. The Welshman was deeply alarmed. His resolve to get to Dorothea was stiffened.

  Lawrence Firethorn had played the leading role so often that it was lodged forever in his mind. While others checked their lines or rehearsed their moves, he was able to relax before the performance, certain that the blank verse would spring to his lips when required. Firethorn’s memory was truly phenomenal. Since he knew well above two dozen plays by heart, he could offer a wide range of choice to spectators when he was on tour. His role in Vincentio’s Revenge was one that he could recall instantly. Nicholas Bracewell sought to add another to the actor-manager’s repertoire.

  ‘The tragedy is called The Siege of Troy,’ he explained.

  Firethorn was blunt. ‘Is there a part worthy of me?’

  ‘Ulysses will be very much to your taste.’

  ‘Then why is he not in the title? Did Michael tell you that? Why did he not name his play Ulysses and the Siege of Troy? As you know, Nick,’ he said, adjusting his costume, ‘I have a fondness for titl
e roles.’

  ‘You would enjoy this play if it had no title at all.’

  ‘It comes with your approval, then?’

  ‘It does,’ said Nicholas. ‘It has all the virtues of Caesar’s Fall and others unique to itself. Its only fault, if fault it be, is that it is at times too clever.’

  ‘Too clever?’

  ‘Aimed more at the trained scholar than the ordinary spectator. For instance, there are five or six hidden sonnets in the play. Most of our audience will hear them without even recognising what they are. They will be lost on the common herd.’

  ‘So is much that we play,’ said Firethorn. ‘As long as we have fights, arguments, deaths, dances, and comic antics, the vulgar souls in the yard will be satisfied. When the performance is over this afternoon, give me Michael’s tragedy. I’ll devote the whole evening to it.’

  ‘Your time will not be wasted.’

  ‘Thanks to you, Nick. Had the play been feeble, you’d not foist it upon me. That’s the reason I gave it first to you.’ He stroked his beard and struck a pose. ‘Did I incur Anne’s displeasure?’

  ‘How could you do that?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘By making you read five acts of a drama. You must have been a dull companion for her last night. Margery will not stomach my presence if I dare to study a play while I’m abed.’ He gave a bountiful smile. ‘Beg Anne’s forgiveness for me.’

  ‘None is needed. Work of her own kept her occupied.’

  ‘I wish that it were always so with my wife,’ said Firethorn enviously.

  They were in the tiring house, and other members of the company were starting to come in. Nicholas had no real worries about the performance. Vincentio’s Revenge was a blood-soaked tragedy that never failed to work on stage, and the troupe always acted it with surpassing confidence. Now that Owen Elias seemed to have recovered his customary vitality, everything pointed toward another success. It was Firethorn who voiced a slight concern.

  ‘I took the liberty of inspecting your account book today, Nick’ he said.

  ‘You’ve every right to do so.’

  ‘I have to keep a wary eye on the company’s purse.’