'Not in Susan's case, thank God,' he said with a smile.
'No, mother and daughter are both well.'
Nicholas sighed. 'The pity of it is that Will Fowler never lived to see his bonny child.'
A letter had arrived from St Albans the previous day to tell them of the birth of a daughter to Susan Fowler. Since neither she nor her parents could write, the missive had been penned by the parish priest. Nicholas and Anne had been delighted to hear the news but they were puzzled by one item in the letter. Susan Fowler had thanked them for a gift of a crib.
'We sent no crib,' said Anne. 'Why did she think we did?'
'It must have been left for her to find,' he suggested. 'A secret offering with the sender unnamed. We should feel flattered that she thought of us, Anne. Susan must believe us capable of such kindness.'
'If only we had been. I will send another present for the child It has many needs, I am sure, and few enough of us to care.'
She bought some apples, pears and plums and put them in the already overflowing basket that Nicholas was holding. It was time to head back. As they turned their steps towards home, Anne Hendrik tucked herself in beside him and puzzled over something.
'Nick...'
'Yes?'
'If we did not send that gift--then who did?'
It was a problem which exercised them all the way back.
Because they had set out so early, it was still well before eight when they reached the house. Nicholas took the basket inside and helped her to unload it, then he had a frugal breakfast before going out again. His working day would be another long one.
Taking a boat across the river, he alighted on the north bank and struck off towards Gracechurch Street. There was a Performance at The Queen's Head that afternoon and they were clue to rehearse Marriage and Mischief--a seasoned comedy from their repertoire--until noon. Barnaby Gill would take the central role of a jealous husband who is driven into a demonic rage by the apparent infidelity of his wife. Stephen Judd was cast as his spouse.
In view of what he had seen them doing in the tiring-house, Nicholas felt that the drama would have extra piquancy for him. The actor and the apprentice would act out intimacies in public which would be abhorrent in private. The audience who would laugh and mock the old husband's plight would have no inkling of the poignancy that lay behind it.
Nicholas was still meditating on the layered irony of the situation when something claimed his attention with a stunning immediacy. Benjamin Creech was standing in a shop doorway near the inn, deep in conversation with a tall, hulking man.
It was Redbeard.
'Hold the villain!'
The shout burst from his lips as he broke into a run. 'Stop him!'
Alerted by the yells, Redbeard looked up to see Nicholas tearing wards him. He reacted swiftly, spinning on his heel and haring off towards Fenchurch Street in a wild panic. Shoppers were scattered, vendors knocked aside, stalls overturned, and dogs sent howling as the tall figure charged recklessly on through the press.
Nicholas chased him at full pelt, oblivious to the irate cries and loud protests he left in his wake. The whole street was now in an uproar.
Redbeard was moving fast but Nicholas found additional speed to close on him. He got within ten yards of his quarry before he came to grief. Sensing that the pursuit was closing in, Redbeard suddenly stopped to grab a low cart and swung it around into
Nicholas's path. Before he could stop himself, the book holder had gone headfirst over the obstacle and landed on the ground in a huge pool of cracked shells and egg yolk. The owner of the cart immediately grappled with him and demanded compensation for his ruined produce. By the time that Nicholas shook him off, it was too late. Redbeard had vanished in the crowd.
Trudging back to The Queen's Head with disconsolate steps, Nicholas threw apologies right and left to the baying multitude. It was only when he reached the inn that he remembered Benjamin Creech. He straightened up and went quickly in through the main gate. Creech was on the far side of the yard, chatting with one of the journeymen. Nicholas hurried over to him, took him aside and pinned him up against a wall.
'Who was that man?' he demanded.
'Take your hands off me!' growled Creech.
'Who was he?' pressed Nicholas, tightening his grip.
'I have never seen the fellow before.'
'That is an arrant lie, Ben!'
'You wrong me, Master Bracewell.'
'I saw you talking with the man even now.'
'He stopped me in the street and asked directions to Islington.' Creech struggled to escape. 'Leave go of me!'
'You know him!' accused Nicholas, 'He was a stranger to me until this day.'
'Well, he is no stranger to me, Ben. I have seen that cur before He is the man who murdered Will Fowler.'
'Then I wish I had shaken the fellow's hand.'
The smirk on Creech's face made Nicholas explode with anger. He banged the actor hard against the wall then hurled him to the ground. Creech slowly picked himself up. All his resentment and bile came bubbling to the surface now and his lip curled in contempt. Lowering his shoulder, he charged into Nicholas and knocked him back several yards. Creech was a powerful man and he would fight to the finish.
But Nicholas was roused now. The insult to Will Fowler made something snap inside him. He closed with Creech again and the two of them wrestled violently, watched by a small knot of people who came running over. Creech got his adversary in a bear hug but Nicholas was strong enough to break it and send the other reeling backwards. As Creech lunged at him again, he met a flurry of punches that stopped him in his tracks. Shaking his head to clear it, Creech swung wild punches of his own but Nicholas eluded them with ease.
Panting hard, the actor stopped for a moment to gather his strength then he charged in again with fists flying. Nicholas was ready for him. Throwing Creech off balance with a clever feint, he sank a punch into the man's solar plexus which took all his breath away. As his opponent doubled up with pain, Nicholas despatched him with a blow to the chin. Creech slumped to the ground in a heap and a few cheers went up from the spectators.
Nicholas rubbed the raw knuckles on his right hand and gazed down at Creech. The man had deserved his drubbing for his callous remark about Will Fowler but he clearly did not know Redbeard. Annoyed with himself for losing his temper, Nicholas stooped down to help the fallen man up.
'Keep off!' snarled Creech, pushing him away.
Staggering to his feet, the actor wiped some of the blood away from his mouth and shot Nicholas a look of malevolent hatred-Benjamin Creech then lumbered out through the main gate of the yard. Lord Westfield's Men had just lost a member of the company.
*
The performance that afternoon passed in a kind of blur for Nicholas Bracewell. Though he held the book for Marriage and Mischief and discharged his duties with his customary efficiency, his mind was elsewhere. The image of Redbeard stayed before him. He was galled that he had come so close to the man then let him get away.
Creech's absence had caused no major problems because he was only playing two small parts. Samuel Ruff took over one of them and the other was excised altogether. Barnaby Gill kept the audience rocking with mirth at his comic rages and Stephen Judd brought a willing competence to the role of the wife. In the small but telling part of a maidservant, Richard Honeydew showed real flair and his pert banter caused much amusement. Edmund Hoode, as a doddering old man, equipped his character with gout, deafness and a pronounced stutter in order to reap his laughs.
Lawrence Firethorn took the romantic lead. Though not as long a role as Gills, it was equally effective and it glittered through the afternoon. Barnaby Gill held sway over the coarser appetites of the groundlings but it was Firethorn who appealed to the more sensitive palates in the galleries. He made his speeches ring with passion and vibrate with subtle innuendo. When he delivered the Epilogue in rhyming couplets, he addressed each honeyed word to Lady Rosamund Varley, who was gracing the occ
asion with another of her spectacular dresses. Delighted yet again with his performance, she threw something down to him as he came out to take his bow.
Nicholas was relieved that it was all over and that he had not made any blunders through lack of concentration. He now braced himself for the reproaches that were to come. Because of him, Benjamin Creech stalked out of the company on the day of a Performance. Part of the book holder's job was to prevent violence, not to provoke it. Firethorn would certainly take him to task now that Marriage and Mischief could be put safely back in the playchest again. Fighting in the company was something that the actor would not tolerate. It was possible that Nicholas's own future with Westfield's Men was at risk.
'Ah! There you are, you varlet!'
Lawrence Firethorn came sweeping into the tiring-house like an avenging angel. He made straight for the book holder and lifted him bodily from his stool.
'Come with me, Nick!'
'Why, master?'
'We must have private conference.'
Firethorn dragged him off to the room at the rear, banished its occupants with a peremptory wave, then shut the door firmly behind them. Alone with the book holder, he regarded him seriously from beneath curling eyebrows.
'The day of judgement has arrived, sir,' he began.
'It was my fault,' apologized Nicholas frankly. 'I should not have let Creech put me to choler like that.'
'Creech?'
'His loss may yet be a gain, master. I believe that Creech may have been responsible for all our recent thefts.'
'Forget Creech,' said Firethorn irritably. 'I came to speak on a mightier theme.'
With a sinking sensation, Nicholas understood what he meant.
'Lady Rosamund Varley?'
'She has replied to my entreaty, Nick.' He produced the red rose which she had thrown to him on stage. 'With this.'
'Oh.'
Firethorn sniffed the rose and savoured its fragrance. A huge grin split his face in two like a sliced melon. He slapped his thigh with glee.
'She is mine!' he exclaimed. 'The day of judgement has come and I have not been found wanting. This is the appointed night for our tryst. We will need your assistance, Nick.'
'What must I do?' asked the other, hesitantly.
'Smooth the wrinkled path to love, dear heart!'
'I low, master?'
Firethorn gave him his instructions. He was to repair with all speed to the Bel Savage Inn on Ludgate Hill and hire their best rooms for the night. Supper was to be served at a stipulated hour and there were precise details of the menu. Even the nature of the lighting was specified. When he had finalized all these arrangements, Nicholas was to return to The Queen's Head and convey a message of confirmation to Lady Rosamund Varley, who would still be with Lord Westfield and his entourage in their private room.
'May I ask one question?' said Nicholas.
'Ask away, dear fellow.'
'Why have you chosen the Bel Savage?'
'Because,' replied the other, letting his chest swell with pride, 'it was there that I first gave the world my Hector!'
He bowed extravagantly to imagined applause then left the room with a flourish. Nicholas gave a man smile. At a time when much more urgent concerns pressed upon him, he was being used to promote Firethorn's adultery. He did not forget Lady Varley's old association with Lord Banbury and his earlier decision stood. He would emulate the play which had been staged that afternoon.
Nicholas would cause mischief in a marriage.
*
The injustice of it all gnawed at the very entrails of Edmund Hoode. A sonnet which achieved its desired objective for another man had signally failed for its author. The mellifluous verse which helped to enchant Lady Rosamund Varley had been wasted on Rose Marwood. The landlord's daughter was beyond the reach of poetry.
The poet was devastated but there was worse to come yet. When he changed out of his costume after the performance, he went to the taproom for some refreshment. Alexander Marwood pounced. The landlord's twitch was in full operation.
'A word with you, Master Hoode.'
'What ails you, sir?'
'A most grave matter. There is lechery abroad.'
'Indeed?'
'Read the sinful document for yourself.'
He thrust a small scroll at the other and Hoode found himself staring down at his own sonnet. It had not been handled with kindness. The parchment was creased and covered with crude fingerprints. It was symbolic.
'Well, sir?' demanded Marwood.
'It is...moderately well-written,' said Hoode, pretending to read the lines for the first time. 'How came this into your hands, sir?'
'It was given to my daughter by some scoundrel.'
'Who was he?'
'Rose could not say. It happened so quickly.'.
'Then how may I help you?'
'By finding the author of this vile stuff,' insisted the landlord. 'I tried to speak to Master Firethorn about it but he brushed me off. I turn to you instead. We must root out this fiend.'
'Why, sir?'
'Why, sir? Because my daughter's virtue is in danger as long as this lascivious knave remains in your company. My wife is resolved, Master Hoode. The man must go.'
'Go?'
'We will not lie easy in our beds until he is unmasked. The villain means to ravish our daughter.'
'I see nothing of that in the sonnet.'
'It is between the lines,' hissed Marwood. He controlled his twitch long enough to deliver an ultimatum. 'My wife and I are agreed, sir. Unless he is driven out, we must henceforth close our doors to Westfield's Men.'
'But how do you know he belongs to the company?'
'We know,' said the other darkly.
Edmund Hoode felt his heart constrict. Instead of winning the favours of Rose Marwood, his sonnet had brought the full weight of her parents down upon him. The relationship between landlord and company was always uneasy. His poem had thrown it into jeopardy.
'Rose fetched it to us,' explained Marwood. 'She does not read. No more do I with any great skill, but my wife is educated. She read its bold message clear enough. My wife has a quick mind, sir. You may have noticed.'
'Yes, yes,' agreed Hoode.
'She thinks that scroll might have a clue.'
'Clue?'
'At the bottom there,' said the landlord, jabbing a bony finger at the poem. 'Two letters are picked out, sir. "E" and "H". Might they not be his initials?'
'Oh, I think not,' replied the poet, trying to put him off the scent. 'That is too obvious a device for the fellow. He works in deeper ways.' He stared at the sonnet and invention came to his aid. 'I think I have it, Master Marwood!'
'You know the villain's hand?'
'No, bin I can guess at his name. There is a clue here if we can but unravel it. Read the opening lines.'
'Do it for me, sir. I am no scholar.'
'"Be mine, sweet creature, come unto thy love,
O rarest rose, wilt not upon thy stem..."'
'Lechery in every word!' wailed the landlord.
'You see how the first letter is writ large?' said Hoode, thrusting the scroll under his nose. 'That "B" stands for Ben, I'll wager.'
'Ben who?'
'Look to that "sweet creature". There is our clue. Hidden in that "creature", I dare swear, is a certain Creech.'
'Ben Creech?'
'One of the hired men in the company.'
'I know him. A surly fellow who cannot hold his ale.'
'He is our man, sir.'
'Could such a man as that write poetry?'
'He paid some scribbler to write it for him,' argued Hoode. 'Creech has been eyeing your daughter, Master Marwood, and it comes as no surprise to me. We had trouble with the fellow when we played at The Saracen's Head in Islington. It was a serving-wench on that occasion. Creech is a hot-blooded rogue.'
'He must be sent on his way!' yelled Marwood vengefully.
'He already has been. Ben Creech is no longer with us.'
'Is this true?'
'It is an accident that heaven provides,' said the other easily. Danger has passed and your daughter is safe.'
'This news brings much relief, sir.'
To me as well!' muttered Hoode with feeling. 'Tell me, Master Marwood. Did anyone read the sonnet to your daughter?'
'My wife did,' answered the landlord, twitching merrily. 'That was part of our concern, sir. Rose liked it. She is a fanciful girl and easily led astray. The poem touched her.'
Marwood went off across the room and Edmund Hoode wiped some of the perspiration from his lip. Agility of mind had saved both him and the company. Benjamin Creech had been palmed off as the love-lorn swain. Hoode's own hopes had been dashed for ever but there was one consolation. Rose Marwood did respond to a poet's lute, after all. She would think fondly of her admirer.
Needing some fresh air after the encounter with the landlord Hoode went out into the yard where the stage was being taken down. It was a scene he had witnessed many times but it was to hold a cruel element for him now. George Dart was as busy as always, carrying trestles away under the eaves that ringed the yard. The little stagekeeper paused to catch his breath and caught more. Rose Marwood popped out of her hiding place near the stables and kissed him on the cheek before racing away again. Since he had given her the poem, she clearly thought that he was its author.
Edmund Hoode's misery was complete. He went home.
*
The Bel Savage Inn supplied all his needs. He was given a large, low, well-furnished room with an adjacent bed-chamber which featured rich hangings around its four-poster. Nicholas Bracewell had been as reliable as always. Walking around the room, Lawrence Firethorn gave silent thanks for his book holder. Everything was as it should be, even down to the number and positioning of the candles. As night began to draw its curtains, the whole place was bathed in a soft, bewitching glow.
His patience was at last rewarded. When Lady Rosamund arrived, they would share an exquisite repast and drink the finest Canary wine. Musicians had been hired to play for them. He would then woo her ardently and they would glide together into the bed-chamber to consummate their love on a four-postered paradise. Life could hold nothing sweeter for him.
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