The Nicholas Bracewell Collection Read online

  What kept pushing itself to the forefront of his mind, however, was the surly face of Benjamin Creech. Why had the man denied being at The Curtain and concealed his old association with Banbury’s Men? What had been the real cause of his fight with Will Fowler? Had the injury to Richard Honeydew really been an accident? Did Nicholas truly see a glint of relish in Creech’s eyes or had he imagined it?

  Speculation and recrimination carried him all the way back to Bankside. He was almost home when the trouble came. Turning into a side-street, he suddenly had the feeling that he was being followed. His years at sea had helped him to develop a sixth sense for self-preservation and his hand stole quickly to his dagger. He listened for a footfall behind him but heard none. When he spun around, there was nobody there. He continued on his way, ready to dismiss it as a trick of his imagination, when a tall, hulking figure stepped out of an alley ahead of him to block his way. The man was some fifteen yards away and seen only in hazy outline through the gloom, but Nicholas knew at once who he was. They had met before at the Hope and Anchor when a friend had been murdered. There had been more evidence of his handiwork at The Cardinal’s Hat.

  Pulling out his dagger, Nicholas bunched himself to charge but he did not get far. Before he had moved a yard or so, something hard and solid struck him on the back of the head and sent him down into a black whirlpool of pain. The last thing he remembered was the sound of footsteps running away over the cobblestones. The rest was cold void.

  Lawrence Firethorn was at his best in a crisis. The threat of resignation by Barnaby Gill and the sudden loss of Richard Honeydew had imposed pressure which he had surmounted with bravery. Pulling the company together in its hour of need, he fired them with the possibilities of the morrow and infected them with his unassailable self-confidence. The play would be another afternoon of glory for him and it would be followed – in time – by a whole night of magic. Gloriana Triumphant and fourteen lines of poetry would win him the favours of Lady Rosamund Varley.

  After all the setbacks of the day, therefore, he returned home with a light step to receive a kiss of welcome from his trusting wife. But the kiss did not come and the trust seemed to have gone. Frost had settled on Margery’s ample brow.

  ‘What ails you, my love?’ he asked blithely.

  ‘I’ve been talking with Dicky.’

  ‘Poor lad! Where is he?’

  ‘He has gone to bed to rest that swollen ankle.’

  ‘It was a dreadful accident,’ said Firethorn. ‘We must thank God that no serious injury resulted.’

  ‘There is a more serious injury,’ she added grimly.

  ‘What’s that you say, my sweet?’

  ‘Sit down, Lawrence.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Sit down!’

  The force of her request could not be denied and he sank into a chair. Margery Firethorn stood directly in front of him so that there was no possibility of escape. Her anger was banked down but ready to blaze up at any moment.

  ‘The boy is heart-broken,’ she began.

  ‘Who would not be? It is his first leading role – and such a role at that! All his hard work has gone for nothing.’

  ‘He talked about you, Lawrence.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘He told me how wonderful it was to play opposite such a superb actor as you.’ She waited as he gave a dismissive laugh. ‘The boy worships you.’

  ‘Every apprentice should choose a good model.’

  ‘Oh, I am sure that you are an excellent model, sir,’ she said crisply. ‘As an actor, that is. As a husband, of course, you have your faults and it is not so wonderful to play opposite them.’

  ‘Margery …’ he soothed.

  ‘Spare me your ruses, Lawrence.’

  ‘What ruse?’

  ‘I spent hours listening to Dick Honeydew,’ she said. ‘That accident at the playhouse cost him dear. It cost me dear as well.’

  ‘You, my angel?’

  ‘He lost a role in a play but I have lost far more.’

  ‘I do not understand you, sweeting.’

  ‘Then let me speak more plain, sir,’ she asserted with a crackle of menace. ‘Dicky told me everything. He talked of his speeches and dances and magnificent costumes. He also mentioned the jewellery he was to have worn as Gloriana – including a beautiful pendant which had nothing at all wrong with its catch …’

  Lawrence Firethorn had been caught out. The mast which had fallen on the stage of The Curtain now landed squarely on him. Margery had learned the unkind truth. Far from being a gift that was bought specifically for her, the pendant was a theatrical prop that had been used to mollify her. Reconciliation was now only a distant memory in their marriage. Instead of coming home to a loving wife, he was staring into the eyes of Medusa.

  Margery guessed at once what lay behind the subterfuge. Reining in her fury, she spoke with an elaborate sweetness.

  ‘What is her name, Lawrence?’

  ‘Hold still now,’ said Anne Hendrik. ‘Let me bathe it properly.’

  ‘I’m fine now. Tie the bandage.’

  ‘This wound needs a surgeon.’

  ‘I have no time to stay.’

  ‘Let me send for one, Nick.’

  ‘The pain is easing now,’ he lied.

  They were at the house in Bankside and Nicholas Bracewell was sitting on a chair while his landlady dressed the gash on the back of his head. As soon as he had recovered consciousness in the street, he had dragged himself up from the ground and staggered on as far as his front door. His hat was sodden with blood, his mind blurred and his whole body was one pounding ache.

  When the servant answered his knock on the door, she let out a scream of fright at the condition he was in. Anne Hendrik had rushed out and the two women had carried Nicholas to a chair. Left alone with him, Anne now tended his wound with the utmost care and sympathy. She was almost overwhelmed by apprehension.

  ‘You believe it was the same man?’ she asked.

  ‘I know it was.’

  ‘It was dark, Nick. How can you be certain?’

  ‘I would recognise him anywhere. It was Redbeard.’

  ‘A murderous villain, lying in wait for you!’ she said with trembling anxiety. ‘It does not bear thinking about!’

  ‘I survived, Anne,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Only by the grace of God! You are lucky to be alive!’

  ‘They were not after me,’ decided Nicholas, trying to make sense of what had happened. ‘I would be lying dead in that street now if they had wanted to kill me. No, they were after something else.’

  ‘Your purse?’

  ‘They left that, Anne. What they stole was my satchel.’

  ‘With your prompt book in it?’ she gasped.

  ‘Yes. That is what they wanted – Gloriana Triumphant.’

  Anne Hendrik saw the implications at once and she blenched. The one complete copy of the play had now disappeared and there was no way that Nicholas could control the performance without it.

  ‘This is terrible!’ she exclaimed. ‘You will have to cancel the play tomorrow.’

  ‘That is their intention, Anne.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I can only guess,’ he said. ‘Malice, spite, envy, revenge … There are many possible reasons. We work in a jealous profession.’

  ‘Who would do such a thing?’

  ‘I will not rest until I have found out,’ he pledged. ‘One thing is clear. Redbeard has an accomplice. I could not understand how he could have gained entry to The Cardinal’s Hat without being recognised. The answer must be that he did not go back there after that poor creature. It was the other man who slit Alice’s throat.’

  ‘To prevent her helping you?’

  ‘I believe so. Redbeard knows that I am after him.’

  Anne Hendrik gave a little shiver and finished tying the bandage around his head. The blood had discoloured his fair hair and there was an ugly bruise on his temple from his fall on to the cobbles. Tears of lov
e and compassion trickled down her cheeks. She grabbed at his arm as he stood up.

  ‘You are in no condition to go out again, Nick.’

  ‘I have no choice.’

  ‘Let me come with you,’ she volunteered.

  ‘No, Anne. I can manage alone. Besides, it will be a long night. Do not expect me back until morning.’

  ‘Where will you be?’ she said, following him to the door.

  ‘Writing a play.’

  Edmund Hoode had an author’s gift for happy invention. Desperate to fall in love again, he had settled on Rose Marwood and he persuaded himself that she was the most divine member of her sex. Her deficiencies were quickly remedied by his burgeoning imagination and she emerged as the girl of his dreams – a magical compound of beauty, wit, charm and understanding. Without realising it, Rose Marwood had tripped across the inn yard and been transformed. Hoode made no allowance for the fact that he had hardly spoken to her. He was in love and romance knows no reason.

  An hour of reflection upon her virtues confirmed him in his plan to send her the sonnet. Having written it out again in a fair hand, he appended the phrase ‘Every Happiness’, picking out the E and the H with such flourishes of his pen that he felt sure she would identify the initials of her swain.

  Further indulgence was cut short by a banging on the door. Nicholas Bracewell was soon invited in to explain his head wound and tell his story. Panic all but throttled Hoode when he heard that his play had been stolen. It was like losing a child.

  ‘What can we do, Nicholas?’ he wailed.

  ‘Start again.’

  ‘From what? You had the only complete copy.’

  ‘We will patch it together somehow,’ promised the other. ‘I have roused George Dart and sent him to fetch what sides he can get from the players. I have been back to The Curtain and retrieved my copy of the Plot. Then there is your knowledge of writing the play and my memory of rehearsing it. If we put all that together, we should be part of the way towards making another prompt book.’

  ‘It will take us all night, Nicholas!’

  ‘Would you rather cancel the performance?’

  The thought of it was enough to make Hoode tremble. He needed only a few seconds to come to his decision. Fourteen lines to Rose Marwood were put aside in favour of a few thousand for the audience at The Curtain.

  As soon as the scrivener arrived, they got to work as fast as was compatible with accuracy. The copious detail of the Plot which Nicholas had prepared was an enormous help and it stimulated Hoode’s memory at once.

  Lawrence Firethorn was the next to appear, fulminating against the Earl of Banbury’s Men whom he had already identified as the villains. His towering rage, however, was tinged with relief. Appalling as the theft of the prompt book was, it had rescued him from interrogation by Margery.

  Since his own part was the leading one, the copy which he brought gave the scrivener ample material to work on. Most of the gaps were filled in when the panting George Dart came on the scene with the individual sides from some of the players. While the stagekeeper got his breath back, Nicholas sifted through them and put them in order. One particular copy was missing.

  ‘Did you call on Creech?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘He was not at his lodging, Master Bracewell,’ said Dart.

  ‘The nearest tavern is his lodging!’ sighed Firethorn.

  ‘I tried there as well, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, George,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Can I go now?’

  ‘Yes,’ ordered Firethorn. ‘Find Creech. There is one scene involving him and two mariners that we do not seem to have here. Root him out from his drinking hole, George.’

  ‘Must I, sir?’ moaned Dart.

  ‘Indeed, you must!’

  ‘But I’ve been running about for hours.’

  ‘Run some more, sir. This is the theatre!’

  Cowed into submission, George Dart went off into the night in search of the hired man. Hoode, Firethorn and Nicholas carried on reassembling the play while the scrivener’s quill fluttered busily. Shortly before midnight, the first stoup of wine was served. They would need plenty more to get them through their arduous task.

  Dawn was plucking at the windows by the time that a fair copy was ready. Matthew Lipton, the scrivener, was groaning with exhaustion and his writing arm lay limp across his lap. Nicholas now took over. Using his Plot and calling on his phenomenal memory for detail, he annotated the prompt book so that he had every call, cue, entrance, exit and hand property listed in the appropriate place. Seven hours of frantic labour had restored their text to them but it had taxed their strength.

  ‘I need some sleep,’ said Hoode with a yawn.

  ‘It’s too late for that,’ decided Firethorn. ‘We should have breakfast together instead then make an early start for The Curtain.’ He turned to Nicholas. ‘We will stay beside you as bodyguards every step of the way, dear fellow.’

  ‘You will not need to, Master Firethorn. I will be much more wary now. They took me unawares in Bankside.’

  ‘Banbury’s Men!’ said Firethorn. ‘I know it.’

  ‘Would they stoop to this?’ doubted Hoode.

  ‘If they employ Randolph, they’ll stoop to anything!’

  ‘They certainly timed their strike well,’ admitted Nicholas.

  ‘On the eve of a performance,’ noted Hoode. ‘It would have crippled any other company.’

  ‘But not Westfield’s Men,’ said Firethorn proudly. ‘We have done famously this night, gentlemen – and that includes you, Master Lipton. We have stared defeat in the face and frightened it away. Nick, here, acted with great presence of mind in raising the alarm so quickly. I’m eternally grateful.’

  ‘So am I,’ echoed Hoode.

  ‘It was the least I could do,’ replied Nicholas with embarrassment. ‘I felt so responsible for the theft of the prompt book that I had to do something.’

  ‘You must not blame yourself,’ said Firethorn kindly.

  ‘My job was to safeguard that book.’

  ‘When two ruffians set upon a man without warning, he is entitled to feel outrage and not guilt.’ He stood up and made a sweeping gesture. ‘It’s monstruous! Piracy is something we have come to accept in our profession but this is a crime of a very different order. It’s a treachery against the whole spirit of the theatre. Banbury’s Men must pay!’

  ‘If they did it,’ said Nicholas sceptically.

  ‘Of that there is no question, sir! Who else has so much to gain from our humiliation? Giles Randolph and that pack of knaves he calls an acting company! They are definitely behind it.’

  ‘Will you tax them about it, Lawrence?’ asked Hoode.

  ‘Oh, no. We must make our enquiries by stealth first.’

  ‘And my play?’

  ‘We simply carry on as if nothing had happened, Edmund. We show these varlets that it will take more than violence and theft to stop Westfield’s Men. We are adamantine proof!’

  There was a pathetic knocking on the door. Nicholas went to open it and George Dart crept in, collapsing from fatigue but bearing what he had been sent to fetch. He held it up to Firethorn and waited for a word of congratulations that never came.

  ‘You’re late, sir,’ complained the other.

  ‘I’m sorry, Master Firethorn.’

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Running, sir. To and fro.’

  ‘Did you find Creech?’

  ‘Just after midnight,’ said the stagekeeper with a yawn.

  ‘Then what has kept you?’

  ‘He would not wake up, master. As soon as he did, we went back to his lodging and he gave me what I needed.’ He wanted some sort of recognition for his efforts. ‘Have I done well, sir?’

  ‘No,’ said Firethorn.

  ‘Very well, George,’ corrected Nicholas.

  ‘I’ll say aye to that,’ supported Hoode.

  George Dart smiled for the first time in a week. He handed the sheets to Firethorn then c
losed his eyes tightly.

  ‘Good night, sirs!’

  Nicholas caught him as he slumped forward.

  Shoreditch was as busy as ever next morning and the crowds were restive in the hot sun. By midday, people began to converge on The Curtain for the afternoon’s entertainment. One of the first to arrive was a short, intense, studious young man in dark attire and hat. He paid a penny to gain entry to the playhouse then a further twopence for the privilege of a cushioned seat in the front row of the second gallery. It was the ideal spot for his purposes.

  As he stared down at the empty stage, he was at once excited and repelled. His work belonged there but it had been viciously flung aside by an uncaring profession. The time had come for him to make his protest and he would do so in the most dramatic fashion that he could devise.

  Roger Bartholomew wanted his revenge.

  Chapter Ten

  The atmosphere backstage at The Curtain was as tense as a lute-string. Keyed up already by the occasion, the company was one large collection of taut nerves when it heard the full story of the missing prompt book. The idea of a direct and vicious attack upon Lord Westfield’s Men was deeply unsettling and speculation was rife as to whom the perpetrators could be. It did not put them in the best frame of mind to tackle their new play.

  Superstition weighed heavily with many people and Barnaby Gill voiced the fears of a substantial number.

  ‘What will be next, I wonder?’

  ‘How say you?’ asked Hoode, already reduced to a shambling wreck by the events of the night.