The Nine Giants Read online

  Whitsun and Midsummer Eve produced their potential dangers but none could rival May Day. October was a quieter month but even the occasional saint’s day could be fraught with difficulty. Caution was advisable.

  ‘Stay indoors with your mistress, Hans.’

  ‘I would rather visit the play with you, sir.’

  ‘The city is too turbulent a place today.’

  ‘You will keep me safe, Master Bracewell.’

  ‘Remain here at home.’

  The apprentice was plainly disappointed. Though he had yet to recover his memory, his youthful instincts had returned intact. He wanted to be off in search of sport with his fellows or, at the very least, to be part of the audience which would come in high humour to the Queen’s Head to watch a performance of The Constant Lover given by Westfield’s Men. Anne Hendrik ruffled the boy’s hair affectionately.

  ‘Stay here and keep me company, Hans.’

  A resigned nod. ‘As you wish, mistress.’

  ‘Preben van Loew and I will dream up games for you.’

  ‘Where is the holiday in that?’

  Nicholas Bracewell took his leave of his young friend and was seen off at the front door by Anne. The outside of the house was still bruised and blackened from the fire and the very sight of it was warning enough. He gave her a kiss then set off through the streets. Wanting to visit the house on the Bridge again, he yet felt a strong obligation to cross the river by boat. It had given him no pleasure to see Abel Strudwick so totally outwitted at the flyting contest but he felt that it was a necessary hurt to ward off heavier blows for all of them. When he found the waterman at the wharf, he made an apology that was never completed. Strudwick interrupted with chuckling resilience.

  ‘Nay, sir, do not bother about me. My back is broad though I would rather bend it in the service of these oars than let that harridan beat it with her scoldings. She gave good insults and they were justly deserved.’

  ‘You take your punishment nobly, sir.’

  ‘I spoke out of turn, Master Bracewell,’ admitted the other. ‘I’ll face any man in the kingdom with my curses but I’ll not offend a lady if I have choice.’

  ‘Mistress Firethorn is an honest woman.’

  ‘She proved that on my pate.’

  Abel Strudwick rowed between two other boats that all but collided with him. Ripe language hit both of them like a tidal wave. Replies were foul and fierce but he got the better of them with the virulence of his tongue. It put him into excellent humour again.

  ‘Have you fresh music?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘My Muse has left me awhile, good sir.’

  ‘She will return again.’

  ‘Then I will keep her here on the water with me,’ said the other. ‘My verses do not belong on the stage in front of baying clods and sneering gallants.’ He looked all around. ‘This is my playhouse, sir. The gulls can hear my music and applaud with their wings. I am author and actor when I am out in midstream. No bawling woman can drag me down in my occupation, however well she swim. I am a true waterman, sir.’

  Nicholas was delighted that his friend had bowed so humbly to the reality of the situation and he gave him an extra tip when he disembarked. Other passengers clambered into the boat at once. Holidays turned the Thames into a thousand moving bridges. Abel Strudwick would be kept busy until nightfall. He still found time for a farewell.

  ‘Good fortune attend the play, sir!’

  ‘Thank you, Abel.’

  ‘It is a comedy that you stage, I think.’

  ‘Tragedy is out of place on such a merry day.’

  ‘Pray God some rabble do not spoil your offering.’

  ‘No fear of that, I hope.’

  Celebrations began early at the White Hart in Cheapside. Wine, beer and ale were plentiful and there was food enough to satisfy the most gluttonous appetites. As the day wore on, the taproom became so full with boisterous apprentices that they spilt out into the yard and passed the time in japes and jeers and being sick in the privies. Serving wenches were groped, ostlers were mocked and scapegoats had their breeches torn off. Small fights broke out to liven up the occasion and old scores were settled between youths from rival trades. Afternoon found the drunken rowdiness slowly changing into a brawling fever for which the area was famous.

  Cheapside was the broadest and straightest of London’s streets, a major artery that carried the lifeblood of the city. Along the centre of the street, from St Paul’s to the Carfax, was an open market for all manner of goods. Every important public procession passed through Cheapside and shoddily produced goods were traditionally burnt there. It was another kind of procession that now staggered along, a ragged band of apprentices who had been gathered up from other inns and taverns along the street by the industrious Firk who had spread the word that beer was being sold at reduced prices in the White Hart and that a wild time was in store for all who came. As Firk led the way into the yard, the newcomers were given a hostile reception by those already packed in and there was much preliminary pushing and shoving. Abundant supplies of beer and ale were brought out to quench the thirst of all and incite them on to more destructive pleasures. Firk watched until a stew was bubbling furiously and he gave a signal to the man who was watching it all from a room in the upper gallery with his one good eye.

  James Renfrew calmly finished his glass of wine and crossed to give the naked woman who lolled on the bed a last kiss. Then he pulled on his doublet and went off downstairs to take charge of the fire that his accomplice was so busily stoking up. With sword in hand, he ran into the yard and jumped up onto a table so that he could stamp on it with his feet to gain attention. Even the swirling revelry was stilled for a second. Renfrew was a striking figure with a voice that knew how to command.

  ‘Friends!’ he yelled. ‘There’s villainy abroad!’

  ‘Where, sir?’ shouted Firk on cue.

  ‘Close by this inn. I saw it with my own eyes. Five brawny Dutch apprentices set on one poor English lad and gave him such a drubbing that I fear for his life.’

  ‘Shame!’ roared Firk.

  ‘Where are they?’ howled a dozen voices.

  ‘They are everywhere!’ replied Renfrew, pointing his sword in different directions as he spoke. ‘Aliens are taking over London. We have Genoese, we have Venetians, we have cheese-eating Swiss. You may find Germans in every street and Frenchmen in every bawdy house. There are Dutchmen in Billingsgate and Polish in Rotherhithe. We are beset by strangers!’

  ‘Drive the aliens out!’ bellowed Firk.

  ‘Vengeance on the strangers!’

  ‘Break their foreign heads!’

  ‘Smash their houses!’

  ‘Kill them! Kill them!’

  ‘London belongs to Londoners!’ urged Renfrew.

  ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’

  ‘We defeated the Spanish Armada,’ he said, ‘yet those same swarthy gentlemen now swagger through our city and defile our womenfolk! Foreigners out, I say!’

  ‘Foreigners out! Foreigners out!’

  Renfrew whipped them up until their bloodlust was so strong it simply wanted direction in order to expend itself. He and Firk led the charge out of the yard. With a hundred or more berserk apprentices at their back, they ran along Eastcheap and into Lombard Street, knocking aside anyone who got in their way, smashing windows out of sheer malice and screaming obscenities. Constables came out to confront them but the ferocity of the mob swept the thin line of authority aside as if it had not been there, surging on into Gracechurch Street then swinging right towards the Bridge with gathering fury. In the space of a few minutes, aimless youths with too much beer in their bellies had been turned into a vicious machine of destruction. It rolled remorselessly on.

  Hans Kippel was close to the wharf when he heard the rising tumult. Frustrated at being kept indoors on a public holiday, he had begged permission to go out into the little garden at the rear of the house and had wandered off down to the river when nobody was looking. The boy hoped to find Abel
Strudwick so that he could listen to some more verses but the waterman was nowhere in sight. What he saw instead was a torrent of baying apprentices, leaving a trail of debris on the Bridge as they poured into the object of their hate. Southwark was a haven for immigrants from many lands. Swinging boards from shops advertised craftsmen from all over Europe.

  Enraged beyond all control, the mob tore down the boards and kicked in doors and shattered windows. Any opposition was ruthlessly stamped on and innocent bystanders were knocked flying on every side. Hans Kippel was hypnotised by the horror of it all. As the angry crowd ran towards him, he stood there trembling for his young life. Out of the mass of faces that bore down on him, he picked out two that he had seen before and quailed even more. One of the men wore a patch over the eye and the other a stubby beard. A memory which had been trapped inside his brain for a long time was suddenly released and it made him cry out in agony.

  He found the strength to run but his flight was in vain. They were too fast and too crazed and too numerous. Before he had gone twenty yards, he was knocked over in the stampede and trampled by a score of feet. Using the cover of the mob, Firk slipped a knife into the boy’s back then staggered on after James Renfrew. They had done what they had planned without even having to storm Anne Hendrik’s house to get at their prey. The apprentices were still carried along by their own senselessness as the two agitators who had started the riot now vanished quietly around a corner.

  Hans Kippel lay motionless. His holiday was over.

  In a house of sorrow there was still an avenue of escape. All that Matilda Stanford had to do was to read again the letter which Lawrence Firethorn had sent her. In flowery language and a beautiful hand, he had written to give her details of the performance at the Nine Giants in Richmond the following week. It never occurred to her that he had not actually penned the missive himself but had instead dictated it to Matthew Lipton, the scrivener who was used by Westfield’s Men to copy out the sides from the one complete version of any play they staged. Lipton’s fine calligraphy was also in evidence in the poem that accompanied the letter. Here again, Firethorn had relied on another to supply his inspiration. Unable to coax any new verses out of Edmund Hoode, the actor-manager had used a poem he had once commissioned from the resident poet while in pursuit of Lady Rosamund Varley at an earlier phase of his lustfulness.

  Matilda Stanford knew nothing of this and swooned at his ardour as if it had been new-minted that second. As she sat in her bedchamber with the letter and poem on her knees, she thought only of her lover’s irresistible charm and felt the touch of his lips on her hand. Married to a mature and preoccupied husband, she had never known true passion before and could only guess at its implications. Innocence protected her from understanding Firethorn’s true intent. All that she knew was that she had been offered an assignation by a prince among men. Though it would be immensely difficult to contrive, she had to find a way to get to Richmond.

  Prudence Ling knocked on the door and came tripping in on her toes. Obliged to be sombre elsewhere in the house, she could show her girlish spirits when alone with her mistress. She saw what Matilda was reading and gave a conspiratorial giggle.

  ‘I think I know the way of it,’ she said.

  ‘Of what, Prudence?’

  ‘Bringing you to your lover.’

  ‘In Richmond?’

  ‘Even there.’

  ‘Teach me how and I’ll adore thee for ever.’

  ‘Then here is the manner of it …’

  The Constant Lover had displayed the constancy of his love, a volatile audience had been held throughout and the stage was now being dismantled. Nicholas Bracewell was in the thick of the action when Preben van Loew arrived panting in the yard of the Queen’s Head. With tears streaming, the Dutchman told his story and begged his friend to come at once. Hans Kippel was close to death and calling for Nicholas. The book holder did not pause for a second. Leaving Thomas Skillen in charge, he borrowed a horse from the stables and rode home as fast as the thick crowds would allow. All the way across the Bridge, he saw evidence of the furious passage of the apprentices. The noise up ahead was muted now as the riot spent its energy in a raid on some of the Bankside stews. Soldiers had been called out to back up the constables and the sight of organised authority was enough to disperse the remnants of the mob.

  Nicholas reined in his horse outside the house and dismounted to race upstairs to the bedchamber. Hans Kippel was lying on the truckle bed with his head cradled lovingly by a distraught Anne Hendrik. The doctor in the background shook his head sadly. He had done what he could but the boy was beyond medical help. Nicholas came to kneel beside the bed and took the hand of his young friend. Weak and fading, Hans Kippel rallied briefly at the sight of the book holder and there was a brave flicker of a smile. Words dribbled out of his mouth with painful slowness.

  ‘I … saw them … again.’

  ‘Who?’ whispered Nicholas.

  ‘The … two … men.’

  ‘From that house on the Bridge?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Did one have an eyepatch?’

  A faint nod. ‘My … cap …’

  ‘What about your cap, Hans?’

  ‘They … took … it.’

  ‘The two men?’

  ‘No … some … boys …’

  ‘And what did they do with it?’

  ‘Threw … river …’

  The apprentice was near to expiry. Nicholas tried to fill in some of the gaps to squeeze the last precious bits of information out of him.

  ‘Some boys took your cap. They ran off. You chased them. They threw your cap over the Bridge. Was it by that house? In that narrow passage?’ Flickering eyelids confirmed his guess. ‘Did your cap land on the starling below?’

  ‘I … climbed …’

  ‘You climbed down to retrieve it. Then you came up again past the window at the rear of the house. You saw something, Hans. What was it?’ Nicholas squeezed his hand to encourage him. ‘Try to tell us. Try.’

  ‘They … killed …’

  ‘The two men murdered someone? With a dagger?’

  ‘Throat …’

  Hans Kippel let out a deep sigh. The effort of dragging the words out of himself and of confronting the memory that lay behind them had drained the last of his resistance. He slipped gently away and his head flopped to one side. Anne Hendrik sobbed and Nicholas comforted her with his own eyes moist. Then he laid the boy’s head gently on the pillow and covered it with a sheet. The doctor stole quietly away to let them share their grief. Racked with remorse, they looked down at the prone figure in the little bed and hugged each other tight. The loss of a child of their own could not have been more painful or poignant because that was what Hans Kippel had become in the last sad days of his doomed life. He had turned lovers into a family and taught them a new kind of love.

  The Dutch boy had witnessed a horrific murder and been chased by the killers. He had scrambled to safety for a while but had taken refuge in the dark recesses of his young and impressionable mind. They had caught up with him eventually and the nightmare was relived. The irony of it all was not lost on Nicholas. Mocking youths had snatched off the apprentice’s cap and hurled it over the edge of the Bridge. In retrieving it, he had seen something which was to have fatal consequences. If Hans Kippel had not bothered about his cap, he would still be alive and happy. But the pride of a craftsman worked against him. The fledgling hatmaker could not leave his cap to the rising waters of the Thames. It simply had to be rescued somehow.

  He had made it himself.

  Threat of ejection from the Queen’s Head had bonded the company together and lent their performance that holiday afternoon a freshness and defiance that transformed a good play into an enthralling experience. The Constant Lover was a form of a reply to a landlord who was neither constant nor loving and who had now sold the home of Westfield’s Men from under them. Word had leaked out that the contract with Rowland Ashway had actually been signed and i
t was only a question of time before the alderman expelled them from his premises. Adversity may have drawn them together onstage. When they came off, it only served to heighten their differences. Edmund Hoode and Lawrence Firethorn chose the empty tiring-house as the venue for their argument. Deep insecurity gave them both an edge of wildness.

  ‘I oppose it with every bone in my body, sir!’

  ‘Take your skeleton away from me.’

  ‘Have you no scruples at all?’

  ‘Come, sir. None of that. You lusted after the lady yourself. You longed to lie in her enchanted garden.’

  ‘I am not married,’ said Hoode. ‘You are.’

  ‘So is Mistress Stanford. Where are your scruples?’

  ‘I intend the lady no harm.’

  ‘It matters not,’ said Firethorn airily. ‘I am the fitter man for her in every way. Both of us are wed and that gives our love some balance. We take equal risks in this business. One fire consumes us both.’

  ‘It will burn up the whole company!’

  ‘Conquer your jealousy, Edmund, and take your defeat like a man. Think not of yourself in this.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Hoode forcefully. ‘It is the sweet lady herself who occupies my mind. I would save her from the disgrace that beckons.’

  ‘Disgrace!’ bawled the other.

  ‘She must only suffer in this enterprise.’

  ‘I offer her my true love.’

  ‘Give her your breeches instead, sir, for that is where it is lodged.’

  ‘Take care, Edmund. I have a temper.’

  ‘Save it for the stage, sir.’

  ‘My devotion to Mistress Stanford comes from a pure heart. I have sent her poems of love.’

  ‘Written by me!’