The Wanton Angel Read online

  Nicholas was after him like a flash, abandoning his own captive to Elias who stood over him with a raised club. Hoode got up and came to help his friend.

  ‘Get their rope!’ ordered Elias.

  ‘Shall we tie them up, Owen?’

  ‘I’d sooner hang the rogues! Come on, Edmund. We’ll truss the pair of them up like turkeys ready for market.’

  ‘Then what? Shall I go and help Nick?’

  ‘He will not need you.’

  Anger was lending speed to Nicholas’s feet. He felt certain that the three intruders had been those who attacked him and he was determined to get his revenge. He closed on his man until the latter suddenly swung round and swished at him with a dagger. Nicholas halted and dodged out of reach.

  ‘I should have killed you when I had the chance!’ said the man, lunging at him again. ‘I should have sent you where I sent Sylvester Pryde.’

  Nicholas recognised a voice he heard in Shoreditch. It served to sharpen his anger. He pulled out his own dagger and circled is adversary in search of the moment to strike.

  ‘What shall I call you?’ he said. ‘Martin or Henry Quine?’

  ‘Call me what you will for it will be the last word you speak.’ His jab sent the point of the dagger through the arm of Nicholas’s buff jerkin but the wound was slight. ‘Say your prayers, Master Bracewell.’

  ‘Is this how Giles Randolph instructs his players?’

  ‘He knows nothing of this,’ sneered Quine. ‘He is too tame for violence. His way to wreck your chances was simply to poach Barnaby Gill but I wanted to make sure.’

  ‘By murdering Sylvester and burning our timbers.’

  ‘There is a surer way still. By killing you.’

  He feinted to jab but slashed his dagger through the air instead in a vicious semi-circle. Nicholas ducked beneath it, grabbed his wrist and twisted the weapon from his grasp. As they wrestled on the slippery bank, they lost their footing and slithered along the ground. Nicholas had a firm grip on him but Quine fought back hard. They rolled over and over until they fell with a loud splash into the river. The shock made Quine release his man to thresh about wildly with both arms and beg for help because he could not swim.

  Nicholas overpowered and rescued him within minutes. He grabbed him by the throat with one hand and used the other to pound his face until there was neither sound nor resistance coming from him. Pulling his adversary by the hair, Nicholas dragged him out of the water and onto the bank. He was still panting for breath when Elias came hurrying over.

  ‘Did you get him, Nick?’

  ‘I got him.’

  ‘The other two are tied up with their own rope.’

  ‘Here’s a third that can be securely bound,’ said Nicholas. ‘His name is Henry Quine but we knew him as Martin. He is another actor who will not play at Court for Banbury’s Men. The rogue murdered Sylvester and I fancy he blighted the life of Rose Marwood as well. Give me a hand, Owen. We’ll lug him back to the others.’

  ‘But how is she now?’ asked Leonard with great concern.

  ‘Better,’ grunted the landlord. ‘And so she should be. The doctor charged a large enough fee.’

  ‘When we heard her cry out in the night, we thought that she was dying. What was wrong with poor Rose?’

  ‘Nothing, Leonard. It is all past.’

  Alexander Marwood shuttled between relief at the loss of the child and sympathy for his daughter. Now that Rose had been treated by a doctor, she had some understanding of what happened to her and was far less afraid. It would take time for her to come to terms with the tragedy but it had brought her mother closer to her and that was a blessing. Marwood, by contrast, had been thrust further away from her by his wife. Such was her hostility towards him that he began to think that the nocturnal kiss which Sybil planted upon his cheek was a cruel figment of his imagination.

  Leonard knew little about the mystery of childbirth. Rose was in distress and that was all that troubled him. He had lumbered into the church at dawn to pray for her. As he stood with his employer in the taproom, he tried to find a trace of guilt in Marwood.

  ‘You wronged them,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Westfield’s Men. You swore that one of them had lain with Rose and tried to turn them out. It was not one of the players at all but Martin, who worked here for you.’

  ‘He was an actor with Banbury’s Men!’ snarled Marwood.

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘He filled Rose’s head with tales of wonder.’

  ‘I thank God that she is free from the villain now.’

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘What will happen to him?’

  ‘He will dangle at the end of a rope, Leonard. And I will be there to cheer on the hangman.’ He looked through the window at the empty inn yard. ‘As to Westfield’s Men, they are lost to me and soon may be to everyone else.’

  ‘Alas, yes!’ sighed Leonard.

  ‘Today they play at Court,’ said Marwood. ‘Tomorrow there may not even be a Westfield’s Men.’

  ‘It is unjust!’ said Lord Westfield angrily. ‘The advantage has already been handed to Havelock’s Men. They performed their play here yesterday in glorious isolation. We have to follow Banbury’s Men and perform The Italian Tragedy today.’

  ‘That may serve our purpose,’ said the Countess.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Banbury’s Men have been shaken to their roots by this news about Henry Quine. They did not know they harboured a killer in their midst. Giles Randolph will have difficulty holding his shattered company together,’ she argued. ‘Richard Crookback will get a crookbacked performance at best.’

  ‘I saw the noble earl even now,’ said Sir Patrick Skelton. ‘He fretted with discontent. When the Earl of Banbury has no confidence in Banbury’s Men, we may take heart.’

  ‘I take none,’ said Lord Westfield.

  ‘You must,’ said the Countess. ‘When your troupe follows Banbury’s Men, they will look bright and fresh after the disarray which preceded them.’

  The patron was still depressed. ‘Two plays in one afternoon is too great a burden to place on any audience. They will be jaded by drama and boredom will set in when The Italian Tragedy is only half-done.’

  ‘There’ll be no danger of boredom when Lawrence Firethorn takes the stage,’ she said. ‘He’ll wake the sleepers with a voice of doom and lead his company on to triumph.’

  Lord Westfield was not convinced. He was standing in a corridor at the Palace of Whitehall, conferring with Sir Patrick Skelton and the Countess of Dartford. Now that the moment of truth was imminent, the patron was suffering a complete loss of faith. His discomfort increased when Viscount Havelock strolled past with his entourage and gave his rival a polite bow. Cordelia Bartram turned her back on her former lover but Lord Westfield looked him full in the face and saw the complacent smile.

  ‘He is safe!’ said Lord Westfield. ‘The Viscount knows that his company is secure. A Looking Glass for London has already been approved by the Privy Council. I see it in his face. I feel it in my blood.’

  ‘It was a sparkling comedy,’ conceded Skelton.

  ‘Played by a dull and unexciting company,’ said the Countess. ‘With such a romp in their hands, Westfield’s Men would have made the whole palace ring with laughter.’

  ‘But we do not have such a play!’ moaned the patron.

  ‘You have a better one,’ she argued.

  ‘Let me see what I can find out,’ volunteered Skelton. ‘I have a friend or two on the Privy Council. I’ll see how warmly they received this looking glass from The Rose. They are judicious men. I’m sure that no verdict will be made until all the evidence has been considered.’

  Skelton gave a slight bow and took his leave. Lord Westfield was not reassured. The last time that his troupe performed at Court, he was able to bask in the praise of the Queen herself. This time they might unwittingly be giving their farewell performance. Perspiration broke out on his face.
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  ‘Hold fast, my lord,’ urged the Countess. ‘Your troupe will want brave words and encouragement from you, not this portrait of defeat I see before me. You look as if you wish you did not have a theatre company at all.’

  ‘Then I look as I feel, Cordelia,’ he confessed. ‘This anxiety is sickening. If I could trade Westfield’s Men for money at this moment, I would take any offer and be happy.’

  They were ready. Sylvester Pryde’s murderer had been caught and the men who had assaulted Nicholas Bracewell before wreaking destruction at the site of The Angel were also fettered in a prison cell. Of more immediate importance to the company, Barnaby Gill was back among them once more, having caused confusion and disorder at a rehearsal with their rivals. Banbury’s Men had now staged their play at Court and Giles Randolph had somehow wrested a creditable performance out of his troupe. Richard Crookback was a sound choice and there had been an ovation when the wicked usurper was crushed in battle by the Earl of Richmond, wearing a tunic that was emblazoned with the Tudor rose.

  Lawrence Firethorn did not underestimate the challenge. Gathering his company around him, he spoke in quiet, persuasive tones to men more used to hearing his bawled abuse or rousing rhetoric. He surveyed each face in turn.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘we are here. Her Grace, the Queen, and all the peers of the realm are your audience today. We are truly honoured and we must show that we are worthy of that honour. Forget our rivals. They are done. It is our turn now and we have a chance to wipe all memory of Havelock’s Men and Banbury’s Men and any other company from the minds of our spectators. Let them see us at our best. Show them what they would lose if Westfield’s Men were to perish.’ He paused to let his words sink in. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said at length in a coaxing whisper. ‘We have come through dangers and setbacks which would have daunted any other company. But we are here. Let us give a royal performance before this royal assembly and show them that Westfield’s Men are the finest troupe of actors in Christendom.’

  George Dart was so moved that he started to clap his hands in spontaneous applause until cuffed into silence by Thomas Skillen. They were in their tiring-house, a room off the Great Chamber, where The Italian Tragedy would be performed. Scenery from their rivals’ play had been removed and their own scenic devices were waiting to be carried out. Sharing the occasion with a rival company, they had little time to rehearse on the stage itself and that induced a general nervousness but it was largely dispelled by Firethorn’s speech. Westfield’s Men knew what was at stake. They had to act for their livelihoods.

  Nicholas Bracewell moved among his fellows to check their costumes and issue reminders about cues to be taken and properties to be used. He paid particular attention to the apprentices, young boys who would profit most from his reassuring presence and whose dresses and farthingales, head-tire and fans would come under the intense scrutiny of the very court ladies whom the apprentices were counterfeiting. Every detail had to be right, every move and gesture so convincing that the audience would not even realise that they were looking at four boys in female attire.

  They could hear the heavy murmur of anticipation in the Great Chamber. The room was filling up. Wooden tiers of seats covered in green baize had been erected against all four walls. A canopied throne was set for the Queen on a carpeted podium in front of a high stand at the head of the Chamber. Red velvet cushions had been set out on the floor in readiness for selected ladies to lounge and pose. The stage itself was a rectangle in the middle of the hall, some twenty feet wide and not much above twenty-five feet long. Since the play would be viewed from all sides of the arena, scenery had to be used to decorate without obscuring any part of the action.

  The floor was made of polished wood, ideal for dancing and much more solid than the quaking boards on which they acted at the Queen’s Head. Instead of open sky above an inn yard, they would be acting beneath an ornamented and fretted ceiling of hard plaster. Instead of competing with the bells and street clamour of London, their voices would be clarified by the tapestried walls and the solid ceiling. Hundreds of branched candles, hung on wires, stretched across the room.

  Most of the audience were in position but the throne and all the scaffolds in the upper part of the room were empty, guarded by yeoman with halberds. The Gentleman Usher sounded a warning, then twelve trumpets announced the approach of the Queen and her train. Everyone in the Chamber rose to their feet and the actors in the tiring-house felt a surge of pride which was tempered with a dryness in the mouth. They were almost there. Elizabeth I, Queen of England, had come to witness their performance.

  They could hear the exact moment of her entry into the Great Chamber. It was a long procession. The trumpeters came first, then the heralds in their coats of arms, then the nobles and Knights of the Garter. Distinguished foreign visitors to the palace were also included, led by the Lord Chamberlain with a white staff which he used to marshal the fifty Gentlemen Pensioners, who acted as the Nearest Guard, and who, bearing gilt poleaxes, formed a hedge on either side. The Earl of Banbury was given the honour of bearing the crimson-sheathed Sword and the Lord Keeper carried the Great Seal. Then came the Queen herself, arrayed in all her finery, sweeping majestically into the Chamber with Ladies of Honour in her wake. Only when she was escorted to her throne by the Lord Chamberlain and lowered herself into it did anyone else dare to seat themselves.

  To the waiting actors, it seemed like an eternity before they were given their signal. When it came, George Dart and the other assistants swiftly carried out the scenery and stage properties. After bowing to the Queen, they set them in position then bowed again and withdrew. There was a murmur of approval at the brightly painted scenic devices. The play opened in the Great Hall of a castle. At a glance, the audience could tell exactly where they were.

  The Chamberlain used his staff to beat on the floor.

  ‘Sound, trumpets!’ he ordered. ‘Sound out!’

  The ringing fanfare was their cue. With Firethorn at their head, the company walked bravely into the Chamber and bowed three times before distributing themselves around the stage. Those who did not appear in the first scene sat on green rushes at the edge of the stage. Book in hand, Nicholas sat among them to watch and control. Peter Digby and his consort took up their positions to the side of the stage, their instruments tuned. The Lord Chamberlain raised his staff again and boomed over the hubbub.

  ‘Peace! Ha’ peace! Let the play commence.’

  Silence slowly fell on the banked audience and the music started. Owen Elias stepped out to deliver the Prologue, bowing to the Queen, before declaiming the words which Edmund Hoode had penned during the long hours of the previous night.

  ‘Good friends, for friendship is our constant aim,

  Y’are welcome to a play that will not maim

  A king with crookback vile and wicked tongue

  Nor let a merry looking glass be hung

  In front of London town. To Italy we go,

  And there, for your delight, we straightway show

  What history so often sadly finds,

  Upright men with dark and crooked minds

  That make King Richard seem a silver saint,

  For all those layers of black Banburian paint,

  Which you have seen this very afternoon

  Splashed thick upon a foul, misshapen loon.

  You will not have a lock of London’s hair

  In Italy. Dear friends, we take you there

  To show you lust, deceit and civil strife,

  To hold our Westfield mirror up to Life!’

  The first burst of applause broke and the spirits of the whole company were lifted. Even their patron was encouraged. Angered at the sight of his hated rival, bearing in the Sword with such dignity, he smiled at the mention of Banburian paint and laughed aloud at the play on Viscount Havelock’s name. He was also reminded what a fine, clear-voiced actor Owen Elias was. Seated beside him, the Countess of Dartford did not let her gaze linger on the Welshman. It was L
awrence Firethorn who commanded her full attention. Magnificently attired as the Duke of Milan, he moved around the stage with an authority and grace which was breathtaking.

  The Italian Tragedy proved a happy choice. It was a brilliant study of political duplicity and, since it involved Court spies from France, Spain and Holland, it enabled the audience to laugh at four different nationalities while realising at the same time that they were watching eternal traits of human nature which they themselves possessed. Firethorn was inspired as the villainous Duke, plotting, seducing, betraying, stabbing and poisoning his way through five acts of heady drama. Richard Honeydew was so moving as his hapless victim that even the Queen herself had to brush away a tear. Edmund Hoode was elevated to papal status and reinforced the Protestant prejudices of his audience with a display of scheming and manipulation. Owen Elias was the valiant hero who finally vanquished the tyrannical Duke.

  It was Barnaby Gill, however, who gleaned the most applause. Relieved to be back with the company and smarting at his folly in considering defection, he was determined to atone for his mistake and pushed himself to the outer limits of his art. His timing was perfect, his gestures vivid, his facial contortions a delight and his dances a source of pure joy. The comic songs which Hoode had inserted into the play for him were greeted with thunderous clapping and the Queen’s hand patted the arm of her throne in acknowledgement. Those who had laughed at A Looking Glass for London discovered what real laughter was.

  Nicholas was proud of them all. He could rely on the more experienced actors to rise to the occasion but the younger ones and the apprentices also distinguished themselves. Even the error-prone George Dart came through unscathed. When the company brought the play to its bloody climax, the ovation turned the Great Chamber into a cauldron of noise. Nicholas stole a glance at Lord Westfield, who was smiling with joy. When the book holder looked at their patron’s companion, however, he was reminded of another threat which still hung over the company. Cordelia Bartram, Countess of Dartford, surveyed the players with a glint of ownership and it was on Firethorn that her gaze rested. Even if they survived one crisis, the company would soon be confronted by another and only Nicholas could see it coming.