The Fair Maid of Bohemia Read online

  George Dart blushed a deep crimson and Thomas Skillen forgot his misery long enough to emit a loud chortle. Before the Welshman could get into his stride, Nicholas jumped in to take control of the conversation.

  ‘This is idle speculation,’ he said firmly. ‘The plague is a mystery that has yet to be divined. Some believe you may ward off infection with onions, cloves, lemons, vinegar or wormwood. Others seek a remedy in tobacco, arsenic, quicksilver or even dried toads. In times of distress, people will grasp at any false nostrum that is offered. Every quack and mountebank has his own useless treatment to foist upon desperate victims. This one sells you some lily root boiled in white wine while that one purveys a draught concocted of salad-oil, sack, and gunpowder.’

  ‘Gunpowder!’ repeated Dart in astonishment.

  ‘There are worse remedies than that,’ warned Elias.

  ‘Indeed, there are,’ continued Nicholas. ‘The sovereign cure is one that only the very rich and the very gullible may sample. It is a specific that draws out the poison and provokes a violent sweat in the patient. Its chief ingredient is that rarest commodity—powdered unicorn’s horn.’

  ‘Is there such a thing?’ gasped Dart.

  ‘Only if you are ready to believe in it.’

  ‘Nick is right,’ added Elias. ‘The only true relief from the disease is a compound made from holly leaves, horse dung, and the testicles of a tiger, cooked slowly over the flames from the mouth of a Welsh dragon!’

  ‘Has that been known to work?’ asked a wide-eyed Dart.

  ‘Infallibly.’

  ‘A Welsh dragon?’

  ‘I saw the wondrous beast myself.’

  ‘Owen is teasing you,’ said Nicholas with a smile. ‘Pay no heed to him, George. There is no remedy. Take my word for it.’

  ‘Someone must have caught the disease and survived.’

  ‘None that I know of,’ muttered Skillen.

  ‘Nor I,’ agreed Elias.

  The three of them turned to look at a pensive Nicholas.

  ‘There was one survivor,’ he recalled at length. ‘I have met him myself, so I know it to be true. His name is Doctor John Mordrake and he lives in Knightrider Street. By all accounts, he is a noted physician, philosopher, and alchemist. Doctor ordrake contracted the disease and cured himself.’

  ‘Impossible!’ announced Skillen.

  ‘He is living proof to the contrary, Thomas.’

  ‘How did he do it?’ asked Dart. ‘What was his remedy?’

  ‘That remains a secret,’ said Nicholas. ‘All I can do is to repeat common report. People who witnessed his miraculous recovery came to the same conclusion. There was only one way that Doctor Mordrake could possibly have done it.’

  ‘And how was that?’

  ‘By magic.’

  ***

  Margery Firethorn was one of the most hospitable women in the whole of Shoreditch, but her customary open-armed welcome was tinged with regret when Barnaby Gill and Edmund Hoode arrived at the house in Old Street. The two were conducted into the parlour with a faint air of reluctance. They understood why and sympathised with her. Margery was not simply inviting some close friends into her home. She was admitting the two men who were—along with Lawrence Firethorn—the principal sharers in Westfield’s Men and therefore responsible for all major decisions affecting the company. They were there to discuss the projected tour of the provinces. The visitors had come to take her husband away from her for an indefinite period.

  Waving them to seats, she called for the servant, and a pitcher of wine was brought in on a tray. Margery dismissed the girl with a glance and filled two of the three cups which stood on the table. Gill and Hoode expressed their gratitude before sipping their wine.

  ‘This is a sad day for us all,’ she began.

  ‘It is, Margery,’ said Hoode with a sorrowful smile. ‘We are swept from our stage like unwanted dust. London ousts us.’

  ‘Nobody can oust me,’ boasted Gill, striking a petulant pose. ‘I leave of my own free will. Neither tempest, flood, nor fire will drive me away when I do not wish to go.’

  Hoode shrugged. ‘Even you cannot defy the plague, Barnaby.’

  ‘People are still leaving in droves,’ said Margery. ‘There are wards of the city where the disease is rampant. Shoreditch has so far been spared the worst effects, but we have victims enough here. Would that we could all flee!’

  ‘I am not fleeing,’ insisted Gill. ‘I merely choose to exercise my right to go.’

  ‘This is no time to stand on your dignity,’ said Hoode with irritation. ‘Choice does not come into it, Barnaby.’

  ‘It does for me.’

  ‘Plague orders compel us to set off on a tour.’

  ‘They may compel you, Edmund. I am above compulsion.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Simply this,’ said Gill with a lordly sniff. ‘You may be content to drag yourself around England in search of an audience of smelly oafs who cannot even tell the difference between a tragedy and a comedy. But I am not. Why should I demean myself? Why should I suffer the indignity of walking at the cart’s-tail with a ragged band of players?’

  ‘Ragged band!’ echoed Margery angrily. ‘Do not let Lawrence hear you speak so irreverently of Westfield’s Men, or he will box your ears soundly. Enough of this vanity, sir! You are contracted to play with the company and my husband will ensure that you honour the contract.’

  ‘Contracts can be revoked.’

  ‘To what end?’ asked Hoode.

  ‘The betterment of my reputation.’

  Margery hooted with derision. ‘Desert the company and you will have no reputation, Barnaby! You will be branded a traitor by your fellows. Who would deign to employ you then?’

  ‘More than one discerning patron,’ he snapped. ‘I have already had some tempting offers which would rescue me from the tedium and fatigue of a tour and prove a fitter setting for my genius.’

  ‘What offers?’ she demanded.

  ‘I am not prepared to discuss them with you, Margery. This is a matter between the sharers of the company, and I will not divulge anything to those of lowlier station.’

  Margery Firethorn bristled. A big, handsome woman with a friendly nature and warm maternalism, she could turn into a creature of snarling ferocity when she was provoked. Hoode intervened before she roared into life.

  ‘For shame, Barnaby!’ he scolded. ‘Margery is our hostess. How many times have you dined at her table and received the bounty of her welcome? Every decision we make here today affects her directly, and she is entitled to know how it is reached. So let me ask you again—what offers?’

  ‘I will disclose them in due course.’

  ‘Why not now?’

  ‘Because Lawrence is not here and I will not waste my words by repeating myself.’ Gill turned to Margery but could not meet her burning gaze. ‘Pray send your husband in.’

  ‘He will come of his own accord,’ she retorted, ‘and that may not be for some time. Lawrence is not at home.’

  ‘He must be!’

  ‘Search the premises, if you do not believe me.’

  ‘We were brought here for an important meeting.’

  ‘It will take place in due course.’

  ‘The time was set,’ said Gill peevishly. ‘We were here upon the stroke of the hour, and so should Lawrence have been. We have vital business in hand. What could possibly keep him away from such a crucial conference?’

  ‘Lord Westfield.’

  Hoode was surprised. ‘He is with our patron?’

  ‘An urgent summons came earlier this afternoon.’

  ‘What was its purpose?’

  ‘I do not know, Edmund. But this I can tell you. Lawrence saddled his horse and was away to Court within a mat
ter of minutes. He paused only long enough to give me instructions. I am to entreat you to wait and to excuse his delay.’

  ‘It is unpardonable!’ said Gill.

  ‘Yet it may bring us advantage,’ mused Hoode, groping for some good news on a day bedevilled with bad tidings. ‘Knowing that we must set forth from the city, Lord Westfield may offer us money to sweeten the sourness of our departure and to help us along the way. That must be it! Our patron is putting his hand into his purse.’

  ‘Then he has borrowed money from Lawrence,’ said Gill waspishly. ‘That is the only reason our esteemed patron would touch his purse. To put something in rather than to take anything out. Lord Westfield’s purse has been empty for many a year, and there are dozens of creditors to vouch for it.’

  ‘He may have raised capital from other sources.’

  ‘Only to spend on more wine for his cellar.’

  ‘There’s hope for us here,’ persisted Hoode. ‘Our patron would not have summoned Lawrence on some trifling matter. He means to lend his support to us at this difficult time.’

  ‘I refuse to believe it, Edmund. When has Lord Westfield ever offered more to us than the protection of his name and the occasional discarded cloak for our wardrobe? Because we excel at our art, we give him a special lustre at Court, yet he treats us with the disdain he reserves for the rest of his liveried servants.’ Gill shook his head. ‘No. Put away those fond imaginings. Our patron will not help us with this tour.’

  ‘The matter is of no consequence to you, Barnaby.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you do not intend to stay with the company.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘You did,’ reminded Margery. ‘You said that you could not endure the misery of another tour and that you would consider other offers which you had received.’

  ‘Tempting offers,’ said Hoode. ‘That is what you called them, and you have clearly been tempted. If you have already sold your soul to another buyer, why bother to come here in the first place? What point is there in discussing a tour in which you have no intention of taking part?’

  Margery indicated the door. ‘There is the way out,’ she said. ‘Leave while you may. When Lawrence hears about this treachery, he’ll tear you limb from limb. What greater disgrace is there than abandoning your fellows in their hour of need?’

  ‘I am not abandoning them,’ denied Gill.

  ‘You are,’ confirmed Hoode. ‘We both heard you.’

  ‘Nothing is yet settled.’

  ‘Even to countenance the possibility is a crime against Westfield’s Men. Put the company first for once.’

  ‘And waste my talent in front of country bumpkins?’

  ‘An audience is an audience.’

  ‘I deserve the best!’

  Margery was scathing. ‘If you leave the company now, you deserve to be boiled in oil,’ she said. ‘And I will be happy to stoke up the fire with my own bare hands.’

  Barnaby Gill flared up angrily, Margery Firethorn struck back at him, and Edmund Hoode tried in vain to calm them down. The argument was still at its height when they heard the swift approach of a horse. It made Gill freeze and stilled Margery in mid-expletive. Hoode crossed to the window.

  ‘Lawrence!’ he announced. ‘At last!’

  Firethorn brought his mount to a halt, dropped from the saddle and tossed the reins to the servant who came running out of the house. The gallop had put a glow into the actor’s cheeks. His face was streaked with perspiration and his beard flecked with dust. As he crossed the threshold of his home and doffed his cap with a flourish, there was no mistaking the air of excitement about him. He looked as if he had just quit the stage at the end of one of his most towering performances.

  ‘What means this sudden return?’ Margery wondered.

  ‘The strangest news that ever you heard, my love.’

  ‘Good news, I trust?’

  ‘Good news but mingled with bad,’ he confessed, putting an affectionate arm around her. ‘Lord Westfield sent for me to put a proposition to us that still makes my head reel.’

  ‘He bestowed money on us?’ said Hoode optimistically.

  Gill was cynical. ‘Disbanded us, more like!’

  ‘Far from it, Barnaby,’ explained Firethorn. ‘A signal honour has been conferred upon us. We will be the envy of the London theatre. But honour, alas, comes at a high price. While some will prosper, others will have to suffer their absence.’ He placed the softest kiss on his wife’s forehead. ‘We are to leave the city, my angel, and that right soon.’

  ‘I expected no less,’ she said with a brave smile. ‘Marry an actor and you are a hostage to fortune. There will be hardship without you, but I will bear it nobly.’

  ‘As ever, my pippin.’

  Firethorn pulled her to him and gave her another gentle kiss. Disgusted by the sight of marital tenderness, Gill became increasingly impatient.

  ‘Why did our patron summon you?’ he asked.

  ‘To show me the invitation,’ said Firethorn.

  ‘What invitation?’

  ‘The one that set my blood racing, Barnaby. The one that made me gallop hell-for-leather back to Shoreditch to acquaint you with its import.’

  ‘Then do so without further delay.’

  ‘My mind is still bursting asunder.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Gill. ‘Why, why, why?’

  ‘Will the company still go on tour?’ asked Hoode.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ affirmed Firethorn. ‘And such a tour as we have never been on before. It will be a supreme challenge, but it may also be the crowning achievement of Westfield’s Men.’

  ‘Skulking from town to town like beggars?’ sneered Gill. ‘You call that a crowning achievement? It is an insult to ask of a man of my abilities to play before the dullards of the English countryside. I refuse to lower my high standards.’

  ‘You will need to raise them,’ warned Firethorn. ‘We must give the very best account of ourselves, Barnaby. But not for the benefit of English eyes and ears. We are to sail across the sea on a glorious adventure.’

  ‘The sea!’ gasped Margery, clutching at him. ‘Will you go so far away from me, Lawrence? Why? When? For how long?’

  ‘And where?’ asked Gill.

  ‘To Holland, Germany, and thence to Bohemia.’

  His wife was aghast. ‘Bohemia!’

  ‘That is our principal destination,’ he said. ‘We have received an invitation to play for two weeks at the Imperial Court in Prague. What higher accolade could there be for Westfield’s Men? The company has performed for Her Majesty on more than one occasion. An even mightier sovereign now recognises our worth. We are going to Bohemia at the express wish of the Emperor Rudolph the Second. This is one of the proudest moments of my life. We are set to conquer a whole new world.’

  Firethorn was positively glowing but his wife was fighting to hold back tears. All that she knew about Bohemia was that it was a distant country which would deprive her of her husband for a long and arduous period. Travelling around England with his company, he could at least keep in regular contact with her by letter. If he went to Bohemia, she feared that she would lose all track of him. Firethorn himself was enough of a husband to regret his forced departure, but he was even more of an actor and thus eager to respond to the call for a command performance in front of an Emperor.

  Barnaby Gill was equally thrilled by the invitation. He could already hear the applause at the Imperial Court as he displayed the full repertoire of his theatrical talents. He was quick to endorse acceptance of the invitation.

  ‘We must go!’ he asserted. ‘By heaven, we must!’

  Edmund Hoode could not resist some gentle mockery.

  ‘We will, Barnaby,’ he said. ‘Without you, alas.’

  ‘Wit
hout me?’

  ‘You will be too busy with your other tempting offers.’

  ***

  Anne Hendrik lay naked in his arms while he stroked her hair. Conscious that they would soon be separated for a lengthy period, they were sharing a bed for the night while they still could. It gave their love-making an extra urgency. Panting from their exertions and glistening with perspiration, they lay there in silence for several minutes and listened to the beating of each other’s hearts. It was Nicholas Bracewell who finally put quiet words to sad thoughts.

  ‘I will miss you,’ he whispered.

  ‘Mine will be the greater loss,’ she said. ‘I will to Holland and back as swiftly as I may, but your journey will last an eternity. While you are being honoured in a foreign court, I will be pining for you in an empty bed.’

  ‘It does not have to be that way, Anne.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I do not have to leave you.’

  ‘But you told me that it was all arranged. You were at the Queen’s Head this evening when Lawrence Firethorn sent for you to tell you of the invitation and to seek your advice. The decision to go to Bohemia had already been taken.’

  ‘It had. Westfield’s Men will soon set sail.’

  ‘Then there is an end to it.’

  ‘Only if I go with them.’

  Anne stiffened in surprise and pulled away from him so that she could look into his eyes. ‘You have to go, Nick,’ she said. ‘They would be lost without you. Westfield’s Men have come to rely on you totally.’

  ‘That may be another reason to stay behind.’

  ‘Stay behind! I do not believe that I heard you say that. To visit other countries and play at foreign courts. This is an opportunity that may never come again. Any man of the theatre would grab at it.’

  ‘And so would I if it were not for the circumstances.’

  ‘Circumstances?’

  ‘You, Anne,’ he said, pulling her to him again. ‘I yearn to go with the company, yet I am loath to leave your side. This invitation is like a blessing from on high. It will take us from a plague-ridden city to the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, where we will be honoured guests. My head urges me to join the company on this wonderful adventure, but my heart tells me that my place is here with you.’ He cupped her chin in his palm. ‘Say the word and I will remain behind.’