The Roaring Boy Page 4

  A sense of guilt stayed with him as he arranged the removal of the body to the morgue before returning to his other duties at the inn. Would his friend have survived longer if he had not had the leading role thrust upon him? Or was he already dwindling quietly towards his coffin? Had Ben Skeat, in a sense, willed his own death so that he could quit his profession as he scaled its highest peak? Was an element of choice involved? Speculation on these and on other issues left Nicholas both sad and perplexed.

  He was glad when his chores were finally over and he could repair to the taproom to join his fellows. He felt the need of a drink and a respite before going to Shoreditch to report to Lawrence Firethorn. The taproom was busy when he entered. Good-humoured banter could be heard on all sides. Nicholas simply wanted to drop on to a stool and call for some ale but he saw that one more chore awaited him. Edmund Hoode was seated at a table, crouched over his tankard in an attitude of despair and oblivious to the reassurance that Owen Elias was trying to pour into his ear.

  The Welshman looked up as Nicholas joined them.

  ‘Thank God you’ve come, Nick. He is deaf to my voice.’

  ‘How much ale has he taken?’

  ‘Far too much. Sorrow is a thirsty comrade.’

  ‘What has Edmund said?’

  ‘Nothing. That is the worry of it. He is struck dumb by circumstance.’ He gave Hoode a gentle nudge. ‘Nick is here. Will you join us both in a fresh pot of ale?’ The playwright remained silent and Elias gave an elaborate shrug. ‘It is like talking to a post.’

  ‘The mood will pass,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Have you ever seen the fellow in such a state?’

  ‘Not from this cause, Owen.’

  Elias chuckled. ‘Ah, well, I take your meaning. If there was a woman in the case, all would be explained. Edmund is a martyr to the fairer sex. Another doomed love affair might plunge him into this misery but that is not so here.’ He spoke into Hoode’s ear. ‘Come back to us, Edmund. We are your friends. Let us help.’

  The hurt silence continued. Nicholas ordered ale for himself and Owen Elias, then talked with the latter as if a third person were not present. They discussed the demise of Ben Skeat and the exigencies it forced upon them. Both had high praise for Barnaby Gill’s invention onstage and more caustic comment for his behaviour off it. They wondered if a new sharer would be brought into the company and how such an actor would be recruited. Owen Elias was voluble on this topic. Having laboured for so long in the humbler regions of the hired man, he relished the privilege of being accepted as a sharer.

  The Welshman eventually came back to the play itself.

  ‘Let us be honest, Nick,’ he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘The Corrupt Bargain was not his best play.’

  ‘It was serviceable enough.’

  ‘Too much matter, too little poetry.’

  ‘You are a stern critic, Owen. I liked it.’

  ‘Why, so did I. But less than his other plays.’

  ‘It merely needed more work on it,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘New title, new characters, new plot.’ Elias grinned. ‘Its defects would soon be mended then. It lacked vigour.’

  Edmund Hoode murmured his way into the conversation.

  ‘It lacked everything that bears the name of drama.’

  ‘Welcome back to the land of the living,’ said Elias. ‘Nick and I were just passing judgement on—’

  ‘I heard,’ interrupted Hoode. ‘Heard and suffered every word that passed between you.’

  ‘Your play had much merit,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Then it was put there by other hands,’ confessed the author gloomily. ‘Owen was right. It is a time for honesty and honesty compels me to admit that The Corrupt Bargain was my worst piece of work. The characters were stiff, the plot would not bend to my purpose, the verse would not soar from the page. My art is moribund, gentlemen. That is why I am so oppressed. I have lost my creative spark.’

  ‘That is not true, Edmund, said Nicholas loyally. ‘The Corrupt Bargain bore all the marks of your talent, but it had no chance to display them in that performance. The finest drama ever penned will not yield up its true essence if it loses its hero in the middle of Act Three.’

  ‘Ben’s death was your misfortune,’ said Elias.

  ‘No,’ said Hoode. ‘It was an apt comment on my play. Ben Skeat went to his grave to escape the ignominy of being in such a lame and undeserving tragedy.’

  ‘The rest of us lived to enjoy it,’ noted Elias.

  ‘Enjoy!’ Edmund Hoode gave a hollow laugh. ‘Enjoy!’

  Nicholas Bracewell traded a glance with Owen Elias and the latter rose gratefully to take his leave. The Welshman had tried and failed to raise the spirits of the company’s actor-playwright. A more delicate hand was needed and only the book holder could supply that. Elias took his ale off to a more boisterous table and was soon joining in the raucous badinage. Nicholas leaned in closer to his companion.

  ‘Take heart, Edmund. You have had setbacks before.’

  ‘This was no setback, Nick. It was a catastrophe.’

  ‘Not of your making.’

  ‘The Corrupt Bargain was a sign.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘His end.’

  ‘Whose end?’

  ‘That impostor.’

  ‘You talk in riddles.’

  ‘That cheat, that counterfeit, that mountebank.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Edmund Hoode, poet.’

  ‘He sits before me even now.’

  ‘I am merely his ghost.’

  ‘This is foolish talk.’

  ‘No, Nick,’ said Hoode with solemn assurance. ‘It is a wisdom born of cruel experience. Ben Skeat was not the only poor wretch who died upon that stage this afternoon. I did as well. My art finally expired. Give it a decent burial, then find another poet to fashion your new plays.’

  ‘We already have the best in London,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Kind words will not conceal the ugly truth.’

  ‘We need you, Edmund.’

  Hoode shook his head. ‘I have nothing left to give.’

  ‘That is arrant nonsense!’

  Nicholas did what he could to lift his friend’s morale but it was all to no avail. What made his task more difficult was the fact that there were distinct elements of truth in what Hoode had been saying. The Corrupt Bargain fell far short of his best work. Its construction was faulty, its pace uncertain and its promising theme not fully explored. Given a rousing performance—and with Lawrence Firethorn as the exiled Duke of Genoa—the play would have passed muster but not even its greatest admirers would wish to see it given a regular place in the repertoire of Westfield’s Men.

  While heaping lavish praise on the poet, and struggling to keep a positive note in his voice, Nicholas was all too conscious of the recent deterioration in the latter’s work. Edmund Hoode was contracted to write three new plays for the company each year. The Corrupt Bargain was the last, and least impressive, of his annual trio but its two predecessors had also been disappointing works, competent rather than inspiring, and wholly deficient in those flashes of brilliance for which the playwright was so renowned.

  ‘The Muse has deserted me, Nick,’ concluded Hoode.

  ‘Not so.’

  ‘When did I last create anything of consequence?’

  ‘With this afternoon’s play.’

  ‘Shallow stuff. Poorly put together.’

  ‘You heard the spectators. They acclaimed you.’

  ‘They acclaimed my fellows for replacing the vile scenes that I gave them with more worthy material of their own. That is what hurt me most. That crude and disfigured version of The Corrupt Bargain was better than my original.’

  ‘Never!’
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br />   ‘It was, Nick. I am done.’

  ‘You have still dozens of fine plays left in you.’

  ‘No, let us not delude ourselves.’ He put a hand on his companion’s arm. ‘You know the hideous truth as well as I do, dear friend. My last work of any real quality was The Merchant of Calais and that owed much to your help and encouragement. You gave me both plot and theme.’

  Nicholas winced slightly. He had also helped to draw the character of the play’s eponymous hero, a merchant from the West Country who bore a closer resemblance to his own father than he had either wished or intended. The Merchant of Calais had been a triumph for its author but it carried some rather uncomfortable memories for Nicholas Bracewell. It made him anxious to change the subject.

  ‘No more of that,’ he said. ‘Sleep is the only true physician here, Edmund. Go home and rest your troubled head. The case will be altered in the morning. A spent man may go to bed this evening but a gifted poet will rise from it.’

  Hoode was about to contradict him when an outburst of laughter took their attention to the far end of a taproom. A group that included Owen Elias was clustered around a young man and guffawing appreciatively as he told them a tale. The stranger was young, well favoured and attired like a gallant in doublet and hose of a subtle red hue. His hat was set at a rakish angle and his cloak was thrown back to reveal its silken lining. He mimed the drawing of a dagger and stabbed the air dramatically to produce fresh mirth from his audience.

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Hoode.

  ‘A roisterer, by the look of him,’ said Nicholas. ‘He seems to have fallen in very easily with our fellows.’

  ‘There is something of an actor about him.’

  ‘And rather more of a swaggerer. Every hostelry in London is plagued by such roaring boys. Drunk with ale and the sound of their own voices. Friends of all the world on a moment’s acquaintance, ready to dupe and cozen when occasion serve.’ Nicholas watched the way the stranger slipped his arms familiarly around two of the group. ‘He will pick no fruit from that tree. Owen and the others are too sharp to be gulled by a smooth-faced knave like that.’

  ‘He is a noisy devil,’ complained Hoode. ‘My ears begin to ache with the very sound of his voice and their jollity.’

  ‘Take yourself home to bed,’ said the other.

  ‘Sound advice.’ He stood up and swayed violently. ‘My head obeys you but my legs rebel.’

  ‘You took more ale than you thought,’ said Nicholas with an indulgent smile, getting up to support his friend. ‘Come, Edmund. I’ll bestow you at your lodging before I make my way to Shoreditch and give my account of this afternoon’s escapade to Master Firethorn.’

  ‘Barnaby will already have been to Old Street.’

  ‘That is why I must go as well. To correct his version of events, for it will surely be well wide of the truth.’

  They shared a laugh as they headed for the door. Hoode was grateful for the steadying arm of Nicholas Bracewell. As they passed the group at the far end of the room, the young man was at his loudest and most expressive, sharing some new jest and reinforcing it with comical gestures. Owen Elias was shaking with glee. The newcomer was patently a soulmate.

  It was a pleasant evening as the two friends stepped out into Gracechurch Street to begin their journey. Shadows were lengthening but there was still enough light for them to be able to pick their way easily along. Hoode’s lodging was in Silver Street near Cripplegate but he would never have got there without his friend’s assistance. Drink and despair had robbed him of his sense of balance.

  ‘Will you give Lawrence the awful tidings?’

  ‘He will already have heard of Ben Skeat’s death.’

  ‘I speak of my own demise.’

  ‘That news will keep, I fancy,’ said Nicholas tactfully. ‘Master Firethorn has already endured severe toothache and a visit from Barnaby Gill. Three calamities in one day are too much for any man to bear.’

  ‘Why does he not have the tooth drawn?’

  ‘He fears the surgeon.’

  ‘Does he expect the pain to go away on its own?’

  ‘His prayers tend in that direction.’

  ‘The only way to cure a diseased tooth is to pull it out by the roots,’ said Hoode in maudlin tones as he saw a parallel situation. ‘As with Lawrence, so with the company.’

  ‘Company?’

  ‘We have been in pain these many months, Nick. Poor performances of weak plays by dispirited actors. Our reputation has suffered. It wounds me to say this but our rivals wax while we but wane. Banbury’s Men hold first place among the companies. We trail far behind them.’

  ‘How does a diseased tooth come into it?’

  ‘He lurches along at your side.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Who else?’ He heaved a deep sigh of regret. ‘I did not realise it until this afternoon but I am the source of pain in the mouth of the company. The Corrupt Bargain was a symbol of our agony. My failure has infected everyone. Until I am plucked from Westfield’s Men by a pair of pincers, the rest of you will suffer the torments of the damned.’

  ‘Those torments would be greater still without you.’

  ‘My way is clear. I must quit the theatre.’

  ‘Your contract forbids you.’

  ‘I’ll buy myself out of it.’

  ‘But you love the stage, Edmund.’

  ‘It no longer loves me.’

  ‘Put these wild thoughts aside,’ said Nicholas. ‘A true man of the theatre will never desert his calling.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘That was…a mistake that was soon put right.’

  ‘But you did try to escape this verminous occupation.’

  ‘Yes,’ conceded the other. ‘I did.’

  Nicholas fell silent. It was not a happy memory and he tried to erase it from his mind. When a woman whom he loved forced him to choose between her and the theatre, he had turned his back on the latter only to find that his sacrifice had come too late. Restored to the fold, he vowed that he would never try to leave it again. The theatre offered only a precarious living but it was his natural home.

  Edmund Hoode burbled on without even realising that he was having a long conversation with himself. His mood of self-pity was gradually eroded by exhaustion and he was virtually hanging on to his friend’s shoulder as they came within sight of Silver Street. Nicholas only half listened to the sorrowful outpourings. Another sound had claimed his interest and he had been glancing behind him whenever they came to a bend or a corner. When they finally reached Hoode’s lodging, he propped the poet up against the wall and put a hand on the hilt of his sword.

  ‘Do not leave me here, Nick,’ begged the other.

  ‘It will not be for long.’

  ‘Take me in. I can never climb those stairs alone.’

  ‘Wait but a moment.’

  ‘Why do we stay here in the street?’

  ‘Because we are followed,’ whispered Nicholas.

  ‘I see no one.’

  ‘He stays in the shadows.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Watch.’

  Drawing his weapon, Nicholas swung quickly round and ran diagonally across to the dark alley on the other side of the narrow street. Someone stirred in the darkness and he caught the flash of another blade. Nicholas engaged his man at once and the swords clashed in the gloom.

  ‘Hold, sir! Hold!’ called his adversary. ‘I seek no quarrel. I am a friend!’

  ‘Why, then, do you fight with me?’

  ‘Merely to defend myself. I pray you, stand off.’

  Nicholas took a few steps back but kept his weapon at the ready. The other man stepped forward into the half-light with an apologetic smile. He gave a shrug and sheathed his own sword. Nicholas was startled. It was t
he young man whom he had seen roistering at the Queen’s Head but there was no hint of the latter’s inebriation now. The roaring boy had become a gentleman who bore himself with dignity.

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded Nicholas.

  ‘Someone who would like to know you better, sir.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘That can only be divulged in privacy.’

  ‘You followed us!’

  ‘How else could I find out where you went?’

  ‘Why were you carousing with our fellows?’

  ‘So that I could learn more about Nicholas Bracewell.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You and Edmund Hoode.’ He pointed to the sword. ‘We would have easier conference if you were to put that away. I mean you no harm. I will happily surrender my own weapon, if that will reassure you.’

  ‘No need.’ Nicholas relaxed slightly and sheathed his sword. ‘Now, sir. What is your name?’

  ‘I would rather not speak it in the street.’

  ‘Why have you come to spy on us?’

  ‘Because I need your help,’ said the other with obvious sincerity. ‘I would not have come else. You and Master Hoode are the only ones whom I could trust.’

  ‘Trust?’

  ‘May we not step inside the house? It is safer there.’

  ‘Safer?’

  ‘For all three of us.’

  ‘Why?’

  The young man threw a nervous glance up and down the street before stepping back into the shadows. His rampant joviality had been left behind at the Queen’s Head. He had other preoccupations now. There was a polite seriousness about him which compelled respect. He certainly posed no threat to Nicholas.

  Edmund Hoode was now barely awake, his back to the wall of the little half-timbered house, his feet slowly losing their purchase on the cracked paving. He registered the newcomer’s appearance without hearing a word of what he said. Secure in the knowledge that Nicholas Bracewell would fend for him, Hoode gave up all pretence of interest in the remainder of the day and drifted off into a welcome sleep. The book holder was just in time to catch him before he slumped to the ground. Crossing to join them, the young man took his share of the playwright’s weight.