Lawrence Firethorn slowly began to make headway against his domestic oppression. His wife continued to watch him like a hawk and abuse him at every turn but he bore it all with Stoic mien and never struck back. Even the nightly horror of the bedchamber failed to break him. His studied patience at last had its effect. Margery listened to-if she did not believe-his protestations. She permitted his little acts of kindness and concern. She allowed herself to think of him once more as her husband.
Her suspicions did not vanish but they were gradually smothered beneath the pillow of his subtlety. Firethorn smiled, flattered, promised and pretended until he had insinuated his way back into the outer suburbs of her affections. With a skill born of long practice, he chose his moment carefully.
‘Lawrence!'
'Open it, my sweet.'
'But why have you bought me a present, sir?'
'Why else, my angel? To show you that I love you.'
Margery Firethorn could not contain her almost girlish curiosity and excitement. She opened the little box and let out a gasp of wonder. Her husband had just given her a pendant that hung from a gold chain.
‘This is for me?'
I had been saving it for your birthday, my dove,' he lied, 'but it seemed a more appropriate moment. I wanted you to know how deep my feelings are for you in spite of your cruelty to me.
Remorse surfaced. 'Have I been cruel?' she asked.
'Unbearably so.' 'Have I been unjust?'
'With regularity.'
'I felt I had cause, Lawrence.'
'Show it me.'
'There were…indications.'
'Produce them against me,' he challenged. 'No, I have been maligned here. Someone turned you against me. I have been a model of fidelity to you and that gift shows it.'
She bestowed a kiss of gratitude on his lips then looked into the box once more and marvelled. The pendant was small, oval and studded with semiprecious stones. Sunshine was slanting in through the chamber window to make them dance and sparkle,
'May I try it on, sir?'
'I will hold it for you, Margery.'
'It will go best with my taffeta dress,' she decided.
'It will become you whatever you wear,' he said, then collected a second kiss. 'Hold still now.'
Margery Firethorn stood in front of the mirror while he dangled the pendant around her neck. She was thrilled with the present, all the more so because it was so unexpected and-she now began to imagine-completely undeserved. A husband who had been reviled as much as hers had of late could only buy her an expensive present like that if he was besotted on her.
He nestled into her back and rubbed his beard against her hair. His eyes met hers in the mirror.
'Will it suit, madam?'
'It will suit, sir.'
'It is only a trifle,' he apologized. 'If I was a richer man, it would have been edged with pearls and encrusted with diamonds.' He squeezed her again. 'Are you pleased?'
'I will treasure it for ever.'
The third kiss was longer and more ardent. It gave him time to rehearse an excuse for the fact that he would not be able to leave the gift with her because it would be worn around the neck of Gloriana, Queen of Albion, in the forthcoming play.
'Fix the catch, Lawrence. I will wear it now.'
'You cannot, I fear.'
'Why not?'
'The catch is faulty. It will need to be repaired by the jeweller . No matter,' he said, whisking the pendant away and replacing it in its box. 'I will take it to his shop this very morning and set the fellow to work on it.'
'I am loathe to part with it.'
'It will be but a short absence.'
'Take the chain, sir. Let me keep the pendant at least.'
'Alas!' he replied, snapping the lid of the box shut. 'That is not possible. The pendant is attached to the chain for safety's sake. It cannot be removed.'
A last small cloud of suspicion drifted across her mind.
'Lawrence…'
'My love?'
'You did buy that gift for me?'
He looked so stricken at the very suggestion that she immediately took back the question and showered him with apologies. In a marriage as crazily erratic as theirs, reconciliation was always the most prized moment. It was an hour before he was able to get dressed and take his leave. The gift of the pendant had been a happy inspiration. He had been keeping it by him for just such an emergency.
Margery waved him off and addressed herself to the management of the household with increased vigour. After the storm came the blissful calm. She had been through a period of turmoil, only to emerge with a new and devoted husband.
The old and wandering husband, meanwhile, went straight to Edmund Hoode's lodging to see if another gift for a lady was ready yet. He studied the fourteen lines with rapt attention.
'It seemed to work better as a sonnet,' said Hoode.
'You've surpassed yourself, Edmund.'
'Have I?'
'This will wing its way to her heart.'
The sonnet was in praise of Lady Rosamund Varney and it punned on the words 'lady' and 'rose' with bewitching skill. Lawrence Firethorn did not believe in the lone pursuit of his prey. He cheerfully enlisted the aid of those around him. Hoode had provided the sonnet and the message now needed a bearer.
'I must find Nicholas Bracewell at once.'
*
The Curtain was situated to the south of Holywell Lane, off Shoreditch, on land that had once been part of Holywell Priory To the Puritans, who railed against the playhouses for their filth and lewdness, the Curtain was an act of sacrilege on what had once been consecrated ground. To Nicholas Bracewell, who took a more philosophical view, it was a pleasing amalgam of the sacred and the profane, in short, the stuff of theatre.
On a rare afternoon of freedom, Nicholas had come along to The Curtain to watch a performance by the Earl of Banbury's Men. He was not so much interested in the rival company as in the new play they were giving, God Speed the Fleet. This was yet another eulogy of the English navy, thinly disguised by a time shift to the previous century and a geographical shift to Venice. Nicholas was keen to see how they mounted their sea battle, hoping that he might glean some ideas that could be used when his own company staged Gloriana Triumphant.
Fine weather brought a full house to The Curtain and they were crammed into the pit and the galleries. The playhouse was a tall, circular structure of timber which resembled a bull-ring. Three storeys of seating galleries projected into the circle from the outer walls and this perimeter area was roofed with thatch, leaving the central arena open to the sky.
The stage projected out like an apron into the pit. It was high, rectangular and contained a large trap door. Over part of the acting area was a large canopy, supported on heavy pillars that descended to and through the stage. A flat wall behind the stage broke the smooth inner curve of the arena. At each end of the wall was a door through which entrances and exits could be made. The tiring-house was directly behind the wall.
Halfway up the tiring-house wall was a recess, showing some more galleries. This space was curtained over for use as an acting area and Nicholas guessed rightly that it would bemused as the deck of a warship. At the top of the tiring-house were the huts, pitched-roof gabled attic rooms, where the musicians sat. Above these was a small balcony from which the trumpeter would start the performance and run up the flag to signal it was under way.
After the makeshift facilities of The Queen's Head, it was good to be in a real playhouse again and Nicholas felt his heart lift. He paid pence for an uncushioned seat in the second gallery and settled down to enjoy the performance. Food and drink were being sold by noisy, ubiquitous vendors. The standees in the pit were already restive. The whole place was bubbling with an anticipatory delight.
Nicholas noted that the Earl of Banbury was present. Surrounded by his entourage of gallants and ladies, he occupied one of the lords' rooms closest to the stage. The Earl was a venal old lecher with a florid complexion and a tufted beard that sorted well with his goatish inclinations. A self-styled dandy, he had been heavily-corseted then dressed in doublet and hose of the most arresting colours. His tall crowned hat was festooned with feathers that were held in place by jewels. His gloved hand held a silver-topped cane which he used for pointing or prodding as the spirit moved him.
God Speed the Fleet was not deathless drama. It was full of good ideas that had been badly strung together and the overriding impression was one of wanton prodigality. Banbury's Men played it with plenty of attack but rowdiness was developing in the pit before the end of the first act. Only the duels and dances held their interest.
Giles Randolph dominated the proceedings with effortless ease. He was a tall, slim, moodily handsome man with a commanding presence and a voice that was just a little too conscious of its own beauty. His attire was magnificent and worthy to compete with that worn by his patron in the gallery, but he did not entirely convince as an English sea captain under the Venetian flag.
There was something faintly sinister about Giles Randolph. It may have been to do with his Italianate cast of feature or it may have emanated from his sly lope, but it robbed him of true heroic status. Wicked cardinals and duplicitous politicians were his forte. As a beard-stroking revenger in a recent play, he had been supreme, Today, it was different. While he had the barked authority of a sea dog, he looked as if he would be more adept at poisoning his enemies with a drugged chalice than bombarding them with broadsides.
The ladies in the audience, however, clearly adored him. Those in Banbury's entourage were particularly struck with his brooding magnificence and they almost swooned when he directed one of his soliloquies up at them. Nicholas Bracewell was less persuaded He felt that Randolph was miscast. The actor had none of Lawrence Firethorn's storming passion and that is what the part required.
The sea battle almost worked. Controlled by the book holder with real skill, it involved a small army of stage-keepers and journeymen. Giles Randolph stood on the poop deck-the balcony above the stage-with a telescope to his eye, so that he could give a commentary on the engagement in which his fleet was involved. The stage itself was used as the gun deck and a small cannon was brought into play.
Alarums and excursions went on indefinitely as drums were banged, cymbals struck, trumpets were blown, explosions were set off and fireworks were used. The mariners on the gun deck were thrown to and fro as their vessel pitched in the swell and absorbed the broadsides of its adversaries. Barrels of water swished offstage to suggest a turbulent sea and someone pounded on stout timber with a blacksmith's hammer.
Nicholas liked the three final touches. Cannon balls were rolled on stage with thunderous effect as if they had just come hurtling through the rigging. The small mast which was held up by a beefy journeyman at the front of the acting area suddenly collapsed and pinned a few groaning sailors to the deck. Then-to the loudest cheer of the afternoon-the cannon itself was fired to deafen the audience and bring the battle to a close.
There was warm applause as Randolph led out his company for their bow but several catcalls emerged from the pit. The mixed reception did not disconcert the leading actor, who waved grandly in acknowledgement, but some of the other players looked very uncomfortable as they viewed the grumbling standees around them. God Speed the Fleet would not be retained in the repertory of Banbury's Men.
It took a long time for the big audience to disperse and Nicholas lingered to avoid the crush of bodies. As he sat on a now deserted bench, he gazed down at the stage and went through the battle again in his mind, listing the effects and making a note to incorporate the trap door into his own version of the defeat of the Armada.
His attention was then seized by something below and the play was forgotten. Stagekeepers were busy clearing away the debris of battle and sweeping the boards. One of them was chatting with a thickset member of the audience in a way that showed they were old friends. Nicholas recognized the standee at once. It was Benjamin Creech from Lord Westfield's Men.
What had released Nicholas to see the play was the fact that the afternoon was given over to a costume fitting at The Queen's Head. Visual splendour was an imperative in every stage presentation and care was taken to produce costumes that would enthral the groundlings and combat those worn by the gallants. In the forthcoming production, Creech was due to wear three costumes, two of which at least would require a lot of work. His presence at The Queen's Head was thus very necessary.
Nicholas was surprised and dismayed to realize that the actor must have ignored his appointment. It was not the first time that Creech had given cause for complaint. His fondness for the alehouse was a standing joke among his fellow actors, and he had more than once been late for rehearsal because he was sleeping off a night of indulgence. Nicholas had to fine him now and again for his unpunctuality and it had not endeared him to the actor.
The hired men of any company tended to come and go at will but Nicholas had persuaded Firethorn to build up a small knot of actors with a fairly permanent contract. It made for company loyalty and stability. The nucleus of regulars could always be augmented for individual plays if a larger cast was required. Firethorn had seen the value of it all. A handful of semi-permanent hired men would commit themselves to a company that offered them a more long-term future, and-the clinching argument for Firethorn-they might accept a lower wage in return for security.
Benjamin Creech was part of the nucleus. He was a big, solid character with a rather surly temperament, but he was an actor of some range with two additional recommendations. He had a fine singing voice and he could play almost any stringed instrument. An actor-musician was a valuable asset, especially on tour when the size of a company would be restricted to the bare essentials. Creech more than earned his keep, which was why Nicholas was sometimes lenient about the man's drinking habits.
The pit was almost empty now and the book holder with Banbury's Men came out on the stage to see how his minions were getting along. When he spotted Creech, he went across and shook him warmly by the hand. They fell into animated conversation. Some joke passed between them and the actor pushed the other man playfully away. It was only a small moment but it triggered off a memory at the back of Nicholas Bracewell's mind.
The last time he had seen Creech push someone away like that it had not been in fun. A fight had erupted and Nicholas had had to jump in and separate the two men. The memory came back to him now with a new significance.
Benjamin Creech had exchanged blows with Will Fowler.
*
Lady Rosamund Varley draped herself in a window seat and read the sonnet yet again. It was agreeably fulsome and its witty wordplay was very pleasing. The poem was unsigned but the phrase 'Love and Friendship' had been written underneath it in a bold hand. Because the letters 'L' and 'F' had been enlarged and embossed, she had no difficulty in identifying the sender as Lawrence Firethorn. She gave a brittle laugh.
Fortune had smiled on her. A rich and doting husband had made light of a thirty-year age gap for a short while, then he had obligingly succumbed to gout, impetigo and waning desire. Lady Rosamund was free to seek her pleasures elsewhere. She did so without compunction and turned herself into a practised coquette. Her beauty and charm could ensnare any man and she toyed with them unmercifully. A whisper of scandal hung upon her at all times.
The court supplied most of her admirers-earls, lords, knights, even foreign ambassadors on occasion-but she had a special fondness for actors. Their way of life intrigued her. It combined danger and excess to a high degree. They were commoners who could be kings for an afternoon, men of great courage who could strut proudly on a stage for a couple of hours and blaze their way into the hearts of all around them. Lady Rosamund was captivated by the tawdry glamour of the theatre.
She glanced down at the sonnet again. Not for a moment did she imagine that Firethorn had actually composed it himself, but that did not matter. In commissioning and sending it, he had made it his own and she was flattered by the compliment. He was an extraordinary man who was adding to his reputation with each new performance. No role was beyond him, not even the one that she was about to assign to him.
Crossing the chamber to a small table, she opened a drawer in it and put the poem inside. It took its place alongside many other poems, letters, gifts and keepsakes. Lawrence Firethorn was in exalted company.
Lady Rosamund returned to the window to gaze down at the Thames. Her sumptuous abode stood on the stretch of river bank called the Strand. Before the dissolution of the monasteries, it had been the town house of a bishop, and she often imagined how he would have reacted if he saw some of the antics that took place in his former bedchamber. Her impish spirit was such that she felt she was helping to purge the place of Catholicism.
A gentle tap on her door disturbed her reverie.
'Come in,' she called.
The maidservant entered and halted with a token curtsey.
'Your dressmaker is below, Lady Varley.'
'Send him up at once!' she ordered.
He had come at exactly the right time. Lady Rosamund wanted to give order for a very special outfit. She was confident that it would secure Lawrence Firethorn for her without any difficulty.
*
Richard Honeydew was too inexperienced to sense what was coming. When the other apprentices started to be more pleasant to him, he took it as a sign of real friendship rather than as a device to lure him off guard. Notwithstanding all the things they had done to him, he was anxious to get along with them and to put the past behind him. Achieving the signal honour of a role like Gloriana had not made him arrogant or boastful. He was far too conscious of his shortcomings and would have sought the advice of his fellow apprentices if he were on better terms with them. That time looked as if it might soon come. They were making efforts.
'Goodnight, Dick.'
‘Goodnight, Martin.'
'Would you like to borrow my candle to light you up the stairs?' offered the older boy.
'No, thank you. I can manage.'
'Sleep well, then.'
'I will.'
'You have another busy day ahead tomorrow.'
Richard went off to say goodnight to Margery Firethorn, who was sitting in her rocking chair beside the open hearth and thinking fondly about her pendant. As soon as the boy had gone, Martin Yeo looked across at the others. John Tallis lowered his lantern jaw in an open-mouthed grin while Stephen Judd gave a knowing wink. They were happy accomplices.
'Are you sure it will work?' asked Tallis.
'Of course,' said Yeo. 'The beauty of it is that no finger will be pointed at us. We will all be sitting here together when it happens.'
'All but me,' added Judd.
'Oh, you were right here all the time,' insisted Yeo.
'Yes, Stephen,' corroborated Tallis. 'We both saw you.'
'We'll swear to it!'
'I've always wanted to be in two places at once.'
'Then so you will be,' promised Yeo.
They fell silent as they heard the tread of Richard's light feet upon the stairs, then they smirked as he creaked his way up to perdition. It was only a question of time now.
Oblivious to their plan, Richard Honeydew went up to his attic room by the light of the moonbeams that peeped in through the windows. Every other night, his first job had been to bolt the door behind him to keep outrage at bay. Lulled into a mood of trust by the others, he did not do so now. He felt safe.
The chill of the night air made him shiver and he got undressed quickly before jumping into bed. Through the narrow window above his head, the moon was drawing intricate patterns on the opposite wall. Richard was able to watch them for only a few minutes before he dozed off to sleep but his slumber was soon disturbed. There was a rustling sound in the thatch and his eyes opened in fear. It would not be the first rat he had heard up in the attic.
He sat up quickly and was just in the nick of time. Something came crashing down on his pillow in a cloud of loam, cobwebs and filth. Richard coughed as the dust got into his throat then he turned around to see what had happened.
The dormer window was set in the steeply pitched roof and small, solid beams formed a rectangle around the frame to keep the thatch away. Richard had often noticed how loose the lower beam was. All four of them had just come falling down with a vengeance. He sat there transfixed by it all.
'What is it, lad! What happened?'
Margery Firethorn was galloping up the stairs to the attic in her nightgown. Her voice preceded her with ease.
'Are you there, Dick? What's amiss?'
Seconds later, she came bursting into the room with a candle in her hand. It illumined a scene of debris. She let out a shriek of horror then clutched Richard to her for safety.
'Lord save us! You might have been killed!'
Martin Yeo, John Tallis and Stephen Yeo now came charging up to the attic to see what had caused the thunderous bang.
'What is it! '
'Has something fallen?'
'Are you all right, Dick?'
The three of them raced into the room and came to a halt. When they saw the extent of the damage, they were all astonished. They looked quickly at Richard to see if he had been hurt.
'Is this your doing?' accused Margery.
'No, mistress!' replied Yeo.
'That beam has always been loose,' added Tallis.
'We will sort this out later,' she warned. 'Meanwhile, I must find this poor creature another place to lay his head. Come, Dick. It is all over now.'
She led the young apprentice out with grave concern.
As soon as the two of them had gone, Martin Yeo bent down to untie the cord that was bound around the lower beam. Fed through a gap in the floorboards, the cord had come down to their own room so that they could create the accident with a sudden jerk, out they had only expected to dislodge the lower beam. A blow on the head from that would have been sufficiently disabling to put Richard out of the play. They had planned nothing more serious.
Stephen Judd examined the dormer with care. Those other beams were quite secure earlier on,' he said. Someone must have loosened them. They would never have come down otherwise.'
'Who would do such a thing?' wondered Tallis.
'I don't know,' said Yeo uneasily. 'But if Dick had been underneath it when it all came down, he might never have appeared in a play again.'
The three apprentices were completely unnerved.
They stood amid the rubble and tried to puzzle it out. A small accident which they engineered had been turned into something far more dangerous by an unknown hand.
Evidently, someone knew of their plan.
*
Susan Fowler went to London as a frightened young wife in search of a husband and returned to St Albans as a desolate widow with her life in ruins. The passage of time did not seem to make her loss any easier to bear. It was like a huge bruise which had not yet fully come out and which yielded new areas of ache and blemish each day.
Her mother provided a wealth of sympathy, her elder sister sat with her for hours and kind neighbours were always attentive to her plight, but none of it managed to assuage her pain. Not even the parish priest could bring her comfort. Susan kept being reminded of the day that he had married her to Will Fowler.
Grief inevitably followed her to the bedroom and worked most potently by night. It was a continuous ordeal.
'Good morning, father.'
'Heavens, girl! Are you up at this hour?'
'I could not sleep.'
'Go back to your bed, Susan. You need the rest.'
'There is no rest for me, father.'
'Think of the baby, girl.'
She had risen early after another night of torture and come downstairs in the little cottage that she shared with her parents and her sister. Her father was a wheelwright and had to be up early himself. A wagon had overturned in a banked field the previous day and one of its wheels was shattered beyond repair. The wheelwright had promised to make it his first task of the day because the wagon was needed urgently for harvesting.
After a hurried breakfast of bread and milk, he made another vain attempt to send his daughter back to bed. Susan shook her head and adjusted her position in the old wooden chair. The baby was more of a presence now and she often felt it move.
Her father crossed the undulating paving stones to the door and pulled back the thick, iron bolt. He glanced back at Susan and offered her a look of encouragement that went unseen. He could delay no longer. The wagon was waiting for him outside his workshop.
When he opened the door, however, something barred his way and he all but tripped over it.
'What's this!' he exclaimed.
Susan looked up with only the mildest curiosity.
'Bless my soul!'
He regarded the object with a countryman's suspicion. It might be a gift from the devil or the work of some benign force. It was some time before he overcame his superstitions enough to pick the object up and bring it into the cottage. He set it down on the table in front of his daughter.
It was a crib. Small, plain and carved out of solid oak, it rocked gently to and fro on its curved base. Susan Fowler stared at it blankly for a few moments then a tiny smile came.
'It's a present for the baby,' she said.