'I am in love!'
'The possibility occurred to me,' said Nicholas wryly.
'Yes, I wear my heart on my sleeve. It was ever thus.'
'Who is the young lady?'
The loveliest creature in the world!'
It was a description that Edmund Hoode used rather often. Drawn into a series of unsuitable and largely unproductive love affairs, he had the capacity to put each failure behind him and view his latest choice with undiminished wonder. It was the triumph of hope over cynicism. Hoode was indeed a true romantic.
'Her name is Grace Napier,' he said proudly.
'It becomes her well.'
'Did you not see that eye, that lip, that cheek?'
'I was struck at once by her qualities.'
'Grace is without compare.'
'Of good family, too, I would judge.'
'Her father is a mercer in the City.'
Nicholas was duly impressed. The Mercers' Company included some of the wealthiest men in London. Merchants who dealt in fine textiles, they gained their royal charter as early as 1394 and were now so well- established and respected that they came first in order of precedence at the annual Lord Mayor's Banquet. If Grace Napier were the daughter of a mercer, she would want for nothing.
'How did you meet her?' asked Nicholas.
'She is bedazzled by the theatre and never tires of watching plays. Westfield's Men have impressed her most.'
'And you have been the most impressive of Westfield's Men.'
'Yes!' said Hoode with delight. 'She singled me out during Double Deceit. Is that not a miracle?'
'Double Deceit is one of your best plays, Edmund.'
'Grace admired my performance in it as well.'
'You always excel in parts you tailor for yourself.'
'Her brother approached me,' continued Hoode, 'and told me how much they had enjoyed my work. I was then introduced to Grace herself. Her enthusiasm touched me to the core, Nick. We authors have poor reward for our pains but she made all my efforts worthwhile. I loved her for her interest and our friendship has grown from that time on.'
Nicholas was touched as he listened to the full story and could not have been more pleased on the other's behalf. Hoode had a fatal tendency to fall for women who-for some reason or another-were quite unattainable and his ardour was wasted in a fruitless chase. Grace Napier was of a different order. Young, unmarried and zealous in her playgoing, she was learning to welcome his attentions and thanked him warmly for the sonnet she inspired. The luck which eluded the playwright for so long had at last come his way.
'And who was that other young lady, Edmund?'
'What other young lady?'
The point was taken. Nicholas withdrew his enquiry. After letting his friend unpack his heart about Grace, he tried to guide him back to the reason that had brought them together on their walk. Shoreditch had now become Bishopsgate Street. Through a gap between two houses, they could see cows grazing in the distance.
'Why did you seek me out?' said Nicholas.
'Why else but to talk of Grace?'
'You had some other purpose, I fancy.'
'Oh.' Hoode's face clouded. 'I had forgot.' -
As the conversation took on a more serious tone, they stopped in their tracks. Neither of them noticed that they were standing outside Bedlam. Nor did they guess that something which might have an important bearing on their own lives was going on behind its locked doors. The hospital was simply a backdrop to their exchange.
'It is Ralph Willoughby,' said Hoode.
'What of him?'
'I need his help with The Merry Devils'
'But he has been outlawed by Master Firethorn.'
'That will not deter me.'
There was a defiant note in his voice but a question in his raised eyebrow. He was ready, of course, to disregard a major decision taken by Lawrence Firethorn. What he needed to know was whether or not Nicholas would support him in his action
‘I’ll not betray you, Edmund.'
'Thank you.'
'Ralph was not well-treated by us,' said Nicholas. 'I've no quarrel with him and would be glad of his advice about the play.' 'He wrote that scene and only he should alter its course.'
'I accept that.'
'It would be wrong to proceed without him.'
'Work together in private and nobody will be the wiser.'
'I am vexed by a problem, Nick.'
'Of what nature?’
'There is no sign of Ralph.'
'You have been to his lodging?'
'He has not slept there for nights,' said Hoode. 'I can gain no clue as to his whereabouts. That is why I came to you for some counsel. Ralph Willoughby has vanished from London.'
*
The house in Knightrider Street was a large, lackadaisical structure whose half-timbered frontage sagged amiably forwards. Through the open window on the first floor came the rich aroma of a herbal compound, only to lose its independence as it merged with the darker pungencies of the street. A face appeared briefly at the window and a small quantity of liquid was dispatched from a bowl. It fell to the cobbled surface below and sizzled for a few seconds before spending itself in a mass of bubbles. The face took itself back into the chamber.
Evening shadows obliged Doctor John Mordrake to work by candlelight. Up in the cluttered laboratory with its array of weird charts and bizarre equipment, its learned tomes and its herbal remedies, he crouched low over a table and used a pestle and mortar to pound a reddish substance into a fine powder. There was an intensity about him which suggested remarkable concentration and he was not deflected in the least by any of the harsh sounds that bombarded him through the window. He had created his own peculiar world around him and it was complete in itself.
Mordrake was a big man who had been made smaller by age and by inclination. His shoulders were round, his spine curved, his legs unequal to the weight placed upon them. Time had cruelly redrawn the lines on his visage to make it seem smaller and less open than it was. Long, lank, sliver-grey hair further reduced the size of his face, which terminated in a straggly beard. He wore a black gown and black buckled shoes. A chain of almost mayoral pretension hung around his neck and gold rings enclosed several of his skinny fingers.
Old, tired, even ravaged, Doctor John Mordrake yet conveyed a sense of power. There was an inner strength that came from the possession of arcane knowledge, a glow of confidence that came horn a surging intellect. Here was an ordinary man in touch with the extraordinary, an astrologer who could foretell the future, an alchemist who could manipulate the laws of nature, a cunning wizard who could speak to the dead in their own language. Mordrake was an intercessory between one life and the next. It gave him a luminescent quality.
Footsteps creaked on the oak stairs outside and there was a knock on the door. The servant showed in a visitor, bowed humbly and shuffled out. Mordrake did not even look up at the satin-clad gallant who had called on him and who now stood tentatively near the door. The old man worked patiently away and a thin smile flitted across his lips.
'Good evening, sir. I thought you would come again.'
'Did you so?' said the visitor. I have been expecting you for days.'
'Have you?'
'We both know what brings you to Knightrider Street.'
