'I am afraid, sir.'
Ralph Willoughby had come to talk about devils.
Chapter Five
Bankside was anathema to the Puritans, tt was the home of all that was lewd and licentious and most of them sedulously avoided its fetid streets and lanes. Isaac Pollard was a rare exception. Instead of shunning the area, he frequently sought it out on the grounds that it was best to measure the strength of an enemy whom you wished to destroy. He hated his journeys through the narrow passages of Bankside but they always yielded some recompense. New outrages were found on each visit. They served to consolidate his faith and to make him continue his mission with increased, vigour. If London were to be purged of sin, this was the place to start.
Pollard belonged to the hard core of activists in the Puritan fold. Although there were no more than a few hundred of them, they were powerful, well-organised and fearless in the pursuit of their cause. With influential backing in high places, they could on occasion exert strong pressure. Their avowed aim was to remodel the Church of England on Calvinist or Presbyterian lines, introducing a greater simplicity and cutting away what they saw as the vestigial remains of Roman Catholicism. But the Puritan zealots did not rest there. They wanted everyone to live the life of a true Christian, observing a strict moral code and abjuring any pleasures.
It was this aspect of their ministry that brought Isaac Pollard for another walk in the region of damnation that evening. In his plain, dark attire with its white ruff, he was an incongruous figure among the gaudy gallants and the swaggering soldiers. From beneath his black hat, he scowled fiercely at all and sundry.
Believing that integrity was its own protection, he nevertheless carried a stout walking stick with him to beat off any rogues or pickpockets. Pollard was more than ready to strike a blow in the name of the Lord.
A group of revellers tumbled noisily out of a tavern ahead of him and leaned against each other for support. Laughing and belching, they made their way slowly towards him and jeered when they recognised what he was. Pollard bravely stood his ground as they brushed past, hurling obscenities at him and his calling. Even in the foul stench of the street, he could smell the ale on their breaths.
It was a brief but distressing incident. When he came to the next corner, however, he saw something much more appalling than a gang of drunken youths. Huddled in the shadow of a doorway down the adjacent lane, a man was molesting a woman. He had lifted her skirts up and held her in a firm embrace. Pollard could not see exactly what was going on but he heard her muffled protests. Raising his stick, he advanced on the wrongdoer and yelled a command.
'Unhand that lady, sir!'
'I fart at thee!' roared the man.
'Leave go of her or I will beat you soundly.'
'Let a poor girl earn her living!' shrieked the woman.
‘Can I not help you?' said Pollard.
She answered the question with such a barrage of abuse that he went puce. Now that he was close enough to realise what they were doing, he was mortified. Far from protesting, the woman had been urging her client on to a hotter carnality. The last thing she needed during her transaction was the interference of a Puritan.
'A plague upon you!' she howled.
'Cast out your sins!' he retaliated.
'Will you have me draw my sword?' warned the other man.
As a fresh burst of vituperation came from the woman, Pollard backed away then strode off down the street. Within only a short time of his arrival in Bankside, he had enough material for an entire sermon. There was worse to come. His steps now took him along Rose Alley, past the jostling elbows of the habitues and beneath the dangling temptation of the vivid inn signs. Crude sounds of jollity hammered at his ears then something loomed up to capture all his attention. It was London's newest theatre-the Rose. Built on the site of a former rose garden in the Liberty of the Clink, it was of cylindrical shape, constructed around a timber frame on a brick foundation. To the crowds who flocked there every day, it was a favourite place or recreation.
To Isaac Pollard, it was a symbol of corruption.
As his anger made the single eyebrow rise and fill like rolling waves, he caught sight of a playbill that was stuck on a nearby post. It advertised one of the companies due to perform at The Rose in the near future.
Westfield's Men-in The Merry Devils.
Pollard tore down the poster with vicious religiosity.
*
'What you tell me is most curious and most interesting, Master Willoughby.'
'Yet you do not seem surprised.'
'Nor am I, sir.'
'You knew that this would happen?'
'I entertained the possibility.'
'But you gave me no forewarning.'
'That was not what you paid me to do.'
Doctor John Mordrake was a man of encyclopaedic knowledge and sound commercial sense. Having devoted his life to his studies, he was going to profit from them in order to buy the books or the equipment that would help him to advance the frontiers of his work. He dealt with the highest and the lowest in society, providing an astonishing range of services, but he always set a price on what he did.
Ralph Willoughby was conscious of this fact. He knew that his visit to Knightrider Street would be an expensive one. Mordrake's time could not be bought cheaply and he had already listened for half-an-hour to the outpourings of his caller. Willoughby, however, had reached the point where he was prepared to spend anything to secure help. Doctor John Mordrake was his last hope, the one man who might pull him back from the abyss of despair that confronted him.
They sat face to face on stools. Mordrake watched him with an amused concern throughout. Most people who consulted him came in search of personal gain but Willoughby had wanted an adventure of the mind. That pleased Mordrake who sensed a kindred spirit.
'You were at Cambridge, I believe, Master Willoughby?'
'That is so, sir.'
'Which college?'
'Corpus Christi.'
'At what age did you become a student?'
'Seventeen.'
'That is late. I was barely fourteen when I went to Oxford.' The old man smiled nostalgically. 'It was an ascetic existence and '. thrived on it. We rose at four, prayed, listened to lectures, prayed again, then studied by candlelight in our cold rooms. We conversed mostly in Latin.'
'As did we, sir. Latin and Hebrew.'
'Why did you leave the university?' Its dictates became irksome to me.'
'And you chose the theatre instead?' said Mordrake in surprise. 'You left academe to be among what Horace so rightly calls mendici, mimi, balatrones, hoc genus omne?’
'Yes,' said Willoughby with a wistful half-smile. 'I went to be among beggars, actors, buffoons and that class of persons.'
'In what did the attraction lie?'
'The words of Cicero.'
'Cicero?'
' Poetarum licentiae liberoria.’
'The freer utterance of the poet's licence.'
'That is what I sought.'
'And did you find it, Master Willoughby?'
'For a time.'
