by Isaac Pollard
Imprinted at London by Toby Vavasour and to be sold at his Shop in the Inner Temple, near the Church. 1589
Drewry glanced at the first page to see that it offered a Discourse on the Subtle Practices of Devils. He heard Pollard's boom in every line and put the pamphlet aside. Then he noticed that something else had fallen out of the package. It was a tattered playbill. Smoothing it out and laying it on the table, he saw that it advertised a performance of The Merry Devils by Westfield's Men on the following afternoon. Sent to him to stir up his sense of outrage, it instead began to intrigue him.
Unaccountably, he felt the steady pull of temptation.
Chapter Six
Lawrence Firethorn reserved some of his best performances for private consumption. He had a sublime gift for improvisation and could pluck any emotion out of the air at a second's notice. It was a trick that rarely failed. Even those who had seen him use it a hundred times could still be caught out by it. Suddenness was all.
'Rebellion in the ranks!' he yelled. 'When I lead Westfield's Men forward in the charge, I do not expect to be stabbed in the back from behind. Least of all by two such cowardly, such miserable, such lousy, beggarly, scurvy, unmannerly creatures as those before me now!'
George Dart and Roper Blundell were totally cowed.
'Loyalty is everything to me!' declared Firethorn, striking the pose he had used so effectively as King Richard the Lion-heart. 'I will not stomach traitors at any price! Do you know what I would do with them, sirs? Do you know how I would repay their betrayal of me?'
'No, master,' said George Dart. How, sir?' asked Roper Blundell.
'I'd have the wretches hanged, drawn and quartered, so I would! Then I'd have their heads set upon spikes outside the Tower, their livers roasted over a slow fire and their dangling pizzles sent to Banbury's Men by way of mockery!'
Dart and Blundell covered their codpieces with both hands.
They were in the room at the Queen's Head that was used for the storage of their equipment. Nicholas Bracewell stood in the background with Caleb Smythe, one of the actors. Both felt sorry for the assistant stagekeepers who had foolishly expressed their doubts about the performance of The Merry Devils on the following afternoon. The sad little figures were being summarily ground into submission.
When the book holder tried to intercede on their behalf, he was waved away with magisterial authority. Lawrence Firethorn would allow no interruption. He continued to pound away at his targets with his verbal siege guns until the two men were nothing more than human debris. Choosing his moment brilliantly, the actor now switched his role and became the indulgent employer who has been wronged by his servants.
'Lads, lads,' he said softly. 'Why have you turned against me like this? Did I not take you in when all other companies closed their doors to you? Have I not paid you, housed you, taught you, fed you and nurtured you? George, my son, and you, good Roper, everything I have is yours to call upon. You are not hired men to me. You are friends, sirs. Honest, decent, upright, God-fearing friends. Or so I thought.' He dredged up a monstrous sigh. 'Whence comes this betrayal? What have I done to deserve such treatment?'
'Nothing, master,' bleated George Dart.
'Nothing at all,' agreed Roper Blundell, starting to cry.
Firethorn slipped an arm apiece around them and hugged them to him like lost sheep that have gone astray and been found. Moved by the sincerity of his own betrayal, he even deposited a small kiss on Dart's forehead while drawing the line at any such intimacy with the turnip-headed Blundell. It was a touching scene and he played it to the hilt.
'I thought my lads would die for me,' he whimpered.
'We would,' said Dart bravely.
'Give us the chance, sir,' asked Blundell.
'I do not ask much of you, my friends. Just two bare hours upon the stage in flame-red costumes. What harm is there in that?'
'None, sir.'
'None, sir.'
'You tell me you are unhappy in the parts and I can understand that but happiness must be sacrificed for the greater good of the company.'
'Yes, master.
'Indeed, sir.'
'We act for our patron,' said Firethorn in a respectful whisper. 'Lord Westfield himself, who puts food in our mouths and clothes on our back. Am I to tell him his merry devils have run away?'
'We are here, sir.'
'We will stay.'
'I will beg, if that is what you wish.' Firethorn pretended to lower himself to the ground. 'I will go down on my bended knee…'
'No, no,' they chimed, helping him back up again.
'Then let me appeal to your sense of obligation. As hired men, as close friends, as true spirits of the theatre__-will you help me, lads?'
'Oh, yes!' Blundell was now weeping convulsively.
'We will not let you down,' added the snivelling Dart.
'That is music to my old ears.'
Firethorn bestowed another kiss on Dart's forehead, approximated his lips to the sprouting turnip, thought better of it and released the two men. He drifted to the nearest door to deliver his exit line.
'My heart is touched, lads,' he said. 'I must be alone for a while. Nick here will explain everything to you. Thank you-and farewell.'
He went out to an imaginary round of applause.
Nicholas Bracewell's sympathies were with the assistant stagekeepers but he had to admire the actor- manager's technique. He had now shackled the men in two ways. Fear and duty. There was no escape for them now. The book holder stepped in to join them.
‘I’ll be brief, lads,' he began. 'Lord Westfield insisted on a second performance because he liked the merry devils, all three of them who took the stage at the Queen's Head.'
Dart and Blundell reacted with identical horror.
'That foul fiend will come again?'
'Not from Hell,' said Nicholas, 'nor anywhere adjacent to it. He will come from beneath the stage at The Rose, as indeed will you. The third devil will not fright you this time, lads. You know him too well.' He signalled Caleb Smythe in. Here he stands.'
Caleb Smythe was a short, slight man in his thirties with a bald head and wispy beard. Though taller than his co-devils, he was lithe enough to bend his body to their shape and his talent as a dancer was second only to that of Barnaby Gill. As the unexpected third devil who put the others to flight, he was the best choice available. Caleb Smythe, however, did not share this view.
'I like not this work,' he said lugubriously.
Nicholas swept his objection aside and told them about the alterations that had been made to the play. Doctor Castrato's magic incantations had been shortened and the circle of mystical objects had been removed. None of the preconditions for raising a real devil now existed. The book holder emphasized this point but his companions were not wholly persuaded.
It was the funereal Caleb Smythe who put the question.
'What if a fourth devil should appear, Master Bracewell?'
The answer was quite unequivocal., 'Then I shall be waiting for him!'
*
