'I never sleep in the tiring-house, Lawrence!'
'Only on stage.'
'I regard that as gross slur!'
'You take my meaning perfectly.'
'This will not be forgotten, sir.'
'Try to remember your lines as well, Barnaby.'
Hoode let them fight away and consulted his own worries. Concern for his friend etched deep lines in his forehead. It hurt him to think that he might be indirectly responsible for any misadventure into which Nicholas stumbled after leaving the playwright's lodging. If anything serious had happened, Hoode would not be able to forgive himself. Meanwhile, there was another fear. Grace Napier would be in the audience that afternoon. He trembled at the thought of her seeing a calamitous performance by the company because it was bound to affect her view of him. It was some years since he had had anything more than abuse thrown at him from the pit. Vincentio's Revenge could change that. Hoode did not relish the idea of being pelted by rotten food while his beloved looked on from the balcony.
'Here's George Dart!' said Firethorn.
'Alone!' observed Hoode.
'That does not trouble me,' added Gill.
Dart came to a halt in front of them and gabbled his story. He had found nothing. When he approached the watch, he was told that the operation of the law was none of his business and sent away with a flea in his ear. The one piece of information he did glean was that a man was killed in a brawl on the north embankment around midnight.
His three listeners immediately elected their book holder as the corpse. Dart was interrogated again then dismissed. Firethorn slumped back in his chair and brooded.
'I see Willoughby's hand in this!'
'You see Willoughby's hand in everything but in your wife's placket, sir,' said Gill waspishly.
'We must look into this at once,' decided Hoode.
'After the performance,' said Firethorn.
'Instead of it, Lawrence.'
'Ha! Sacrilege!'
They returned to the tiring-house to find it a morgue. Everyone had now heard George Dart's tale about the murder on the embankment and they were convinced that Nicholas Bracewell was the victim. Nor was it an isolated incident. In their febrile minds, they saw it as the latest in a sequence that began with the appearance of a real devil in the middle of their performance. Devil, maypole, Roper Blundell-and now this. The cumulative effect of it all was overwhelming. They mourned in silence and wondered where the next blow would fall. Not even a stirring speech from Firethorn could reach them. Westfield's Men had one foot in the grave.
The irony was that Vincentio's Revenge had attracted a sizeable audience. They came to see blood flow at the Queen's Head and that put them into good humour. Grace Napier and Isobel Drewry were there to decorate the gallery and act as cynosures for wandering eyes. They knew the play by repute and longed to while away a couple of hours in a more tragic vein. Grace was a little uneasy but Isobel was brimming with self-confidence, discarding her mask and coming to the theatre for the first time as an independent young woman with a mind of her own. As the glances shot across at her, she returned them with discrimination.
Seats filled, noise grew, tension increased. The genial spectators had no notion of the accelerating misery backstage. They did not realise that they might be called upon to witness the low point of the company's achievement. Blood and thunder were their priorities. With a bare five minutes to go before the start, the latecomers wedged themselves into their seats and insinuated their bodies into the pit.
Panic gave way to total immobility in the tiring-house. They were turned to stone. Firethorn chipped manfully away at it with the chisel of his tongue but he could not shape it into anything resembling a theatrical company. He tried abuse, inspiration, reason, humour, bare-faced lying and even supplication but all failed. They had given up and approached the coming performance with the hopeless resignation of condemned men about to lay their heads on the block of their own reputation.
With execution two minutes away, they were saved.
Nicholas Bracewell entered with Margery Firethorn.
The whole place came back to life at once. Everyone crowded around the newcomers with excited relief. Firethorn pushed his way through to embrace the book holder.
'A miracle!' he said.
Do you have no welcome for me, Lawrence?' chided his wife. 'You have me to thank for his release.'
'Then I take you to my bosom with joy,' said her husband, pulling her close for a kiss of gratitude. 'What is this talk of release?'
'From prison.'
'Mon Dieu!'
'I was locked in the Counter,' said Nicholas, 'but there is no time for explanation now, sir. The spectators have paid their money and they want their play.'
He took charge at once and the effect was incredible. With their book holder back at the helm, it might yet be possible to salvage the play. The only disturbing factor was the presence of Margery.
'You cannot stay here, my love,' said Firethorn.
'Why not, Lawrence?'
'Because it is not seemly.'
'Do you think I have not seen men undressed before? It will not fright me, I warrant you.' She pointed at the half-naked John Tallis who was being helped into a skirt. 'I will look on the pizzle of the Duchess of Venice and not be moved.'
'I share your disappointment!' said Gill wickedly.
'Stand by!' called Nicholas.
They were actually straining to get on stage now.
*
The axe bit hungrily into the wood before it was thrown aside. Jack Harsnett took the piece of ash and used his knife to hack it into shape. He then reached for the other piece of wood and bound the two together with a stout twine that would withstand bad weather. Having tested the result by banging it on the ground, he got his knife out again and gouged a name on the timber. It took him a long time but he kept at it with surly patience, sustained by the memory of an occasion when he had carved the same name alongside his own.
His work done, he walked over to the pile of stones that marked the grave and looked down with a wave of grief washing over him. Then he lifted the cross high and brought its sharpened end down hard into the hole that lie had dug for it, kicking the earth into place around it and stiffening its hold with some small boulders. His spade patted everything firmly down.
Burial in an anonymous field was the best that he could manage for his wife and only his crude handiwork indicated the place. After one last glance at the grave, he walked quickly back to the cart. There was no point in driving any further now.
Harsnett headed back towards Parkbrook.
*
Lawrence Firethorn displayed his flowering genius yet again. His portrayal of Vincentio sent shivers down the spines of all who saw it. He was exactly the kind of villain that they liked-dark, handsome, ruthless, confiding, duplicitous and steeped in a black humour that could raise a macabre laugh during a murder. He stalked the stage like a prowling tiger, he sank his speeches like a spear into the topmost gallery and he used a range of gestures so expressive and so finely judged that he would have been understood had he been dumb.
Seeing him as an unscrupulous Italian nobleman, it was hard to believe that he was only the son of a village blacksmith. His voice, his face, his bearing and his movement were those of a true aristocrat but his origins were not entirely expunged. With exquisite refinement, he laid each part that he played on the anvil of his talent and struck a magnificent shower of sparks from it with the hammer of the actor. The theatre was his forge. His art was the wondrous clang of metal.
Absorbed in his role on stage, he could shed it in an instant when he entered the tiring-house. When he got
