‘I could have painted them on with greater ease and less pain,’ said Nick.
WS said: ‘Richard, have you ever heard of a London playwright called Henry Ashe?’
Burbage put his hand to his neatly tapered beard. He didn’t seem so inclined to dismiss the name as WS had done. ‘I do not believe so. But there are always new people coming into this town. I’ll make enquiries.’
They went ahead with the performance that afternoon, with the pipe-smoke and the breath of the audience curling up into the freezing December air. Nick Revill threw himself into the part of the villain, forgetting his aches and bruises as he slashed and stabbed his way to his own inevitable doom. But he did not remember much about the play. What happened afterwards was much more significant.
Nick was leaving the Globe with a couple of his companions from the King’s Men. He had changed into his day clothes in the tire house but had not bothered to wash off the dye that made his complexion more swarthy, nor to remove the false beard that he wore as the villain. Normally clean-shaven, Nick took pleasure in the fact that his neat, tapered beard was reminiscent of Richard Burbage’s. It was made of lamb’s wool and, quite apart from the fact that ungumming it from his face would take a little time, the soft fleece provided a little extra warmth in this cold period.
Evening was come. No fresh snow had fallen but the old stuff still lodged in street corners and on rooftops. The three players made their way down a street that ran past the Globe, known as Brend’s Rents. They passed the entrance to the playhouse. Standing there was little limping Sam, a doorman who’d been with the company since the early days when they played north of the river. An individual was next to him.
‘There he is,’ the old man said to the person beside him. ‘I told you he would be coming.’ Then to Nick: ‘Nicholas Revill, here is someone eager for a word.’
For some reason, Nick suddenly thought he was about to see Henry Ashe and the hairs rose on the back of his neck at the idea. But the person beside Sam was wearing not a wide-brimmed hat but a cap. Also, to judge by his clothes, this was no gentleman but a craftsman. The light from the entrance lobby fell on the face of the stranger and Nick was surprised to recognise the journeyman from George Bruton’s printing works. He was not wearing his spectacles but he had that distinctive inky mole on the tip of his nose. It was Hans de Worde. As the printer came forward, Sam closed the door of the playhouse to signal that the day’s business was concluded.
Nick’s companions went on their way with scarcely a backward glance. It wasn’t so unusual for a player to be waylaid after a performance by someone wishing to give his opinion about the acting and how it might be better done, or wanting an introduction to one of the shareholders. But Hans wasn’t interested in any of that.
‘Can I speak to you, Mr Revill?’ said Hans, stressing the last word. Nick wondered why for a moment before recalling that he’d announced himself as Dick Newman, of the Admiral’s Men, in Bruton’s printing-house.
‘I tracked you here,’ said Hans. ‘I do not visit these places myself but John, our apprentice, is a keen attender at the playhouse and other disreputable locations on this side of the Thames, even though he should be occupying himself with better things. I have told him so often enough. John thought he recognised you when you came to Bride Lane. He told me afterwards that you weren’t with the Admiral’s but with the King’s Men. He has seen you act.’
Nick ought to have been pleased to be recognised but the accusation in Hans’s tone put him on the back foot. Yes, he had misrepresented himself at the printing-house. To be more precise, he had told a lie.
‘You want to talk with me now?’ he said.
‘Yes. It is important. But not here. We are too isolated.’
Hans looked about him as though he expected a gang of knaves and cut-throats to emerge from the shadows. In the district of Southwark it was not so unlikely. Nick felt a touch of the other man’s fear. Now that the theatre was shut up, and with the players and the playgoers all departed, it was cold and silent in Brend’s Rents.
‘We’ll go to a tavern,’ he said.
‘I – I do not like to frequent taverns. I have rarely been across the Bridge before. I am not familiar with this side of the river even though my brother Antony lives over here. He is a ferryman.’
This was an odd piece of information which Nick digested as he led Hans in the direction of London Bridge, only a few hundred yards from the playhouse. It was better lit and more crowded there. In any case, he had to go in that direction to return to his own lodgings.
Hans said nothing until they had reached the area at the top of the main thoroughfare known as Long Southwark People and vehicles emerged from below the great stone gate of the Bridge. Most of the traffic was southbound at this time of the evening. Almost drowning out the sound of cart wheels and the passers-by was the roar of the river as it forced its way through the many arches of the Bridge.
Nick and Hans stood to one side of the entrance to the street going towards Bermondsey and called Short Southwark to distinguish it from Long Southwark, from which it ran at a right angle.
‘Why did you come to the Globe?’ said Nick.
‘I thought you could be found there, Mr Revill. But I had to see you and your fellows on stage before I was able to identify you for certain. The drama was full of blood and fury. Too much of it. It was not real, like that beard which you are wearing.’
Nick realised he was referring to the revenge play of this afternoon. Too much blood and fury? And not real? Oh, these things are real, thought Nick. Look around you. On the battlements of the gate-tower of the Bridge near where they stood were poles displaying the severed heads of traitors, including those executed after the powder treason of 1605. If no Londoner noticed them, even by daylight, it was only because the sight was so usual.
‘It is cold, Mr de Worde, and I am tired and hungry after my day’s work. Why did you want to see me?’
‘I have something on my conscience.’
‘I am not a priest.’
‘There is something I should have told you when you came to the printing-shop yesterday. I knew more than I said.’
Even as he spoke, low and urgently, Hans’s gaze was darting here and there. He was plainly frightened.
‘I visited Mr Dole. I removed an item from his room. I should not have done so.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Nick. ‘What item do you mean? Was Christopher Dole there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he allow you to remove this “item”, whatever it was?’
‘No. He could not have allowed me to do anything for he was dead.’
‘Hanged?’
‘It was a dreadful sight. He had killed himself.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Yes. There was a stool tumbled beneath his feet. He must have stood on it to reach to the ceiling and fix the cord up there. I replaced the stool by the wall and was going to take down his body so that his mortal remains should be displayed more decorously, but my nerve failed me at the last moment… and… and instead I found the item which I’d come for and ran down the stairs… ’
Nick supposed that de Worde was the second visitor to the lodging-house, the one whose arrival Stephen Atkins had heard. Hans’s description tended to confirm that Dole’s death was not a murder after all.
‘Did you see anyone else at the house?’ he said.
‘No. But there were men who came to the printing-house this morning. They spoke to Mr Bruton. They were-’
Hans’s darting gaze suddenly became fixed on a point over Nick’s shoulder. He stopped whatever he was about to say. Automatically, Nick turned round. Coming up Long Southwark was a group of four men, wrapped up in capes, their faces muffled. They moved steadily across the slushy ground and with a gait that was almost military. Despite the poor light, Nick observed that one of the men, slightly in front of the others, was wearing a hat with a great brim. The group was heading straight for Nick and Hans.