The play was not yet over. As the soldiers stood around the royal corpses, the actor who had been such a mesmerising Benvolio held up his hands to command silence. When he had drawn out the pause to its full, agonising length, he used sonorous tones to deliver a speech that had been cut during the rehearsal. Lawrence Firethorn stiffened and let out a growl of disapproval from beyond the grave but Benvolio would not be deflected. The still, sad music of his voice was a fitting epitaph for the doomed lovers.
Adieu, sweet friends, and take thy praise to heaven,
Embrace that joy for which you both have striven.
Benvolio shed a real tear then motioned in the soldiers to load the bodies onto their respective biers. As the pair were borne out with due solemnity, King Gondar half opened an eye to catch a fleeting glimpse of the lower gallery. The exercise was a painful one. For the first time in the whole afternoon, his inamorata was visibly moved. Sadness crumpled her face and she brought a hand up to her mouth. In one brief and unscheduled elegy, Owen Elias had achieved what Firethorn — with a hundred speeches — had failed to do. It was galling. The actor-manager bristled posthumously.
Once offstage, he abdicated his kingship to direct a string of foul oaths at his colleague but his imprecations were muffled by the avalanche of applause that tumbled down on their ears. Postponing his fury, he put on his most imperious smile and led out his company to take their bow. Love’s Sacrifice was an unqualified success, a superb account of a brilliant new play that was set to take pride of place in the company’s repertoire. Though feeding greedily on the ovation, Lawrence Firethorn was interested in only two people in the auditorium. His most obsequious bow went to the delighted Lord Westfield and a more cavalier flourish was aimed at the lower gallery. While his patron responded with frantic clapping, however, the dark lady of his fantasies gave him no more than a level stare. It was enough. The desire which had steadily grown throughout the last two hours now blossomed into complete infatuation.
The spectators clapped, cheered and stamped their feet for minutes on end but one of them declined to join in. He was a tall, saturnine figure who had sat in discomfort all afternoon as the drama’s excellence was unfolded and as Firethorn’s primacy was reinforced yet again. His visit to The Rose had been redeemed in the closing speech. Twenty lines of verse had made him look with intense curiosity at Owen Elias and bank down his envy. As an idea began to form in the recesses of his mind, the man even managed a smile. Love’s Sacrifice had given him a potent weapon to use against his rival.
Giles Randolph was content.
Nicholas Bracewell was on hand to protect his friend from verbal abuse. Before Firethorn could even begin his attack on Owen Elias, the book holder stepped in to congratulate the actor-manager on his performance and to smother him with fulsome praise. It blunted the edge of Firethorn’s rage somewhat but that was all it did.
‘God’s blood!’ roared the actor. ‘Are you mad, Owen?’
‘Me, sir?’ said the other.
‘Are you blind? Are you deaf? Are you insensible?’
‘No, Master Firethorn.’
‘When I die, the play has ended.’
‘Save for that last speech, sir.’
‘It was cut, man!’
Mock innocence. ‘Was it even so?’
‘It was excised from the play. So should you be, you scurvy rogue, you canting villain, you Welsh dung-heap!’
‘Take heed,’ warned the other, smarting at the insult. ‘Do not insult my nation.’
‘Wales is an insult in itself!’ howled Firethorn. ‘It breeds nothing but lechers and thieves. Show me a Welshman and you show me a foul, ugly, leek-faced barbarian. You stole my moment of supreme glory, you dog-breathed Judas!’
Owen Elias turned puce with anger and Nicholas had to jump in quickly to calm both men and to stop the argument from getting out of hand. He diverted the blame to himself by admitting that it was his suggestion to include the final speech but he insisted that it in no way infringed the greatness of Firethorn’s performance. The crowded tiring-house was voluble in its agreement, as eager as the book holder to prevent a violent confrontation. It was Barnaby Gill who ended the row with a malicious whisper.
‘Let her be the judge, Lawrence,’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘Mistress Black Eyes. Ask her if she would cut those lines of Benvolio’s. I fancy she would not.’
‘The devil take you, sir!’
During this short exchange, Nicholas seized the chance to usher Owen Elias over to the far side of the tiring-house where he was hidden by a rack of costumes. When Firethorn turned back to them, they were gone. With his mind now fixed on a higher priority, he glared around for assistance. It came in the shape of George Dart who was staggering past with an armful of props. Firethorn’s hand gripped his collar like an eagle fastening its talons on its prey.
‘George Dart!’
‘Yes, master?’ gibbered the other.
‘Find out her name.’
‘Whose name, sir?’
‘Her name.’
Firethorn’s strong hand lifted him from the ground and swung him round to face the drawn curtain. Twitching it back a few inches, he pointed to the goddess in the lower gallery.
‘Do you see her now, George?’
‘Yes, sir. No, sir.’ He was baffled. ‘Which is she, sir?’
‘That creature without compare.’
‘You lose me, sir.’
‘There, imbecile!’
He boxed George Dart’s ears so hard that the boy let go of his cargo and it fell to the boards with a clatter. The pointing finger of his employer, the hissed description and the threat of more pain combined to identify the lady in question for the squirming stagekeeper. As soon as he was released, he went scuttling off about his business.
Lawrence Firethorn wanted action.
It was a quiet funeral. No more than a dozen people were gathered together in the small churchyard in Islington to see the last remains of Sebastian Carrick laid to rest. Light drizzle made a sombre occasion even more depressing. The priest’s incantations were a barely audible murmur. Grief was expressed in gentle sobbing. Nicholas Bracewell watched it all with a muted distress that was increased by an ironic observation. The stage-management of the event was at fault. Sebastian Carrick deserved a more central role on a much larger stage. An actor whose life and work was a hymn to exuberance was now slipping out of the world in furtive silence. Damp soil waited to take him beyond applause.
The drizzle and the drone continued.
‘Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body …’
The words floated into his ears to give Nicholas a mild sting. He thought of the hideous corpse he had seen laid out on its cold slab. A vile body indeed. Its head was split asunder. Its limbs were bruised. Its back was a blood-red signature on a death warrant.