‘Who is that?’
‘Lord Westfield.’
‘Why?’
‘King James likes the theatre.’
She was there. Long before he stepped out onstage to gain visible proof of the fact, he knew that Mistress Beatrice Capaldi had come to the performance of Love’s Sacrifice at the Queen’s Head that afternoon. Lawrence Firethorn felt her presence and purred with delight. His book holder’s counsel had borne fruit. The latest play by Edmund Hoode was the love-knot that would bind actor and inamorata together. It was the answer to his prayer. Since the departure of his wife, Firethorn’s bed had been intolerably empty and his heart gaped equally wide for a new tenant. Beatrice Capaldi would fill both venues with sublime ease. She had come. It was the proof for which he had longed.
Others were quick to perceive the change. Edmund Hoode was relieved that his play would get a stirring performance out of its leading actor. When Lawrence Firethorn was below his best — as he had been for days — he dragged down the whole company and took the shine off even the finest drama. A toiling playwright like Hoode wanted due recognition of his talents and this could only come from a committed rendering of Love’s Sacrifice. Barnaby Gill flitted between pleasure and disappointment. He was glad that the reputation of Westfield’s Men would not suffer any more but peeved that he would no longer be able to gain at its expense. When Firethorn was subdued, it was the agile comedian who came to the fore to steal the plaudits. Gill also expressed rank disgust that a mere woman could have such an effect on the work of an actor and, by extension, a whole company.
The situation caused Nicholas Bracewell quiet alarm. He hoped that Beatrice Capaldi was a bird of passage who would not return to haunt them and he was confident that Firethorn would soon forget her when some other female sparked off his lechery. Nicholas foresaw grave difficulties and knew that he would be pressed into service.
‘Nick, dear heart!’
‘We begin in five minutes, sir …’
‘I was never more ready. But first, a favour.’
‘Ask it when I am less busy,’ suggested Nicholas.
‘It will not wait,’ said Firethorn, thrusting a letter at him. ‘When the performance is done, give this to her.’
‘But I will be needed here, sir.’
‘Do as I bid, man. Put it into her hand and wait for a reply. My happiness depends upon it.’
Nicholas sighed and slipped the missive inside his buff jerkin. It was not an assignment to relish. He turned his full attention to the play itself. Its success at The Rose had brought a full audience to the Queen’s Head and, although the piece would be given in a slightly attenuated form, its merits were still plentiful. One of the omissions from the text, however, was causing deep resentment. Owen Elias had lost his funeral speech. Retained in the part of Benvolio at the insistence of Nicholas Bracewell, the actor had seen that part trimmed and weakened at the morning rehearsal. Elias brooded malevolently in a corner of the tiring-house. He would not be able to make the same impact again.
Firethorn came up with a growled reminder to him.
‘We want no final speech from Benvolio,’ he said.
‘It suits the play best,’ argued Elias.
‘It does not suit me, Owen. Remember that.’
‘You give me no choice.’
‘Breathe one word of that funeral oration and I will rise from the dead to cut out your treacherous Welsh tongue! Do you understand, sir?’
Owen Elias crackled with an anger that found no outlet because Nicholas Bracewell took charge of affairs and Love’s Sacrifice began. King Gondar now ruled supreme. Benvolio could only fume away in the background.
She was very definitely there. Beatrice Capaldi once again sat in a prominent position in the centre of the lower gallery with a poise that set her apart from all the other young ladies around her. The dark velvet of her earlier appearance had now given way to a brightly coloured dress in the Spanish fashion. She wore a pale-green corseted bodice with a deep point. The long, heavy stomacher front in a deeper hue dipped to a point over the stiff farthingale skirt. Full trunk-type sleeves of blue with large, laced wrist cuffs were revealed under the huge hanging sleeves. The royal-blue gown fitted the shoulders and the figure to the waist then blossomed out over the hips to fall stiffly to the ground. The wide lace ruff was starched and wired. A narrow jewelled sash encircled the waist with a pomander dangling from it. Black hair was drawn back from her exquisite face and set off by a few well-placed jewels. A folding fan was carried in a gloved hand.
Lawrence Firethorn took it all in at a glance and read the message in her apparel. Beatrice Capaldi had warmed towards him. Though she was as aloof as before, her vivid attire conveyed her true feelings. The actor responded by displaying the full rainbow of his talents. His performance was a tour de force which made a fine play seem brilliant and which drew his company up to the very summit. The momentum gathered until it became its own undoing. Benvolio was simply carried away by it.
Look down upon these star-crossed lovers here,
Two souls that soared above a common pitch
To reach the very height of earthly joy
Before their tragic fall to grievous death …
The funeral speech was laid over the sad carcasses like a soft and respectful shroud. Owen Elias had never been more moving with his soft lilt. He tasted each line with care and let it roll around his mouth until he had exacted its full sweetness. Lawrence Firethorn hissed unregarded at his feet. The Welshman drew even more tears than at The Rose. It was not just an epitaph for a pair of fallen lovers. Owen Elias knew that he was delivering the funeral oration over his own career with Westfield’s Men. His moment of supreme glory was also an act of suicide but it was worth it.
King Gondar was carried out once more to solemn music. He leapt off his untimely bier in the tiring-house to accost the traitor but the ovation drowned out his curses. With an audience to enjoy and a love to advance, he swept out onto the stage with his company and took his first bow. His eyes went straight to hers and a momentary flame was lit between them. Beatrice Capaldi showed no emotion but she applauded politely as she gazed down at him. Her presence was a signal to him, her bright attire an invitation, her restrained approval a firm promise.
Lawrence Firethorn capitulated before her.
Giles Randolph knew the importance of keeping a spy in the enemy camp. A sharp-eyed ostler at the Queen’s Head reported all that was needful. Basking in his renewed success as The Spanish Jew, the leading light of Banbury’s Men was annoyed to hear of another triumphant revival and of the scintillating performance by his rival as King Gondar. Lawrence Firethorn had once again eclipsed him but good news followed this all-too-familiar intelligence. Randolph took immediate action. After dining with friends that evening, he made his way from Shoreditch to Gracechurch Street. A large hat and a long cloak guaranteed him an anonymity which let him slip into the Queen’s Head unobserved. It was very late and only the very drunk still lingered.
Owen Elias was slumped over a table with an empty pewter tankard in his hand. He groaned as he contemplated the ruins of his theatrical career. Westfield’s Men — in the person of their moving spirit — had expelled him. The company which had been his whole life for so long had now hurled him out into the wilderness. After touching real power on a stage at last he was reduced to complete impotence. His prospects of fresh employment were slight. A twenty-line speech had sealed his doom as an actor.
He became aware of a figure sitting down beside him and of an arm looping around his sagging shoulders. Owen Elias turned bloodshot eyes upon the newcomer but it was a full minute before he recognised Giles Randolph. Jerked out of his maudlin self-pity, he sat up with a start and blinked. He knew the other actor by sight and respected him for his achievements but he had never expected to share a bench in a tavern with such a luminary.