‘We two are agreed on that.’
‘Yes, Nick. It will be my mission!’
Abel Strudwick rowed with undiminished gusto across the river and guided his boat around and between the endless bobbing obstacles. Hans Kippel urged him to pull harder and play more music. The waterman was overjoyed. He saw in the Dutch apprentice something of the son who had been snatched from him by the navy and his affection for the boy grew. With a captive audience who appreciated his work so much, he launched into some of his most ambitious poems, long, meandering narratives about life on the Thames and the perils that it presented. His music took them all the way to Bankside then out onto the wharf and up the stone steps. A friendship was being consolidated.
There was one peril that Strudwick did not mention. The man with the patch stood in the open window of a house on the Bridge and applied a telescope to his good eye. He watched the waterman and his young passenger until the two of them had vanished between the tenements then he put the telescope aside and turned to his thickset companion. His voice was slurred but cultured.
‘We must make no mistakes next time, sir.’
‘I will carve the boy to pieces myself.’
‘Look to that friend of his.’
‘What was his name again?’
‘Bracewell.’
‘That’s the fellow.’
‘Master Nicholas Bracewell.’
Sybil Marwood was proving to be even more unyielding than her husband. She was a stout, sour-faced woman of middle years for whom life was a continuing disappointment. She had little time for Westfield’s Men and even less for the arguments that Nicholas Bracewell was now putting on their behalf in the taproom at the Queen’s Head. Leaning on the counter with her bulging elbows, she cut him down ruthlessly in mid-sentence.
‘Hold your peace, sir.’
‘I beg leave to finish, mistress.’
‘There is no more to say. We sell the inn.’
‘And forfeit your birthright?’ he said. ‘Once the premises are in the hands of Alderman Ashway, you will be at his mercy.’
‘We will have security of tenure.’
‘For how long?’
‘In perpetuity.’
‘Even Master Marwood cannot live for ever,’ reasoned Nicholas. ‘What will happen to you if he should die?’
‘I would remain here in his place.’
‘Is that in the terms of the contract?’
‘It must be,’ she insisted. ‘Or Alexander will not be allowed to sign it. I know my rights, sir.’
‘Nobody respects them more than us, mistress.’
Nicholas was making no impact on her. Simple greed had mortgaged her finer feelings. Sybil Marwood was so dazzled by the amount of ready capital that she and her husband would receive that she had blocked out all other considerations. The theatre company was a disposable item in her codex. As long as actors were abroad, the virginity of her daughter was under threat. The skulking landlord did at least have some vestigial feelings of loyalty to the troupe that had brought so much custom to the inn over the years but his wife had none. Her cold heart was only warmed by the idea of a healthy profit.
‘Can no words prevail with you?’ asked Nicholas.
‘None that you can utter, sir.’
‘What if Alderman Ashway plays the tyrant?’
‘Then he will have me to face.’
‘The deed of sale is drawn up by him.’
‘Women have ways to get their desires.’
It was a cynical observation made with the veiled hostility which seemed to encircle her but it also contained some advice on which Nicholas was determined to act. Direct approaches to Marwood and to his wife had borne only diseased fruit. The book holder had to work a different way and he suddenly realised how. There was an element of risk but it had to be discounted. It was the last course of action open to them.
Nicholas took his leave and sauntered across the taproom. Edmund Hoode was still plotting revenge at his table, Owen Elias was regaling colleagues with the story of how he first discovered his vocation as an actor, George Dart was sharing a drink with Thomas Skillen and Nathan Curtis, and the indefatigable Barnaby Gill, dressed in his finery, was half-trying to seduce a young ostler from the stables. All of the company had now learnt of the grim fate that menaced them and an air of despondency filled the room. The book holder was given fresh incentive to put his new plan into action.
He went straight to Shoreditch and swore Margery Firethorn to secrecy. She was thrilled. Fond of Nicholas Bracewell, she let herself be persuaded by his charm and his reason. It was wonderful to feel that she might be the one person who could turn the tide and she saw at once the personal advantage she would gain at home. The domineering Lawrence Firethorn would no longer be able to crow over a wife if she rescued Westfield’s Men by her timely intercession.
‘I’ll do it, Nicholas!’ she said.
‘Privily.’
‘Lawrence will suspect nothing.’
‘He would not understand this manoeuvre.’
‘Teach me what I must say.’
‘Appeal to Mistress Marwood as a woman.’
‘But she is a dragon in skirts, from what I hear.’
‘All the more reason to flatter and fondle her.’
Margery chortled. ‘You are wicked, sir!’
‘I will call you when the time is ripe.’
‘You will find me ready.’
She planted a kiss of gratitude on his cheek then sent him on his way. Setting her on Sybil Marwood might just be the solution. They were two of a kind, sisters under the skin, powerful women with red blood in their veins and fire in their bellies. With even moderate luck, Margery might be able to get through to the landlord’s wife in a way that no man — not even Marwood himself — could possibly manage. It was all down to the ladies in the case. They spoke the same language.
As Nicholas marched homewards, he reflected on the day and the crisis with which it had begun. Hans Kippel was in grave danger. Enemies who would resort to arson would stop at nothing. Evidently, the boy had witnessed something on the Bridge which he should not have and his life was forfeit as a result. The only way to save him was to unmask his attackers first and bring them to justice. These thoughts took the book holder all the way down Gracechurch Street and back onto the Bridge.
The shops were closed now but there were still plenty of people milling around. Nicholas stood aside as two horses cantered past him. He then walked up to the house which he had visited that morning and appraised it more carefully. It was a small, narrow, two-storey property that consisted of a tiny drawing room, a dining room, two bedchambers, and a kitchen that jutted out over the river so that a supply of water could be hauled up in a bucket tied to the end of a long rope. The dwelling also had its own privy. There was a public convenience on the Bridge itself but most householders took advantage of the site to make their own arrangements. The Thames was its own form of sanitation.
Nicholas saw the light in the downstairs window but he did not immediately knock on the door. Instead, he turned sideways to go down the slender gap between the house and the shop next door so that he could reach the parapet. Directly below was one of the starlings into which the stone pillars which supported the Bridge were set. The swift current foamed the water as it sluiced its way under the arch. Nicholas leant right over to get a better view and discovered that he could see right into the kitchen of the house. Its timber-framing had sagged dramatically and it looked as if it was hanging on to the rest of the building with the tips of its fingers. He bent right over the parapet to peer into the kitchen.
‘May I help you, sir?’
The voice was polite but unfriendly. Nicholas swung round to see a short, neat, erect figure blocking the narrow passage. His apparel suggested service in a grand establishment. The man stroked his greying beard.