Nicholas turned towards Gracechurch Street and strolled on as quickly as he could through the morning crush. No play was being performed that day but he was summoned to a meeting about the planned visit to the Nine Giants in Richmond. Night had been quiet at the house and he had felt it safe to leave Hans Kippel there now. The boy’s compatriots took their duties as bodyguards with the utmost seriousness. They had armed themselves with swords or staves in case of attack and Preben van Loew had found an antiquated pike. Under the command of Anne Hendrik, they were a motley but effective crew. Besides, there was no performance at the Queen’s Head to amuse the boy this time and he would only be in the way.
The book holder let Abel Strudwick row him across the river from Bankside so that he could thank his friend for taking care of the apprentice on the previous day. The waterman was delighted to have been of help and got what he felt was a rich reward when he was told that his name had indeed been mentioned to Lawrence Firethorn. He could not wait to take his verses to the actor-manager before embracing the stardom that beckoned. Nicholas had tried to dampen his overzealous reaction but to no avail. Strudwick had sensed recognition at last.
As he turned into Gracechurch Street, Nicholas had put all thought of the water poet out of his mind. His preoccupation was with a murdered soldier who had been stripped of his clothes and his dignity then hurled into the Thames without even a face to call his own. Service to his country should have earned Michael Delahaye some kinder treatment than that. Was the soldier killed by his own enemies or did his relationship with the Lord Mayor Elect have any bearing on the case?
So caught up was he in his rumination that he did not observe the thickset man who was trailing him through the crowded market. The first that Nicholas knew of it was when a hand grabbed his arm from behind and the point of a knife pricked his spine.
‘Do as I bid,’ hissed a voice. ‘Or I kill you here.’
‘Who are you?’
‘One that is sent to bear a message.’
‘With a dagger in my back.’
‘Walk towards that alley or I finish you here.’
The book holder pretended to agree. In the heaving mass of a market day, he had no choice. His assailant had caught him off guard and was now easing him towards a narrow alley. Once he entered that, Nicholas knew, he would never come out again alive. He tried to distract the man.
‘You are Master Renfrew, I think.’
‘Then must you think again, sir.’
‘There is no patch over your eye?’
‘No, sir. I see well enough to stab you in the back.’
‘Do you lodge at a house on the Bridge?’
‘That is of no concern to you.’
‘Did you play with fire the other night?’
‘Keep moving,’ grunted the man.
As Nicholas was prodded by the dagger again, he reacted with sudden urgency. Hs free arm struck out at the canopy of a market stall while a heel was jabbed hard into the shin of his captor. Wrenching his other arm away at the same time, he lurched forward a few paces then swung around to confront the man who was now hopping on one leg and trying to disentangle himself from the canopy while being abused by the stallholder. Nicholas had only a few seconds to study the swarthy, bearded face before the bull-like frame came hurtling angrily at him. He caught the wrist that held the dagger and grappled with his attacker. Uproar now spread as the two men cannoned off the bodies all around them. The irate stallholder joined in the fight with a broom which he used to belabour both of them.
The assailant was strong but Nicholas was a match for him. Recognising this, the man made a last desperate effort to seize the advantage, angling the dagger towards the other’s body and thrusting home with all his might. The book holder took evasive action in the nick of time. He turned the man’s wrist sharply and sent the blade towards the latter’s stomach. The animal howl of pain was so loud and frightening that it silenced the crowd and even made the stallholder hold off with his broom. With a surge of strength, the man flung off Nicholas and ran off through the crowd with bullocking force. The book holder looked down at the front of his jerkin.
It was spattered with blood that was not his own.
Triumph was followed by setback. After his victory in the field on the previous afternoon, Lawrence Firethorn came off badly in skirmishes the next day. It began at home with a spectacular row over the household accounts. He fought hard but his wife was at her most vehement and sent him off with his ears ringing. No comfort awaited him at the Queen’s Head. His first encounter was with Edmund Hoode who refused outright to provide any more verses for the actor-manager’s romantic purposes and backed up that refusal with the threat of quitting the company. While Firethorn was still recovering from that shock, Barnaby Gill chose his moment to praise the fine performance given by Owen Elias in Love and Fortune and to let his colleague know that he was in danger of being eclipsed by one of the hired men. There was worse to come. Alexander Marwood sidled past with a hideous smile to announce that he had now decided to sign a contract with Rowland Ashway for the sale of the inn.
When he had received Matilda Stanford in a private room, he had felt like a king. That was yesterday. Today his subjects were in armed revolt and he could not put them down. He prowled the yard at the Queen’s Head while he tried to compose himself. It was the worst possible time to accost him with a handful of poems.
‘Good day, Master Firethorn.’
‘Who are you?’ snarled the other.
‘Abel Strudwick. I believe that you know of me.’
‘As much as I care to, sir. Away with you!’
‘But Master Bracewell mentioned my name.’
‘What care I for that?’
‘I am a poet, sir. I would perform on the scaffold.’
‘Then get yourself hanged for ugliness,’ said the irate Firethorn. ‘You may twitch on the gallows and provide good entertainment for the lower sort.’
Strudwick bristled. ‘What say you, sir?’
‘Avoid my sight, you thing of hair!’
‘I am a water poet!’
‘Then piss your verses up against a wall, sir.’
‘I looked for more civility than this.’
‘You have come to the wrong shop.’
‘So I see,’ said the waterman, casting aside his former reverence for the actor. ‘But I’ll not be put down by you, sir, you strutting peacock with a face like a dying donkey, you whoreson, glass-gazing, beard-trimming cozener!’
‘Will you bandy words with me, sir!’ roared Firethorn with teeth bared. ‘Take that epileptic visage away from here before it frights the souls of honest folk. I’ll not talk to you, you knave, you rascal, you rag-wearing son of Satan. Stand off, sir, and take that stink with you.’
‘I am as wholesome a man as you, Master Firethorn, and will not give way to a brazen-faced lecher who opens his mouth but to fart out villainy.’
‘You bawd, you beggar, you slave!’
‘Thief, coward, rogue!’
‘Dog’s-head!’
‘Trendle-tail!’
‘Hedge-bird!’
‘You walking quagmire!’
Abel Strudwick cackled at the insult and circled his man to attack again. Having come to offer poetry, he was instead trading invective. It was exhilarating.
‘Your father was a pox-riddled pimp!’ he yelled.
‘Your mother, Mistress Slither, conceived you in a fathom of foul mud. She was mounted by a rutting boar and dropped you in her next litter, the old sow.’
‘Snotty nose!’
‘Pig face!’
‘Pandar!’
‘Mongrel!’
Strudwick grinned. ‘Your wife, sir, under pretence of keeping a decent home, cuckolds you with every gamester in the city. Diseased she is, surely, and dragged through the cesspits of whoredom by the hour. Even as we speak, some lusty bachelor is riding her pell mell to damnation!’