‘Wait!’ said Sybil Marwood. ‘I desire more clarity.’
‘It would only distress you further.’
‘I wish to know, madam. Advise me in this matter and I will be deeply in your debt.’
Margery turned with queenly charm and smiled at her.
‘I talk to you but as a woman.’
‘Let me hear you.’
‘And I do not take sides in this quarrel. But …’
‘Well?’ said the other impatiently. ‘But, but, but …’
‘The Queen’s Head is not the only inn that the gluttonous alderman has gobbled up. The Antelope and the White Hart in Cheapside have both been swallowed and the Brazen Serpent is to be his next meal.’
‘That is his pleasure. He is a wealthy man.’
‘Whence comes this wealth, Mistress Marwood?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Alderman Ashway seeks a good profit,’ said Margery sweetly, ‘but that cannot be obtained if he gives too good a price for the property. Or if he pays too good a wage to his tenant publican. Do you follow me here?’
‘I begin to, madam.’
‘The landlord of the Antelope was driven out within six months of yielding up ownership. His successor works for longer hours and a lower wage.’
‘Can this be so?’ gasped the other.
‘Look to the suburbs. The alderman bought both the Bull and Butcher in Shoreditch and the Carpenters Arms in Islington. Speak to the unhappy landlords. They are now mere slaves where before they were masters. Would you and your husband wear this humiliation?’
A rousing cheer from the yard below took Margery over to the window but she had done her work. Stung with rage and flustered with fear, Sybil Marwood raced out of the room in search of her husband. She felt that she had been kept wilfully in the dark by the menfolk and it was time to voice her complaint. As she stormed into the taproom, her husband greeted her with open arms.
‘Come, Sybil! Our future joy is assured.’
‘What say you, sir?’
‘I have signed the contract with Alderman Ashway.’
‘Tear it up at once!’ she yelled.
‘Too late, madam.’
‘Why?’
‘It has been sent back to him by messenger.’
The commotion which drew Margery Firethorn to the window was caused by the appearance onstage of Abel Strudwick. With the aid of his fellow watermen, he scrambled up onto the scaffold and paraded around like a wrestler showing off his muscles. Good-natured jeers went up and there was a ripple of applause. It was only when Strudwick stopped to acknowledge his reception that he realised how much beer he had consumed. His head was muzzy and he had to splay his legs to prevent himself from swaying. There was another, more immediate problem. Viewed from the yard below, the work of the actors had looked as easy as it was stimulating. Now that he was actually up there himself as the cynosure, he became aware of what a test of nerve it was. A sea of heaving bodies lay below. Galleries of grinning faces stretched above. Shouts and cheers and wild advice came from hundreds of throats. His iron confidence began to melt in the fiery heat of all the attention.
It was not helped by the sonorous bell that chimed the half-hour and made him jump with fright. Before he could recover, there was a fanfare of trumpets and then Lawrence Firethorn made a triumphal entry. Flanked by six resplendent soldiers, he wore golden armour, a golden helmet and golden greaves upon his shins. A glittering sword was held aloft in one hand while the other bore a golden shield. The contrast was startling. On one side of the stage was a dishevelled, bow-legged waterman with a round-shouldered stoop: on the other was a virile warrior who stood straight and proud. As the fanfare ended, the actor delivered his rebuke with imperious force.
With the words still echoing around the yard, the godlike presence turned on his sandalled heel and made his exit with dignified briskness. Lawrence Firethorn had been so impressive that he had robbed Strudwick of all power to reply. It was only when a burst of applause broke out for Jupiter that the boatman came out of his daze and tried to strike back. When he lurched after the actor, however, he found his way barred by the six soldiers in shining armour, each holding a pike whose blade had been dutifully polished that morning by George Dart. In the heat of the moment, Strudwick resorted to intemperate abuse.
‘Come back, you hound! You snivelling, sneaking rat! Come here, you caitiff. Show your monkey’s face again and I will knock off your knavish helmet and put a cuckold’s horns upon your head. ’Twas I that rode your foul fiend of a wife and had such clamorous sport between her spindly legs. Thy dame is pizzle-mad, sir, and her oily duckies are sucked by every gallant in the town!’
‘WHAT!!!!!’
The scream of fury was so loud and penetrating that it silenced Strudwick and the whole audience at once. Margery Firethorn climbed out through the window like a tiger hurtling out of its lair in search of prey. She pushed her way through the seated spectators in the lower gallery and cocked a leg over the balustrade before jumping down onto the stage itself. Words came hissing out of her like poisonous steam.
‘Who are you to speak, you pimp, you goose, you carrion crow! I am that same wife you talk so rudely of and I am as sound a Christian as any woman alive. Fie on your foul tongue, you varlet, on your sewer of a mouth, on that running sore of a mind that you scratch for argument to make it bleed villainy. Out, out, you clod, you tottering wretch, you drunken bawd, you scheming devil, you thrice-ugly beggar, you vile and noisome vapour. Draw off lest you infect us all with this leprous speech of yours!’ She stood over him with such fearsome rage that he cowered before her. ‘A foul fiend, am I, sir? I will haunt your haunches with my housewife’s toe for that. I have spindly legs, you say. They hold me better than those poor, mean sticks of yours that cannot hold up the weight of a beer-filled belly without they bend like longbows at full draw. Pizzle-mad, you claim …’
Abel Strudwick’s defeat was comprehensive and the audience howled and jeered at his expense. He yet had one card to play. Shrugging off Margery’s attack, he ran to the front of the stage and tried to redeem himself by reciting his latest poem about a humble waterman who becomes a famous actor and who plays before the Queen. It was a disastrous remedy. The spectators were provoked to such cruel mirth and ribaldry that missiles soon began to be hurled at the stocky figure. Strudwick kept on, dodging the apple cores and rotten eggs as best he could, caught between death and damnation, between the still-fulminating Margery behind him and the foaming torrent of abuse in front of him. The Queen of Carthage rescued him.
Seeing his friend in such a quandary, Nicholas gave the signal to start the play early. The trumpet sounded and the Prologue stepped out in a black cloak. Margery and Strudwick went mute and backed away. When the first scene swirled onto the stage, the two of them nimbly dodged the Carthaginian soldiers to escape. Strudwick dived gratefully forward into the arms of his fellows who felt that he had been somewhat maltreated. Margery beat her retreat through the curtain and hurried into the tiring-house. She made straight for the gold-clad figure of Jupiter and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Well spoken, Lawrence! You mammocked him!’
‘Thank you, mistress,’ said a Welsh voice.