‘This matter must be discussed in full,’ he said.
‘I give you but advance warning.’
‘Speak with Master Firethorn about it.’
‘That I will not,’ said Marwood. ‘I like not his ranting and raving. My ears buzz for a week after I have talked with him. I would rather treat with you, sir. We have always been congenial to each other.’
Nicholas Bracewell had never met a human being less congenial than the twitching publican but he did not want to upset the tricky negotiations that lay ahead by saying so. He thanked Marwood for alerting him to the potential danger. In the circumstances, he did not feel like putting more money into Rowland Ashway’s pocket by buying a pint of his celebrated ale. Instead, he nodded his farewell and sauntered across to Edmund Hoode who was hunched over a cup of sack in the corner of the taproom.
The two men were good friends and the playwright always consulted the other during the writing of a new work if any special dramatic effects were required. Nicholas had an instinctive feel for the practicalities of theatre and a way of making even the most difficult effects work. The book holder’s willingness to confront any technical problems made Hoode’s job as resident poet much easier.
Nicholas had intended to pass on the grim tidings he had just gleaned from the landlord but he saw that his friend already had anxieties enough.
‘What, Edmund? All amort?’
‘In sooth, I am in the pit of misery, Nick.’
‘Why so? Your play was as ever a shining success.’
‘Actors must quit the stage when they are done.’
‘Your meaning?’
‘I detest the role I must play now.’
Nicholas understood at once. Edmund Hoode was going through a fallow period in his personal life. A hopeless romantic, he was always losing his heart and dedicating his verses to some new fancy and, although his love was usually unrequited, the blissful agony of infatuation was reward enough in itself. Without a fresh mistress to make him truly unhappy, he was plunged into despair. It took Nicholas well over an hour to instil some hope into his friend. The questing love of Edmund Hoode and the roving lust of Lawrence Firethorn could be equal tyrannies to him.
It was late evening by the time Nicholas finally left the inn and darkness was pulling its malodorous shroud over the city. Instead of walking back home to Southwark by way of London Bridge, he elected to be rowed across by one of the army of watermen who populated the river. As he headed for the wharf, he had time properly to reflect on what Alexander Marwood had told him. Ejection from the Queen’s Head would be a disaster for the company and might even lead to its extinction. How serious the threat really was he had no means of knowing but one thing he did resolve upon. He would not spread panic unnecessarily. Insecurity was rife enough in their blighted profession and he did not wish to add to it in any way. The imminent peril should be concealed for the time being until more details emerged because he did not rule out the possibility of finding a way to solve this horrendous problem. He could best do that by working quietly behind the scenes rather than in an atmosphere of communal frenzy. Meanwhile, therefore, Nicholas would have to keep a very dark and very heavy secret to himself.
The Thames was lapping noisily at the timbers of the wharf when he arrived and the moored craft were thudding rhythmically against each other. Daylight turned the river into a floating village and even at this late hour many of the inhabitants were still promenading over the water. Barges, wherries, hoys, fishing smacks and an occasional tilt-boat could be seen and there was a lone coracle wending its way along. Nicholas did not have to choose his means of transport. His pilot came hopping across to him with gruff deference.
‘This way, Master Bracewell. Let me serve you, sir.’
‘I will do that gladly, Abel.’
‘I have missed you for a se’n-night or more.’
‘My legs took me home.’
‘Sit in my boat and make the journey in style, sir. There is more music to please your ears.’
Abel Strudwick was an unprepossessing individual, a heavy, round-shouldered man of middle height with unkempt hair and a hirsute beard doing their best to hide an ugly, pockmarked face. Though roughly the same age as his favourite passenger, he looked a decade older. Strudwick had the vices and virtues of his breed. Like all watermen, he had a stentorian voice to hail his customers and a savage turn of phrase with which to assault them if they failed to tip him handsomely. On the credit side, he was an honest, reliable citizen who put the strength of his arms and the warmth of his company at the disposal of anyone who sat in the boat.
What set Abel Strudwick apart from the rest and gave him a special relationship with Nicholas Bracewell was his addiction to what he called music. When the book holder was offered fresh melodies, he knew that the waterman had been busy with his pen, for Strudwick had poetic ambitions. His music came in the form of mundane verse that was always at the mercy of its rhyme scheme and which flowed from him as readily and roughly as the Thames itself. Nicholas was his preferred audience because he always listened with genuine interest and because his connections with the theatre were a distant promise of some kind of literary recognition.
As they got into the boat, Nicholas felt a sailor’s surge of excitement at being afloat again, albeit in a modest craft. Before he came into the theatre, he had sailed with Drake on the circumnavigation of the world and it had made a deep impression on him. The experience gave him another bond with the waterman. Though Strudwick had never been more than ten miles upstream, he saw himself as a great voyager like his friend and it fed his invention.
He declaimed his latest piece of music.
‘Row on, row on, across the waves,
Thou monarch of the sea.
Steer past those rocks, avoid those caves,
Row on to eternity.’
There was much more to come and Nicholas heard it patiently as he sat in the stern of the boat with his hand trailing gently in the water. Strudwick’s methodical rowing was matched by the repetitive banality of his latest verses but his passenger would nevertheless pay him with kind words and encouragement. A warbling poet was milder company than a foul-mouthed waterman.
‘A turd in your teeth!’
‘How so, Abel?’
‘A pox upon your pox-ridden pizzle!’
Strudwick had not lapsed back into his normal mode of speech to berate Nicholas. He was cursing the obstacle which the prow of his boat had struck and which had turned his music to discord. Swearing volubly, he manoeuvred his craft round so that he could see what he was abusing. Nicholas felt it first and it made his blood run cold. His trailing hand met another in the water, five pale, thin, lifeless fingers that touched his own in a clammy greeting. He sat up in the boat and peered into the darkness. Even the roaring Strudwick was frightened into silence.
Caught up in a piece of driftwood was the naked body of a man. There was enough moonlight for them to see that the corpse had met a gruesome death. The head had been battered in and one of the legs was twisted out at an unnatural angle. A dagger was lodged in the throat.
Abel Strudwick was still emptying the contents of a full stomach into the river as Nicholas hauled their sorry cargo aboard.
Chapter Two
Anne Hendrik was not normally given to apprehension. She was a strong-minded woman who had survived all the blows that Fate had dealt her and who always met adversity with resolution. Though her marriage had been sound, it had brought pain and grief to her family who disapproved in frank terms of her choice of husband. London had no love of foreigners and those women who had actually rejected decent English stock in order to marry immigrants were looked upon with disdain, if not outright disgust. Having to cope with the sneers and the cold shoulders had helped to harden Anne in many ways but she was still a sensitive person underneath it all and her emotions could be aroused in a crisis.