The Fair Maid of Bohemia

Chapter One

They all saw her. Sooner or later, every eye in the company was drawn ineluctably up to the place where she sat in the lower gallery. The yard of the Queen’s Head was filled to shoulder-jostling capacity, as the eager citizens of London converged on Gracechurch Street to see a performance by Westfield’s Men of The Knights of Malta, yet she still stood out clearly from the mass of bodies all around her. She was like a bright star in a troubled sky, a fixed point of illumination from which all could take direction and reassurance. A sign from above.

What was remarkable was the fact that she evidently did not set out to become a cynosure. There was a natural poise and a becoming modesty about her which forbade any deliberate attempt to court attention. Not for her the vivid plumage which some ladies wore or the extravagant gestures with which some gallants sought to make their presence felt. Her attire was sober, her manner restrained. That was the paradox. Here was a young woman whose desire to be invisible somehow made her strikingly conspicuous.

Owen Elias was the first to notice her. When he came out in a black cloak to deliver the Prologue, he was so dazzled by her that he all but forgot the rhyming couplet which ended the speech. The ebullient Welshman swept into the tiring-house at the rear of the makeshift stage and passed the warning on to Lawrence Firethorn.

‘Beware!’ he whispered.

‘Why?’ asked Firethorn.

‘An angel has come to look down on us. Avoid her, Lawrence. Gaze up at her and you will not even remember what day it is, still less which role you are taking in what play.’

‘Nothing can distract me!’ asserted Firethorn, inflating his barrel chest. ‘When I marshal my knights in Malta, the sight of Saint Peter and a whole choir of angels would not lead me astray. My art is adamantine proof.’

‘She sits with Lord Westfield himself.’

‘Some costly trull he keeps for amusement.’

‘No trull, Lawrence, I do assure you.’

‘Stand aside, Owen.’

‘A heavenly creature in every particular.’

‘They want me.’

As the martial music sounded, Firethorn, in the person of Jean de Valette, Grand Master of the Order, strutted imperiously onto the stage, with four knights in rudimentary armour at his back. It was a majestic entrance and it brought a round of applause from the throng. Lawrence Firethorn was the company’s actor-manager, a man of towering histrionic skills with an incomparable record of success on the boards. He could breathe life into the most moribund character and transmute even the most banal verse into the purest poetry. Declaiming his first speech, he convinced his audience that he had a whole army at his behest and not a mere quartet of puny soldiers in rusty helmets and dented breast-plates.

‘Fie upon this siege! Defiance is my cry!

How dare the base and all-unworthy Turk

Presume to touch this island paradise

And crush its treasured liberties to death

Beneath the blood-soaked heel of Ottoman.

No tyrant from the east will conquer here.

The Knights of Malta will protect the isle

And fight with God Almighty at their side

To bless their cause and urge them on to feats

Of valour, acts of noble note, triumphing

At the last o’er Turkish hordes, whate’er their

Strength and purpose.’

Firethorn was not simply establishing his hold over the spectators and giving them a brief summary of the plot of the play, he was using the speech as a means of surveying the female faces in the galleries, feeding off their wide-eyed admiration and searching for a new conquest for his capacious bed. When his roving eye settled on Lord Westfield’s young companion, it roved no further. She provided firm anchorage for his scrutiny. Like Owen Elias, he was struck by her beauty but it did not threaten to deprive him of his lines in the same way. Instead, the Grand Master of the Order of Saint John Jerusalem worked the bellows of his lungs to put more fire into his bold words and left flames of defiance crackling in the air when he quit the stage.

Nicholas Bracewell had the actors ready for the next scene. As the Knights of Malta made their exit, a booming drum announced the entry of the Turkish army. When the book-holder had ushered them into action, he had a moment to observe the bemused look on the face of the Grand Master.

‘What ails you?’ he asked with concern.

Firethorn beamed. ‘He is right, Nick. He has hit the mark.’

‘Who?’

‘Owen. He first witnessed the miracle.’

‘Miracle? What miracle?’

‘The one beside Lord Westfield.’

Nicholas understood. ‘A young lady, I think?’

‘No, Nick,’ said Firethorn, kissing his fingertips with expressive emotion. ‘An alabaster Venus. A saint in blue apparel. Virginity made manifest.’

‘Look to your defences,’ advised the other, one ear on the progress of the play. ‘Scene Three finds you inspecting the fortifications at Fort Saint Elmo. Stand by, for you will soon be called.’

Firethorn heaved a sigh. ‘My walls have already been breached. Not by the Turkish soldiers or by any ordnance that man can muster. But by that divine creature in the lower gallery. Her eyes are cannon-balls that leave no stone of my heart still standing. I lie in ruins.’ A beatific smile lit his countenance. ‘Behold a Grand Master brought to his knees by a virtuous maid.’

‘Edmund will not applaud your capitulation.’

‘Why so?’

‘He has worked long and hard to repair this play,’ reminded Nicholas. ‘To make an old theme sound new-minted, he has rewritten the last two acts in their entirety. He will not thank you for surrendering Malta without even putting up token resistance.’

Firethorn’s pride was stung. ‘You mistake me, Nick. I do not yield to the enemy because I have seen a gorgeous apparition out there in the yard. Nothing will separate me from the part I play. I am Jean de Valette, lately Governor of Tripoli and Captain General of the Order’s galleys, now elected Grand Master. Nobody will change that. But she will inspire me to greater heights. Edmund Hoode will have no complaint about The Knights of Malta. Under the spell of that demi-god beside our patron, I will give the performance of a lifetime. Besiege my island! Storm my fortresses! This indignity will not be borne. I’m in a mood to conquer the entire Ottoman Empire with my bare hands. Set me loose!’

When the fanfare sounded, Firethorn went bursting onto the stage to take command once more. Though he dedicated his lines to one select pair of ears, all the spectators were moved by the power and sincerity of his acting. Where he led, most of the company could not begin to follow. Firethorn was scaling mountain peaks that left them dizzy with fear. While he was helped by the sight of the mysterious young lady with Lord Westfield, they were fatally handicapped.

Even the dependable James Ingram was stricken.

‘She is bewitching, Nick,’ he said as he left the stage.

‘Is that why you stuttered on your first line?’ chided Nicholas. ‘Is she the reason you dropped that goblet?’

‘I was careless.’

‘You are never careless, James.’

‘Then my mind was elsewhere.’

‘Our spectators will be elsewhere if we give such a poor account of ourselves. There’s hardly a member of the cast who has not stumbled over his role.’

‘The lady has unnerved us.’

‘Will you let one solitary person affect you thus?’ said Nicholas, loud enough for his reprimand to reach everyone in the tiring-house. ‘I begin to think she has been planted on us by Banbury’s Men to drive you all to distraction and make our rivals seem the finer company. This is a poor way indeed to serve our patron and our play.’

Ingram accepted the rebuke with a nod and vowed to make amends for his lapse of concentration during the next scene. But the list of casualties lengthened steadily. One by one, the actors succumbed to the subtle impact of the face in the lower gallery. Even the apprentices were not immune. Schooled to portray maiden modesty themselves, they became its hapless victims. Nicholas was shocked to see Richard Honeydew, the youngest, most talented and reliable of them, falling prey to the charms of the singular spectator and gabbling his words as if they were hot coals in his mouth that had to be spat out as soon as possible.

George Dart was the most spectacular casualty. The assistant stage-keeper, a reluctant actor at the best of times, was too busy in the early scenes trying to remember his lines and his moves as a Turkish soldier to notice any of the spectators. It was only when he saw the growing wonderment of his colleagues that he thought to look up at its source. It was a disastrous mistake. Instead of rounding up Maltese prisoners, Dart was an instant captive himself and gazed up at the gaoler of his heart so stead-fastly that he lost his bearings completely and wandered off the edge of the stage and into the arms of the standees in the front rank.

The smallest soldier ever to serve in the Turkish army now became the funniest, and the audience roared with laughter. By the time that Dart was thrown back onstage, the next scene had started and he found himself marooned in the middle of the enemy stronghold. Not knowing whether to stay or flee, he did both alternately, and his madcap indecision drew fresh hysteria from the crowd. It was only when the Grand Master lashed at him with a sword that Dart realised that a hasty retreat was in order.

Scurrying into the tiring-house, he fainted with relief at his escape and fell into the book-holder’s arms. Nicholas winced. A tale of heroism was in danger of becoming a farce. He would have stern words for George Dart when the latter recovered to participate in the siege of Malta.

Predictably, there was only one survivor. Barnaby Gill, the company’s acknowledged clown, was impervious to feminine beauty of any kind, treating all women with a police disdain as a necessary evil put upon the earth for the sole purpose of procreation. Gill’s darker passions led him in another direction. When he first spied the lady who was causing such commotion among his fellows, he accorded her no more than a cursory glance. However, his attention soon returned to her when he realised that she was admiring his performance above all else on stage.

Gill took the role of Hilario, jester to the Knights of Malta, a man whose songs and dances brought welcome comic relief to a fraught situation. Hilario was also a key figure in the romantic sub-plot which enlivened the play. Whenever he appeared, the young woman clapped her gloved hands with polite enthusiasm and his jig in Act Three had her trembling with mirth. Gill responded by directing much of his performance at her, coaxing smiles, laughter and, eventually, tears of delight. In pleasing an honoured guest of their patron, he would earn Lord Westfield’s gratitude and that was always to be sought.

Lawrence Firethorn was galled by his rival’s success. As Hilario skipped nimbly offstage to sustained applause, the Grand Master was waiting to intercept him.

‘There was no dance set down for that scene, Barnaby.’

‘I invented one to satisfy my admirers.’

‘The only admirer you have is the one who gazes back at you from the looking-glass. Play the scenes as they are written.’

‘Save your strictures for our fellows,’ said Gill with a dismissive wave. ‘They deserve them, I do not. It is they who are enslaved by that creature beside our esteemed patron. While she has bewitched every man in the company, I alone have enchanted her. She rose to her feet after my last jig.’

‘To break wind in disgust, no doubt.’

‘The lady is a shrewd playgoer. She recognises genius.’

‘That is why she hangs on every word I say.’

‘Only hangs, Lawrence? She drools over mine. Your Knights of Malta may defeat the Turk, but Hilario is victor over both armies. Ask of the creature in blue. She worships me.’

Firethorn blustered impotently. The hideous truth had to be faced. Barnaby Gill was stealing the play from its leading player. The gorgeous young lady in the lower gallery somehow preferred a licensed fool to the Grand Master of the Order. Smarting from this blow to his professional pride, Firethorn blazed even more gloriously in the ensuing scenes. The rest of the audience were beneficiaries of this extraordinary display of his talent but he could still not win over the one person who mattered to him. Patently fascinated by his portrayal, she did not sigh at his setbacks or stir at his heroism. When he sent twenty lines of exquisite poetry winging its way up to her, all she could do was to watch him with quizzical interest. Then the clown stepped back into the action and her little hands were clapping once more.

It was humiliating. For once in his career, Firethorn was made to feel that he was failing both as an actor and as a man. Yielding the palm to Barnaby Gill-of all people-made the pain almost unendurable. The spectators at the Queen’s Head saw none of his personal suffering. What they were witnessing was a stock play from the company’s repertoire being turned into a small masterpiece by the spirited performance of the Grand Master and the comic genius of Hilario. Between them, the two men rescued the drama from its string of early mistakes and inspired the whole company to do itself justice.

Nicholas Bracewell was relieved that The Knights of Malta was now recognisably the piece which they had rehearsed. As the drama moved with gathering force into its final scene, he could sense the power it was exerting over its audience. It was then that Edmund Hoode made his only appearance. Having laboured so strenuously to refine and improve the play, the resident author of Westfield’s Men made sure that he himself had a small but decisive role. Where better to impress himself upon the spectators’ minds than at the very close? What part could be more ideal for this purpose than that of Don García de Toledo, Viceroy of Sicily and the man who finally raised the siege by coming to the aid of the gallant knights?

When Hoode made his triumphal entry, spontaneous cheers and applause broke out in the yard. It briefly turned a competent actor into an accomplished one and he declaimed his first few speeches with a panache worthy of Firethorn himself. When the Grand Master embraced him with thanks, however, Don García got his first glimpse of the face in the lower gallery. It took his breath away so completely that he could barely get his tongue around his lines. Eventually, after an interminable pause to collect himself, Hoode put tremendous feeling into the finest speech in the play.

Unfortunately, The Knights of Malta was not the play in question. Jolted out of character by the vision before him, he ended up in Love’s Sacrifice, one of his own pieces. When it slowly dawned on the audience that Don García de Toledo, a military hero, was not celebrating his victory but declaring his undying passion to someone in a totally different play, the chuckles began in earnest. They soon turned to raucous jeers, and two hours of unremitting work upon the stage were in danger of being sunk beneath a sea of mocking laughter.

Firethorn saved the day with commendable speed. Pulling Don García into a second embrace, he spun him around so that Hoode was no longer able to see the lady whose beauty had ensnared him so utterly. With deft fingers, the Grand Master picked his pocket of all his remaining lines and delivered them himself, investing the words with such awe-some authority that the sniggers were soon cowed into silence. Control had been reaffirmed. The Knights of Malta was able to end on a high note and the company left the stage to deafening acclaim.

While the players came out to take their bows, Nicholas peeped through the curtain at the rear of the stage to take his own first look at Lord Westfield’s guest. She had posed a far greater threat to Malta than the whole Turkish army, but it had been no deliberate attack. Any damage had been unwittingly caused. Nicholas could see that and his annoyance at once faded into admiration.

What surprised him most was her youth. The flamboyant Lord Westfield had a predilection for Court beauties, mature ladies who were seasoned in the arts of coquetry and who added a lustre to his entourage. The newcomer did not conform to the archetype in any detail. Nicholas decided that she could be no more than sixteen or seventeen at most. And with her tender years came the bloom of pure innocence.

Sparkling blue eyes were set in a face of delicate loveliness that needed no cosmetics. An inner radiance seemed to shine out of her. She wore a dress in the Spanish fashion with a corseted bodice in dark blue. A heavy, jewelled stomacher-front dipped to a point over her stiff farthingale skirt. A gown of a lighter-blue material fitted the shoulders and waist neatly. It was fastened from the high-standing collar to the hem with large jewelled buttons and loops. The wide lace ruff was a series of white petals around her face. Her fair hair was swept up under her tall-crowned, brimless hat, which had ostrich feathers held in place by precious stones.

Nicholas was viewing a child on the cusp of womanhood. He was impressed with her aristocratic mien but not so overwhelmed by her that he was unable to take a full inventory of her charms. In doing so, he saw things which had eluded the actors. Where they had stolen hungry glances, Nicholas was able to feast his eyes. Applause was long and loud. She was on her feet to contribute to it with ardent clapping. There was an air of astonishment and regret about her, as if she had just discovered something truly remarkable, only to have it snatched away from her when the players made their exit. The gaze which she fixed on the Grand Master was full of frank yearning.

Lawrence Firethorn rushed to place the most flattering interpretation upon it. When he had bowed a dozen times towards her, he waved a farewell and led his troupe from the stage. After berating them for their lapses during the performance, he took Nicholas aside to share in what he felt was another personal triumph.

‘She loves me, Nick! That angel is mine!’

‘Do not bank on that,’ suggested Nicholas discreetly.

‘She stood to honour my performance.’

‘Indeed, she did, and justly so. You and Master Gill were supreme this afternoon and kept the play from falling apart.’

Firethorn gave a haughty snort. ‘That was nothing of Barnaby’s doing! I had to rescue the piece from his depredations as well as from the idiocies of the rest of the company. What was wrong with the fools? I had to carry the entire play on my own shoulders.’

‘And you did so superbly.’

‘Why, then, did she not give me my due reward during the performance itself? I was Jean de Valette to the life, yet she gave her readiest attention to the cavortings of Hilario. Can she really set Barnaby’s stale clowning above my passion and my eloquence?’ He gestured towards the stage. ‘Had she not just shown me that I was the true object of her desire, I tell you, Nick, I would have been deeply wounded. All is forgiven. She has been heaven-sent to me. In the art of wooing, I am still a veritable Grand Master.’

Nicholas let him preen himself for a few minutes before he introduced a note of reservation. He first made sure that nobody else was within earshot.

‘The young lady did not prefer Hilario’s performance,’ he said. ‘It was simply easier for her to understand.’

‘That boring array of dull songs and dreary dances?’

‘The songs were accompanied by comic mime.’

‘What is comic about Barnaby Gill pulling hideous faces and waving his arms around?’

‘Gesture surmounts all language barriers.’

‘Barriers?’

‘Yes,’ explained Nicholas. ‘That was why the young lady did not give your portrayal its due reward. She does not speak English. She liked best what she comprehended most, and that was mime and dance. They need no translation.’

Firethorn gulped. ‘Not speak English? Can this be so?’

‘It would be my guess.’

‘On what basis?’

‘Observation of the lady,’ said the other. ‘Those high cheekbones do not belong to an Englishwoman. And though she dresses in the Spanish fashion, that fair hair has not travelled here from Spain. There is another clear indication, and that is our patron’s attitude towards her. Lord Westfield usually indulges in badinage with his female companions. He treated this one with great respect and spoke no word to her while I watched. The lady is a foreigner.’

‘By Jove, this may be true! Of what country, Nick?’

‘Some part of Germany, perhaps. Austria, more likely.’

‘And of high birth?’

‘Without question.’

Firethorn slapped his thigh. ‘By all, this is wonderful! I have conquered the heart of an Austrian princess! No wonder my jewelled speeches fell on deaf ears. Bring her to me and I’ll talk the universal language of love. I’ll teach her gestures that she will never see from Barnaby and we’ll dance a jig together, she and I, that will last a whole night.’ He punched Nicholas playfully on the shoulder. ‘Fetch her to me, Nick. I’ll meet this princess in a private room. And if she speaks no English, I’ll be a lusty tutor for her lips. Bring her to me presently. I must have her.’

Nicholas accepted the charge reluctantly. With dozens of urgent chores confronting him, the last thing he wanted to do was to act as Firethorn’s messenger. He knew, also, that his journey would be in vain. This was one admirer whom the actor would never possess. She was infinitely beyond his reach. As he set off on his errand, his protective instincts came to the fore. Nicholas was the guardian of Westfield’s Men and he could always recognise a threat to the company. Her mere presence at a performance had inadvertently inflicted harm on them. Further contact with her would bring more serious and lasting injury. Nicholas felt it in his bones. In pursuing his alabaster saint, Lawrence Firethorn was leading his troupe towards certain catastrophe.

***

Alexander Marwood swam against the tide of humanity that was pouring out of the Queen’s Head. It gave the testy landlord no satisfaction to observe that his innyard had been filled with paying customers, many of whom bought ale or food from his servingmen to swell his coffers. Westfield’s Men were troublesome tenants to him. He lived in constant fear that their occupation of his premises would bring the ire of the city authorities down on him, lead to wild affrays, cause damage to his property, and-notwithstanding the eternal vigilance both of himself and his Gorgon wife-result in the seduction of his nubile daughter, Rose, by one of the rampant satyrs who called themselves actors. Marwood’s suffering found no relief in the marriage bed. His wife, Sybil, had long since converted that into an instrument of torture.

Delighted playgoers who streamed out into Gracechurch Street were met by no genial host. What confronted them was the grim little figure of the landlord buffeting his way towards his inn and cursing his fate with even more than his usual relish. A hat concealed the balding pate that was harrowed with anxiety, but the haggard face, with its haunted eyes and its twitching lips, its deathly pallor and its expression of cold terror, was a drama in itself. Manacled to misery, he took a perverse pleasure in rattling his chains.

When he finally fought his way to a side-door, he let himself into the inn. Marwood was scuttling along a narrow passageway when he saw a familiar figure coming down a private staircase that led to the lower gallery. The landlord pounced on Nicholas Bracewell and sank skinny fingers into his arm.

‘The end is in sight!’ he moaned.

‘Yes,’ agreed Nicholas. ‘The spectators have all but dispersed and they have done so in a happy mood. Your servingmen have made you a tidy profit, Master Marwood.’

‘That is small consolation.’

‘A full yard. The numbers ought to please you.’

‘They strike at my heart.’

‘Westfield’s Men continue to bring custom to the Queen’s Head. Can you not find at least a crumb of comfort in that?’

‘No,’ said Marwood, releasing his arm to bring both hands up in a gesture of despair. ‘Because it will not last. My yard may be packed today. Tomorrow or the day after, it may as easily be deserted.’

‘Not while Westfield’s Men offer their plays.’

‘And how much longer will that be?’

‘As long as we keep our reputation in good repair.’

‘The law will not permit it, Master Bracewell.’

‘What law?’

Marwood seized on his cue. ‘While you performed here, I watched another tragedy unfolding. While you rejoiced in the numbers of spectators, I quailed before numbers of a different order. Do you know where I have been, sir?’

‘Tell me,’ encouraged Nicholas.

‘To Clerkenwell. To visit a sick aunt of mine. Word came that she was grievously ill and like to die. I thought that old age had at last caught up with her and went to pay my last respects.’ The memory activated two more nervous twitches on his face. ‘Do you know what I found?’

‘The lady was already dead?’

‘Her house was boarded up.’

Nicholas blenched. ‘Another plague victim?’

‘One of three in the same street,’ wailed Marwood. ‘I ran away on the instant lest I should contract the disease myself. It is closing in on us again. When plague victims reach the required number, the edict will be signed. All theatres, bear-baiting arenas and other places of public assembly will be closed down so that the infection will not spread.’ He snatched off his hat and beat his thigh with it. ‘I will be ruined, Master Bracewell. No plays, no profit. This plague will sever the Queen’s Head like an executioner’s axe.’ He bared his blackened teeth in a fearsome grin. ‘You are looking at a corpse.’

Nicholas was at once alarmed and relieved, dismayed at the news but grateful that he had intercepted Marwood before the landlord could rush into the taproom to blurt out his doom-laden intelligence. Plague was an ever-present menace for the London theatre companies, and it had more than once swept Westfield’s Men from their stage and sent them touring the provinces in search of an audience. Nicholas was only too aware of the latest outbreak, but he did not realise that it was already reaching such proportions. Summer lay ahead and the warmer weather would only exacerbate the problem.

There was genuine cause for concern, but Nicholas would at least be able to pass on the warning to his colleagues in a calm and reasonable way. Alexander Marwood would only scatter panic and despondency among them. They needed to be spared that. The book-holder took the trembling landlord by his bony shoulders.

‘Say nothing of this to my fellows,’ he insisted.

‘But they have a right to know that they will soon be flung into abject poverty.’

‘That is a possibility they live with every day. This profession has enough hazards without your adding another prematurely. Besides, it will not advantage your purse.’

Marwood started. ‘My purse?’

‘Yes,’ continued Nicholas. ‘Charge in there to publish your tidings and you will empty the taproom at once. Is that your intention? To deprive yourself of custom before such a circumstance is forced upon you? Your good lady would not approve of that.’

Seized by a paroxysm of fear, Marwood twisted out of his grasp. Nicholas reinforced his argument.

‘Make hay while the sun shines,’ he urged. ‘Do not wish black clouds upon us before they are ready to come. While our plays are still free of any plague edict, do all you can to entice more people into your yard and your taproom. What you take from them now will serve to see you through leaner times ahead. Exploit the goodwill of your customers. Nurture them.’

Marwood pondered. ‘This is wise counsel,’ he said at length. ‘But my wife must be told the truth.’

‘Save it for the privacy of the bedchamber.’

‘That has already been afflicted with the plague,’ said the landlord under his breath. He spoke aloud. ‘I’ll break the news to my wife but school her to keep it close for the few days that may remain to us. Master Firethorn must also hear this dire intelligence. I’ll to him straight.’

‘That will be my office,’ said Nicholas firmly. ‘I am on my way to him even now. Leave Master Firethorn to me and simply convey your message to your good lady.’

The prospect made Marwood emit a mad laugh before he went trotting off down the corridor. Having come from an aged aunt whose house had been boarded up, he was now going to a flinty wife whose heart, mind and body had been shut tight against him for many a long year. His marriage was murder by slow degrees.

Nicholas faced a less daunting interview, but it was one that he was dreading. He now had a double blow to deliver.

***

Lawrence Firethorn paced the room restlessly, ducking under its central oak beam every time he passed it. Having divested himself of his armour and helmet, he had left his sword with George Dart so that the pig’s blood could be washed from its blade. A few minutes before, a mirror had enabled the actor to comb out his beard and adjust his apparel to best effect. He then adjourned to the private room and awaited the visitation of an angel from a foreign land.

A tap on the door made him strike a dramatic pose.

‘Enter!’ he cooed in his most mellifluous tone.

The door opened and he bowed submissively low to greet the newcomer, reaching out to take her hand in order to bestow a kiss upon it. When he found himself staring at the broad fingers of Nicholas Bracewell, he jumped back with such a start that he banged his head on the low beam.

‘Where is she, Nick?’ he howled.

‘I will come to that in a moment,’ said Nicholas, closing the door behind him. ‘First, there’s more important news.’

‘Nothing is more important than her. And me. And us!’

‘I met with the landlord on my way back to you.’

‘That ghoul?’

‘He brings sad tidings.’

‘When did the vile rogue bring anything else?’ snarled Firethorn. ‘Away with that leprous knave! I’ll have none of him. Why talk of a cadaver like Marwood when I wish to hear about my beloved?’

‘There are other cadavers to make us pause.’

‘What say you?’

Nicholas was brisk. ‘Our landlord visited a sick aunt in Clerkenwell and found her dying of the plague. The third victim in her street. In diverse parts of the city, there have been several more. The numbers climb towards an edict.’

‘Close the theatres! That is sacrilege.’

‘It is a sound precautionary measure.’

‘Where is the soundness in throwing us out on the streets to beg? I’ll not be silenced, Nick. I’ll not have my company smothered to death by process of law! Lord Westfield will intercede on our behalf.’

‘Even his intercession will not preserve us.’

‘A plague on this plague!’ roared Firethorn, pounding the oak table with his fist. ‘Has it not already taken sufficient toll of us? It has hounded us out of London before. And I have not forgotten the time when it lay in wait to expel us from Oxford. They actually paid us not to play. It was insulting!’

‘I took it as an act of consideration.’

‘They must not close the Queen’s Head to us again. It is robbery with malice. Stealing our audience from us by official edict and leaving us without any means of support.’

‘Pray God it may not come to that!’ sighed Nicholas.

‘But you sense a likelihood?’

‘I have been concerned for some weeks. We have had some isolated plague deaths in Southwark, but they may well be but precursors of a wider epidemic. Marwood saw the evidence with his own eyes in Clerkenwell. Other wards are also hearing the rattle of the death cart in their streets.’

Firethorn was dejected. ‘Is there no hope for us, Nick?’

‘A little. A little. The plague has abated before when it seemed set to tighten its hold. But we cannot rely on that happening again. My advice is this: Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.’

Firethorn slumped onto the stool and looked into a bleak future. Touring the towns and cities of England was a laborious and often thankless business. It would take him away from his wife and children for an extended length of time. It would also deprive him of the joy of lording it on the stage at the Queen’s Head, where he could woo and win some of the most gorgeous women in the capital. That thought made him leap to his feet again.

‘What of her, Nick?’ he demanded. ‘Give me some medicine to ward off this disease. If I am to lose my occupation, at least let me taste one of its sweetest joys first. Why did you not bring her to me, as I requested?’

‘That was not possible, I fear.’

‘Did you not speak to her?’

‘Alas, no.’

‘Not even through an interpreter?’

‘By the time I reached our patron, his guest had departed.’

‘Then why did you not fly after her?’ cried Firethorn. ‘Why did you not overtake the lady and urge my suit? I won her heart. She would have come to me post-haste.’

‘I was too late,’ said Nicholas. ‘A coach was waiting to take her to London Bridge, where she is boarding a boat that will take her to Deptford. The young lady will sail from there on the evening tide. She is returning home.’

Firethorn was aghast. ‘Home? She has spurned the chance of being alone with me in order to go home? This news is worse than the plague and it infects me with rage. She went home?’

‘The young lady had no choice in the matter. Her passage was booked. Her great-uncle expects her.’

‘What great-uncle?’ growled the other. ‘Some fat fool in Brandenburg? Some leering Bavarian oaf? Some cross-eyed count in Austria? Who is this great-uncle that she must reject me to speed back to his side?’

‘Rudolph the Second, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia.’

Firethorn’s jaw dropped in amazement and his hands spread in disbelief. Nicholas had to suppress a smile at his reaction. It was a full minute before the actor could speak.

‘Did you discover her name?’

‘I did. She is called Sophia Magdalena.

‘Sophia! Sophia!’ repeated the other, rolling the name around in his mouth to savour it. ‘Yes, it had to be Sophia. I should have guessed. She was every marvellous inch a Sophia.’ He gave a philosophical smile. ‘You were right as ever, Nick. A foreign beauty who did not understand our tongue. Related to an Emperor, no less. That accounts for her noble bearing.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Sophia! So that is the name of the fair maid who caused such commotion among us today. Can we be surprised? She is a paragon. She is Nature’s most sublime piece of work. A true Saint Sophia.’

‘Yes,’ added Nicholas. ‘The fair maid of Bohemia.’