The Silent Woman

Chapter Five

Lawrence Firethorn’s wrath did not abate during the night. He awoke at cock-crow, caught sight of his defiled capcase and lusted for blood. George Dart was the first to feel the impact of his employer’s ire. Hauled from his bed and beaten soundly, Dart was ordered to get the rest of the company up before doing a dozen other chores, which would deprive him of all hope of breakfast. As fresh targets came down into the taproom at the Fighting Cocks, the actor-manager aimed abuse and accusation at them. Barnaby Gill was roundly mocked, Edmund Hoode was berated, Owen Elias was threatened, Richard Honeydew was criticised for his performance as Cariola on the previous night, John Tallis was treated to a withering analysis of his character defects and other members of the company came off far worse. In his general animosity, Firethorn even had stern words for Nicholas Bracewell. It was disconcerting.

Westfield’s Men were even more disturbed when they heard about the loss of their money. The success of their first night on the road had been illusory. They now saw only rank failure and it was less than reassuring to be told that they had been the latest prey of a daring criminal. Everyone had heard of the man who outwitted them.

‘Israel Gunby!’

‘The master thief of the highway.’

‘The most pernicious villain alive.’

‘He would rob you of the clothes you stand up in.’

‘’Tis a wonder we were not murdered in our beds.’

‘Israel Gunby is a monster.’

‘A sorcerer.’

‘A fiend of hell.’

‘They say that Gunby once stole fifty sheep from a Warwickshire farmer then sold them back to the poor fool at market for three times the price.’

‘Another time, he robbed a small party of travellers in a wood near Saffron Walden and rode off with their belongings. Not knowing that the rogue had placed an accomplice among them, they fell to boasting how clever they had been in giving the highwaymen the dross in their purses while holding back their real valuables, which they kept hidden about their persons. When Gunby robbed them again but two miles down the road, he was able to take everything he missed the first time.’

‘I heard that he took their horses and boots as well.’

‘Israel Gunby would steal anything!’

‘The hair off your head.’

‘Off your arse.’

‘And your balls.’

‘He’d rob Christ of his cross on the road to Calvary.’

‘Add one more tale,’ said Gill wickedly. ‘Of how Israel Gunby dangled his whore in front of a great actor until his pizzle was giving off steam. She invited this idiot to share her bed for the night and while he was gone, she and Gunby broke into his chamber and took everything they could lay their thieving hands on. The great actor then-’

‘No more!’ decreed the great actor with stentorian force. ‘I do not wish to hear the name of Israel Gunby ever again — unless it be linked with the date of his execution. I would ride halfway across England to see that foul rogue hanged by the neck. Until then, gentlemen, until then, Israel me no Israels and — if you value your lives — Gunby me no Gunbies.’

Lawrence Firethorn enforced his edict by glaring in turn at each man then he gave the signal to leave. He was keen to get away from the scene of his disgrace as soon as he could. With their leader at the head of the column, they set off from the Fighting Cocks on the road to Oxford, hoping that it might offer a fairer return for their labours. The exhilaration of the previous day had been replaced by a nagging pessimism. It was almost as if they had packed Alexander Marwood into the waggon with the rest of the luggage.

Nicholas Bracewell was glad to leave the inn but not before he had questioned the landlord and his ostlers. None of them could shed any light on the mystery attacker in the stables. After Westfield’s Men arrived, no other traveller sought a bed for the night at the same hostelry. This meant that the man was either already there when they reached the Fighting Cocks or he had come along later and bided his time in the darkness until his chance came. Nicholas settled for the latter explanation. The would-be killer could not have been certain that they would choose that particular inn as their resting place. It was much more likely that he had trailed them from London, watched through a window and waited for the moment to pounce. Nicholas soon came round to the view that he was jumped on by the same man who had poisoned the girl. That gave him two scores to settle. He was riding the same horse that had carried the girl to her death, and he was determined it would not lose another passenger until it reached home in Barnstaple. Nicholas was therefore extremely wary as they moved along, scanning the horizon on all sides of them and exercising caution whenever the road took them beneath overhanging trees.

It was an hour before he accepted that he was safe in the bosom of the company. The man would not strike at him there. Nicholas was still a long way from Devon and there would be ample opportunities for a surprise attack on him during the journey. Lawrence Firethorn and the others were still inwardly cursing Israel Gunby and his two associates, but at least they had been visible rogues. The man who tried to strangle Nicholas had been a phantom, a creature of the night who was a natural predator. Nicholas knew his strength and could guess at his height from the feel of his body. A beard had brushed his head in the struggle. Beyond that, he had no information whatsoever about the man except that he brought a remorseless commitment to his work. He was not a person to abandon a task he had been set. The only way that Nicholas Bracewell could save his own life was by taking that of his assassin first.

‘Not arsenic, I think, for that bears no taste in acid form. And we have evidence that the deceased found the ale very bitter to the tongue.’ His sigh had a distant admiration in it. ‘The means of death was very cunning. The girl had never drunk ale before and would not recognise its taste. She must have thought it was always as sharp as that.’

‘So what was put into her ale?’

‘I could not say unless they held a post mortem and even then we might not be certain. There are so many poisons that will serve the purpose and she was given a lethal dose of one, no doubting that. She must have been strong and healthy to hold out against it for so long.’

Anne Hendrik was still brooding on the death of her visitor and its sad consequences. That morning, in search of elucidation, she called on the surgeon who had been summoned to her house when the girl’s condition had given alarm. He was a small, fussy, self-important man in his fifties with a grey beard that curled up like a miniature wave and bushy eyebrows of similar hue. He treated Anne with the polite pomposity of someone in possession of an arcane knowledge that can never be shared with those of lesser intelligence.

She tried to probe the mystery of his calling.

‘Can you tell me nothing else about her?’ she said.

‘I examined her for barely two minutes.’

‘Nicholas thought he smelt sulphur on her lips.’

‘Master Bracewell is no physician,’ he retorted with a supercilious smile. ‘Do not rely on his nostrils to give us a diagnosis here.’

‘He mentioned hemlock and juice of aconite …’

Sarcasm emerged. ‘Then you should apply to him for counsel and not to me. Clearly, he can teach us all in these matters. I had not thought some minion of the theatre would one day instruct me in my profession.’

‘He simply offered an opinion.’

‘Do not foist his ignorance upon me.’

‘Nicholas has seen victims of poison before.’

‘I see them every week of my life, Mistress Hendrik,’ said the outraged surgeon. ‘Husbands poisoned by wives and wives by husbands. Brothers killing each other off with ratsbane to collect an inheritance. Enemies trying to win an argument with monkshood or belladonna. I have watched arsenic do its silent mischief a hundred times, and I could name you a dozen other potions that scald a stomach and rot the life out of a human being.’ He looked aggrieved. ‘And will you tell me that Master Nicholas Bracewell is a worthier man than I to discuss these matters?’

‘Of course not, of course not …’

Anne had to spend two minutes calming him down and a further three apologising before she could get anything like guidance out of him. Surgeons were jealous of the high regard in which doctors and physicians were held, and it made them acutely conscious of occupying a more lowly station in the world of medicine. This member of the fraternity was especially prone to stand on his dignity. Only when his ruffled feathers had been smoothed did he consent to offer his informed opinion.

‘I look for three things in a corpse,’ he said briskly.

‘What are they, sir?’

‘Colour, position, odour. They are my spies.’ He plucked at his beard. ‘Her complexion told me much and her grotesque position indicated the agony of her death. The odour was faint but I could detect the aroma of poison.’

‘What did it contain?’ she pressed.

‘Who knows, mistress? Some deadly concoction of water hemlock, sweet flag, cinquefoil and monkshood, perhaps. I could not be sure. White mercury, even.’ He flicked a hand as he made a concession. ‘And there might — I put it no higher than that — there might have been the tiniest whiff of sulphur. Red and yellow sulphur, mixed together with the right ingredients, could leave that tortured look upon her face.’

‘How would it have been administered?’

‘In the form of a powder or a potion.’ He put the tips of his fingers together as he pondered. ‘It must have been a potion,’ he decided. ‘Powder would not have dissolved fast enough in the ale. It would have stayed on the surface too long. My guess is that the guilty man carried the poison in a little earthenware pot that was closely corked. A second was all he would need to empty his vile liquid into the girl’s drink.’ He signalled the end of the conversation by opening the door for her to leave. ‘That is all I may tell you, mistress. I bid you good day.’

‘One last question …’

‘I have other patients to visit and they still live.’

‘Where would such a poison be bought?’

‘Not from any honest apothecary.’

‘It was obtained from somewhere in London.’

‘Apply to Master Bracewell,’ he said waspishly. ‘He is the fount of all human wisdom on this subject. Goodbye.’

Anne Hendrik found herself back out in the street with only half an answer, but she had learnt enough to encourage her to continue her line of enquiry. She went straight off to seek an interview with the coroner who had taken statements from them when the unnatural death was reported. It was a typically busy morning for him and she had a long wait before he could spare her a few minutes of his time. When she identified herself, he opened his ledger to look up the details of the case in question. The coroner was a distinguished figure in his robes of office but a lifelong proximity to death had left its marks upon him. Slow and deliberate, he had a real compassion for the people whose corpses flowed before him as unceasingly as the Thames. Anne Hendrik’s request was both puzzling and surprising.

‘A post mortem?’ he said.

‘To establish the cause of death.’

‘We have already done that.’

‘Can you name the poison that killed her?’

‘No,’ he confessed. ‘Nor can I show you the dagger that murdered this man or the sword that cut down that one. Death scrawls its signature across this city every hour of the day. We cannot have a post mortem each time in order to decipher its handwriting.’

‘If it is a question of money …’

‘I do not have men enough for the task.’

‘This girl died in my house. I am involved.’

‘Then you should have attended her funeral, mistress.’

Anne gaped. ‘Funeral?’

‘The girl was buried earlier this morning.’

‘Where? How? By whose authority?’

‘Master Bracewell gave order for it.’

‘But he did not know the young woman.’

The coroner gave a wan smile. ‘He cared enough to pay for a proper burial. The poor creature was not just tossed into a hole in the ground with nobody to mourn her, like so many unknown persons. Master Bracewell is a true Christian and considerate to a fault. Because he could not be present himself, he arranged for a friend to take his place and pray for her soul.’

‘A friend? Do you know the name?’

‘He did not give it, mistress.’

‘Was it a man or a woman?’

‘A man.’

‘A member of the company who was left behind?’

‘All I remember is the name of an inn.’

‘The Queen’s Head in Gracechurch Street?’

‘Yes, that was it. This friend worked there.’

Anne Hendrik had an answer. It was not the one she either expected or wanted but it pointed her in a direction that might yield a fuller reply. An upsurge of emotion warmed her. The body may have been buried but Anne’s love for Nicholas Bracewell had come back emphatically to life. He had shown kindness and concern for the murdered girl. In paying for her funeral — he earned only eight shillings a week from Westfield’s Men — he was making a real financial sacrifice. There was another factor that weighed heavily with Anne. The coroner spoke of Nicholas with the respect he would only accord to a gentleman. The surgeon made slighting remarks about Nicholas and dismissed him out of hand, but the coroner, an older and more perceptive judge of character, took the book holder at his true value. That pleased her.

She asked where the funeral had taken place, thanked the coroner profusely for his help then went off to pay her last respects to the dead girl.

Bright sunshine and beautiful landscapes were completely wasted on Westfield’s Men. Lawrence Firethorn was forcing such a pace upon them and spreading such an atmosphere of gloom that they had no chance to enjoy any of the pleasures of travel. Actors were contentious individuals at the best of times and they now began to bicker in earnest. Nicholas Bracewell expended much of his energy intervening in quarrels with good-humoured firmness and trying to lift the company out of its Marwoodian mood of triumphant unhappiness. It was a very long and punishing journey to Oxford.

Barnaby Gill was at the forefront of the cavalcade and the carping. He heaped ridicule on Firethorn for being tricked so easily out of the money they had won with their extempore performance at the Fighting Cocks, and he insisted that he should take charge of any income in future, since he would never be enticed away from it by a devious woman. The actor-manager endured the vicious criticism for as long as he could then launched a counter-attack. Both men lapsed back into a sullen restraint. It was another five miles before Gill felt able to speak again.

‘The Queen has visited Oxford on two occasions,’ he said knowledgeably. ‘The first time was long ago and the second but last year.’

‘What care I for Her Majesty’s perambulations?’ said Firethorn grumpily. ‘They have no bearing on us.’

‘But they do, Lawrence. Oxford is a university town and it was university theatre that they thrust upon her. True players were passed over for callow undergraduates.’ He pulled his horse in close to that of his colleague. ‘Will you hear more of this?’

‘Do I have any choice?’ moaned the other.

‘Let me begin …’

Barnaby Gill was not just an outstanding actor with comic flair, he was also the self-appointed archivist of Westfield’s Men and of the wider world of theatre. His mind was an encyclopaedia of plays and players, and he could call up with astonishing clarity every performance in which he had ever appeared. Other companies were not ignored and he could list the entire repertoires of troupes such as the Queen’s Men, Worcester’s Men, Pembroke’s Men, the Chamberlain’s Men, Strange’s Men, now amalgamated with Admiral’s Men, having already merged with Leicester’s Men on the death of the latter’s patron in Armada year, and — since they were the major thorn in the flesh of his own company — he knew every detail of the work of Banbury’s Men. For other reasons, Gill also kept abreast of the activity of the boy players attached to the choir schools of St Paul’s and the Chapel Royal at Windsor, as well as at such schools as Merchant Taylors’. If a play had been staged during his extensive lifetime, he knew when, where and by whom.

‘Our dear Queen,’ he said with reverential familiarity, ‘first visited Oxford in the year of our lord 1566 and lodged at Christ Church. It was there she witnessed a performance of Palamon and Arcyte.’

‘I have played in such a piece,’ boasted Firethorn.

‘That was by another hand, Lawrence. It is an old tale and told by many a playwright. At Oxford, it was the work of Richard Edwardes that the Queen witnessed in Christ Church Hall.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Unhappily, that is not all Her Majesty saw on that fateful night.’

‘What else, Barnaby?’

‘Tragedy, misfortune, chaos!’

‘You must have been a member of the cast.’

‘I was not in the play!’ returned Gill. ‘Nor yet of an age when drama had claimed me for its own. To return to my story about the Queen … Her courtiers occupied balconies that had been built onto a wall and she herself sat in a canopied chair on a platform with scenic decoration around it. Now we come to the disaster-’

‘Enter Barnaby Gill!’

‘Enter a large crowd from university and town. They came in with such force that they breached a wall protecting a staircase and brought it down upon them. Three persons were killed and five injured. The Queen was mightily upset.’

‘Had she hoped for more slaughter than that?’

‘She sent her own surgeons to attend to the injured.’

‘What of Palamon?’

‘It was well played, by all accounts, and made the Queen laugh heartily. She was very pleased with the author and gave him thanks for his pains.’

‘Actors create plays,’ boomed Firethorn, ‘not authors!’

‘Give a poet his due.’

‘Keep the scribbling rascals in their place.’

‘This Richard Edwardes had left the university to become Master of the Children of the Chapel, but he returned to present the first part of his play. The Queen was also favoured with the second part of Palamon days later, when no mishap occurred.’ He wagged an admonitory finger. ‘You have heard a cautionary tale, Lawrence.’

‘I marked its warning.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘Do not invite the Queen to our plays.’

‘Beware of wild behaviour. Control our spectators.’

‘My performance will keep them in strict order.’

‘Yes, they will fall asleep together.’

‘I can captivate any audience.’

Gill sniggered. ‘As you did at the Fighting Cocks, named after you and your fat rival.’

Firethorn turned to strike him but the mocking clown had already pulled on the reins of his horse and sent it trotting to the rear of the party. While the actor-manager fumed alone, his colleague struck up a conversation with the apprentices, who lolled on the waggon. Richard Honeydew had an enquiring mind and a natural respect for his elders.

‘Have you been to Oxford before, Master Gill?’ he said.

‘I have been everywhere, Dicky.’

‘What manner of place is it?’

‘A comely town, set in lovely countryside, and bounded by a wall. It has fine colleges, large churches and excellent hostelries. Let us hope it will be kind to Westfield’s Men.’

‘They say that Cambridge is prettier.’

‘What do you know of prettiness?’ asked Gill with a twinkle in his eye. A shrewd glance from Owen Elias in the driver’s seat made the horseman amend his tone. ‘Cambridge? No, boy. It does not hold a candle to Oxford. If you have a mind to listen, I’ll tell you why …’

Nicholas Bracewell was close enough to overhear the exchange between the two of them but he was not worried. Owen Elias was protection enough for the apprentices. Gill’s proclivities were well known and largely tolerated in the company, but there was an unwritten rule that its own boys would remain untouched. Whenever damson lips or an alabaster cheek or a graceful neck made Barnaby Gill forget this rule for a second, Nicholas was usually on hand to remind him of it. The older boys knew enough to take care of themselves when the comedian was around, but Richard Honeydew still had the unsuspecting innocence of a cherub. Nicholas would ensure that it was not taken rudely away from him.

‘That is the curious thing, Nick,’ said Edmund Hoode.

‘Curious?’

‘My sonnets, my verse, my inspiration.’

‘What of them?’

‘Stale.’

‘How so?’

‘Because she loved me.’

‘You make no sense, Edmund.’

‘Success was my very failure!’

Hoode was riding beside Nicholas and drifting off into a reverie from time to time. He emerged from the latest one with an insight that profoundly altered his attitude to his poetry. When he fell madly and inappropriately in love with some goddess, he was moved to pour out his feelings in honeyed sonnets and sublime verse. Indeed, the more unapproachable his beloved, the sweeter his lyrical vein. Only out of true suffering did his art achieve purity. Jane Diamond had mesmerised him at first then responded to his wooing with becoming eagerness. Hoode wrote poem after poem for her, hoping to construct a staircase of words so that he could ascend to her chamber and take the reward of a lover. When he recalled those verses now — line by embarrassing line — he saw that they were flat, mawkish and totally unworthy of their object. His staircase of words had led him down into a creative cellar. The divine Jane Diamond may have sharpened his self-esteem but she had blunted his talent beyond recognition.

The lovelorn author showed the first sign of recovery.

‘Her husband was a guardian angel in disguise,’ he said buoyantly. ‘In pulling me from the arms of his wife, he gave me back my invention. I am Edmund Hoode once more.’

‘We are glad to see you returned.’

‘If her husband were here, I would thank him.’

Nicholas looked ahead at Lawrence Firethorn but said nothing. The angel in disguise had been a ruthless actor-manager reclaiming a wayward playwright for a tour, but that was a truth that must not be allowed to rock the fragile vessel of Edmund Hoode’s fantasy. He was home again with his fellows and that was paramount. Nicholas prodded him about his recent tardiness.

‘How stands The Merchant of Calais?’ he asked.

‘Indifferently.’

‘It was promised for the start of the month.’

‘I’ll begin work on it again tomorrow.’

‘Why not today?’

‘Why not, indeed?’ decided Hoode, shedding his torpor as if it were a cloak. ‘You will help me, Nick. What man better? You come from merchant stock in Devon and you have been to Calais many a time. Tell me about Merchants of the Staple.’

It was a disagreeable topic for Nicholas — especially in present circumstances — and he chose his words with care. Before he could frame them into sentences, however, he was interrupted by the now soulful Edmund Hoode. Melancholy was returning.

‘Teach me the way, Nick. I’ll be an apt pupil.’

‘What is my subject to be?’

‘Happiness in love.’

‘Find another tutor.’

‘You are the example that I choose,’ said Hoode. ‘Since we have been friends, I have loved and lost a score at least of beautiful ladies who snatched my heart from my body and roasted it slowly before my eyes. And you? But one woman in all that time.’

Nicholas was evasive. ‘My case is different.’

‘That is why I pattern myself on you.’

‘Continue on your own course, Edmund.’

‘To further torture? You and Anne fill me with envy.’

‘Appearances can deceive.’

‘No, Nick,’ said his friend, ‘you two are made of the same mettle. I never saw a more contented couple — unless it be Lawrence and Margery when tearing small pieces out of each other! Mistress Anne Hendrik is a remarkable woman.’

‘She is, Edmund,’ confessed the other freely.

‘In your place, I would marry her and retire from this infernal profession. What else does a man need?’

It was a question that Nicholas had been compelled to address in the last couple of days. Losing Anne from his life had left a hollowness that was indescribable. Marriage had never been a serious option before, but it suddenly had an appeal he would not have believed possible. The theatre brought many joys but it was a precarious and abrasive living. With Anne beside him as his wife, he would find a more suitable and worthwhile employment. Given a chance of lasting happiness, why indeed did he stay with Westfield’s Men?

One look around the company gave him his answer and rubbed the tempting picture of Anne Bracewell out of his mind. Let her remain as the widow of a Dutchman. His place was here among his fellows, sharing their deprivations and revelling in their moments of glory. There was a play to complete and he must not let personal considerations hinder that. He smiled at Hoode and talked of someone he had not dared to think about for several years.

‘My father was a Merchant of the Staple,’ he said.

Oxford was infinitely smaller than London yet it came to assume a size and importance to the refugees from the capital that was out of all proportion to its true dimensions. It was their coveted destination, a haven of rest after an exhausting journey, a place to eat, drink and wench, to act on a stage in front of a proper audience, to feel once again the unique thrill of performance, to forget the horrors of the fire at the Queen’s Head and the hideous cost of their brief stay at the Fighting Cocks. The whole tone of the tour would be set at Oxford, and they were eager to get there in order to lift their spirits and regain their sense of identity.

Each man and boy in the company had his own vision of what the town would deliver. Lawrence Firethorn wanted to make its ancient walls shake in wonder at the brilliance of his art and reverberate with applause for a whole week. He also hoped that Oxford would harbour his persecutor, Israel Gunby, counterfeit father and cunning thief, so that Firethorn could hunt him down, dismember him with his bare hands then slice his miserable body into a hundred strips before feeding him to the stray dogs. Owen Elias had a humbler ambition. Though anything but an academic, he wanted to look at Jesus College, which had been founded over twenty years ago by a fellow Welshman, Dr Hugh Price, to instil a Celtic note into the voice of the university. Standing in the middle of the quadrangle, Elias would then declaim his favourite soliloquy, which he had translated into his native language for the occasion. Richard Honeydew, afloat on high expectation, saw a place that was dedicated to beauty and truth. John Tallis, with more immediate needs, thought only of Oxford food, Martin Yeo was drooling at the prospect of a surreptitious swig of Oxford ale and Stephen Judd, the oldest of the apprentices, now contending with a rising interest in the female sex he was paid to imitate, was dreaming of compliant young women with a sense of adventure. George Dart saw Oxford as a soft bed in which he could sleep out eternity.

Alone of the company, Edmund Hoode viewed the town as a noble seat of learning with an international reputation. He himself had been well taught at Westminster School by no less a tutor than Camden, but his formal education had stopped short of university and left him with the feeling that he had missed out on a vital stage of his intellectual and spiritual development. Most of his rival playwrights hailed from Oxford or Cambridge, while others had prospered at the alternative university of the Inns of Court in London. Though he read avidly and learnt quickly, there were still huge chasms in his knowledge and he was therefore planning — literally — to rub shoulders with the collegiate buildings in the hope that some of their learning would stick to him. Westfield’s Men were there to perform a play but he was repairing the deficiencies in his education.

Nicholas Bracewell experienced trepidation. Oxford took him nearer to a life he had relinquished and farther away from a woman he loved. It also held the possibility of a second attack from the man who had tried to kill him. There was safety in numbers, but he could not expect the company to form a cordon around him throughout their entire stay in the town. When Nicholas was alone, unguarded or asleep, he would be an inviting target for a man who could wait in the dark with catlike patience before leaping on his prey. Having failed with his knotted cord, he would next time choose a swifter means of dispatching his victim. Nicholas had to be ready for the flash of cold steel. He had a problem. In the hurly-burly of setting up the stage, marshalling the company and controlling the performance, he would be constantly distracted. Other eyes were needed to watch his back. He acquainted Edmund Hoode and Owen Elias with his plight and swore both to secrecy. When the former was not trailing his doublet against collegiate stone and the latter was not bouncing his Welsh cadences off the quadrangle at Jesus, they would be welcome sentries for a beleaguered friend.

Barnaby Gill was the real surprise. Renowned for his impish humour onstage, he was equally renowned for his morose behaviour off it, yet he was so excited when they came within sight of the town that he rode up and down the column to cheer on his colleagues and assure them that Oxford would redeem the miseries they had so far encountered. He was offering the leadership that Firethorn normally provided. His ebullience was due in part to the choice of a cherished play for the Oxford audience and in part to the fact that he knew of a tavern where he could get the sort of congenial company for the night that was difficult to find outside his London haunts. In addition to all this, Oxford gave him the opportunity to display his theatrical lore.

He drew his horse in beside Lawrence Firethorn again.

‘When the Queen came here last year-’

‘Spare me, Barnaby!’

‘She saw two comedies presented by university actors in Latin. They were meanly performed yet Her Majesty listened graciously throughout. She enjoyed them enough to invite the actors to stage their work at Court, but as their repertoire was imprisoned in the cage of a dead language, they did not oblige. The Court is too stupid to understand Latin.’

‘Is this another cautionary tale?’ said Firethorn.

‘I simply enlighten you about academic drama.’

‘It is a contradiction in terms. Too much learning silts up the drama, and too much drama destroys the supremacy of the mind.’ Jealousy rippled. ‘Besides, what can prattling, pox-faced, pigeon-chested students know about the art of acting? We have no competition here.’

‘That is my point, Lawrence.’

‘They will have seen no talent of my magnitude.’

‘Except when I last played here.’

‘Stand aside and let true greatness take the stage.’

‘I couple my first warning with another. Look for envy and suspicion from the scholars. We will meet opposition here. They hate strolling players and treat them as no more than vagabonds.’

‘Lawrence Firethorn will mend their ways.’

‘Ignore the gown and entertain the town.’

‘I want every man, woman and puking student there!’

‘The undergraduates will be on holiday.’

‘Fetch them back! Or they will miss an event as rare and memorable as an eclipse of the sun.’

‘Memorable, I grant you,’ said Gill, ‘but hardly rare. I eclipse your sun every time I pass in front of you onstage.’

They fell into a companionable argument until the town in the distance took on size and definition. An anticipatory buzz ran through the troupe. Relief was finally at hand. Wood and water gave Oxford a superb setting. Meadow, corn and hill added to its picturesque charm. Some towns were an imposition on the landscape, an ugly mass of houses, inns and civic buildings hurled by an undiscriminating hand onto the countryside to subdue the souls of those who lived there and offend the gaze of those who passed by. Oxford, by contrast, seemed to grow out of the earth like a stately mushroom, enhancing the quality of its environment while drawing immense value from it in return. Town and country sang in harmony and this impressed visitors from a capital city whose thrusting boundaries more often than not produced loud discord at its outer limits.

It was late afternoon and the sun had dipped low enough to brush the towers and steeples with a glancing brilliance. As they approached Pettypont, the fortified stone bridge over the River Cherwell, they marvelled at the Norman ingenuity that had constructed the crossing point. Christ Church Meadows stretched out expansively on their left but it was the looming tower of Magdalen College on their right that commanded attention. Directly ahead was the town wall with a cluster of buildings peering over at them with friendly condescension. Eastgate was a yawning portal that beckoned them on and gave Lawrence Firethorn a cue for a speech.

‘Enter, my friends!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where sieges have failed, we will conquer. Where university actors have bored in Latin, we will delight with the Queen’s English. Where religion has burnt men at the stake, we will be kinder parsons to our flock. Where learning flourishes, we will teach unparalleled lessons. Where drama is respected, we will give it new and awesome significance.’ His rhetoric took him through the gate and into High Street. ‘On, on, my lads! Buttress your backs and hold up your chins. Let the people of Oxford know we are here among them. Westfield’s Men arrive in triumph. We are no skulking players or roaming vagabonds. The finest actors in the world have come to this town and we must make it feel truly grateful. Smile, smile! Wave, wave! Make friends with all and sundry. Brighten their squalid existences. We wage a war of happiness!’

The brave words resuscitated the travellers and carried them up High Street in a mood of elation. The low buildings of St Edmund’s Hall were on their right, followed by the ancient Gothic front of Queen’s College. Almost directly opposite was the University College, reputedly the oldest foundation, and the heads which measured its imposing façade now switched back to the other side of the street to view the quieter majesty of All Souls. That pleasure was soon superseded by another as the imperious Parish Church of St Mary rose up to dwarf all the surrounding buildings and to spear the sky with perpendicular accuracy. Brasenose came next with Oriel College off to the left, fronted by a green that was speckled with trees. Beyond this open space and the scattered buildings around Peckwater’s Inn was the largest college of them all, Christ Church, first called Cardinal College when it was begun in 1525 by Cardinal Wolsey and now reaching out with easy magnificence even beyond the scope of its founder’s grandiose plans. Though still unfinished, it had an air of completeness and permanence, an architectural landmark against which all future collegiate building would take direction.

Barnaby Gill relished his role as the official guide.

‘Merton College is to the left, next to Corpus Christi, which stands by that woodyard. Back on this side, you can see Lincoln, then Exeter with Jesus College facing them across Turl Street.’ He flapped a wrist. ‘I can never tell whether Oxford is a town in which a university has taken root, or a university around which a town has somehow grown up, for the two are so closely entwined that it is impossible to see where the one begins and the other ends.’

It was a problem that did not afflict those who dwelt in Oxford, where the distinction between town and gown was so marked that the two halves were set irreconcilably against each other. The simmering hostility occasionally spilt over into violence and even into full-scale riot, but there was no sign of either now. A depressing uniformity had settled on the town and made the shuffling scholars merge peacefully with their counterparts among the townspeople. Nicholas Bracewell noted the same look on every face they passed. Players had often visited Oxford but the appearance of a celebrated London troupe should have elicited more than the dull curiosity it was now provoking. Lawrence Firethorn rode at the head of the company as if leading an invading army, but even his martial presence did not arouse interest. Nicholas leant across to Edmund Hoode.

‘Something is amiss,’ he said.

‘Other players are here before us.’

‘The truth may be harsher yet than that, Edmund.’

‘Why do the people turn away from us?’

‘I fear there is only one explanation.’

Westfield’s Men swung right into the Cornmarket then rode on down to the Cross Inn before turning gratefully into its courtyard. The journey had been a lifetime of discomfort but it was happily forgotten now. Oxford hospitality would solve all their problems.

The landlord of the Cross Inn robbed them of that illusion. Short, stout and hobbling on aged legs, he came out to give them a half-hearted greeting.

‘You are welcome, gentlemen, but you may not play here.’

‘We will act in the Town Hall,’ announced Firethorn.

‘Neither there, nor here, nor at the King’s Head nor at any place within the Oxford, I fear.’

‘What are you telling us, landlord?’

‘Sad news, sir. The plague is amongst us once more.’

‘Plague!’

The word devastated the whole company. They had come all that way to be denied the pleasure of performance and its much-needed reward. It was utterly demoralising. Plague, which had so often driven them out of London, had now shifted its ground to Oxford out of sheer spite and made their presence redundant. Disease festered in summer months and spread most easily at public gatherings. Plays, games and other communal entertainments were banned. The lodging of strangers was limited, and pigs and refuse were cleared from the streets. The haunted faces they had seen on their progress to the inn belonged to survivors. Westfield’s Men had no purchase on the minds of such creatures. People who feared that they might be struck down with the plague on the morrow did not seek amusement on their way to the grave.

The landlord tried to offer some consolation.

‘Fear not, sirs!’ he called out. ‘Our mayor will not be ungenerous. You may be given money not to play.’

‘Not to play!’ Lawrence Firethorn shuddered at the insult and bayed his reply. ‘I am being paid not to play! And will you pay the river not to flow and the stars not to shine? Will you give money to the grass to stop it growing? How much have you offered the rain not to fall and the moon not to rise? Ha!’ He smote his chest with lordly arrogance. ‘I am a force of nature and will not be stopped by some maltworm of a mayor. Oxford does not have enough gold in its coffers to buy off Lawrence Firethorn.’

‘We have the plague, sir,’ repeated the landlord.

‘A plague on your plague! And a pox on your welcome.’ He swung round in the saddle. ‘Nicholas!’

‘Yes, master.’

‘Go to this meddling mayor. Inform him who I am.’

‘Yes, master.’

‘And if he dares to offer us money to withdraw,’ said Firethorn vehemently, ‘curse him for his villainy and throw it back in his scurvy face.’

Nicholas Bracewell accepted a commission he knew that he could not fulfil because it was pointless to try to reason with the actor-manager when his blood was up. Plague was too strong an opponent and it had wrestled them to the ground once more. Whenever the company was on tour, Nicholas was accustomed to meeting civic dignitaries in order to get the required licence for performance. Westfield’s Men were usually offered handsome terms to stage their plays but not this time. As Nicholas went off, he resigned himself to the inevitable, yet he was able to snatch one crumb of comfort. A plague town was far too dangerous a place to linger. Even an assassin would keep well clear of the contagion. Nicholas could afford to relax. Inside Oxford, he was safe.

Paternoster Row was famous for its literary associations, and many printers, stationers and booksellers had their premises there. Yet it was here that they found the apothecary’s shop that they sought. After hours of combing the back streets and lanes of Cordwainer Ward, they widened their search and eventually came to the busy thoroughfare that ran along the northern side of St Paul’s Cathedral. Merchants, silkmen and lacemen also lived in the area, which was justly celebrated as well for the number and quality of its taverns. For these and other reasons, Paternoster Row was never quiet or empty and Anne Hendrik was grateful for the reassuring presence of Leonard as she made her way through the crowd in his wake. They were an incongruous couple. His shambling bulk reduced her trim elegance to almost childlike stature. Unused to the company of a lady, Leonard fell back on a kind of heavy-handed gallantry that only made his awkwardness the more poignant.

When Anne called on him at the Queen’s Head, he had been more than helpful, telling her all he could remember about his meeting with the doomed traveller from Devon. She could see why Nicholas had chosen this friend to represent him at the funeral. Leonard might be slow witted, but he was a kind man and completely trustworthy. With touching candour, he told her how he had wept at the graveside and wished that he could do something to avenge the girl’s death. Anne gave him that opportunity. It was pleasant to be with a person who had such an uncritical affection for Nicholas Bracewell, and Leonard’s powerful frame was a guarantee of her safety in the bustling streets.

They visited several shops without success but Anne was systematic. None of the apothecaries was able to help her but each one gave her a degree of assistance, albeit with reluctance in some cases, talking to her about the constituent elements of poisons and sending her on to another possible source of enquiry. The process had taken them into Paternoster Row and they called at the address they had been given. It was a small but well-stocked shop, and the man behind the counter had a neatness of garb and politeness of manner that set him apart from the grubby appearance and surly attitude of some of his fellows. The apothecary had brown hair, a pointed beard and the remains of an almost startling handsomeness. His faint accent joined with his exaggerated courtesy towards Anne to betray his nationality.

‘What may I get for madame?’ he said. ‘Perfumes from Arabia? Spices from the East? My stock is at your disposal.’

‘Does it include poison?’ she asked.

‘Poison?’

‘Do you carry these items?’

Anne Hendrik gave him the list of possible ingredients, which she had first devised with the aid of the surgeon. At each shop, her list was amended or enlarged in line with the advice of respective apothecaries. From the general pool of expertise, she had fished up a final inventory. Philippe Lavalle studied it with interest and surprise. He was a French Huguenot who fled from his native country over twenty years ago to escape persecution. It had been a great struggle to establish himself at first but now, under the name of Philip Lovel, he was a respected member of his profession. Poverty was his chief customer. People who could not afford to send for a doctor or a physician would come to him. He could diagnose diseases, prescribe cures for many of them and bleed a patient where necessary. Anne Hendrik was not typical of his customers at all and he had assumed she was there to purchase some of the perfumes and spices that he kept in the earthenware pots that were arranged so tidily on his shelves.

‘You want this poison, madame?’ he said cautiously.

‘I want to know if you have sold such ingredients.’

‘But, yes. Everything here is in my shop.’

‘And has anyone bought from you recently?’

‘Why do you wish to know?’

‘Please, sir,’ she said, ‘it is of great importance.’

‘I do not discuss my business with strangers.’

‘Help the lady,’ grunted Leonard in an absurd attempt to sound menacing. ‘She is with me.’

Philip Lovel threw him a scornful glance and ignored him for the rest of the conversation. Loathe to part easily with information about his customers, he yet sensed a hope of material reward. The man was plainly an oaf. Even in the aromatic atmosphere of his shop, Lovel could smell the beer on his visitor. Evidently, he was a drayman or tapster. The woman, on the other hand, was attractive, smartly dressed and well spoken. Money would not be the problem it was for the majority of his customers. Only a strong motive would bring her on such a strange errand, and he was intrigued to know what it was. He returned her list and gave an elaborate shrug.

‘I may have sold these items, I may have not.’

‘If you had, how much would they have cost?’ she said.

‘You wish to buy them yourself?’

‘I am ready to give you twice as much money if you can describe the customer.’

He was tempted. ‘Well …’

‘Three times as much,’ she decided, producing a purse to back up her offer. ‘That poison killed a young girl.’

‘He told me it was to get rid of some rats.’

‘Then you did sell these ingredients?’

‘Four days ago.’

‘On the eve of her arrival in London.’

‘It was an expensive purchase.’

‘How expensive?’

Lovel stated his price and Anne put the money onto the counter. Before the apothecary could scoop up the coins, they were covered by the giant hand of Leonard. The reward had to be earned before it was paid over.

‘I sold him the three powders on your list,’ he said, ‘and some white mercury. Then there was a quantity of opium in a double bladder. When I added a secret potion of my own invention — it is not known outside this shop — he had the means to kill fifty rats. That was his declared purpose and I took him for the gentleman he seemed.’

‘Gentleman!’ sneered Leonard. ‘He was a murderer.’

‘Tell us all you can remember,’ said Anne.

Philip Lovel could remember a great deal because the customer had been as unlikely a visitor to his shop as Anne Hendrik herself and he drew his portrait with care. They were shown his height, his bearing, his features, his apparel. The apothecary even made a stab at the timbre of his voice. Convinced that she was seeing the poisoner come to life before her eyes, Anne committed every detail to her retentive mind. When Lovel had finished, she lifted Leonard’s hand up to release the money then added the same amount again. The information she had just bought was invaluable.

Leonard was slower to react. It was only when they stepped out into Paternoster Row and began the long walk back that his brain assembled all the facts into one coherent picture. He stopped dead and slapped his thigh.

‘I know him!’

‘Who?’

‘I’ve met the man. Even as he was described.’

‘Where?’

‘At the Queen’s Head,’ he recalled. ‘He was there when the ballad was sung about the fire. It turned Nicholas into the hero. I know it by heart, mistress. I’ll sing you a verse or two, if you wish.’

‘The man, Leonard. You say you know him?’

‘Not by name but it must have been him.’

‘Why?’

‘He asked about Nicholas going off to Barnstaple.’ He took off his cap to scratch his head. ‘And I do believe the fellow was there at the Bel Savage Inn to watch the company leave. Yes, I saw him there, I swear it.’

It took Anne a long time to extract the full details from him and she grew increasingly fearful as she listened. The man had secured his poison at the shop in Paternoster Row and prepared it in a form that could easily be slipped into a drink. In killing the girl, he was trying to stop her reaching Nicholas Bracewell, but that part of his plan had miscarried. Since the book holder was now making for the town from which the girl was sent, he himself could become a potential target for the murderer. Why else did the man take such an interest in his departure from London?

Nicholas Bracewell was in danger. Anne had to warn him.

‘I must ask a favour of you, Leonard.’

‘It is granted.’

‘Take me to Shoreditch.’