The Nicholas Bracewell Collection (60 page)

The newcomer waved a cheerful greeting.

‘I bring you glad tidings at last, sir.’

‘The Queen is dead?’

‘That were too great a hope,’ said Sir Clarence as he pulled a letter from his sleeve. ‘But we have other causes to rejoice. Our friends have not been idle.’

‘It is comforting to hear that.’

‘Walsingham sits in London like a great black spider at the heart of a web, waiting to catch us all. But we have our own network of spies to protect us. They have delivered up the informer.’

Rawlins took the letter that was handed to him.

‘This is the man who betrayed Master Rickwood?’

‘And Master Pomeroy,’ said Sir Clarence. ‘I knew that the trail would lead him here eventually. We shall be ready for him. He will not deliver a Marmion into the hands of Mr Secretary Walsingham.’

‘Forewarned is forearmed.’

‘God is sending the vile wretch to us.’

‘Does he travel alone?’

‘No, he comes with a theatre company from London. They are a convenient shield for his purposes but he will not be able to hide behind them here. The man’s journey ends in York. For ever.’

Kynaston Hall was able to confirm that a performance of
The Renegade
had been given there by Banbury’s Men but nobody at the house knew the company’s next destination. Nicholas Bracewell thanked them for their help and went due north on the chestnut stallion he had borrowed from Lawrence Firethorn. The animal was full of running and it was given free rein. Nicholas stopped at every village, hamlet or wayside dwelling to enquire after the whereabouts of his quarry but he was given precious little help for his pains. Whichever way Banbury’s Men had gone, they seemed to have covered their tracks very effectively. It was frustrating.

His luck eventually changed. He came upon an old shepherd who was sitting in the shade of a tree with his dog and munching an apple. Though he was no playgoer, the shepherd could recognise a theatre company when he saw one. His bony finger pointed down a bumpy track.

‘They went that way, master.’

‘Are you sure, friend?’

‘I sit here every day and they passed me by.’

‘How many were there?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Twelve or fifteen, maybe.’

‘On horse or foot?’

‘Both, sir. They’d a couple of horses and a cart piled high with baskets. Most of them walked behind.’

‘Can you be certain they were players?’

‘They were no shepherds, that I know,’ said the old man with a cackle. ‘Their clothes were too bright and their noise too loud. I’d frighten away my sheep if I went around making those alarums.’

‘How far away were they when you saw them?’

‘Not more than a hundred yards.’

The shepherd had not been deceived. Banbury’s Men had evidently gone past and he had taken due note of their passing. Nicholas pressed a coin into his gnarled hand then rode off again. It was evening now and the company would soon seek shelter before nightfall. His heels sent the horse into a full gallop. Five miles later, he caught up with them.

They had camped by the roadside and lit a fire. Since it was a clear, dry night, they were obviously going to spend it under the stars. Nicholas approached with a caution borne of his misadventures with the gypsies. He did not want to be set upon by the whole company. After tethering his horse behind some bushes, he moved in on foot, hearing the telltale banter of true actors floating on the night air. He had run Banbury’s Men to ground. What he now had to establish was whether or not Richard Honeydew was with them.

Creeping in ever closer, he got his first proper look at the encampment. His heart constricted. There were about a dozen of them, as reported, and they wore the gaudy apparel of travelling players but here was no London theatre company on tour. Their clothes were threadbare and their horses were spindly nags. Whatever was being roasted over the fire had not been paid for because they were patently impoverished. Gaunt faces chewed on their food. Thin bodies lounged around the flickering blaze. They were actors but of a different sort and temper to Banbury’s Men. They had never performed in a real theatre
in their lives or tasted the fleshpots of the capital. Lacking any noble patron, they were no better than outlaws and could be arrested for vagrancy. They scraped a bare living by keeping on the move like the gypsies.

It was sobering to reflect on how removed their world was from that of the London companies and Nicholas felt a pang of shame that Westfield’s Men had come to take their audiences from them. Then he recalled the purpose of his journey and shook off such considerations. Marching boldly into the camp, he introduced himself as a fellow-actor and was given a cheerful welcome. It waned somewhat when he asked after Banbury’s Men who were seen as London predators come to swoop on the provinces. They had scorn for the other company but no knowledge of its present location. Nicholas thanked them and withdrew.

Darkness was beginning to close in and he needed a bed for the night. He had passed a small inn a few miles back and now rode off again in that direction, his mind grappling with the problem of where Banbury’s Men could be and his concern for Richard Honeydew rising all the time. Absorbed in his thoughts, he let his guard fall.

‘Hold there, sir!’

‘That is a fine horse you have.’

‘Let us guess its age by its teeth.’

The three men came out of the woodland and ambled towards him with amiable grins. He was not fooled. Each of them had a hand on his sword. They had caught him on a deserted track that ran between the trees. Nicholas knew that they would not close in on him like that unless they 
had someone at his back. He swung his horse around in the nick of time. The fourth man was running silently towards him with a cudgel in his hand, ready to hack him down from behind while his attention was diverted.

Nicholas got his kick in before the cudgel fell and the man staggered back. When he came charging in again, he felt a sword go clean through his shoulder and yelled out in agony. His accomplices sprinted in to wreak revenge but they had chosen the wrong target. As the first of them swished his sword, it met such a forceful reply from Nicholas’s rapier that it was twisted out of his hand. The book holder dismounted in a flash, pulling out his dagger as he did so and daring the two armed men to come at him. They flashed and jabbed but could get nowhere near him. Unable to recover his sword from the ground, the third man produced a dagger and raised an arm to throw it but he was far too slow. Nicholas’s own dagger hurtled through the air and pierced the fellow’s wrist, causing him to drop his own weapon with a cry.

The others had had enough. Now that the odds were not so heavily in their favour, they gathered up their two stricken colleagues and limped away. Nicholas gave chase and let some air into the jerkin of one of them. Three of them scrambled into their saddles but the cudgeller was too badly wounded to ride and had to be helped up behind one of his friends. Cursing their assailant, they beat a hasty retreat into the forest.

Nicholas walked across to the horse that they had left behind and patted its neck. It was far too good a mount
for common highwaymen and had clearly been stolen. In the fading light, he could just see the monogrammed gold initials on the saddlebags – O.Q. When he searched inside the pouches, he found some food and some articles of apparel. What really interested him, however, was the folded parchment that was tucked away at the very bottom of one of the saddlebags. It was a list of names and addresses, written out in a fair hand. Two of the names had been ticked and they leapt up at Nicholas.

Anthony Rickwood and Neville Pomeroy.

A third name had a question mark beside it.

Sir Clarence Marmion.

From the initials on the saddlebag, Nicholas knew that he had found Oliver Quilley’s stolen horse. He now had the feeling that he had found something far more important as well. The artist had told him of the arrest of Master Neville Pomeroy on a charge of high treason and how the prisoner languished in the Tower. Those events took place over a hundred and fifty miles away.

How did Oliver Quilley know about them?

Lawrence Firethorn was hoist with his own petard. After encouraging Susan Becket to accompany him to Nottingham so that she could share nights of madness with him, he could not then dismiss her when she elected to travel on with him. It was very inhibiting. At a time when he hoped to get acquainted with a new potential conquest, he was forced to ride alongside the hostess and listen to her amiable chatter. Eleanor Budden, meanwhile, was seated
beside the driver of the waggon, George Dart, seeing to his spiritual needs and generally inhibiting everyone on the vehicle with her presence. Firethorn stole a glance in her direction. Eleanor and Susan were the extremes of womanhood, the respectable and the disreputable, the virtuous and the voluptuous, the sacred and the profane. If the two could blend into one, mused Firethorn, then he would finally have found perfection in human form.

The chuckling Susan Becket nudged him gently.

‘She is not for you, Lawrence.’

‘Such a thought never entered my mind!’

‘Mistress Budden is already spoken for.’

‘I met her husband when we set out.’

‘It is not him I mean, sir. The lady is enamoured elsewhere. She talks of nobody but your book holder.’

‘Nicholas did make an impression on her.’

‘If I saw him naked in the River Trent, he would have made an impression on me,’ said Susan with a giggle. ‘He is a fine figure of a man with a pleasing demeanour.’

‘Nick only floated on the water,’ said Firethorn testily. ‘She speaks as if he walked upon it!’

They were heading north through thick woodland that was redolent with memories of the famous outlaw. Lapsing back into his role in the play, Christopher Millfield began to sing snatches from the ballad. With Nicholas out of the way, he had regained all his sprightliness. The other hired men walked beside him and grumbled about the three outsiders who travelled with them. Oliver Quilley had a lordly manner as he rode near the front of the little procession,
Susan Becket reserved her favours for the actor-manager, and Eleanor Budden brought an unwanted injection of Christianity into their lives. They had lost one valuable apprentice and gained three unnecessary passengers. They were convinced that nothing good could come from it.

George Dart begged leave to differ. Embarrassed at first to have Eleanor alongside him, he soon began to take a pleasure in her company. They had a mutual hero.

‘Tell me of Master Bracewell,’ she said.

‘He is a wonderful man and runs the company in all the ways that matter. Others may get the credit and the rewards but it is he who deserves them, yet you will not hear a boastful word on his lips.’

‘His modesty becomes him.’

‘He is my one true friend, mistress.’

‘That cannot be,’ she said. ‘What of your mother? Is not she a true friend to her son?’

‘Belike she was when she was alive. I do not know. She died when I was but a tiny child.’

‘How came you into this profession?’

‘No other would take me, mistress. It was Nicholas Bracewell’s doing. He taught me all I knew and it has kept me from starvation ever since.’

‘He is a Christian soul.’

‘None more so in the company.’

‘How long has he been in the theatre?’

‘Four years or more. I cannot say.’

‘Before that?’

‘He was at sea,’ said George proudly. ‘He sailed with
Drake around the world and saw things that most of us cannot even comprehend, such is their wonder. Master Bracewell has been everywhere.’

‘Except Jerusalem.’

‘Why do you say that, mistress?’

‘Because I would take him there with me.’

‘And will he go?’ said Dart in amazement.

Eleanor Budden gave him a beatific smile.

‘Oh, yes. He must. He has no choice.’

Lavery Grange was in the northernmost corner of the county of Nottingham and the head of the house, Sir Duncan Lavery, was an amenable and gregarious character. Given the chance to act as host to Banbury’s Men, he welcomed them with open arms and put his Great Hall at their disposal for a performance of
The Renegade
. Good fortune was tinged with bad news. Banbury’s Men learned from a visitor to the Grange that their rivals had just scored a triumph in Nottingham with a play about Robin Hood.

Giles Randolph stamped a peevish foot.

‘They are closer to us than we thought.’

‘Yet still a day behind us,’ said Mark Scruton.

‘I like not such nearness, sir.’

‘They will not catch up yet.’

‘Find some other way to delay them.’

‘I have it already in my mind.’

Randolph strutted around the Great Hall and watched the stage being erected. He tested the acoustics with a speech from the play and his voice had a poetic beauty to
it. The tour had so far been a tale of continuing success that was all the more gratifying because it had involved the abject failure of Westfield’s Men. Now, however, his rivals were on his heels and it made him nervous.

He snapped his fingers to beckon Scruton over.

‘Yes, master.’

‘You have another trick, sir?’

‘It will leave them naked and ashamed.’

‘About it straight.’

‘What, now?’ said Scruton in surprise.

‘Before they close in on us.’

‘But there is the performance of
The Renegade.’

‘You will have to miss it.’

‘Then I miss the best role I have,’ protested the other. ‘Let me but act it here this evening and I’ll waylay them tomorrow and cause my mischief.’

‘Tomorrow is too late.’

‘How will you play without me?’

‘Young Harry Paget will take on the part.’

‘But it is mine!’ complained Scruton angrily.

‘Mind your tone, sir.’

‘You do me a great injustice.’

‘It is but for one performance, Mark,’ soothed the other. ‘When we play the piece again, you will be restored to your glory. You have my word upon it.’

‘And when we reach York?’

‘You sign a contract that gives you larger roles in every play we stage. If I approve it, that is.’