Edward Marston - The Mad Courtesan

It was late evening before Nicholas could even begin the task of searching the stews of Clerkenwell. Turnmill Street was seething with custom. Easy lust and ready money were all that gained respect there. Nobody welcomed awkward questions about a murder victim. At most of the places he visited, Nicholas found himself ignored, spurned, threatened or even buffeted. Haunts which had been familiar to Sebastian Carrick were full of danger to his friend. Nicholas was a patent outsider. Much against his will, therefore, he had to pose as a client to gain acceptance.

‘What would you have, sir?’ she said.

‘The wildest creature in the house.’

‘We have punks of all ages, all sizes, all colours.’ The old woman gave a toothless grin. ‘Name your pleasure.’

‘I would like to choose my company.’

‘What price did you set on it, kind sir?’

Nicholas slipped a few coins into her grubby palm and was rewarded with a foul-breathed kiss. She conducted him along a passage and into a low room that was filled with the stench of sin and tobacco smoke. Noisy men lolled at tables with their whores. By the light of a candle, others played cards in a corner. The old woman waved a hand and Nicholas was confronted by a semicircle of trulls, each one of them showing off her body and shooting him bold glances.

‘Take one or take all,’ said the old woman.

‘I like true madness,’ he explained.

‘You heard the gentleman,’ continued the hostess. ‘He wants some lunacy in his loving. Which of you will serve him best?’ She grinned a challenge. ‘Who is the mad courtesan?’

He was gentle and compliant when she took him up to her room but he proved a savage lover. Once inside her, he punished her with cruel bites and hard blows until he reached the height of his passion. Frances was bleeding from the nose and the mouth by the time that he drifted off to sleep. She rolled him over onto his back and reached under the pillow for her knife. One deep thrust into his fat throat was all that it needed. Frances watched him grunt his last then she went to the window to give a signal. One more dead body was soon being lugged away from her murderous embrace.

The Rose was an aptly named symbol of the flowering of the London theatre under Queen Elizabeth. It was not simply a source of entertainment for idle pleasure-seekers but one of the results of that great upsurge of creative energy which had established the Tudor dynasty as a major force in world politics. Like the two outdoor playhouses in Shoreditch — The Theatre and The Curtain — it helped to meet the rising demand for new plays of all kinds. The stage was a truthful mirror of its time. It celebrated all that was best and castigated all that was worse. It provoked, it enchanted, it mocked, it inspired. On occasion, it even destroyed. With its bustling freedom and its dangerous spontaneity, it had an impact which was unique and which stretched far beyond the confines of the actual playhouses. Drama was beloved at court. It was an art that was practised with royal assent.

Floral tribute was inevitable because the capital’s most recent theatre was built on the site of a rose garden to the east of Rose Alley in the Liberty of the Clink. The choice of Southwark was deliberate. Like Shoreditch, it was conveniently outside the city boundaries and thus spared the civic hostility and narrow-mindedness that hindered work at the few remaining inn-yard venues such as the Queen’s Head. Material which would arouse moral outrage in Gracechurch Street could be presented with undiluted vigour at The Rose. It had given Edmund Hoode wider scope for his imagination and more leeway for his daring. Love’s Sacrifice could never be staged at the Queen’s Head in its original form. The irony was that Southwark permitted a freedom that was offset by an act of self-imposed censorship.

Owen Elias was outspoken in his wrath.

‘It is treachery of the basest kind!’ he exclaimed.

‘You have lost but one speech,’ said Nicholas.

‘I have been stabbed in the back by my fellows.’

‘That is not true, Owen.’

‘Those twenty lines crown the whole play,’ argued the Welshman with hopeless fury. ‘They lift the drama and redeem the hero in his tragic fall.’ Self-interest emerged. ‘They give my Benvolio an opportunity for which I have waited this long time. I am betrayed , Nick!’

‘Do not be cast down.’

‘I am mortally wounded,’ said the other. ‘Sebastian would not have suffered this slight. Had he played the part, it would have been seen without mutilation. Benvolio would have delivered his last oration.’

‘That is something we will never know.’

‘Fight for me here. Take up my cause.’

‘I have done so many times.’

Nicholas Bracewell had profound sympathy for the actor. He yielded to none in his admiration of Lawrence Firethorn but he was not blind to the other’s faults. Professional envy had dictated the omission of the final speech. The dead hero did not want to cede any of his glory to another. It was unjust but it was not altogether untypical and the book holder heard himself making the same soothing sounds he had made before to others in a similar predicament. Firethorn liked to occupy more than his place in the sun.

Owen Elias and his friend were standing on the stage of The Rose not long after the morning’s rehearsal had ended. Because the theatre now had its own resident company — Lord Strange’s Men — access to its boards was limited and the new play had to content itself with one full rehearsal before being launched upon the public. Most of the work on Love’s Sacrifice had thus been done at the Queen’s Head and the preparation was thorough. Westfield’s Men had no difficulty in adapting their performances to the special demands of The Rose.

Lawrence Firethorn berated his company with his usual gusto but they knew that his criticism was largely for show. He was clearly delighted with the rehearsal and confident that the afternoon would add yet another classic role to his gallery of triumphs. It gave his ebullience a slightly manic edge. As the actor-manager came strutting towards them, Owen Elias sidled off and watched mutinously from a corner. The beaming Firethorn closed on his book holder.

‘Nick, dear heart!’ he said jovially. ‘What do you think of it, sir? Is not this place a marvel?’

‘I like it well.’

‘Master Henslowe has worked wonders and we must repay him with like amazement on the stage itself.’

‘Indeed sir.’

‘How many souls will it now encompass?’

‘Some four hundred more.’

Firethorn grinned. ‘That takes the tally almost to two thousand and a half. Westfield’s Men will pack them in to the full number.’ He paraded around. ‘But this stage, Nick! This joyous scaffold! I feel as if I could reach out and touch every spectator. Truly a miracle of construction.’

Nicholas had already noted all the improvements. The Rose had been built a few years earlier on the initiative of Philip Henslowe, a former dyer and pawnbroker, and one John Cholmley, a grocer. Used at first for animal-baiting as well as for the performance of plays, the building had undergone extensive alteration during the previous winter. Henslowe had laid out the substantial sum of £105 to enlarge a structure that would henceforth operate exclusively as a theatre. By demolishing a wall at the rear, he was able to move the stage back and produce more standing space in the pit as well as additional seats in the galleries on both sides. The thrust of the acting area was consequently reduced and this made for the sense of intimacy which so impressed Firethorn. It was an architectural paradox. The audience expanded and yet somehow got closer to the performance.