Edward Marston - The Mad Courtesan

‘I will pay well.’

Cornelius Gant flipped back the edge of his coat and detached a large bag of coin from his belt. He tossed it to Nicholas who got an immediate idea of its worth. Westfield’s Men were being offered far more for the loan of their wings than it cost to make them in the first place. It would be a profitable deal but the book holder hesitated. Gant read his mind and threw in another hand-washing grin.

‘You think I will fly off with your wings!’ he said with a cackle. ‘But I will bring them back even as I take them. To this end …’ A second purse was untied from his belt. ‘I leave this as surety. When the wings return, you give me back this purse. Is not this fair?’

‘It is, sir.’

‘Then the deal is settled.’

‘Why do you want those wings?’

‘I do not wish to be an angel, that I can tell you.’

‘Is it for some kind of play?’

‘Come to St Paul’s on Saturday.’

Cornelius Gant would say no more but his money was real and his terms generous. The wings had been made for an early play by Edmund Hoode that had now fallen out of the repertoire and they were simply taking up space in the room at the inn where Westfield’s Men stored their costumes and properties. Nicholas consented. When he showed Gant to the storeroom, the latter was delighted with what he saw. The wings were some five feet in length, covered in white feathers and joined by a leather halter which had been fitted around the shoulders of the actor playing the angel. It was this device that particularly thrilled Gant and he tried the wings on, flapping them for effect.

‘Thank you, Master Bracewell. They are ideal.’

‘Be careful, sir. They are partly held by wax.’

‘So?’

‘Remember Icarus. Do not fly near the sun.’

Gant went off into a paroxysm of reedy cackling.

Nicholas was now treated to one of the most unlikely sights he had ever witnessed at the Queen’s Head. Its landlord came skipping blithely over to them. At a time of national calamity, when a dying sovereign was turning the capital into a city of sadness, Alexander Marwood might finally have come into his own. His sustained misery would at last be appropriate, his skulking despair a common mode of behaviour. Instead of this, he was sprightly and joyful. He fell on his visitor as if Gant were his oldest friend and he pressed him to free ale and victuals. Nicholas watched it in bewildered silence. When the two men went off arm in arm, he wondered if he had taken leave of his senses.

Cornelius Gant was not the only angel on the premises.

‘Good morning, Master Bracewell.’

‘Mistress Carrick! What brings you here at this hour?’

‘I thought to catch you before your rehearsal.’

‘Then must your reason be important.’

‘It is.’ Marion Carrick handed him the scroll. ‘My father said that I was to put it into your hand without delay. It contains a report about one Master Fellowes.’

‘That makes it almost as welcome as you, mistress.’

Nicholas had never seen her looking so lovely or so like her brother. With the sun slanting down to give her a halo, she really did have an angelic air. Her smile had a sweet innocence which he did not want to remove but there was no helping it. Taking her aside and sitting her down on a bench, he explained that her brother’s killer had himself been killed in a Clerkenwell street. Her ignorance of the area obscured its true character from her and he was able to give a version of the story which obscured the fact that Sebastian’s visit to a prostitute had set the whole tragedy in motion. Marion Carrick was so grateful to hear the news that she burst into tears and had to be comforted.

As he soothed her with gentle patting, he looked down into the beautiful moist face and reflected how different she was from the two other women who had become entangled with Westfield’s Men. Frances from the Pickt-hatch and Beatrice Capaldi from Blackfriars were sisters under the skin. One was paid for nightly promiscuity while the other was more highly selective in her clients but both were courtesans with a streak of madness in them. And neither would baulk at murder. Frances stabbed herself through the heart but Beatrice Capaldi inserted the blade through the breast of her victims. Lawrence Firethorn was being slowly bled to death and his company might perish with him.

Nicholas sighed and helped Marion Carrick up from the bench. In contrast to the other women, she was a decent and wholesome presence but she did not belong in the world of the theatre. Now that her brother’s death had been properly avenged, she could return to her own life. Nicholas was sorry to see her go and she lingered at the parting to give him a soft kiss before hurrying off with the servant who escorted her out into the street. There was no flapping of wings but he felt as if an angel had departed from his life.

The missive remained and he unrolled it at once. Andrew Carrick had been diligent in his research. His letter was an absolute mine of information gleaned from Harry Fellowes and bearing upon the operation of the Ordnance Office. Facts and figures were set down in tabulated profusion. Nicholas knew that his plan could now be put into effect. The search for the man with the axe was over. He could now tackle the conspirators who were trying to chop down Westfield’s Men.

Before that, another rehearsal beckoned.

‘Gentlemen!’ he yelled. ‘About it straight!’

The studious inertia of Cambridge oppressed her more each day and she grew increasingly restless. She bulked large in a small house even when she was stationary but Margery Firethorn was positively overwhelming when she was on the move in such a confined space. Mother and child found her ubiquity rather unsettling. Jonathan Jarrold felt it was like sharing a cage with a hungry she-tiger. While giving her the daily dose of gratitude, he assured his sister-in-law that they could now cope without her. His son, Richard, had come through the real trial and was making visible progress. The bookseller and his wife had every reason to believe that they had finally produced a baby who had come to stay.

Margery agreed to his suggestion. Reasons to leave now greatly outnumbered reasons to stay. She would depart on Friday and break the journey to London at some intermediate hostelry where she could spend the night.

‘That way,’ she told her sister, ‘I may arrive home in good time on Saturday.’

‘Lawrence will be overjoyed to see you, Margery.’

‘I will take my husband unawares.’

‘That was ever your way.’

‘Goodbye, sister.’

‘Give our love to the whole family.’

‘Mine remains with yours.’

‘Lawrence will have missed your warming presence.’

Margery was rueful. ‘That is my fear!’

‘I love her! I need her! I want her! I must have her, Nick!’

‘She sets a high price on her favours, sir.’

‘Beatrice puts my devotion to the test.’

‘Westfield’s Men will suffer.’

‘I will be away but one afternoon.’

‘The company needs you tomorrow as never before.’

‘Do not vex me so!’

Lawrence Firethorn was being ripped apart by competing claims on his loyalty. Lord Westfield had overridden his choice of Cupid’s Folly as the play to be performed at the Queen’s Head on the following afternoon and the determined patron had substituted Love’s Sacrifice. It was an attempt to bring the actor-manager to heel but, as the first playbill was put up to advertise the event, a second letter arrived from Beatrice Capaldi to give details of the slow voyage along the Thames and to hint at the ultimate reward for her doting lover. Firethorn agonised between the demands of professional duty and private dalliance. Anger finally sent him running to the arms of Beatrice Capaldi.