Edward Marston - The Nine Giants

‘We love you too well for that, Edmund.’

‘You might but she does not. I am betrayed.’

‘Only by yourself,’ said Nicholas gently, sitting beside him. ‘You do the lady wrong to expect too much from her. She does not even know of your existence.’

‘But she read my sonnet!’

‘Sent by another.’

‘Yes!’ growled Hoode, trying to stand. ‘Lawrence has used me cruelly in this matter. On my honour, I will not permit it! I will challenge him to a duel!’

He reached for an invisible sword at his side and fell back ridiculously onto his seat. Nicholas steadied his friend then found himself the object of attack.

‘I blame you, sir!’ said Hoode.

‘For what?’

‘Foul deception. Why did you not tell me the truth?’

‘I thought to save you from pain.’

‘But you have made it all the worse,’ howled the poet. ‘You knew that Lawrence was in pursuit of my fair mistress yet you did not even warn me.’

‘I hoped to head him off, Edmund.’

‘Head him off, sir? When he is at full gallop? It would be easier to head off a charging bull!’

‘Nevertheless, it may still be done.’

Hoode clutched at straws. ‘How, Nick? How? How? How?’

‘I will bethink me.’

‘Matilda Stanford.’ Fantasy had returned. ‘I could weave such pretty conceits around a name like Matilda. It is a description of a divinity. Matilda the Magnificent. I cannot stop saying it — Matilda, Matilda, Matilda …’

‘Remember to add her surname,’ said the other.

‘What?’

‘Stanford. Matilda Stanford.’

‘She will always be plain Matilda to me.’

‘But not to her husband.’

‘Husband!’ He choked. ‘The child is married?’

‘To Walter Stanford. Master of the Mercers.’

‘I have heard of him.’

‘So should you have. He is the Lord Mayor Elect.’

Edmund Hoode stared blankly at the ceiling as he tried to process this new information. It introduced many unforeseen difficulties but romance could overcome them. He fell in love indiscriminately and let nothing stand in the way of his surging passion. The presence of a husband was a problem but it was not insurmountable. Far more serious was the existence of a rival of the calibre of Lawrence Firethorn. He had all the advantages. Hoode shifted his ground dramatically.

‘I believe in the sanctity of marriage,’ he said.

‘So should we all.’

‘Matilda must be saved from damnation.’

‘That is my wish, too, Edmund.’

‘I will protect her from the prickly Firethorn.’

‘Do it with cunning.’

‘I’ll move with stealth,’ he said. ‘If I cannot have her as mine, she will be returned safe and sound to her lawful husband. Lawrence will fail this time. Should he try to board her, I’ll take her by the ankles and pull her out from under him. He will not prevail.’

‘We two are agreed on that.’

‘Yes, Nick. It will be my mission!’

Abel Strudwick rowed with undiminished gusto across the river and guided his boat around and between the endless bobbing obstacles. Hans Kippel urged him to pull harder and play more music. The waterman was overjoyed. He saw in the Dutch apprentice something of the son who had been snatched from him by the navy and his affection for the boy grew. With a captive audience who appreciated his work so much, he launched into some of his most ambitious poems, long, meandering narratives about life on the Thames and the perils that it presented. His music took them all the way to Bankside then out onto the wharf and up the stone steps. A friendship was being consolidated.

There was one peril that Strudwick did not mention. The man with the patch stood in the open window of a house on the Bridge and applied a telescope to his good eye. He watched the waterman and his young passenger until the two of them had vanished between the tenements then he put the telescope aside and turned to his thickset companion. His voice was slurred but cultured.

‘We must make no mistakes next time, sir.’

‘I will carve the boy to pieces myself.’

‘Look to that friend of his.’

‘What was his name again?’

‘Bracewell.’

‘That’s the fellow.’

‘Master Nicholas Bracewell.’

Sybil Marwood was proving to be even more unyielding than her husband. She was a stout, sour-faced woman of middle years for whom life was a continuing disappointment. She had little time for Westfield’s Men and even less for the arguments that Nicholas Bracewell was now putting on their behalf in the taproom at the Queen’s Head. Leaning on the counter with her bulging elbows, she cut him down ruthlessly in mid-sentence.

‘Hold your peace, sir.’

‘I beg leave to finish, mistress.’

‘There is no more to say. We sell the inn.’

‘And forfeit your birthright?’ he said. ‘Once the premises are in the hands of Alderman Ashway, you will be at his mercy.’

‘We will have security of tenure.’

‘For how long?’

‘In perpetuity.’

‘Even Master Marwood cannot live for ever,’ reasoned Nicholas. ‘What will happen to you if he should die?’

‘I would remain here in his place.’

‘Is that in the terms of the contract?’

‘It must be,’ she insisted. ‘Or Alexander will not be allowed to sign it. I know my rights, sir.’

‘Nobody respects them more than us, mistress.’

Nicholas was making no impact on her. Simple greed had mortgaged her finer feelings. Sybil Marwood was so dazzled by the amount of ready capital that she and her husband would receive that she had blocked out all other considerations. The theatre company was a disposable item in her codex. As long as actors were abroad, the virginity of her daughter was under threat. The skulking landlord did at least have some vestigial feelings of loyalty to the troupe that had brought so much custom to the inn over the years but his wife had none. Her cold heart was only warmed by the idea of a healthy profit.

‘Can no words prevail with you?’ asked Nicholas.

‘None that you can utter, sir.’

‘What if Alderman Ashway plays the tyrant?’

‘Then he will have me to face.’

‘The deed of sale is drawn up by him.’

‘Women have ways to get their desires.’

It was a cynical observation made with the veiled hostility which seemed to encircle her but it also contained some advice on which Nicholas was determined to act. Direct approaches to Marwood and to his wife had borne only diseased fruit. The book holder had to work a different way and he suddenly realised how. There was an element of risk but it had to be discounted. It was the last course of action open to them.

Nicholas took his leave and sauntered across the taproom. Edmund Hoode was still plotting revenge at his table, Owen Elias was regaling colleagues with the story of how he first discovered his vocation as an actor, George Dart was sharing a drink with Thomas Skillen and Nathan Curtis, and the indefatigable Barnaby Gill, dressed in his finery, was half-trying to seduce a young ostler from the stables. All of the company had now learnt of the grim fate that menaced them and an air of despondency filled the room. The book holder was given fresh incentive to put his new plan into action.

He went straight to Shoreditch and swore Margery Firethorn to secrecy. She was thrilled. Fond of Nicholas Bracewell, she let herself be persuaded by his charm and his reason. It was wonderful to feel that she might be the one person who could turn the tide and she saw at once the personal advantage she would gain at home. The domineering Lawrence Firethorn would no longer be able to crow over a wife if she rescued Westfield’s Men by her timely intercession.