Edward Marston - The Nine Giants

‘I think I know the way of it,’ she said.

‘Of what, Prudence?’

‘Bringing you to your lover.’

‘In Richmond?’

‘Even there.’

‘Teach me how and I’ll adore thee for ever.’

‘Then here is the manner of it …’

The Constant Lover had displayed the constancy of his love, a volatile audience had been held throughout and the stage was now being dismantled. Nicholas Bracewell was in the thick of the action when Preben van Loew arrived panting in the yard of the Queen’s Head. With tears streaming, the Dutchman told his story and begged his friend to come at once. Hans Kippel was close to death and calling for Nicholas. The book holder did not pause for a second. Leaving Thomas Skillen in charge, he borrowed a horse from the stables and rode home as fast as the thick crowds would allow. All the way across the Bridge, he saw evidence of the furious passage of the apprentices. The noise up ahead was muted now as the riot spent its energy in a raid on some of the Bankside stews. Soldiers had been called out to back up the constables and the sight of organised authority was enough to disperse the remnants of the mob.

Nicholas reined in his horse outside the house and dismounted to race upstairs to the bedchamber. Hans Kippel was lying on the truckle bed with his head cradled lovingly by a distraught Anne Hendrik. The doctor in the background shook his head sadly. He had done what he could but the boy was beyond medical help. Nicholas came to kneel beside the bed and took the hand of his young friend. Weak and fading, Hans Kippel rallied briefly at the sight of the book holder and there was a brave flicker of a smile. Words dribbled out of his mouth with painful slowness.

‘I … saw them … again.’

‘Who?’ whispered Nicholas.

‘The … two … men.’

‘From that house on the Bridge?’

‘Yes …’

‘Did one have an eyepatch?’

A faint nod. ‘My … cap …’

‘What about your cap, Hans?’

‘They … took … it.’

‘The two men?’

‘No … some … boys …’

‘And what did they do with it?’

‘Threw … river …’

The apprentice was near to expiry. Nicholas tried to fill in some of the gaps to squeeze the last precious bits of information out of him.

‘Some boys took your cap. They ran off. You chased them. They threw your cap over the Bridge. Was it by that house? In that narrow passage?’ Flickering eyelids confirmed his guess. ‘Did your cap land on the starling below?’

‘I … climbed …’

‘You climbed down to retrieve it. Then you came up again past the window at the rear of the house. You saw something, Hans. What was it?’ Nicholas squeezed his hand to encourage him. ‘Try to tell us. Try.’

‘They … killed …’

‘The two men murdered someone? With a dagger?’

‘Throat …’

Hans Kippel let out a deep sigh. The effort of dragging the words out of himself and of confronting the memory that lay behind them had drained the last of his resistance. He slipped gently away and his head flopped to one side. Anne Hendrik sobbed and Nicholas comforted her with his own eyes moist. Then he laid the boy’s head gently on the pillow and covered it with a sheet. The doctor stole quietly away to let them share their grief. Racked with remorse, they looked down at the prone figure in the little bed and hugged each other tight. The loss of a child of their own could not have been more painful or poignant because that was what Hans Kippel had become in the last sad days of his doomed life. He had turned lovers into a family and taught them a new kind of love.

The Dutch boy had witnessed a horrific murder and been chased by the killers. He had scrambled to safety for a while but had taken refuge in the dark recesses of his young and impressionable mind. They had caught up with him eventually and the nightmare was relived. The irony of it all was not lost on Nicholas. Mocking youths had snatched off the apprentice’s cap and hurled it over the edge of the Bridge. In retrieving it, he had seen something which was to have fatal consequences. If Hans Kippel had not bothered about his cap, he would still be alive and happy. But the pride of a craftsman worked against him. The fledgling hatmaker could not leave his cap to the rising waters of the Thames. It simply had to be rescued somehow.

He had made it himself.

Threat of ejection from the Queen’s Head had bonded the company together and lent their performance that holiday afternoon a freshness and defiance that transformed a good play into an enthralling experience. The Constant Lover was a form of a reply to a landlord who was neither constant nor loving and who had now sold the home of Westfield’s Men from under them. Word had leaked out that the contract with Rowland Ashway had actually been signed and it was only a question of time before the alderman expelled them from his premises. Adversity may have drawn them together onstage. When they came off, it only served to heighten their differences. Edmund Hoode and Lawrence Firethorn chose the empty tiring-house as the venue for their argument. Deep insecurity gave them both an edge of wildness.

‘I oppose it with every bone in my body, sir!’

‘Take your skeleton away from me.’

‘Have you no scruples at all?’

‘Come, sir. None of that. You lusted after the lady yourself. You longed to lie in her enchanted garden.’

‘I am not married,’ said Hoode. ‘You are.’

‘So is Mistress Stanford. Where are your scruples?’

‘I intend the lady no harm.’

‘It matters not,’ said Firethorn airily. ‘I am the fitter man for her in every way. Both of us are wed and that gives our love some balance. We take equal risks in this business. One fire consumes us both.’

‘It will burn up the whole company!’

‘Conquer your jealousy, Edmund, and take your defeat like a man. Think not of yourself in this.’

‘Nor do I,’ said Hoode forcefully. ‘It is the sweet lady herself who occupies my mind. I would save her from the disgrace that beckons.’

‘Disgrace!’ bawled the other.

‘She must only suffer in this enterprise.’

‘I offer her my true love.’

‘Give her your breeches instead, sir, for that is where it is lodged.’

‘Take care, Edmund. I have a temper.’

‘Save it for the stage, sir.’

‘My devotion to Mistress Stanford comes from a pure heart. I have sent her poems of love.’

‘Written by me !’

‘I have kissed her fair hand.’

‘Rape upon rape!’

‘She has been shown the utmost respect, sir.’

‘Then prove it now by releasing her entirely,’ said Hoode with vehemence. ‘You have a loyal wife to warm your bed and if her loyalty will not suffice, there are others who clamour for your favours. Take one of them, sir, take two or take them all. But spare this gentle creature.’

‘So that you may take my place?’

‘No! I renounce her here and now.’

‘Then stand aside for I do not.’

‘Lawrence, this is plain idiocy!’

‘Love makes a fool of all of us.’

‘She is married to the Lord Mayor Elect,’ said the other. ‘Nick counselled well. Too much peril follows. The beery alderman may only put us out of the Queen’s Head. Walter Stanford may put us out of our profession.’

‘ He is the cause I cannot now pull back.’

‘Our new Lord Mayor?’

‘Do you know how he intends to enter his mayoralty?’ said Firethorn with rolling contempt. ‘With a play. His wife requested a drama such as Westfield’s Men present and he has replied with some rambling pageant.’

‘I do not follow.’

‘ We are the finest company in London. We — and only we — should be summoned to make this occasion memorable. Westfield’s Men have performed before the Queen and all her Court. Yet this mercer, this man of no taste, this money-grubbing merchant of a Lord Mayor spurns our talents and turns to amateurs! It is an insult.’