Edward Marston - The Nine Giants

‘If the alderman be arrested,’ he said jauntily, ‘then will his contract with Marwood be null and void. Westfield’s Men will stay at the Queen’s Head. Some good may yet come of all the upset I have borne!’

Nicholas had to exhibit supreme self-control.

Next day found Lawrence Firethorn at his best. He assembled the company early on and delivered a moving speech about the importance of overcoming all the setbacks they had endured. Concern for Owen Elias was understandable but the best way to speed his recovery was to put on the finest performance they could manage. In the space of ten minutes, Firethorn transformed a jaded group of men into an alert and determined theatre company. Nicholas had returned from his earlier visit to the Nine Giants with sketches and measurements of the acting area. It did not take long to erect a stage to begin rehearsal.

They heard the bells from the wedding nearby and gave a rousing welcome to the bride and groom when they arrived at the inn to begin the celebrations. Fine weather enabled the banquet to be served in the yard itself and the whole gathering was in excellent spirits by the time the play was due. Lord Westfield himself was the guest of honour, sitting beside the bride in his flamboyant attire and telling her that he would now give his wedding present. Westfield’s Men took over.

The Wise Woman of Dunstable could not have been a more appropriate choice. It was a pastoral comedy about the virtues of true love and fidelity. Three suitors vied for the hand of a rich and beautiful widow who wanted nothing more than to live quietly in happy contemplation of her departed husband. All sorts of stratagems were employed to get her to the altar, the most ludicrous by Lord Merrymouth, an egregious old fop with a game leg. Firethorn showed brilliant comic invention in this role and equipped the posturing peer with all sorts of humorous ailments. The widow herself finally agreed to make a choice and everyone thought it would be between the two young, handsome suitors. But the ghost of her former husband — Edmund Hoode at his best — came back to give her sage advice. She chose Lord Merrymouth.

This not only put the other over-amorous gentlemen to flight, it ensured her widowhood, for the old aristocrat was so overwhelmed with pleasure that he drank himself to a stupor then fell into a pond and drowned. Firethorn even made the death scene unbearably comic. In the title role itself, Richard Honeydew was a wise woman of great charm and lightness of heart. The play ended with a dance then the audience pounded their tables in appreciation. Westfield’s Men bowed in acknowledgement of their rapturous reception then went into their closing dance once more by way of an encore. Led by Firethorn, they directed their final bow at the window through which Owen Elias had watched their performance. Still in pain from his ordeal, he applauded with gusto and the tears ran down his cheeks. Westfield’s Men had given him the most exhilarating tonic. He belonged.

Walter Stanford’s face was designed for mirth and good humour but it was furrowed by anger and disillusion now. At the suggestion of Nicholas Bracewell, his wife had set up an interview between the two men in a private room at the Royal Exchange so that the household steward at Stanford Place would not be aware of the net that was now closing in on him. The Lord Mayor Elect first thanked the book holder profusely for saving the life of his young bride by stopping the runaway horses, though her reason for being at the Nine Giants in the first place was tactfully concealed from her husband. No intimacy had occurred between her and Firethorn. She would not go astray again.

Nicholas had been right in his instincts. Once the connection between Rowland Ashway and Aubrey Kenyon was made, much was explained. With a sudden increase in wealth, the brewer was able to buy up the inns and taverns to whom he supplied his beer. Stanford suspected a whole network of corruption in the conduct of municipal affairs with the Chamberlain at the centre. Only he would be in a position to mastermind such financial chicanery. With a willing but credulous man like Sir Lucas Pugsley as Lord Mayor, the two men had been able to feather their own nests without the slightest suspicion falling on them. Ashway worked on the fishmonger as a friend while Kenyon used his expertise as an administrator to pull the wool over the latter’s eyes. They were a potent combination.

Their reign was threatened by the election of Walter Stanford to office. Whatever his weaknesses, the mercer had tremendous acumen and a nose for any mismanagement. Under his surveillance, the corruption would not only have to cease but its extent during the previous mayoralty would have been uncovered. Ashway and Kenyon were left with only one option. Stanford had to be stopped.

‘And so they killed Michael,’ he said. ‘Because so much of me was invested in my nephew, they hoped that my grief would rob me of the urge to go on.’ He looked at Nicholas. ‘How was it done, Master Bracewell?’

‘The murder was committed in that house on the Bridge,’ said the other. ‘I was deceived for a while when I learnt that it was owned by Sir Lucas Pugsley. It was borrowed from him by Alderman Ashway for the purpose. Though the murder happened by daylight, the body was not disposed of until night. Under the cover of darkness, it was dropped out of the window but it struck the starling on its way to the water.’

‘The smashed leg!’ said Stanford.

‘Yes, sir. It must have been caught in the eddies then buoyed up by a piece of driftwood that carried it downstream. By complete chance, we encountered it.’

‘You and your waterman.’

‘Abel Strudwick. A sound man with all his faults.’

‘One question, sir. Why was my nephew’s face so mangled and bloody? We could scarce recognise him.’

‘That was the intention.’

‘What say you?’

‘It was not your nephew, sir.’

‘ Not ? But William and I saw him.’

‘You saw only what looked like him,’ explained the other. ‘Michael Delahaye is still alive.’

‘But that does not make sense.’

When Nicholas enlarged on his claim, Walter Stanford was forced to accept that it was all too logical. The army surgeon had told the book holder everything. Michael Delahaye was not just another grumbling soldier, he was a complete dissolute who resented his uncle for cutting short his strenuous overindulgence. Joining the army in order to prolong his wasteful ways, the soldier had found it so intolerable and depressing that it had turned a merry gentleman into a malevolent one. Walter Stanford became the target for that malevolence. When Michael Delahaye was offered a chance to strike back at his uncle, he seized it because it gave him the opportunity to escape for ever from the oppression of respectability and start a new life of debauchery under a new name. It also gave him the supreme satisfaction of killing off the mortal enemy he had made in the army.

Cold silence had fallen on Stanford as he listened. To lose a loving nephew was one form of misery. To learn that he was the object of that same person’s hate was far worse. The one saving grace was that the whole plot had been exposed by a man of such evident discretion.

‘What must I do, Master Bracewell?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘But they will flee the approach of justice.’

‘Only if you frighten them away,’ said Nicholas. ‘We must tempt your nephew out of hiding or this will never be settled. Be ruled by me, sir. Prepare yourself for action but take none yet. Wait but a little while and they will surely strike again. Be patient.’

Stanford thought it over and nodded his agreement. He was deeply disturbed by what he had heard and he needed time to assimilate it all. What really cut him to the quick was the news about Michael Delahaye and he did not try to shuffle off his responsibility in the matter. His intentions had been good but he had applied intense pressure to his nephew to get him to conform and to abandon his wilder ways. He had helped to turn an idle but relatively harmless young man into a monster and it preyed on him. Having been through one grim ordeal, he now faced an even more punitive one.