Edward Marston: The Nine Giants

‘The fellow is a bungling wordsmith.’

‘Let him have his hour, Edmund.’

‘He uses rhyme, like a sword, to hack.’

‘There are worse things a man may do.’

Hoode agreed and took a kinder view of the waterman. He felt a vestigial sympathy for him because of the way that he was routed at the flyting contest. It had been a fight between the world of the amateur and that of the professional. Abel Strudwick had no chance. He was entitled to his brief moment of glory as a ballad-maker. Such thoughts led Hoode on to consider the merits of the raw amateur whose passions were not inhibited by too great a knowledge of the technicalities of poetry. He recalled the Lord Mayor’s banquet to which Nicholas had been bidden as an honoured guest.

‘Tell me, Nick. What was it like?’

‘What?’

‘This play of theirs — The Nine Giants. ’

‘Do I detect jealousy here?’

‘No, no, of course not,’ said Hoode quickly. ‘I am above such things, as you well know. My plays have held the stage for years and I fear no rival. I just wish you to tell me what this pageant of the nine worthy mercers was like.’ He fished gently. ‘Tedious, perhaps? Over-long and underwritten? Basely put together?’

‘It was very well received,’ said Nicholas.

‘By Mistress Stanford?’

‘By her especially.’

Hoode drooped. ‘Then is my cause truly lost.’

‘I liked the piece myself. It had quality.’

‘What sort of quality, man?’

‘Height and hardness.’

‘You lose me here.’

‘The Nine Giants resembled our own at Richmond.’

‘They stood in a circle?’

‘They were tall, straight and monstrously wooden.’

Edmund Hoode laughed for an hour.