Edward Marston - The Princess of Denmark

‘It will have to. Eight rooms were lost in the blaze.’

‘But what happens when we come back?’

‘You will not be allowed on my premises.’

‘We do have a contract with you, Master Marwood,’ Nicholas reminded him, ‘and it was signed in good faith. You have no legal right to put us out on a whim.’

‘That contract — accepted against my better judgement, I may tell you — stipulates that Westfield’s Men may play in my yard for the next year. But I no longer have a yard,’ asserted Marwood, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, ‘and so the contract is null and void.’

‘Only until you rebuild the inn.’

‘That will never happen.’

‘But it must,’ pleaded Dart. ‘This is our home.’

‘It was our home until it was burnt down, young sir. It was the place that gave us our livelihood. You and the others may sail off across the sea to earn a living. We do not have that luxury. My wife and I are stuck here in the ruins of our inn.’

‘Have you spoken to a builder yet?’ asked Nicholas.

‘What is the point?’

‘The Queen’s Head can arise anew.’

‘Only at a high price, Master Bracewell. Where am I to get the money to pay it? I do not have a wealthy patron like you.’

‘Come now,’ said Nicholas, ‘you can hardly plead poverty. The weather has been kind to us all year. Throughout spring and summer, we filled your yard with paying customers. They bought your refreshments during the performances and thronged your taproom after it. Six days a week, you made healthy profits.’

‘Yes,’ Dart put in, ‘and it would have been seven days had we not been banned from staging a play within the city limits on the Sabbath.’

‘We bring in most of your custom, Master Marwood.’

The landlord sneered. ‘You also bring cunning pickpockets and greasy prostitutes to my inn,’ he said. ‘I watch them mingle with the crowd as they go about their nefarious business. I will be well rid of such vile creatures.’

‘You will also lose the gallants and their ladies who inhabit your galleries,’ said Nicholas persuasively, ‘not to mention those members of the court who spend their money so freely here. Great men of state have sat on cushions at the Queen’s Head in order to watch us. Would you spurn them as well?’

‘I will spurn anyone in order to keep Westfield’s Men at bay.’

‘But we need each other,’ wailed Dart.

‘My mind is made up — you are expelled forever.’

‘Rebuild,’ advised Nicholas, pointing through the open door at the yard beyond. ‘Rebuild your inn and rebuild your faith in us.’

Marwood was adamant. ‘The only thing that I will build is a high wall to keep out you and that infernal company of yours. I am sorry, Master Bracewell,’ he went on, ‘you are a decent man and have always dealt honestly with me, but Lawrence Firethorn and his crew have tortured me enough.’ He indicated the wooden tomb at his feet. ‘This is your monument — Westfield’s Men are dead and buried. Away with the whole pack of you!’

With a vivid gesture, he turned on his heel and stalked off.

Dart was distraught. ‘Did you hear that, Nicholas?’

‘I’ve heard it all too often.’

‘He means to evict us. We have nowhere to perform.’

‘Yes, we do,’ said Nicholas, ‘we have the castle in Elsinore and other places in Denmark. That is all that concerns me at the moment, George. Pay no need to the landlord. When we are gone, he will rue his harsh words. Now,’ he went on briskly, ‘let us carry on. Read out the next items on the list.’

Turning it gently in her hands, Anne Hendrik examined the hat with an expert eye. Light green in colour, it was round with a soft crown and a narrow brim. Twisted gold cord surrounded the crown. An ostrich feather sprouted out of the top of the hat.

‘This is good,’ she said with admiration.

‘It will pass,’ said Preben van Loew. ‘It will pass.’

‘It will do for more than that. Are you sure that Jan made this?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘He has improved so much in the last year, Preben.’

‘Apprentices must work hard if they are to master their trade.’

‘Jan has certainly done so. You must be proud of him.’

‘I am teaching him all I know,’ said the Dutchman. ‘I showed you this latest example of his craft to prove that you need have no fears while you are away. The business will continue. Jan is now able to make hats that are worthy of sale. The lad is no longer a burden on you. He is helping to earn his keep.’

‘And maintaining the tradition that Jacob established.’

‘That is very important.’

Anne had invited him into her house so that they could discuss how the business would be run in her absence. There were enough commissions to keep them busy for months and there was always the possibility that more might come in. She had no worries about the making of the hats because Preben van Loew would oversee that. Where he needed advice was in the areas that she usually reserved for herself — the buying of the materials and the pricing of the finished article. What the Dutchman and the others made, she then sold. Her side of the operation was one in which the old man did not excel.

‘We will get by somehow,’ he assured her.

‘I know, Preben.’

‘How long will you be away?’

‘I’ll not stay much more than a week in Amsterdam.’

‘I still have many friends there. Will you carry letters for me?’

‘I’ll insist upon it.’

‘Thank you, Anne.’

It was early evening and they were seated in the parlour where candles had already been lit to dispel the shadows. Anne had no regrets about marrying into a Dutch family. She had not only acquired some charming relatives, she had also made many friends from the Low Countries and been impressed by the diligence and simplicity of their lives. She did not merely keep in touch with her relatives by marriage out of a sense of obligation. It was a pleasure to make rare visits to see them. Unwilling to return to his homeland himself, Preben van Loew valued her excursions there because she always brought back news and letters for him.

‘I feel that I can leave with a clear conscience now,’ she said.

‘Conscience?’

‘Nick did what he vowed to do.’

‘Ah,’ he said, realising. ‘The Dutch Churchyard.’

‘He and Owen kept vigil there for three nights in a row before they caught that young man.’

‘I know, Anne. I’m very grateful.’

‘He was the same person who threw the stone at you that day we were there. He admitted as much to Nick.’

‘But he did not write those cruel verses about strangers.’

‘No,’ she agreed, ‘but he endorsed every word of them. He’ll be punished severely for his part in the outrage. He’ll not be able to hang any more libels on the wall of the churchyard.’

‘Somebody else will do that.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘They will, Anne,’ he said with an air of fatalism. ‘He can easily be replaced. The only way to stop these attacks is to arrest the men who write and publish them. Nicholas would never catch them. They are far too clever to put themselves at risk. They stay hidden while someone else spreads the poison on their behalf. The young man who was captured last night was suborned by others.’

‘Their names will soon be known, Preben.’

‘He’ll not yield them up willingly.’

‘Nick says that he’s been taken to Bridewell to be examined,’ she told him. ‘We both know what that means.’

Preben van Loew swallowed hard. A sensitive man, he recoiled from the idea of pain, even when it was inflicted on others. The young man in custody had broken open the Dutchman’s head with a sharp stone yet he could still feel pity for him. Examination in Bridewell condemned the prisoner to torture. Instruments that could inflict the most unbearable agony were kept there. The very notion made Preben van Loew squirm. He tried to change the subject.