Edward Marston - The Devil's Apprentice

Nicholas dismounted. ‘No, thank you, Mother Pigbone. I’m more interested in the concoction you gave to my friend.’

‘Did it work?’

‘Extremely well.’

‘Then you’ve no complaint.’

‘None whatsoever,’ he said pleasantly. ‘In fact, Master Firethorn, the patient whose voice you brought back, asked me to pass on his congratulations. He’s indebted to your skills.’

‘So is half the county,’ she replied complacently.

‘May I ask what was in the potion you gave him?’

Mother Pigbone cackled. ‘Ask all you want, sir,’ she invited, ‘but you’ll get no answer from me. My remedies are all secret. If I gave them away, people would use them to medicine themselves and I’d lose my custom.’

‘How much custom does Doctor Winche bring you?’

‘That’s between me and him.’

‘Does he come here regularly?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘He obviously trusts you, Mother Pigbone.’

‘More than I trust you, sir,’ she said, folding her arms with suspicion. ‘What brought you here at this time of the morning?’

‘I was curious to meet you.’

‘Well, now that you’ve satisfied your curiosity, you may ride on.’

‘In a moment,’ he said, meeting her stare. A loud grunting noise took his gaze to the little garden. ‘You obviously keep pigs.’

‘Just one, sir. Beelzebub.’

‘A fearsome name.’

‘He’s a fearsome animal. Beelzebub is my guard dog. When I have unwelcome visitors, I let him loose on them. Nobody stops to argue when they see an angry boar coming at them.’

‘A black boar, by any chance?’

‘Beelzebub is as black as can be, sir. Why do you ask?’

‘It’s an odd coincidence,’ he said, thinking of The Witch of Colchester. ‘A character in one of our plays keeps a black boar. But I didn’t come here to discuss our repertoire with you. I wanted your advice.’

She was circumspect. ‘About what?’

‘Poisons.’

‘You want to buy one, sir?’

He watched her closely. ‘Could you provide it if I did?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘But you’d have the means to make poison, I suspect.’

‘Some herbs can save, others can kill.’

‘Would you prepare a compound that could kill?’

‘I work to save lives, sir,’ she said defensively, ‘not to take them.’

‘What if someone wanted to get rid of rats or other vermin?’ he pressed. ‘Surely you’d have something you could sell to them?’

‘I might.’

‘Then that same poison could be used on a human being.’

‘Not with my blessing, sir,’ she said vehemently. ‘If I did sell rat poison — and I’m not saying that I do — it would be solely to poison rats. I can’t be called to account for what use it was put to when it left here. I made a potion for your friend but I had no means of stopping it from being given to a horse or a cat instead.’

‘I’m not here to accuse you, Mother Pigbone,’ he assured her. ‘I merely wanted to establish how well you knew Doctor Winche and to ask about poisons.’

‘Then you’ve no need to linger, have you?’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘Unless you want some ointment for those bruises,’ she said, softening her tone. ‘You must’ve taken a lot of punishment to get those. Who cracked open your head?’

‘I wish I knew.’

‘You’ve clearly not had a happy time since you came to Essex.’

‘It’s not been without its pleasures. Meeting you is one of them.’

Mother Pigbone cackled again. ‘Your flattery comes twenty years too late for me or I might invite you in for refreshment. If you could stand the smell, that is. Most people can’t. They have the gall to complain that Beelzebub stinks. What else is a pig to do?’

Nicholas was glad to be leaving on a less hostile note. Hauling himself back up into the saddle, he gave her a smile of gratitude then pretended to have an afterthought.

‘You’re rather isolated out here in the woods,’ he observed.

‘That’s the way that Beelzebub and I prefer it.’

‘Visitors would only come for a special reason.’

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘Like you, sir.’

‘Have you had many callers recently? Apart from Doctor Winche, that is.’

‘That’s for me to know and you to guess.’

‘Then my guess is that somebody may have come here to buy some poison from you, Mother Pigbone. From what I hear, there’s nobody else in this part of the county who could supply it. It had to have come from here.’ He looked down at her. ‘Did it?’

‘Ride on, sir.’

‘Did it?’ he repeated.

Mother Pigbone turned on her heel and walked around to the sty at the bottom of the garden. When she unhooked the gate, the black boar came charging straight out with its mouth open and its teeth glinting. Nicholas did not wait to be formally introduced to Beelzebub. He had his answer and rode swiftly away.

The euphoria of the previous night had entirely disappeared. During the rehearsal next morning, Westfield’s Men were sluggish and jaded. Having celebrated the fortuitous capture of Isaac Upchard, they had now learnt of the flight of Davy Stratton and it unsettled them deeply. Two of the apprentices, Martin Yeo and Stephen Judd, rejoiced in the news and hoped that their young colleague would never return but Richard Honeydew was so upset by the loss of his friend that he was hopelessly distracted. Some actors were merely depressed by the news, others were extremely irritated. When work was so scarce, they felt utterly betrayed that someone should run away from the company and imperil their chances of giving good performances, all the more so since his disappearance meant that they also incurred the far more serious loss of their book holder. Nicholas Bracewell had never been missed more painfully.

‘You idiot! Consumption take thee!’

‘Yes, Master Firethorn.’

‘Stupidity, thy name is George Dart!’

‘If you say so.’

‘Use what little sense you have!’ shouted the actor. ‘Are you deaf?’

‘No, Master Firethorn.’

‘Blind?’

‘No, Master Firethorn.’

‘Then employ those ears and eyes to good purpose for once,’ railed Firethorn, looming over Dart in the Great Hall as if about to strike him. ‘We’re rehearsing Act Two, Scene Three, you imbecile, so do not try to prompt us with Act Three, Scene Two open before you.’

Dart quailed. ‘I’m truly sorry.’

‘Is there nothing you can do properly?’

‘I don’t yet know the play well enough to prompt, Master Firethorn.’

‘How can we master the lines if you feed us the wrong ones?’

Dart was a proving a feeble substitute for the book holder. Promoted to the role of prompter, he sat with a copy of The Witch of Colchester in his lap, wondering from time to time if he even had the right play, let alone the correct scene. So chaotic was the rehearsal that most of the lines spoken seemed to bear little resemblance to those penned by Egidius Pye. They were devoting another full day to the new comedy even though Edmund Hoode’s chronicle play, Henry the Fifth , would be staged on the following evening. The latter was a known quantity and well within their compass. The Witch of Colchester , by contrast, was taking them into uncharted territory. Fresh hazards greeted them every inch of the way.

Barnaby Gill was among the first to voice a shrill protest.

‘I thought that there was a dance at some point,’ he said.

‘We moved it to the end of the scene,’ said Firethorn impatiently.

‘Why wasn’t I told, Lawrence?’

‘You just have been.’

‘I prefer my jig where it is.’