Edward Marston - The Fair Maid of Bohemia

‘Yes,’ agreed Smallwood. ‘Including our apprentices. Dick Honeydew has already begun his lessons on the lute. He is an apt pupil. We take only one lutanist to Bohemia, but there will be two of us on the return journey.’

‘Is the lad that quick to learn, Adrian?’ asked Elias.

‘He will be a finer musician than his teacher one day.’

Before Nicholas could comment, he saw Anne descending the oak staircase and rose quickly to beckon her across. She exchanged greetings with them all and joined them at their table. The three actors talked respectfully with her before breaking away, one by one, to join their noisier fellows and to give Nicholas time alone for her on the eve of her departure for Amsterdam. Anne let him order a glass of wine for her but would only eat a light refreshment.

‘I will not sleep after a heavy meal,’ she said, ‘and I need all the rest I can get before I set off tomorrow.’

‘What time do you leave?’

‘At dawn.’

He was shaken. ‘So early?’

‘It is a long journey, Nick. Soldiers and supplies are moving to and fro every day. Master Davey tells me I may join some men who are heading north. It means that I will have a military escort.’

‘That puts my mind at rest a little.’

‘The anxiety will be all on my side.’

‘Why?’

‘I heard what that man said aboard the Peppercorn .’

‘Some idle boast, that is all.’

‘He was in earnest, Nick. I am bound to fear.’

‘The danger is over,’ he assured her.

Nicholas made no mention of the man who had followed him on horseback from Rammekins. There was no point in sending Anne off in a state of apprehension to the bedside of a dying man. She had worries enough of her own. He simply luxuriated in her company for a couple of hours while he still could, then escorted her upstairs when she chose to retire. Promising that he would see her off at dawn, he took a lingering farewell.

When he rejoined his fellows, Nicholas was in time to see Lawrence Firethorn burst into the room, with Barnaby Gill and Edmund Hoode at his heels. All three were palpably flushed with wine. Firethorn closed on his book-holder, but his news was addressed to the entire company.

‘Nick, dear heart!’ he said effusively. ‘We have broken bread with Sir Robert Sidney himself. Our reputation has come before us. His brother, the late and much-lamented Sir Philip Sidney, was his predecessor here as Lord Governor of Flushing. He praised us to the skies. Sir Philip saw me play Hector at the Bel Savage Inn and witnessed some of our finest hours at the Queen’s Head.’

‘He also commended my genius to his brother,’ said Gill.

‘And one of my plays,’ added Hoode modestly.

‘In short,’ continued Firethorn, ‘Sir Robert is not content merely to lodge us here before sending us on our way. He has called for a play from Westfield’s Men.’ There was a flurry of interest from the company. ‘Our first engagement is to be before the Governor, his staff and our gallant English soldiers.’

There was a derisive snigger from one of the soldiers at the far end of the room, a big, scowling man with a sash across his chest and a rapier at his hip. The actor-manager sailed over the interruption without even hearing it.

‘Our play chooses itself,’ he announced.

‘Does it?’

‘ Hector of Troy !’

‘Over my dead body!’ howled an irate Gill.

‘Yes, Barnaby,’ he said. ‘I cut you down with my sword at the end of Act Five. A most deserved end for you.’

‘It is a hideous choice.’

‘I am bound to agree,’ said Hoode. ‘Anything but that.’

‘Support me here, Nick,’ said Firethorn, turning to the book-holder. ‘Hector is the only man fit for this occasion.’

The whole room was now listening to the argument and it showed nobody in a good light. Nicholas turned a public dispute into a private conference by leading Firethorn to a settle in the corner. Seated beside him, he used quiet persuasion in place of hot words. The others in the room gradually picked up their own conversations and left the two men alone.

‘Hector is one of your greatest roles,’ began Nicholas. ‘it is justly acclaimed. But this may not be the time and place for him.’

‘What better time than during a war? What more appropriate place than in front of English soldiers?’ He grabbed the other’s arm. ‘Hector is a military hero. My performance will inspire our army to similar feats of heroism in the field.’

‘I fear that it will lower their spirits.’

Firethorn felt betrayed. ‘My acting? Lower spirits?’

‘I talk of the play and not your performance,’ reasoned Nicholas. ‘This war in the Netherlands is now in its seventh year, with no sign of resolution. Many English soldiers have already sacrificed their lives and others will surely do so.’

‘How does this bar Hector of Troy ?’

‘The army is weary and disheartened. Soldiers need a play which takes them away from war, not one which reminds them of it. They want rest, amusement, distraction. In place of a stirring tragedy, offer them a harmless comedy. There is another consideration,’ he argued softly. ‘Where is the performance to take place?’

‘That was not decided.’

‘Is there anywhere suitable in the army’s quarters?’

‘They have no quarters, Nick,’ said Firethorn with a shrug. ‘The soldiers are dispersed around the town in lodgings. The Governor himself does not have a residence of his own. He rents a house. Flushing may be an English town but it is crawling with Dutch landlords.’

‘Where, then, are we expected to play?’

‘I was relying on you to find a place for us.’

Nicholas pondered. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said.

***

Adrian Smallwood demonstrated his true value to the company next morning. He was indefatigable. In default of anywhere more suitable, Nicholas selected the inn itself as their theatre and he found the landlord much more amenable than Alexander Marwood had ever been. Decisions had to be taken quickly and implemented at once. Since there was no enclosed yard like that at the Queen’s Head, Nicholas elected to set the stage up in the angle between the main body of the inn and the stables. The afternoon sun would strike the acting area directly and warm the back of the spectators’ heads.

Smallwood was in action at once, helping the ostlers to lead the horses out of the stables and tethering them a distance away. Aided by George Dart, he rolled barrels into place, then lifted boards onto them to create a springy but quite serviceable stage. Nicholas screened the wall of the inn with a makeshift curtain so that one room could be pressed into service as the tiring-house and its neighbour as a storeroom for costumes and properties. The stage nestled beneath the windows, making it possible for actors to step through each set of shutters to make separate entrances. When it was cleared out by Smallwood, a stable was incorporated into the play as the home of one of its characters.

It was Smallwood’s idea to utilise the upper window as a gallery where he and the other actor-musicians could play their instruments to best effect. The chamber had been vacated by Anne Hendrik at dawn and the landlord obligingly reserved it for use by Westfield’s Men. A hundred other jobs needed to be done and Nicholas shared them out evenly, but it was Adrian Smallwood who somehow ended up doing most of them with an infectious cheerfulness.

‘How did you contrive the miracle, Nick?’ he asked.

‘Miracle?’

‘You turned Hector of Troy into Mirth and Madness . Nobody else could have worked so subtly on Master Firethorn.’

‘I have had some practice,’ said Nicholas wryly.