Edward Marston - The Fair Maid of Bohemia

They all saw her. Sooner or later, every eye in the company was drawn ineluctably up to the place where she sat in the lower gallery. The yard of the Queen’s Head was filled to shoulder-jostling capacity, as the eager citizens of London converged on Gracechurch Street to see a performance by Westfield’s Men of The Knights of Malta , yet she still stood out clearly from the mass of bodies all around her. She was like a bright star in a troubled sky, a fixed point of illumination from which all could take direction and reassurance. A sign from above.

What was remarkable was the fact that she evidently did not set out to become a cynosure. There was a natural poise and a becoming modesty about her which forbade any deliberate attempt to court attention. Not for her the vivid plumage which some ladies wore or the extravagant gestures with which some gallants sought to make their presence felt. Her attire was sober, her manner restrained. That was the paradox. Here was a young woman whose desire to be invisible somehow made her strikingly conspicuous.

Owen Elias was the first to notice her. When he came out in a black cloak to deliver the Prologue, he was so dazzled by her that he all but forgot the rhyming couplet which ended the speech. The ebullient Welshman swept into the tiring-house at the rear of the makeshift stage and passed the warning on to Lawrence Firethorn.

‘Beware!’ he whispered.

‘Why?’ asked Firethorn.

‘An angel has come to look down on us. Avoid her, Lawrence. Gaze up at her and you will not even remember what day it is, still less which role you are taking in what play.’

‘Nothing can distract me!’ asserted Firethorn, inflating his barrel chest. ‘When I marshal my knights in Malta, the sight of Saint Peter and a whole choir of angels would not lead me astray. My art is adamantine proof.’

‘She sits with Lord Westfield himself.’

‘Some costly trull he keeps for amusement.’

‘No trull, Lawrence, I do assure you.’

‘Stand aside, Owen.’

‘A heavenly creature in every particular.’

‘They want me.’

As the martial music sounded, Firethorn, in the person of Jean de Valette, Grand Master of the Order, strutted imperiously onto the stage, with four knights in rudimentary armour at his back. It was a majestic entrance and it brought a round of applause from the throng. Lawrence Firethorn was the company’s actor-manager, a man of towering histrionic skills with an incomparable record of success on the boards. He could breathe life into the most moribund character and transmute even the most banal verse into the purest poetry. Declaiming his first speech, he convinced his audience that he had a whole army at his behest and not a mere quartet of puny soldiers in rusty helmets and dented breast-plates.

‘ Fie upon this siege! Defiance is my cry!

How dare the base and all-unworthy Turk

Presume to touch this island paradise

And crush its treasured liberties to death

Beneath the blood-soaked heel of Ottoman.

No tyrant from the east will conquer here.

The Knights of Malta will protect the isle

And fight with God Almighty at their side

To bless their cause and urge them on to feats

Of valour, acts of noble note, triumphing

At the last o’er Turkish hordes, whate’er their

Strength and purpose.’

Firethorn was not simply establishing his hold over the spectators and giving them a brief summary of the plot of the play, he was using the speech as a means of surveying the female faces in the galleries, feeding off their wide-eyed admiration and searching for a new conquest for his capacious bed. When his roving eye settled on Lord Westfield’s young companion, it roved no further. She provided firm anchorage for his scrutiny. Like Owen Elias, he was struck by her beauty but it did not threaten to deprive him of his lines in the same way. Instead, the Grand Master of the Order of Saint John Jerusalem worked the bellows of his lungs to put more fire into his bold words and left flames of defiance crackling in the air when he quit the stage.

Nicholas Bracewell had the actors ready for the next scene. As the Knights of Malta made their exit, a booming drum announced the entry of the Turkish army. When the book-holder had ushered them into action, he had a moment to observe the bemused look on the face of the Grand Master.

‘What ails you?’ he asked with concern.

Firethorn beamed. ‘He is right, Nick. He has hit the mark.’

‘Who?’

‘Owen. He first witnessed the miracle.’

‘Miracle? What miracle?’

‘The one beside Lord Westfield.’

Nicholas understood. ‘A young lady, I think?’

‘No, Nick,’ said Firethorn, kissing his fingertips with expressive emotion. ‘An alabaster Venus. A saint in blue apparel. Virginity made manifest.’

‘Look to your defences,’ advised the other, one ear on the progress of the play. ‘Scene Three finds you inspecting the fortifications at Fort Saint Elmo. Stand by, for you will soon be called.’

Firethorn heaved a sigh. ‘My walls have already been breached. Not by the Turkish soldiers or by any ordnance that man can muster. But by that divine creature in the lower gallery. Her eyes are cannon-balls that leave no stone of my heart still standing. I lie in ruins.’ A beatific smile lit his countenance. ‘Behold a Grand Master brought to his knees by a virtuous maid.’

‘Edmund will not applaud your capitulation.’

‘Why so?’

‘He has worked long and hard to repair this play,’ reminded Nicholas. ‘To make an old theme sound new-minted, he has rewritten the last two acts in their entirety. He will not thank you for surrendering Malta without even putting up token resistance.’

Firethorn’s pride was stung. ‘You mistake me, Nick. I do not yield to the enemy because I have seen a gorgeous apparition out there in the yard. Nothing will separate me from the part I play. I am Jean de Valette, lately Governor of Tripoli and Captain General of the Order’s galleys, now elected Grand Master. Nobody will change that. But she will inspire me to greater heights. Edmund Hoode will have no complaint about The Knights of Malta . Under the spell of that demi-god beside our patron, I will give the performance of a lifetime. Besiege my island! Storm my fortresses! This indignity will not be borne. I’m in a mood to conquer the entire Ottoman Empire with my bare hands. Set me loose!’

When the fanfare sounded, Firethorn went bursting onto the stage to take command once more. Though he dedicated his lines to one select pair of ears, all the spectators were moved by the power and sincerity of his acting. Where he led, most of the company could not begin to follow. Firethorn was scaling mountain peaks that left them dizzy with fear. While he was helped by the sight of the mysterious young lady with Lord Westfield, they were fatally handicapped.

Even the dependable James Ingram was stricken.

‘She is bewitching, Nick,’ he said as he left the stage.

‘Is that why you stuttered on your first line?’ chided Nicholas. ‘Is she the reason you dropped that goblet?’