Edward Marston - The Laughing Hangman

Nicholas could never bring himself to like Raphael Parsons. The man was too malignant and devious. As he looked down at the corpse, however, he felt compassion for him. There was a crude symmetry about his death. Having attempted to commit murder, he had himself been cut down in the most brutal way. On the very day that he bade farewell to the Master of the Chapel, he was sent off in pursuit of him. While rehearsing a trial scene with a favoured son, he was arraigned by a father who appointed himself judge, jury and executioner.

By the time Ingram arrived with a surgeon, Nicholas had taken charge with cool efficiency. The dead body had been covered with a cloak, the weeping porter had been led away, and the actors had been taken to the tiring-house to be comforted. Nicholas did not forget his promise to call on a house in Ireland Yard, but sad tidings had first to be broken to someone else. He took Philip Robinson to a quiet corner backstage where they might speak alone.

‘You must be brave, Philip,’ he said.

‘Who are you, sir?’

‘Nicholas Bracewell. A friend of Mistress Hendrik.’

‘She was kind to me when my mother died.’

‘I know,’ said Nicholas. ‘But it is about your father that I must now talk, I fear.’

‘What happened, sir? I heard a fearful yell.’

‘He attacked Master Parsons with a meat-cleaver.’

The boy burst into tears and it took some time to soothe him. Nicholas gave him a brief account of what had taken place. He did not conceal the truth from him.

‘Your father will have to pay for his crime.’

‘I know, sir. I know.’

‘One death may be answered by another.’

‘And the two can be laid at my door!’

‘No, Philip.’

‘I killed them both! If I had not been here, Master Parsons would still be alive and my father would not soon be facing the public hangman.’

‘You were not to blame,’ insisted Nicholas. ‘You are the victim and not the cause of this crime.’ He held the boy until his sobbing gradually eased off. ‘You like it here in the theatre, do you not?’

‘I do, sir.’

‘You were happy out on that stage.’

‘Very happy.’

‘So you did not write to your father to say how much you hated Blackfriars?’

‘I did not write at all.’

‘Would you rather be in the Chapel Royal or at home?’

‘In the Chapel!’ affirmed the boy. ‘Anywhere but home.’

‘Why is that?’

The boy felt the pull of family loyalties. Unhappy with his father, he did not want to divulge the full details of that unhappiness. Ambrose Robinson would soon be tried for murder and removed for ever from his son’s life. The boy wanted to cling to a positive memory.

‘My father loved me, I am sure,’ he said.

‘No question of that.’

‘But it was not the same after my mother died. He told me I was all that he had. It made him watch me every moment of the day. That came to weigh down on me, sir.’

Nicholas understood. Philip Robinson was oppressed at home. The Chapel Royal had been his sanctuary. The boy looked around him in despair.

‘What will happen to me?’ he wondered.

‘You will remain where you are.’

‘But will they still want me after this, sir? I am the son of a murderer. They will expel me straight.’

‘I think not.’

‘Master Fulbeck was my friend. He looked after me. Who will do that now that he has gone?’ His face was pale and haunted. ‘What will happen to the theatre with Master Parsons dead? Chapel and theatre were my life.’

‘They may still be so again.’

‘It will never be the same.’

Philip Robinson was right. Cyril Fulbeck had been a father to him, and notwithstanding his strictness, Raphael Parsons had been an excellent tutor. Having lost both along with his own father, the boy was truly floundering.

‘Which did you prefer, Philip?’ asked Nicholas.

‘Prefer?’

‘Singing in the Chapel Royal or acting at Blackfriars?’

‘Acting, sir, without a doubt.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because I may get better at that in time,’ he said. ‘In the Chapel, I can only sing. On the stage, I can sing, dance, declaim the finest verse ever written and move all who watch to tears or laughter. I long to be an actor. But how can I do that without a theatre?’

Nicholas thought of the broken voice of John Tallis.

‘Let me see if I can find you one,’ he said.

The day of rest was the least restful day of the week for Margery Firethorn. Tolled out of bed by the sonorous bells of Shoreditch, she had to rouse the remainder of the household, see them washed and dressed, lead them off to Matins at the parish church of St Leonard’s, and smack them awake again when any of them dozed off during the service. Apart from the four apprentices and the two servants, she had three actors staying at the house until they could find a more suitable lodging. Thirteen mouths, including the ever-open ones of her children, had thus to be fed throughout the day. Since the servants tended to bungle some of the chores and burn all the food, Margery ended up doing more cleaning and cooking than was good for her temper.

When she got back from Evensong with her flock in tow, she was vexed by the irreligious thought that the Sabbath had been invented as a punishment for anyone foolish enough to embrace marriage and succumb to motherhood. Margery looked ahead grimly to an evening laden with even more tasks and groaned inwardly. It was not the most auspicious time to call on her. Edmund Hoode felt the full force of rumbling dissatisfaction.

‘Avaunt! Begone! Take your leprous visage away!’

‘I have come on an errand of mercy.’

‘Take mercy on me and go as fast as you may!’

‘This is no kind of welcome, Margery.’

‘It is the warmest you will get, sir,’ she said. ‘Have you so soon forgot your last visit here when you sewed such discord between man and wife that Lawrence and I have barely exchanged a civil word since?’

‘That is one reason I came.’

‘To part us asunder even more! Saints in Heaven! You will depopulate the city at this rate. Who can engage in the lawful business of procreation with you standing outside their bedchamber? What woman will submit to her husband’s pleasure if she sees your ghoulish face staring at her over his naked shoulder?’

‘I am here to beg your apology,’ he said.

‘Do so from a further distance, sir. Stand off a mile or more and I’ll let you grovel all you wish.’

She tried to close the front door but he stopped her.

‘Please do not turn me away!’

‘Be grateful I do not set the dogs on you!’

‘I am desperate, Margery.’

‘Shift your desperation to another place, for we’ll have none of it. Though it be the Sabbath, I’ll use some darker language to send you on your way, if you dare to linger.’

‘I must come in!’

‘Go ruin another marriage instead.’

‘I implore you!’

‘You do so in vain,’ she said. ‘Lawrence is not within. Since you made converse with his wife impossible, he has taken himself off with his fellows.’

‘But it is you I wish to see.’

‘Wait till I fetch a broom and you will see me at my best. For I can beat a man black and blue within a minute.’

Seizing his cue, Hoode flung himself to the ground in an attitude of contrition.

‘Beat me all you wish!’ he invited. ‘I deserve it, I need it, I invite it. Belabour me at will.’

Margery was taken aback. She looked at him properly for the first time and saw the haggard face and the hollow eyes. Hoode was suffering. She bent down to help him up from her doorstep.

‘What is wrong with you, man?’