Westfield’s Men were given pride of place. Saved until the evening, when the celebrations were at their height, they were given a standing ovation as soon as they were announced. Without the bravery of the theatre troupe, there would have been no banquet. Westfield’s Men had foiled an assassination attempt on Conrad of Brunswick, designed to rescue Sophia Magdalena from marrying into a Protestant family. She had unwittingly become a symbol of Catholic defiance. Had the bridegroom been murdered during the rehearsal for the wedding, the consequences would have been hideous. The guests preferred not to contemplate them. Disaster averted, they now wanted to put it behind them, but they had not forgotten that Westfield’s Men were their saviours.
The Fair Maid of Bohemia was given its debut in the largest secular hall in Prague. Its size intimidated some of the company, who feared that their voices would not be heard. Built at the end of the previous century, the Vladislav Hall had the most remarkable ceiling they had ever seen. Its reticulated stellar vaulting covered a huge expanse, yet had no supporting pillars. Some of the actors could not understand how the ceiling stayed in position.
‘It is a miracle,’ said George Dart, gazing up.
‘So is our play,’ reminded Nicholas. ‘Edmund has written while we travelled across Germany in our wagons. Yet it holds together every bit as well as the ceiling.’
‘Thank you, Nick,’ said Hoode, ‘but you helped me to fashion the piece. Its lustre is partly due to you. We can but hope that Sophia Magdalena will like it.’
‘She will adore the play,’ said Firethorn confidently. ‘And dote on my performance as the Archduke.’
‘What about my role as the jester?’ asked Gill sniffily.
‘An ill-favoured thing, Barnaby, but we’ll endure it.’
‘My comic skills are the joy of this company.’
‘Yes. We never stop laughing at your absurdity.’
‘My Rigormortis in Cupid’s Fool was the shooting star of Frankfurt. Everyone loved it.’
‘None more so than Hugo Usselincx,’ noted Elias with a grin. ‘He has aped your performance and now plays rigor mortis himself.’
The laughter was mixed with groans of distaste. They were in the tiring-house, an ante-chamber off the hall. A high stage had been built up against the door and screened at the rear with curtains. To mount the stage, actors had to skip up five steps. Once there, they held a commanding position over the entire audience. After feasting for the best part of a day, that audience was in the most receptive mood possible.
Nicholas called the actors to order, then gave the signal for the play to begin. The quartet went out to set the mood with music, then Elias swept onto the centre of the stage to deliver a Prologue, which Hoode had kept deliberately short and simple. It began with one of the three German words he had mastered.
‘Willkommen, friends, to our new-minted play,
A humble gift upon this wedding day
To Brunswick’s Conrad and his lovely bride,
Sophia Magdalena, Beauty’s pride.
Our theme today is Happiness restored,
A long-lost child, remembered and adored,
Is on her sixteenth birthday found again
And reunited with her kith and kin.
In Prague’s great city is our action laid,
Prepare to meet Bohemia’s fairest maid.
To help your understanding ere we go,
Our play, its theme, we here present in show.
Elias bowed low and the tidal wave of applause carried him off the stage. When the sound finally faded, the musicians struck up again and the cast came on to perform the play in dumb show. It held the entire hall spellbound.
The Archduke and his wife were seen doting on their baby daughter. The girl is stolen by an unscrupulous lady-in-waiting and sold to childless peasants. Blaming the court jester, the Archduke banishes him and he commits himself to a search for the missing child. Sixteen years pass. She is now a gorgeous girl with a nobility of bearing that marks her out from the peasants. A prince falls in love with her but is forbidden to marry her because of her lowly station. The jester eventually tracks her down, identifies her, reunites her with her parents and is reinstated at Court. The play ends with the marriage of the fair maid and her prince.
Having seen the play in mime, the spectators had no difficulty in following its story in verse. Songs and dances were used in abundance. Eager to find his daughter himself, the Archduke disguises himself as a troubadour and goes among his people for the first time in his life. Firethorn extracted enormous pathos and humour out of his scenes and sang like a born troubadour. Richard Honeydew blossomed as the fair maid, with James Ingram as her handsome prince. Barnaby Gill added yet another mirthful jester to his collection, and Owen Elias displayed his comic touch as a drunken hedge-priest who keeps marrying the wrong people to each other. Edmund Hoode was the kind old peasant who brings up the fair maid as his own.
The rustic simplicity of the narrative enthralled the sophisticated audience. Emperor Rudolph clapped with childlike glee. Conrad of Brunswick laughed heartily and thumped the arm of his chair. Sophia Magdalena was overwhelmed that a play had been written specifically for her and she was in ecstasy throughout. Alone of those present, Doctor Talbot Royden saw the true worth of The Fair Maid of Bohemia, and he applauded the way that Westfield’s Men had taken the base metal of their drama and turned it into pure gold. They were the true alchemists.
Vladislav Hall echoed with cheers when the actors came out to take their bows. Firethorn and his company were exultant. All their setbacks and sufferings melted away in the heat of the acclamation. They had entertained an Emperor and his Court. Westfield’s Men had reached a new peak of achievement in their erratic history. During two magical hours on stage, their love for Sophia Magdalena, the fair maid of Bohemia, had been gloriously consummated.
***
The remainder of their stay in Prague was an uninterrupted idyll. They rehearsed every morning, performed at Court every afternoon and caroused every evening. Their work was revered and their purses were filled. They knew that it could not last and, in their hearts, they did not wish it to do so. The more admired they were in Prague, the more homesick they became for London. The more they played at their lavish indoor theatre, the more they yearned for the shortcomings of the Queen’s Head. They even began to miss Alexander Marwood.
Handsome offers flooded in from distinguished guests. They were invited to perform at the respective courts of the Elector Palatine, the Elector of Saxony, the Elector of Brandenburg, the Duke of Stettin, the Duke of Wolgast, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt and even that of the King of Poland. All were reluctantly turned down, though the company promised to return at some future date to take up the invitations.
On their journey home, the only place at which they consented to play was at the court of the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in the presence of the newlyweds. At the request of Sophia Magdalena, they agreed to give a second performance of The Fair Maid of Bohemia in the city which would become her home. The company would then make their way to London, pausing at Flushing on the way to pay their last respects to Adrian Smallwood.
‘We have one consolation,’ noted Elias. ‘Adrian’s killer also lies in his grave now. Thanks to you, Nick.’
‘You played your part as a monk, Owen.’
‘What about my Archbishop?’ reminded Firethorn. ‘I gave off the authentic odour of sanctity in that cathedral.’
‘That was the incense, Lawrence,’ teased Hoode.
They were outside the Black Eagle, loading up the wagons for departure. Doctor Talbot Royden was to ride part of the way with them. His pack-mule was laden with his books and equipment. Nicholas strolled across to him for a private word.
‘Are you leaving Prague with any regrets?’ he asked.
‘Several,’ said the other. ‘But my work is done here and it is time to move on. I need to get well away from memories of Caspar Hilliard and his Popis
h conspiracy.’
‘Why will you not travel all the way to London with us?’
‘Because of John Mordrake.’
‘Do you fear him so?’
‘I do not fear him at all, Master Bracewell. But I am in terror of his wife.’
‘His wife?’
‘Yes,’ confessed Royden. ‘After all the services you have rendered me, you deserve to know the hideous truth. Do you recall those two white feathers?’
‘Very well. What did they signify?’
‘Unwanted fatherhood.’
‘I do not follow.’
‘Almost a year ago, I returned to London and stayed with John Mordrake and his wife in Knightrider Street. Mordrake is old, his wife is young. My flesh was weak. I told them I had received an injunction from the spirit world to lie with the wife if I wished to divine the secret of the philosophers’ stone. The wife resisted, but Mordrake was so eager to learn the secret which all alchemists search for that he compelled her to share their bed with me. A featherbed.’
‘I begin to see the consequence,’ said Nicholas.
‘I possessed her,’ admitted the other, ‘then fled before Mordrake realised that the command from the spirit world had really arisen inside my breeches. That night of madness between the thighs of Sarah Mordrake has returned to haunt me.’
‘She is with child?’
‘Worse, sir. Those two feathers were taken from the bed on which I gave my lust full rein. It was Mordrake’s way of telling me that his wife had given birth.’ He grimaced in pain. ‘Doctor Talbot Royden is the father of twins.’
Nicholas smiled. He could not condone what Royden had done and his sympathy went out to the wife, but he could understand why his companion felt unable to return to London. Exiled from England and driven out of Bohemia, the homeless Royden was doomed to roll around the Continent for the rest of his days.
By contrast, Nicholas had somewhere to go and someone with whom to go there. He clambered up onto the first wagon and took his seat beside Anne Hendrik. She was slowly recovering from her ordeal at the hands of the kidnappers and had more pleasant memories to take away from Bohemia. As the rest of the company climbed aboard the two wagons, she took a last look around the city.
‘I am sorry to leave,’ she sighed, ‘but I will be glad to get home to London.’
‘It will seem a rather quiet place after Prague.’
‘That will suit me, Nick. I am ready for quietness.’
‘I still feel guilty that I brought you here.’
‘But you did not,’ she pointed out. ‘I made the decision to come. So I must bear some of the blame for what happened. I should not have inflicted myself on Westfield’s Men.’
‘You were our inspiration, Anne.’
‘No, that role fell to Sophia Magdalena. She brought you here, not me. Tell me, Nick,’ she said with a teasing smile. ‘What did you really think of her? Everyone else in the company fell madly in love with her. What of you? What is your true opinion of the fair maid of Bohemia?’
Nicholas grinned and gave her an affectionate squeeze.
‘I am taking you home with me,’ he said.
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