‘That is why I am here.’
‘Then watch.’
Sir John Tarker wheeled his horse and spurred it into a canter that took it to the far end of the tiltyard. Reining it in, he swung round once more to face his opponent, a burly knight in dark armour, sitting astride a powerful black destrier that was drumming the turf with its hooves. Tarker’s reputation frightened away many combatants but this man clearly had courage enough for the encounter and confidence enough in his own ability. He adjusted his shield, lifted his lance and made ready.
The preliminaries were soon over. When the signal was given, the two riders jabbed their horses into action and pounded towards each other on either side of the tilt. Sir Godfrey Avenell respected the challenger’s skill but knew it would be unequal to the task. Sir John Tarker was a masterly jouster. His mount was steered at the right pace, his lance and shield held at the correct angles. The long pummelling approach ended in a momentary clash of metal. Tarker’s shield deflected the oncoming lance while his own weapon found a tiny gap in the defence and struck his adversary full in the chest. Since the lance was rebated, its blunt end did not damage the breastplate but the man was promptly unseated and Sir Godfrey Avenell rocked with appreciative laughter.
Tarker reined in his horse again and trotted back to the fallen rider with token concern. Pages were already running to the latter’s assistance.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No, Sir John,’ said the other breathlessly, as they helped him up. ‘My pride only has been wounded.’
‘Will you remount and engage me a second time?’
‘I will not. Find some other fool to challenge you.’
Tarker grinned behind his visor. ‘They are frighted.’
‘Who can blame them? You have no peer as a jouster. A man with your skills could look to be Queen’s Champion.’
‘I do, believe me. I do.’
Pleased with his performance and wanting approbation from the source he respected most, Tarker took his horse across to the gallery once more. He flicked up his visor so that he could see Sir Godfrey Avenell more clearly and enjoy the latter’s praise. His friend, however, was no longer beaming down at the tiltyard. He was reading a letter, which had just been handed to him by a servant. The frown of alarm became a scowl of anger as he scrunched up the missive in his hand. Rising to his feet, he fixed Tarker with a venomous glare and pointed an accusatory finger.
‘You failed me again!’ he snarled.
‘How?’
‘You swore the matter was dead and buried.’
‘What matter?’ He realised the subject of the letter and spluttered. ‘It is. We may forget the whole thing.’
‘We may but Westfield’s Men will not.’
‘Westfield’s Men?’
‘Two of their number visited a house in Greenwich but yesterday,’ said Avenell. ‘One was their playwright and the other was this Nicholas Bracewell whom your men, you assured me, had beaten into submission.’
‘They did!’ asserted Tarker. ‘On my honour, they did!’
‘You failed.’
‘That is not so!’
‘You failed miserably,’ said Avenell with scorn. ‘I give you a simple task and you let me down. Does such an imbecile deserve the brightest armour from the workshops? Has such a bungler any call on my friendship?’
‘I did but as you urged me,’ said Tarker hurriedly. ‘If there is some fault, it is not of my making. Blame the fools I hired. They promised me they had all but finished this Nicholas Bracewell. They lied to me, the rogues. I’ll have the hide off their backs for this.’
‘I’ll have the armour off yours!’ snarled Avenell. ‘If you do not wipe up this mess you have made—and that with all celerity—I’ll turn Sir John Tarker into the poorest knight in Christendom. You’ll be jousting at the Accession Tournament in fustian on the back of a donkey. The Queen’s Champion indeed! They will hail you as the Queen’s Champion jester!’
***
Westfield’s Men were steeped in affliction and seasoned by regular crisis but the next ten days brought pressures of an intensity that even they had not known before. The whole company was in a state of muted desperation. Stimulated to a fever pitch of creation by his visit to Greenwich, Edmund Hoode worked tirelessly on The Roaring Boy, wholly convinced of its importance and buttressed by thoughts of winning the approval of Emilia Brinklow. He still acted in the current offerings at the Queen’s Head but no longer stayed for a celebratory drink after a performance. Within half an hour of quitting the stage, he was back at his post in the lodging he shared with Nicholas Bracewell.
The book holder himself rarely left Hoode’s side. He helped him, advised him and guaranteed his safety. Given the proper space in which to work, the playwright blossomed. Owen Elias was a second line of defence, watching over his friends from a distance and ready to ward off any attack. The rest of the company were also schooled in the basic elements of security. Convinced that Westfield’s Men might be ambushed at any moment, Lawrence Firethorn counselled them to stay in groups at all times and to remain alert.
But the expected assault never came. The Roaring Boy was allowed to grow from a halting drama into a fullfledged play. The actors did not, however, relax. They felt that they had merely been given a stay of execution and that the axe would fall on them in time. Nicholas Bracewell wondered if its enemies planned to scupper the play in a more bloodless fashion. Every new work had first to be read by the Master of the Revels before it was licensed for performance. If Sir John Tarker had some influence at court, he might well use it to have the play banned. To guard against that eventuality, Nicholas suggested a counteraction.
‘It must be twofold,’ he told Firethorn.
‘Speak on, Nick.’
‘The Roaring Boy must not mention Sir John Tarker by name or that will invite censorship for sure. Edmund will devise a suitable disguise for the character. Nobody will hear the name of Tarker but everyone will recognise it.’
‘What is your other strategy?’
‘We make use of our patron, Lord Westfield.’
‘In what way?’
‘He is a personal friend of the Master of the Revels.’
‘True. He and Sir Edmund Tilney often dine together.’
‘We must ask Lord Westfield to submit The Roaring Boy on our behalf,’ said Nicholas. ‘A word from him in the ear of a boon companion may get the piece read and licensed much sooner than would otherwise be the case.’
‘Your advice as ever is sound.’
Nicholas took the opportunity to grasp another nettle. ‘Let me add more of a personal nature.’
‘Personal?’
‘Have your tooth pulled by a surgeon,’ said Nicholas. ‘A little pain now will spare you a lot of agony in the future. You claim that the discomfort has gone but that swelling in your cheek argues the contrary case.’
‘Leave my tooth alone. It is not relevant here.’
‘It is if it keeps you off the stage again.’
‘It will not!’ snapped Firethorn, feeling a menacing tingle in his gum. ‘Simply forget my toothache and it will go away. Stoke up the fire with constant carping about it and my mouth is an inferno. You mean well, Nick, I know that. But your concern is unfounded. Trust me, dear heart. A dozen bad teeth will not keep me away from The Roaring Boy. They will simply make Freshwell roar all the louder.’
Nicholas Bracewell accepted the promise and backed off.
His strategy with regard to the Master of the Revels was a shrewd one. It was the book holder’s job to take each new drama to Sir Edmund Tilney’s office and pay the fee to have it read. Delays were normal and often very lengthy. Since The Roaring Boy relied on its topicality, it was essential to bring it into the light of day as quickly as possible. Lord Westfield served his players well. A tactf
ul word to his friend and a troublesome play was granted an immediate licence with hardly a line of the work altered.
Edmund Hoode took much of the credit for its apparent harmlessness. Sir John Tarker was featured as The Stranger and accused by inference rather than name. The real power of The Roaring Boy lay not in the lines that were spoken but in the action that went on between them. Hoode had contrived to damn Sir John Tarker in the most visible way possible. There was a cunning reference to the latter’s jousting skills and many other hidden clues that would be instantly recognised by those who knew the knight. His identity would be trumpeted to the skies.
While performances continued to be given at the Queen’s Head in the afternoons, the leading members of the company rehearsed the new play secretly in the evenings. Hired men were not brought into the venture at this point. Their parts were too small to be of significance and Nicholas argued that the fewer people who knew the true substance of The Roaring Boy, the less chance there was of any details of its contents falling into the wrong hands.
Hard work, punishing hours and the constant strain of being on guard inevitably took their toll and frayed tempers occasionally rocked a rehearsal. Barnaby Gill exploded like a powder keg at regular intervals, torn between delight at the leading role he had been assigned and trepidation at the consequences of playing it. But he was always calmed by the others and equilibrium was soon re-established. The Roaring Boy took on real shape and was ready for its premiere well ahead of the original schedule. It was inserted into the company’s programme at once. Lawrence Firethorn supervised the printing of the playbills himself. In sonorous tones, he read one of them out to his fellows.
THE ROARING BOY
Being the Lamentable and True Tragedy
of M. Brinklow of Greenwich
Most wickedly murdered by foul means
Supposedly at the behest of a wanton wife
It was enough to ignite great interest without giving too much away. Whatever else might happen at the performance of the play, Westfield’s Men could rely on getting a large and excitable audience. A savage murder involving an adulterous wife was a cautionary tale that none could resist.
***
Orlando Reeve was less than pleased to be sent back to the Queen’s Head to sit on a crowded bench and endure the stench of horse manure and the stink of the commonalty that rose up in equal parts from a packed courtyard. What increased his dismay was the fact that his pay-master this time was not the bounteous Sir Godfrey Avenell but the tight-fisted Sir John Tarker. While the former loved music, the latter was openly contemptuous of musicians and treated Reeve with a disdain which he found quite intolerable. Tarker’s command could not be ignored, however, so the second ordeal had to be faced.
The play on offer that afternoon was Mirth and Madness but Orlando Reeve was untouched by either. A rumbustious comedy sent the audience into an almost continuous spasm of laughter but the adipose musician remained stony-faced. Only the work of Peter Digby and his consort brought any relief to a grim afternoon for him. When the performance was over, he cornered his old friend in the taproom. Digby was astounded to see him again and wondered why Reeve was so eager to buy him a cup of wine and talk about former times. Not wishing to stay in the noisy tavern any longer than he had to, the visitor swiftly guided the conversation around to The Roaring Boy.
‘I see that you play the murder of Thomas Brinklow.’
‘On Saturday next.’
‘A warning to all men foolish enough to marry.’
‘His wife may not be the villain that you imagine.’
‘Indeed?’
‘She was the victim of a plot conceived by another.’
‘Tell me more of this, Peter.’
‘I may not,’ said Digby, remembering the dire warnings issued by Lawrence Firethorn. ‘I am sworn to secrecy. We have enemies all around us and have built a wall of silence to keep them at bay. But this I may tell you. The Roaring Boy will blaze across the stage. Westfield’s Men have not had such a play in years.’
‘Does it have songs and dances?’
‘All our work contains those, Orlando.’
‘And incidental music between scenes?’
‘I have composed it all.’
‘What yet remains to exercise your talents?’
‘A tuneful setting for the ballad.’
‘Ballad?’
‘It begins the play,’ said Digby, ‘and tells what lies ahead. It is a simple enough task to match it to music but I have not yet found the trick of it. I am too bound up with composition of a more serious kind to master the ballad-maker’s art.’
‘Perhaps I may help,’ volunteered the oleaginous Reeve.
‘It is beneath the dignity of a Court musician.’
‘Not so. I turned my hand to ballads in younger days. Give me but the first verse, then hum your tunes for me. I’ll help you choose the one most apt.’ He poured the hesitating Digby another cup of wine and gave him a flabby grin. ‘Come, Peter. One verse will break no solemn vow of secrecy. I come to you as a fellow-musician. Sing it in my ear.’
***
Saturday finally dawned and brought with it the prospect of release from the appalling tensions that had built up within the company. The stage was set up in the yard of the Queen’s Head and an attenuated rehearsal held that morning. Lawrence Firethorn did not wish to reveal anything to prying eyes. He simply walked his cast through the play to familiarise them with their movement around the boards and to acquaint them with the scenic devices that would be used. Hired men were slotted into minor parts for the first time. It was such a fraught occasion that they were grateful to Barnaby Gill when his spectacular fit helped to clear the air.
Forearmed against danger from without, Nicholas Bracewell also had to cope with a hazard from within. Alexander Marwood, the landlord of the Queen’s Head, enjoyed a nervous relationship with Westfield’s Men, believing that actors were little better than wild goats and that he never ought to place either his tavern or his nubile daughter within their lustful reach. He was a small, ageing, restless man with hollow cheek and haunted eyes. A few last strands of greasy hair still remained, not knowing whether to cling to the lost cause of his mottled skull or to fling themselves into the void after their fellows.
When Marwood scurried across his yard, his face was simultaneously twitching in three distinct areas. With an unerring instinct for misfortune, he could smell calamity in the air. His arms gesticulated wildly.
‘You bring trouble into my yard, Master Bracewell.’
‘We bring the biggest audience we have had for many a week and thereby put extra money in your purse.’
‘The Roaring Boy alarms me.’
‘Why?’
‘I do not know but I feel it in my bones.’
‘We cannot choose our plays to appease your anatomy.’
‘More’s the pity!’ said Marwood, as the three separate twitches met in the middle of his face to make his nose tremble violently. ‘I had this same presentiment before The Devil’s Ride Through London and what happened, sir? You all but burned my tavern to the ground.’
‘No fire is used in this play. You are safe.’
‘From conflagration, maybe. But what of the fire in the play’s subject? May not that flare up and scorch us?’
Nicholas calmed him with a mixture of argument and assurance but the book holder was by no means as confident as he sounded. The landlord, for once, had scented danger where it genuinely existed. Once it started, The Roaring Boy would be walking a tightrope between hope and terror.
The atmosphere in the tiring-house was as taut as a bowstring. As the hour of performance edged nearer, the whole company fell prey to niggling anxiety. Barnaby Gill gave way to bitter recrimination, Edmund Hoode flew into a sudden panic at the thought that Emilia Brinklow would be among the spec
tators to judge both him and his work, Owen Elias grew more pugnacious than ever and Lawrence Firethorn—intending to rally them with a high-flown speech that stressed the significance of the event before them—only succeeded in disseminating more unease. It was left to Nicholas Bracewell to lead by example with the quiet efficiency which had become his hallmark.
‘Stand by, my lads!’ said Firethorn. ‘We are there!’
The bell in the nearby clocktower chimed twice and the performance began. As the consort played the introductory music, the spectators gave a concerted cheer. Packed into the yard and crammed into the benches, they positively buzzed with anticipation. The murder of such a decent and upright man as Thomas Brinklow was an emotive subject and their passions were already stirred. The Roaring Boy had no need to warm up an audience already simmering in the sunshine.
Simon Chaloner sat in the lower gallery beside Emilia Brinklow. He scanned the benches all around him for signs of danger but her attention never left the stage. This was the moment of truth for her. When Simon felt her tremble, he took her hand in his and found the little palm moist. Grateful for his love and support, Emilia tossed him a little smile, then watched the stage with beating heart.
Instead of the expected Prologue, the penitent figure of Cecily Brinklow stepped out from behind the arras. Richard Honeydew wore the plain dress, in which he would later go to his death, and an auburn wig. With cosmetic aid, the young apprentice was a most attractive and convincing wife. As a lute played in the gallery above him, he sang his ballad with a tearful simplicity that all but hushed the audience.
Ah me, vile wretch, that ever I was born,
Making myself unto the world a scorn;
And to my friends and kindred all a shame,
Blotting their blood by my unhappy name.
Unto a gentleman of wealth and fame,
(One Master Brinklow, he was called by name)
I wedded was to this man of great renown,
Living at Greenwich, close to London town.
This husband dear, my heart he fully won,
The Roaring Boy Page 13
