The Mad Courtesan (24 page)

Nicholas wondered if Giles Randolph knew about it.

Beatrice Capaldi reclined on her four-poster and sipped wine from a Venetian glass goblet. Even when naked and covered with a film of perspiration, she still had natural poise and distinction. A toss of her head turned unkempt hair into a faultless coiffure once more. A lift of her black eyebrow restored full hauteur to her mien. She was an aristocrat in a profession of commoners. Beatrice Capaldi was no ordinary whore who could be bought by anyone with enough money. She was a voluptuous woman of high ambition and a discerning taste. Suitors of all manner besieged her but she rejected the vast majority and chose only the select few. Giles Randolph, actor-manager with Banbury’s Men, was one of those chosen few. Indeed, he
had been encouraged to believe that he was now the only one of them.

He lay beside her and fingered the new love-bite she had just implanted on his chest. Still panting from his exertions, he threw down a mouthful of wine and smiled. ‘You are a woman in a thousand, Beatrice!’

‘Ten thousand.’

‘A hundred thousand, a million!’ He kissed the porcelain skin of her shoulders. ‘And you are all mine!’

‘Yes, Giles. I am all yours.’

‘No wonder Firethorn wants you so much!’

‘Can
any
man resist me?’ she said easily.

‘Not if he has red blood in his veins.’

She laughed and gave him another little bite. Randolph nestled back in the pillows to marvel at her wonder afresh. Beatrice Capaldi was the child of an Italian father and an English mother, inheriting her passion from the former and her dignity from the other, then adding capacities for guile and intrigue that were all her own. Her slender body could deliver all its rich promises, her succulent mouth could draw the very soul out of a man. He was hers. Giles Randolph saw her as his conquest but he was very much her possession. A rich and successful actor, he had money enough to keep her and charms enough to amuse her. When he involved her in the capture of Lawrence Firethorn, she played a game at which she was a consummate expert. Both were ruthless and neither would stop at anything. They were kindred spirits.

‘Tomorrow night we will celebrate,’ he said fondly.

‘All will be achieved.’

‘Firethorn will be outlawed and his company disbanded.’

‘Banbury’s Men will be unrivalled.’

‘Yes,’ he said, looping an arm around her. ‘One day will change both our lifetimes. A queen will die and a new king will attend his coronation in the theatre. We will stay together for ever and rule the whole city.’

Beatrice Capaldi smiled with determined pleasure.

‘I expect no less …’

London awoke at first light to begin the fateful day. The markets were erected and filled with bustling urgency by noisy stallholders. Butchers set out their meat, bakers their bread and fishmongers the latest catch. Farmers streamed into the city with their animals and produce to increase the pungency of the odours and swell the general pandemonium. Careful housewives were up just after dawn to find the best bargains. Children, dogs, beggars and masterless men filtered into the throng. Major streets were turned into human rivers that ebbed and flowed with tidal force. Market time was one long continuous act of collective lunacy.

Cornelius Gant was among the first visitors to the maelstrom. Though nobody knew him by sight, he heard his name on dozens of tongues as the miraculous Nimbus was discussed. Bills had been posted up to advertise the attempted flight to the top of St Paul’s but it was word of mouth which would bring in the bulk of the audience. Gant would be ready for them. Aided by a boy with a handcart,
he bought up baskets of doves, pigeons and any other birds he could find. When the baskets were piled high on the cart, he and the boy pushed its cooing, cawing, fluttering cargo in the direction of the cathedral. Gant was keeping an appointment with the verger.

Further downriver, another market was being held. The unintentional vendor was Queen Elizabeth herself and the commodity on sale was nothing less than her crown. Whitehall Palace was no seething mass of urgent bodies but the figures who glided about in profusion were no less intent on making a profit on their transaction. A buoyant Lord Westfield was there with his entourage and a chastened Earl of Chichester loitered with his adherents. Other alliances stood in other corners and eyed the competition with resentful enmity. It was a market where most would be turned away disappointed. There was only one item for sale and its price was rightly exorbitant.

The Earl of Banbury scurried in with high hopes that were dashed instantly by the leader of his campaign. News of the arrest of Harry Fellowes had been communicated to the Master of Ordnance. Chichester had funded his enterprise with tainted money. The consequences were too frightful to reflect upon. His reputation would never survive the scandal and all who were associated with him would be stigmatised. The watching Lord Westfield saw the face of his rival turn puce as he received the intelligence. It was worth getting up at such an ungodly hour to observe the priceless discomfiture of the Earl of Banbury. Dreams of
endless bounty from the gracious hands of Queen Arabella vanished at once.

Word arrived that an official announcement was to be made about the Queen in one of the larger chambers. Every room, corridor and staircase in the Palace emptied its occupants and they converged on a moment of history. Lord Westfield looked around at the distinguished gathering. All the royal favourites were there with their retinues of hopeful supporters. Essex posed, Oxford twitched, Raleigh was pensive, Mountjoy was sad and the others composed their features into what they felt was the appropriate face for such a solemn occasion. A staff was banged once on the floor to command immediate silence then a door opened and two rather decrepit old gentlemen came in.

Their laboured gait and their sense of effort was reminiscent of Josiah Taplow and William Merryweather but these were no tired watchmen. They were trusted servants of the state who were bowed down with grief. Lord Burghley hobbled along with the aid of a walking stick and Dr John Mordrake looked in need of some similar assistance as well. They climbed awkwardly up onto the dais and turned to face the whole court. It should have fallen to the Lord Treasurer to make the grim announcement but he deferred to the old astrologer who was now bent double by the weight of his medallion. Dr John Mordrake cleared his throat.

‘She is gone,’ he said.

A wave of pain hit even the most cynical listeners and a
loud murmur started up. Mordrake quelled it at once with a skeletal hand. Having been in at the death, he wanted the privilege of describing it.

‘I was called in too late,’ he continued. ‘Had they let me see her earlier, I might have prolonged a life that was a joy to all who came into contact with her. I count myself lucky to have been her friend and her adviser for many a year and her memory is engraved on my old heart. When I made my examination of her, I knew the worst. She had less than forty-eight hours to live. And so it proved.’ Tears welled. ‘Forgive these moist eyes of mine but we shared a special bond. She was godmother to my only son. Moreover …’

The silence which had fallen on the chamber was charged with mild hysteria. Dr John Mordrake was not talking about Queen Elizabeth at all. As he burbled on about a dear lady with high principles and a love of duty, it was evident that the deceased was Blanche Parry. The astonishing woman who had been at Her Majesty’s side for over three decades as her closest friend had finally passed away, taking with her the scholarly enthusiasm and the love for ostentation which she had shared with the Queen. In the circumstances, it was not surprising that the sovereign had retired into seclusion to watch over her beloved gentlewoman during her last days and the presence of the astrologer now made more sense. Dr John Mordrake had been introduced to the Queen by none other than Blanche Parry herself. The bottle he had borne away from the Palace had contained the specimen from a blind old lady.

Muttering broke out as relieved courtiers heard that their sinecures would continue and fraught politicians realised that all their machinations had come to nothing. Lord Burghley came forward to make a crisp announcement to the effect that Her Majesty would hold court later that morning. Those closest to him caught the whisper of a smile on the face of the old fox. His gout improved.

Lord Westfield was amongst the first to recover. His own support of King James of Scotland as the next monarch had foundered but it could be revived at a later date. The campaign of the Earls of Chichester and Banbury had run aground permanently and there would be corrosive letters from Hardwick Hall to endure. Others, too, had showed their hand in a way that they now regretted and the heavy murmur was largely produced by earnest disclaimers from embarrassed nobles. Saturday at Whitehall was yielding rich rewards for Lord Westfield. Not only did he find a Queen whom he loved alive and well, not only could he watch loathed enemies wince and squirm, he could take real pleasure from the element of intrigue. It was all deliberate.

Blanche Parry was dying and the Queen wished to be with her but she turned the occasion to full political advantage. By retiring to her apartments and maintaining a steadfast silence, she knew that she would create alarm and spread false hope. The question of the succession would bring all the swirling enmities out into the open as the courtiers who had been dearest to her wooed other possible
claimants with undue haste and zeal. Long days in hiding had acquainted Queen Elizabeth with the darker truths of her position. She would henceforth reign with an even firmer grip.

Lord Westfield turned to his companions.

‘Can you not see it, sirs?’ he said jovially. ‘Blanche Parry was but the excuse to make examination of her court. Her Majesty wanted to see which way her royal favourites would scatter if she died. She was toying with them.’

‘Why?’ asked a crony.

‘For sport and for education.’

‘She took pleasure from all this?’

‘Yes,’ said Westfield. ‘It softened the pain of Blanche Parry’s death. The Queen has been playing her favourites against each other. She may be the greatest sovereign in Christendom but she is also a mad old courtesan!’

They drifted out of the chamber and along a corridor.

‘Will you go to court, my lord?’ said the crony.

‘Most assuredly. Then on to Gracechurch Street to watch a play.
Love’s Sacrifice
is an apter choice than ever now. It will celebrate the reign of an adorable Queen. I’ll have special lines written by Edmund Hoode to be worked into the speeches of King Gondar.’

‘What of
The Spanish Jew?
’

‘Who will wish to see that now?’ said Westfield. ‘Her Majesty was not poisoned by Dr Lopez and the worst usurer in London is no Jew but that damnable Clerk of Ordnance.’

The entourage laughed appreciatively. Lord Westfield
saw only one cloud on the horizon. Banbury’s Men had been vanquished but his own company was haunted by a disaster.

‘Lawrence Firethorn
must
be there!’ he said.

‘And if he is not …?’

Night was an unrelieved torment. Lawrence Firethorn twisted and turned in his empty bed as ugly thoughts skewered his brain. Love for Beatrice Capaldi intensified with each passing hour but so did his respect for Nicholas Bracewell. Though he galloped away from the book holder, he was soon overtaken by the horror of the information which Nicholas imparted. Beatrice unfaithful? Her invitation a device to separate him from his company? Their whole relationship a contrivance by Giles Randolph? He could accept none of the propositions and yet he could not deny them either. It was unlike Nicholas to make false accusations but this was a special case. Anxious to secure the actor-manager’s presence on Saturday afternoon, even a normally truthful man might bend the facts, especially if he were prompted by such a self-willed patron as Lord Westfield. There was salvation in sight yet. Firethorn was on the rack but only one person could release him and that was Beatrice Capaldi herself. Only if he honoured the tryst would he learn the truth.

He left Shoreditch early to ride into the city and stable his horse near the wharf where he was due to meet her barge. Hours stretched before him and he spent them in tense meandering along the river. As a nearby clock
struck the hour, his guilt was stirred by the reminder that Westfield’s Men were now rehearsing
Love’s Sacrifice
without him. Some balm did soothe him. The news from Whitehall Palace ran through the city to make it crackle with joy. Firethorn was not betraying his patron at a critical time in a dispute over the succession and that reduced the severity of his guilt. He tried to concentrate on Beatrice and the magic of their love but the face of Giles Randolph kept leering over her shoulder. Italian passion was blighted by a Spanish Jew.

Lurching up into the narrow streets, he found himself part of an excited crowd that converged on St Paul’s. His mind might be obsessed with a dark lady but it was a black stallion which drew spectators to the cathedral. Firethorn was soon staring up at the roof with the thousands of others who had come to witness a miracle of biblical stature. The actor in him was outraged. A play with Lawrence Firethorn in it would never draw such a throng. Why had the whole city turned out? Resentment and envy made him bristle.

The choice of St Paul’s for such crude entertainment was natural. As well as being the focal point of worship in the capital, the great church with its cavernous interior, its walks and its busy courtyard, had served as the nexus for spectacular performances of all kinds. Sermons and masses were on offer but so were occasional bouts of wild audacity. Many still talked of the Spaniard who descended headfirst from battlements to ground by means of a taut rope that was stretched between the two points. Those who tried to emulate him fell to their death or to hideous
mutilation. Another man committed suicide by tying a rope to a pinnacle before putting the noose around his neck and diving off. There was even an acrobatic cripple who once stole the weathercock of gilt-plated copper. Countless others had given the noble edifice the status of an occasional fairground.