The Mad Courtesan (9 page)

A new play imposed additional responsibilities on the company. It was like fighting a battle with untried weapons. They might taste glorious victory or ignominious defeat. Only when they set their verse on its first cavalry charge into the ears of its spectators could they gauge the possible success of the encounter. In a world of swirling fashion, nothing was certain. Plots and themes which had held sway one month could become tedious the next. Characters who impressed in one piece could find they had no life outside it. Novelty was in request but its precise nature shifted all the time. Westfield’s Men hoped that
Love’s Sacrifice
would come through unscathed but they could not predict it with any confidence. In the heat of war, strange things could happen. For this reason, the tiring-house was pervaded by an even greater degree of nervous excitement than usual. Players and playwright alike were fearful lest there should be heavy casualties.

It was at times like this that Nicholas Bracewell and Lawrence Firethorn came into their own. The book holder was a calming presence with a comforting smile while the actor-manager was an impatient general who was eager to lead the first attack. They put heart into the entire company and even Edmund Hoode’s faith
in the play was restored. He had followed his usual practise of writing a cameo for himself that showed off his not inconsiderable talent as an actor. Barnaby Gill lapsed into his customary testiness and made useless last-minute complaints about the size and scope of his role. Collectively and individually, the company was going down some well-trodden paths.

Lawrence Firethorn then diverged from them. As the moment of truth drew near and the excitement spiralled even higher, he twitched the curtain to get a brief glimpse of his latest audience. It was a fateful action. A sea of faces came into view but he saw only one of them. She was seated in the middle of the lower gallery with a poise that set her completely apart from the jostling bodies all around her. A heart-shaped face of inexpressible beauty was framed by black hair that swept upwards and vanished into a most enchanting feathered hat. The dark velvet dress and the white ruff only served to highlight the marmoreal loveliness of an exceptional young woman but the most arresting feature of all was her eyes. Dark and proud, they invested her whole being with a fiery disdain that made Lawrence Firethorn grin inanely. He had an even greater incentive to lead his troops into battle now.

True love beckoned. Conquest was imperative.

Owen Elias was as taut as a lute-string but nowhere near as melodious. Sitting in a corner of the tiring-house, he tried to work up his concentration for the important task
in hand and he brooked no interruption. An apprentice who nudged him by mistake and an assistant stagekeeper who brushed past him by accident both felt the sting of his tongue. The irascible Welshman was feeling the strain. Nicholas Bracewell took note of this and drifted across to him for a quiet word.

‘Have no fears, Owen,’ he said. ‘You will excel.’

‘There is no doubting that,’ said the other with a touch of his old bravado. ‘Benvolio will rescue me from this oblivion in which they keep me. I will prove myself as fit a man as any in the company.’

‘Then why the long face?’

‘Because of Sebastian.’

‘You feel guilt?’

‘And sadness, Nick. When all my hatred of the man is put aside, I must acknowledge that this was his part. Benvolio was written with Sebastian in mind.’

‘Serve his memory by playing the part well.’

‘I will, sir.’

‘He would expect no less of you, Owen.’

‘Indeed.’ He resorted to a whisper. ‘As to the last speech in the play …’

Nicholas winked. ‘That must be your decision.’

Owen Elias grinned and felt more confident about what lay ahead. There was no more time to deliberate because a dozen bells were chiming out the hour in the vicinity of the theatre. It was two o’clock and Nicholas Bracewell was in position. With the chimes still echoing, he gave the signal and the performance started. Music was played
from above and the Prologue stepped out in a black cloak to acquaint the audience with the mood and matter of the play.

Having relayed the plot in rhyming couplets, Edmund Hoode brought his protagonist bursting onto the stage in a torrent of blank verse. Gondar was angry and no actor could express royal ire like Lawrence Firethorn. With underlings trailing at his heels, he raged and ranted until the whole audience was cowed by his majesty. He wore only a saffron robe over a simple tunic but he was every inch a king as he berated his guards for the unkind treatment of the captured Queen Elsin. Magnanimous in victory and with his own strict code of honour, he sent for his beautiful prisoner to release her from the shackles that bound her and to offer his heartfelt apologies. It was the first meeting between them and it robbed them of all hostility towards each other. Courtship began from the second they laid eyes upon each other. The howling Gondar became a tender and considerate lover.

Never less than remarkable in any part, Firethorn had
found one that drew a towering performance out of him. Long before the first act came to a close, the spectators had surrendered to him with the same willingness as the queen and he wooed them with a range of voice and gesture that was irresistible. Richard Honeydew was a wholly convincing Elsin with a wan loveliness that was only increased by adversity. As the actor-manager soared, the young apprentice responded well and their love took flight.

Firethorn slowly pushed out the frontiers of his art. He was not just giving a superb account of himself in a fine play, he was dedicating his talents to a particular person. The fine phrases that he showered upon his queen were really aimed at the inscrutable beauty in the middle of the lower gallery, the eloquent movements were a dance of desire to ensnare her interest. But whenever he stole a glance at the object of his passion, she remained calm and uninvolved. This drove him on to even more sublime heights but she still refused to show obeisance before her king. Black eyes hardly flickered in an impassive face. He was acting at someone who seemed to have a heart of stone.

And yet she was not indifferent. Her attention did not wander and her interest did not slacken.
Love’s Sacrifice
got the same level gaze throughout. It held her without moving her. The Rose bestowed its wonder on Lawrence Firethorn. The intimacy on which he commented earlier allowed him – in his mind’s eye – to reach out and touch her a hundred times. Indeed, his wooing of Queen Elsin became a gentle fondling of the mysterious creature in
the audience. When he had done this with other female spectators, they had usually succumbed to his charms with gushing readiness but he had signally failed on this occasion. That failure only sharpened the edge of his desire and turned up the flame of his already crackling performance. When he and his star-crossed queen lay dead together at the end of the play, a communal groan of horror went up. Gondar had been the epitome of military honour and courtly love. His fall was the stuff of tragedy.

The play was not yet over. As the soldiers stood around the royal corpses, the actor who had been such a mesmerising Benvolio held up his hands to command silence. When he had drawn out the pause to its full, agonising length, he used sonorous tones to deliver a speech that had been cut during the rehearsal. Lawrence Firethorn stiffened and let out a growl of disapproval from beyond the grave but Benvolio would not be deflected. The still, sad music of his voice was a fitting epitaph for the doomed lovers.

Benvolio shed a real tear then motioned in the soldiers to load the bodies onto their respective biers. As the pair were borne out with due solemnity, King Gondar half opened an eye to catch a fleeting glimpse of the lower gallery. The exercise was a painful one. For the first time
in the whole afternoon, his inamorata was visibly moved. Sadness crumpled her face and she brought a hand up to her mouth. In one brief and unscheduled elegy, Owen Elias had achieved what Firethorn – with a hundred speeches – had failed to do. It was galling. The actor-manager bristled posthumously.

Once offstage, he abdicated his kingship to direct a string of foul oaths at his colleague but his imprecations were muffled by the avalanche of applause that tumbled down on their ears. Postponing his fury, he put on his most imperious smile and led out his company to take their bow.
Love’s Sacrifice
was an unqualified success, a superb account of a brilliant new play that was set to take pride of place in the company’s repertoire. Though feeding greedily on the ovation, Lawrence Firethorn was interested in only two people in the auditorium. His most obsequious bow went to the delighted Lord Westfield and a more cavalier flourish was aimed at the lower gallery. While his patron responded with frantic clapping, however, the dark lady of his fantasies gave him no more than a level stare. It was enough. The desire which had steadily grown throughout the last two hours now blossomed into complete infatuation.

The spectators clapped, cheered and stamped their feet for minutes on end but one of them declined to join in. He was a tall, saturnine figure who had sat in discomfort all afternoon as the drama’s excellence was unfolded and as Firethorn’s primacy was reinforced yet again. His visit to The Rose had been redeemed in the closing speech. Twenty lines of verse
had made him look with intense curiosity at Owen Elias and bank down his envy. As an idea began to form in the recesses of his mind, the man even managed a smile.
Love’s Sacrifice
had given him a potent weapon to use against his rival.

Giles Randolph was content.

Nicholas Bracewell was on hand to protect his friend from verbal abuse. Before Firethorn could even begin his attack on Owen Elias, the book holder stepped in to congratulate the actor-manager on his performance and to smother him with fulsome praise. It blunted the edge of Firethorn’s rage somewhat but that was all it did.

‘God’s blood!’ roared the actor. ‘Are you mad, Owen?’

‘Me, sir?’ said the other.

‘Are you blind? Are you deaf? Are you insensible?’

‘No, Master Firethorn.’

‘When I die, the play has ended.’

‘Save for that last speech, sir.’

‘It was cut, man!’

Mock innocence. ‘Was it even so?’

‘It was excised from the play. So should
you
be, you scurvy rogue, you canting villain, you Welsh dung-heap!’

‘Take heed,’ warned the other, smarting at the insult. ‘Do not insult my nation.’

‘Wales is an insult in itself!’ howled Firethorn. ‘It breeds nothing but lechers and thieves. Show me a Welshman and you show me a foul, ugly, leek-faced barbarian. You stole my moment of supreme glory, you dog-breathed Judas!’

Owen Elias turned puce with anger and Nicholas had to jump in quickly to calm both men and to stop the argument from getting out of hand. He diverted the blame to himself by admitting that it was his suggestion to include the final speech but he insisted that it in no way infringed the greatness of Firethorn’s performance. The crowded tiring-house was voluble in its agreement, as eager as the book holder to prevent a violent confrontation. It was Barnaby Gill who ended the row with a malicious whisper.

‘Let
her
be the judge, Lawrence,’ he said.

‘Who?’

‘Mistress Black Eyes. Ask her if she would cut those lines of Benvolio’s. I fancy she would not.’

‘The devil take you, sir!’

During this short exchange, Nicholas seized the chance to usher Owen Elias over to the far side of the tiring-house where he was hidden by a rack of costumes. When Firethorn turned back to them, they were gone. With his mind now fixed on a higher priority, he glared around for assistance. It came in the shape of George Dart who was staggering past with an armful of props. Firethorn’s hand gripped his collar like an eagle fastening its talons on its prey.

‘George Dart!’

‘Yes, master?’ gibbered the other.

‘Find out her name.’

‘Whose name, sir?’

‘
Her
name.’

Firethorn’s strong hand lifted him from the ground and
swung him round to face the drawn curtain. Twitching it back a few inches, he pointed to the goddess in the lower gallery.

‘Do you see her now, George?’

‘Yes, sir. No, sir.’ He was baffled. ‘Which is she, sir?’

‘That creature without compare.’

‘You lose me, sir.’

‘
There
, imbecile!’

He boxed George Dart’s ears so hard that the boy let go of his cargo and it fell to the boards with a clatter. The pointing finger of his employer, the hissed description and the threat of more pain combined to identify the lady in question for the squirming stagekeeper. As soon as he was released, he went scuttling off about his business.

Lawrence Firethorn wanted action.

It was a quiet funeral. No more than a dozen people were gathered together in the small churchyard in Islington to see the last remains of Sebastian Carrick laid to rest. Light drizzle made a sombre occasion even more depressing. The priest’s incantations were a barely audible murmur. Grief was expressed in gentle sobbing. Nicholas Bracewell watched it all with a muted distress that was increased by an ironic observation. The stage-management of the event was at fault. Sebastian Carrick deserved a more central role on a much larger stage. An actor whose life and work was a hymn to exuberance was now slipping out of the world in furtive silence. Damp soil waited to take him beyond applause.

The drizzle and the drone continued.

‘Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body …’