The Princess of Denmark (19 page)

Since it was a far more intricate and sophisticated play than
Cupid’s Folly,
it was rehearsed at length behind the wooden screens that morning. Those who crossed the square were intrigued by the sounds they heard coming from the improvised stage and they vowed to attend the performance later on. The weather was, however, less than promising. The wind had died down but a fine drizzle had replaced it, coating the actors’ faces like dew. They were not discouraged. Westfield’s Men were so elated after their earlier success in the town that only a hurricane could have dampened their ardour.

By the time of the performance itself, a large audience had flocked to the square and the screens had to be moved outwards on three sides to accommodate them all. The mayor was in the front row once more with the local worthies, and Bror Langberg had brought his wife down from the castle for the second time. There was a loud buzz of expectation. It was followed by a communal sigh of gratitude as the drizzle relented and the sun made a first appearance in the leaden sky. In the tiring house at the rear
of the stage, Lawrence Firethorn was quick to claim the credit for the improvement.

‘
The Wizard Earl
has done it again,’ he announced proudly. ‘My invention of a machine to control the weather clearly works.’

‘Then raise the temperature,’ said Barnaby Gill petulantly. ‘It’s far too cold for us.’

‘My performance will produce the heat of a furnace.’

‘That will make a change. You were more like an iceberg when you played the part last. I almost froze to death beside you.’

‘There is nothing new there, Barnaby,’ countered the other. ‘You are like a standing statue in every role you take. Old age has seized your limbs. On stage, you are a block of wood.’

‘Tell that to yesterday’s audience. They worshipped me.’

‘Then they worshipped a false god. Today,
I
will rule.’

Nicholas interrupted the banter and called the actors to order. It was time to begin. They took their places. At a signal from the book holder, Martin Yeo blew a fanfare on his trumpet then Owen Elias stepped onto the stage in a black cloak to deliver the Prologue that had been penned by Edmund Hoode after their first visit to the town square.

Elias surged on, listing various streets, statues and landmarks in the town so that, if nothing else, the Danes in the audience would at least recognise some elements in the Prologue. Broad gestures and explicit facial expressions also helped to convey meaning. At the conclusion of his speech, with a trick devised by Nicholas Bracewell, he clapped his hands hard and a small explosion took place behind his feet, loud enough to startle the audience and to give the actor time to vanish from the stage.
The Wizard Earl
was under way.

The action was swift and the pace never slackened as Firethorn, resplendent in the title role, displayed a whole series of inventions, each one more ambitious than the last. A kind man with a paternal interest in people, the Earl always tried to create something that would bring benefit to one and all. His brain teemed with brilliant ideas but, when he tried to put them into practice, they rarely succeeded because Luke Bungle, his clumsy apprentice, kept putting the wrong ingredients into each experiment or losing the plan of the machine that he was supposed to be building.

As a consequence, the much-vaunted inventions of the Wizard Earl had the opposite effect of the ones intended. When he showed off the machine that controlled weather, he pressed a button to create bright sunshine and brought on a torrential downpour instead. Everyone on stage
scampered for cover so convincingly that the audience could almost feel the rain. Pulling a lever to stop the rain, Firethorn inadvertently started a snowstorm. In trying to dispel that, he plunged his whole estate into thick fog and there was sustained hilarity as the actors groped their way blindly around and bumped into each other.

Barnaby Gill excelled as Bungle but it was Firethorn’s play. He was in his element as the genial inventor, ever sanguine, ever ready to attempt something new. The summit of his achievement was a potion that made the taker fall madly in love with the person he or she first saw. Hoode explored all the comic possibilities of the situation. At one point, the Earl had three nubile ladies fighting over him while Bungle, having mistakenly allowed some of the potion to be fed to the animals, aroused the passion of an amorous goat – Owen Elias with horns – and was pursued with unflagging persistence.

The sheer comic verse of
The Wizard Earl
made it irresistible, and the fact that it was peppered with so much action, mime, dance and special effects meant that it was comprehensible to the audience. Nicholas was pleased with the way that it was received but Anne Hendrik was not able to follow the play. She was too busy behind the scenes, sewing on buttons, mending ripped costumes and repairing hats that had been damaged in one of the many lively stage fights. Two hours sped by in a torrent of laughter and cheering. When the play ended, it gained an even longer ovation than its predecessor.

Firethorn was satisfied. He was back where he belonged at the head of his troupe, the undisputed leading actor
who had put the upstart Gill firmly back in his place. After taking the last of several bows, Firethorn led the actors offstage and took the opportunity to get in another sly dig at his sworn foe.

‘Congratulations, Barnaby,’ he said. ‘A fine performance.’

Gill was on his guard. ‘Thank you, Lawrence.’

‘Edmund has finally shaped a role to suit your unique talents as a bungler. You bungled superbly as Bungle.’

‘Stop crowing,’ said Hoode, stepping in to stop another quarrel before it had really started. ‘Both of you served my play well, as did the whole company. I reserve a special word of praise for you, Owen,’ he went on, turning to Elias. ‘Your goat was incomparable.’ There was concerted agreement in the tiring house. ‘The chase after Bungle was one of the triumphs of the afternoon.’

‘It’s in my blood, Edmund,’ said Elias. ‘The Welsh have always had a goatish disposition. We are nought but lechery on four hooves.’ Becoming aware of Anne’s proximity, he bit back the lewd jest that he was about to make. ‘I’ll graze in pastures new,’ he went on. ‘Here’s one goat who seeks the company of a White Hart.’

‘The rest of us will join you there,’ said Nicholas.

‘If they will let us in,’ observed Firethorn. ‘So many people wish to meet us that there’s scarce room enough in the inn. The landlord does well to let us drink at his expense for we have trebled his custom at the White Hart. In deference to the popularity we’ve bestowed upon it, he should call it the Westfield Arms.’

‘Was our patron in the audience today?’ asked Hoode.

‘Alas, no,’ replied Nicholas. ‘He’s keeping vigil at the
castle. Lord Westfield says that he is not in a laughing vein at the moment. He prefers to spend time alone.’

Frederick Arbiter, first Baron Westfield pored over the table as he considered his next move. Unable to get near to his princess yet again, he had remained in his apartment and sought to wile away the lonely hours with a game of chess. Rolfe Harling had played against himself on many occasions, losing himself in the contest for hours as he regarded move and counter-move. Lord Westfield lacked his rigid impartiality. Wanting to let the white chessmen win, he favoured them at every turn yet the black somehow retained the upper hand. It was eerie. He had the unsettling feeling that Harling was playing against him from the grave. Eventually, his patience snapped.

‘Enough of this!’ he exclaimed, using an arm to sweep every piece from the board and scatter them across the room. ‘This is no game for me. I want to see Sigbrit.’

Sitting back in his chair, he mused on the cruelty of it all. The woman he loved enough to marry was less than twenty yards from where he sat but she was as unattainable as if she were in another country. Why was she keeping away from him? Had she been so disappointed when they met that she was wallowing in regret at her acceptance of him as a husband? Could it be that Bror Langberg’s excuses for her absence hid the fact that Sigbrit was ill? The thought worried him. During the hour they spent in the hall, she did not have the bloom that he had expected. Was she still unwell? Or was there a more sinister explanation why he was being kept apart from her? It was a time when he most
needed Rolfe Harling’s advice but the man was no longer available to serve him.

Lord Westfield was in despair. Taking her portrait from his pocket, he held it in the palm of his hand and scrutinised it. To his eye, Sigbrit was the personification of beauty. Even in miniature, she was a woman in a thousand and a loving impulse made him press his lips to the portrait. When he looked at her again, however, he saw something that suddenly alarmed him and made his brain whirl. What disconcerted him was that he had absolutely no idea what it was.

Before he adjourned to the inn after the others, Nicholas Bracewell took care to see that the scenery and the stage were struck, and that everything was loaded onto the waiting carts. The mayor had provided some constables to stand guard over them so Nicholas felt able to escort Anne to the White Hart. There was a raucous atmosphere in the inn but she felt at ease among so many friends. Surrounded by admirers, Lawrence Firethorn was declaiming one of the speeches from
The Wizard Earl
. When he saw the newcomers, he broke off.

‘Here’s the real wizard,’ he said. ‘It was Nick who contrived all those bangs and flashes you saw. He’s a genius with gunpowder. And he rehearsed us in every brawl we had on stage. A round of applause, please, for the man who holds us together – and for the lady who kept us so well attired this afternoon.’

Nicholas and Anne acknowledged the clapping then found a corner in which to sit. Neither enjoyed being the
centre of attention. They were grateful when it shifted back to Firethorn who lapsed into the role of the Earl once more and sang the comic song that had amused the audience so much.

Anne was interested. ‘Is this what happens at the Queen’s Head after every play?’

‘Sometimes,’ said Nicholas. ‘If it has gone well.’

‘What about the night of the fire?’

‘The performance went rather too well, Anne. It ensnared Will Dunmow completely. He kept asking Lawrence and the others to recite speeches from the play so that he could applaud once more. We always seek recognition of our work but Will went beyond that.’

‘And yet he rarely went to a play,’ she recalled.

‘There was little opportunity to see actors in York and, in any case, his father thought that playhouses were dens of sin and corruption. If a company came to town, he stopped his son from going to see them. That’s why we caught Will’s imagination, I think,’ said Nicholas sadly. ‘Our pre-eminence was due to the flatness of the surrounding countryside. Because he had nobody with whom to compare us, he conceived a higher opinion of Westfield’s Men than he might otherwise have had.’

‘It’s impossible to have too high an opinion of you,’ she said. ‘You are head and shoulders above any other company and one of the main reasons for that is sitting opposite me.’

‘Waiting for a drink. Will you join me?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘We deserve to celebrate.’

‘Must the celebrations be confined to the White Hart?’

Nicholas grinned. ‘No, Anne,’ he said. ‘I’m sure that we can have more privacy back at the castle.’

Ben Ryden and Josias Greet bided their time. During the play, they had laughed as readily as anyone and had reserved their loudest guffaws for the smitten goat. But that did not deflect them from their purpose. In killing Owen Elias, they stood to earn a large amount of money and would avenge the injuries they sustained at the Welshman’s hands. When the notion of sailing across the North Sea to commit murder had first been put to Greet, he had thought it ridiculous. Now that they were actually there, he saw the advantages.

They were anonymous faces in a foreign country. Nobody would be able to identify them. Once the deed was done, they would board a ship that was sailing for Amsterdam on the morning tide. From there, they would reach London on another vessel. It was all planned. They would be clear of Denmark before the hullabaloo caused by the crime had even died down. The likelihood of arrest was negligible. It would be a perfect murder. Greet was pleased about something else as well. His appetite had returned. He could eat and drink once again.

‘How much longer will he be, Ben?’ he asked.

‘Give him time. He’ll have to go soon.’

‘That’s the fourth tankard of beer he’s quaffed. He must have a bladder the size of a small barrel. Look at him.’

‘I’ve not taken my eyes off him,’ said Ryden. ‘Drink on, Owen,’ he murmured, ‘for it’s the last time you’ll be able to do it.’

‘What about his friends?’

‘They’ll be too busy carousing in here, Josias.’

‘Supposing one of them goes out with him?’

‘Then he’ll wish that he didn’t.’

‘We kill him as well?’

‘No,’ said Ryden, ‘we just give him the biggest headache he’s ever had in his life. This is our chance. Nobody will rob us of it.’

The two men were standing near the door, drinking beer and pretending to join in the fun. Over the heads of the other actors, they could see Owen Elias, revelling in the company of his friends and oblivious to the fact that he was in such danger. The more beer he consumed, the more relaxed and jovial he became. There was a dagger hanging from his belt but they did not intend to let him use it. Surprise was their main weapon. It would never even cross Elias’s befuddled mind that two hired killers would come hundreds of miles in search of them. On stage, he had been a rampant goat. To the watching Greet and Ryden, he was a lamb to the slaughter.