The Silent Woman (10 page)

Barnaby Gill was the real surprise. Renowned for his impish humour onstage, he was equally renowned for his morose behaviour off it, yet he was so excited when they came within sight of the town that he rode up and down the column to cheer on his colleagues and assure them that Oxford would redeem the miseries they had so far encountered. He was offering the leadership that Firethorn normally provided. His ebullience was due in part to the choice of a cherished play for the Oxford audience and in part to the fact that he knew of a tavern where he could get the sort of congenial company for the night that was difficult to find outside his London haunts. In addition to all this, Oxford gave him the opportunity to display his theatrical lore.

He drew his horse in beside Lawrence Firethorn again.

‘When the Queen came here last year—’

‘Spare me, Barnaby!’

‘She saw two comedies presented by university actors in Latin. They were meanly performed yet Her Majesty listened graciously throughout. She enjoyed them enough to invite the actors to stage their work at Court, but as their repertoire was imprisoned in the cage of a dead language, they did not oblige. The Court is too stupid to understand Latin.’

‘Is this another cautionary tale?’ said Firethorn.

‘I simply enlighten you about academic drama.’

‘It is a contradiction in terms. Too much learning silts up the drama, and too much drama destroys the supremacy of the mind.’ Jealousy rippled. ‘Besides, what can prattling, pox-faced, pigeon-chested students know about the art of acting? We have no competition here.’

‘That is my point, Lawrence.’

‘They will have seen no talent of my magnitude.’

‘Except when
I
last played here.’

‘Stand aside and let true greatness take the stage.’

‘I couple my first warning with another. Look for envy and suspicion from the scholars. We will meet opposition here. They hate strolling players and treat them as no more than vagabonds.’

‘Lawrence Firethorn will mend their ways.’

‘Ignore the gown and entertain the town.’

‘I want every man, woman and puking student there!’

‘The undergraduates will be on holiday.’

‘Fetch them back! Or they will miss an event as rare and memorable as an eclipse of the sun.’

‘Memorable, I grant you,’ said Gill, ‘but hardly rare. I eclipse your sun every time I pass in front of you onstage.’

They fell into a companionable argument until the town in the distance took on size and definition. An anticipatory
buzz ran through the troupe. Relief was finally at hand. Wood and water gave Oxford a superb setting. Meadow, corn and hill added to its picturesque charm. Some towns were an imposition on the landscape, an ugly mass of houses, inns and civic buildings hurled by an undiscriminating hand onto the countryside to subdue the souls of those who lived there and offend the gaze of those who passed by. Oxford, by contrast, seemed to grow out of the earth like a stately mushroom, enhancing the quality of its environment while drawing immense value from it in return. Town and country sang in harmony and this impressed visitors from a capital city whose thrusting boundaries more often than not produced loud discord at its outer limits.

It was late afternoon and the sun had dipped low enough to brush the towers and steeples with a glancing brilliance. As they approached Pettypont, the fortified stone bridge over the River Cherwell, they marvelled at the Norman ingenuity that had constructed the crossing point. Christ Church Meadows stretched out expansively on their left but it was the looming tower of Magdalen College on their right that commanded attention. Directly ahead was the town wall with a cluster of buildings peering over at them with friendly condescension. Eastgate was a yawning portal that beckoned them on and gave Lawrence Firethorn a cue for a speech.

‘Enter, my friends!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where sieges have failed, we will conquer. Where university actors have bored in Latin, we will delight with the Queen’s English. Where religion has burnt men at the stake, we will be kinder parsons to our flock. Where learning flourishes, we will teach unparalleled lessons. Where drama is respected, we will give it new and awesome significance.’ His rhetoric took
him through the gate and into High Street. ‘On, on, my lads! Buttress your backs and hold up your chins. Let the people of Oxford know we are here among them. Westfield’s Men arrive in triumph. We are no skulking players or roaming vagabonds. The finest actors in the world have come to this town and we must make it feel truly grateful. Smile, smile! Wave, wave! Make friends with all and sundry. Brighten their squalid existences. We wage a war of happiness!’

The brave words resuscitated the travellers and carried them up High Street in a mood of elation. The low buildings of St Edmund’s Hall were on their right, followed by the ancient Gothic front of Queen’s College. Almost directly opposite was the University College, reputedly the oldest foundation, and the heads which measured its imposing façade now switched back to the other side of the street to view the quieter majesty of All Souls. That pleasure was soon superseded by another as the imperious Parish Church of St Mary rose up to dwarf all the surrounding buildings and to spear the sky with perpendicular accuracy. Brasenose came next with Oriel College off to the left, fronted by a green that was speckled with trees. Beyond this open space and the scattered buildings around Peckwater’s Inn was the largest college of them all, Christ Church, first called Cardinal College when it was begun in 1525 by Cardinal Wolsey and now reaching out with easy magnificence even beyond the scope of its founder’s grandiose plans. Though still unfinished, it had an air of completeness and permanence, an architectural landmark against which all future collegiate building would take direction.

Barnaby Gill relished his role as the official guide.

‘Merton College is to the left, next to Corpus Christi, which stands by that woodyard. Back on this side, you can
see Lincoln, then Exeter with Jesus College facing them across Turl Street.’ He flapped a wrist. ‘I can never tell whether Oxford is a town in which a university has taken root, or a university around which a town has somehow grown up, for the two are so closely entwined that it is impossible to see where the one begins and the other ends.’

It was a problem that did not afflict those who dwelt in Oxford, where the distinction between town and gown was so marked that the two halves were set irreconcilably against each other. The simmering hostility occasionally spilt over into violence and even into full-scale riot, but there was no sign of either now. A depressing uniformity had settled on the town and made the shuffling scholars merge peacefully with their counterparts among the townspeople. Nicholas Bracewell noted the same look on every face they passed. Players had often visited Oxford but the appearance of a celebrated London troupe should have elicited more than the dull curiosity it was now provoking. Lawrence Firethorn rode at the head of the company as if leading an invading army, but even his martial presence did not arouse interest. Nicholas leant across to Edmund Hoode.

‘Something is amiss,’ he said.

‘Other players are here before us.’

‘The truth may be harsher yet than that, Edmund.’

‘Why do the people turn away from us?’

‘I fear there is only one explanation.’

Westfield’s Men swung right into the Cornmarket then rode on down to the Cross Inn before turning gratefully into its courtyard. The journey had been a lifetime of discomfort but it was happily forgotten now. Oxford hospitality would solve all their problems.

The landlord of the Cross Inn robbed them of that illusion. Short, stout and hobbling on aged legs, he came out to give them a half-hearted greeting.

‘You are welcome, gentlemen, but you may not play here.’

‘We will act in the Town Hall,’ announced Firethorn.

‘Neither there, nor here, nor at the King’s Head nor at any place within the Oxford, I fear.’

‘What are you telling us, landlord?’

‘Sad news, sir. The plague is amongst us once more.’

‘Plague!’

The word devastated the whole company. They had come all that way to be denied the pleasure of performance and its much-needed reward. It was utterly demoralising. Plague, which had so often driven them out of London, had now shifted its ground to Oxford out of sheer spite and made their presence redundant. Disease festered in summer months and spread most easily at public gatherings. Plays, games and other communal entertainments were banned. The lodging of strangers was limited, and pigs and refuse were cleared from the streets. The haunted faces they had seen on their progress to the inn belonged to survivors. Westfield’s Men had no purchase on the minds of such creatures. People who feared that they might be struck down with the plague on the morrow did not seek amusement on their way to the grave.

The landlord tried to offer some consolation.

‘Fear not, sirs!’ he called out. ‘Our mayor will not be ungenerous. You may be given money not to play.’

‘Not to play!’ Lawrence Firethorn shuddered at the insult and bayed his reply. ‘I am being paid not to play! And will you pay the river not to flow and the stars not to shine? Will you give money to the grass to stop it growing? How much
have you offered the rain not to fall and the moon not to rise? Ha!’ He smote his chest with lordly arrogance. ‘I am a force of nature and will not be stopped by some maltworm of a mayor. Oxford does not have enough gold in its coffers to buy off Lawrence Firethorn.’

‘We have the plague, sir,’ repeated the landlord.

‘A plague on your plague! And a pox on your welcome.’ He swung round in the saddle. ‘Nicholas!’

‘Yes, master.’

‘Go to this meddling mayor. Inform him who I am.’

‘Yes, master.’

‘And if he dares to offer us money to withdraw,’ said Firethorn vehemently, ‘curse him for his villainy and throw it back in his scurvy face.’

Nicholas Bracewell accepted a commission he knew that he could not fulfil because it was pointless to try to reason with the actor-manager when his blood was up. Plague was too strong an opponent and it had wrestled them to the ground once more. Whenever the company was on tour, Nicholas was accustomed to meeting civic dignitaries in order to get the required licence for performance. Westfield’s Men were usually offered handsome terms to stage their plays but not this time. As Nicholas went off, he resigned himself to the inevitable, yet he was able to snatch one crumb of comfort. A plague town was far too dangerous a place to linger. Even an assassin would keep well clear of the contagion. Nicholas could afford to relax. Inside Oxford, he was safe.

Paternoster Row was famous for its literary associations, and many printers, stationers and booksellers had their premises there. Yet it was here that they found the apothecary’s shop
that they sought. After hours of combing the back streets and lanes of Cordwainer Ward, they widened their search and eventually came to the busy thoroughfare that ran along the northern side of St Paul’s Cathedral. Merchants, silkmen and lacemen also lived in the area, which was justly celebrated as well for the number and quality of its taverns. For these and other reasons, Paternoster Row was never quiet or empty and Anne Hendrik was grateful for the reassuring presence of Leonard as she made her way through the crowd in his wake. They were an incongruous couple. His shambling bulk reduced her trim elegance to almost childlike stature. Unused to the company of a lady, Leonard fell back on a kind of heavy-handed gallantry that only made his awkwardness the more poignant.

When Anne called on him at the Queen’s Head, he had been more than helpful, telling her all he could remember about his meeting with the doomed traveller from Devon. She could see why Nicholas had chosen this friend to represent him at the funeral. Leonard might be slow witted, but he was a kind man and completely trustworthy. With touching candour, he told her how he had wept at the graveside and wished that he could do something to avenge the girl’s death. Anne gave him that opportunity. It was pleasant to be with a person who had such an uncritical affection for Nicholas Bracewell, and Leonard’s powerful frame was a guarantee of her safety in the bustling streets.

They visited several shops without success but Anne was systematic. None of the apothecaries was able to help her but each one gave her a degree of assistance, albeit with reluctance in some cases, talking to her about the constituent elements of poisons and sending her on to another possible source of
enquiry. The process had taken them into Paternoster Row and they called at the address they had been given. It was a small but well-stocked shop, and the man behind the counter had a neatness of garb and politeness of manner that set him apart from the grubby appearance and surly attitude of some of his fellows. The apothecary had brown hair, a pointed beard and the remains of an almost startling handsomeness. His faint accent joined with his exaggerated courtesy towards Anne to betray his nationality.

‘What may I get for madame?’ he said. ‘Perfumes from Arabia? Spices from the East? My stock is at your disposal.’

‘Does it include poison?’ she asked.

‘Poison?’

‘Do you carry these items?’

Anne Hendrik gave him the list of possible ingredients, which she had first devised with the aid of the surgeon. At each shop, her list was amended or enlarged in line with the advice of respective apothecaries. From the general pool of expertise, she had fished up a final inventory. Philippe Lavalle studied it with interest and surprise. He was a French Huguenot who fled from his native country over twenty years ago to escape persecution. It had been a great struggle to establish himself at first but now, under the name of Philip Lovel, he was a respected member of his profession. Poverty was his chief customer. People who could not afford to send for a doctor or a physician would come to him. He could diagnose diseases, prescribe cures for many of them and bleed a patient where necessary. Anne Hendrik was not typical of his customers at all and he had assumed she was there to purchase some of the perfumes and spices that he kept in the earthenware pots that were arranged so tidily on his shelves.