The Vagabond Clown (25 page)

It was dark by the time they got back to Dover and candlelight glowed in open windows. Lanterns were hanging in the stables at the Lion so that the ostlers could see to unsaddle the horses. Wearied by their ride in pursuit of a false scent, Nicholas and Elias joined the others in the taproom. The mood was sombre. Though they had searched the town until nightfall, the actors had found no clues as to the whereabouts of Lawrence Firethorn and they were convinced that he was dead. The arrival of the newcomers destroyed their last faint hopes. Nicholas and Elias had come back empty-handed. All was lost. The company grieved in silence and the taproom was uncannily quiet. Looking around the sad faces, Nicholas began to wonder if the actors would be able to summon up the strength and the dedication that was needed to stage a play in front of an audience. Elias tried to set a good example by retiring to a quiet corner with a tankard of ale and a copy
of his scenes from
A Trick To Catch A Chaste Lady
. He was soon repeating lines to himself.

Nicholas sat beside Edmund Hoode, who was morose and withdrawn.

‘Where’s Barnaby?’ asked Nicholas.

‘He’s gone to his room,’ replied Hoode. ‘He prefers to be alone. George has been running hither and thither, fetching wine and food for him.’ He looked at his friend. ‘I begin to have doubts, Nick. Is it wise for us to go ahead without Lawrence?’

‘We have no choice in the matter.’

‘But we do. We can cancel the performance.’

‘When we have already agreed to give it?’ said Nicholas. ‘Playbills have been printed. Word of mouth has spread our fame afar. Think how our reputation will suffer if we disappoint our audience.’

‘It will suffer far more if we offer them the botched piece we saw at rehearsal this afternoon. I was ashamed to be involved in such horror.’

‘Then help to turn it into an acceptable performance.’

‘Time is against us.’

‘I disagree, Edmund. It’s our greatest asset. Look at Owen,’ said Nicholas, indicating the Welshman. ‘He knows how little time he has to con his part and that inspires him to work at it all the harder. It is so with our fellows. I, too, had doubts about them when I walked in here – then I remembered that we have less than sixteen hours to pull the play together. When we get to the Guildhall tomorrow, there’ll be no room for grief or anguish. The company will respond as Owen has done.’

‘The play will not be the same without Lawrence.’

‘We thought it would not be the same without Barnaby yet we gave a rousing performance of it at Maidstone. The mayor loved it. When did we last earn five pounds when we were out on the road? And that’s another consideration, Edmund,’ he went on. ‘Cancel the performance and we lose both face and money. Fill the Guildhall tomorrow afternoon and we stand to replenish our coffers.’

Hoode was despondent. ‘That may be so, Nick. But no matter how much we earn, it will not atone for the loss of Lawrence.’

‘I grant you that,’ said Nicholas, ‘but imagine how pleased he will be when he comes back and finds that we have abided by our contract to play and swelled our funds.’

‘
When
he comes back? Do you honestly believe that he will?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Then you are the only one of us here that does.’

‘I think not. Owen is of the same opinion as me.’

‘Even though you drew a blank with Conway’s Men?’

‘That left us chastened but not downhearted,’ explained Nicholas. ‘I was too hasty in singling out Tobias Fitzgeoffrey as the culprit. I reason thus. Two people who are linked to Westfield’s Men have been murdered. Fortunatus Hope was the first and Giddy Mussett, the second. Both were left where they would be found so that their fates would act as a warning to us.
That
is why Master Hope was killed at the Queen’s Head and not in some more private place. It was a visible blow against us.’

‘Nothing could have been more visible than Giddy’s death.’

‘It was meant to frighten, Edmund.’

‘It succeeded.’

‘Yes,’ said Nicholas, ‘but how much more upsetting would Lawrence’s death be? Suppose that we had found
him
lying in a stable with a dagger in his back? We would all have been distraught. Do you follow my argument?’

‘Very closely, and it brings me some relief.’

‘Good.’

‘Had Lawrence been murdered, his killer would have dangled his body in front of us to cause us real terror. Since that has not happened, there is a chance that Lawrence is still alive.’ His brow furrowed. ‘But
why
, Nick? Why spare him when his death would throw us into disarray?’

‘I can only guess. Whoever kidnapped him thought that his disappearance would be enough to halt us in our tracks. But that is not the case.’

‘I know,’ said Hoode, suddenly alarmed. ‘We are pressing on in spite of his loss. Could that not be dangerous for Lawrence?’

‘It is what he would expect of us.’

‘Not if it imperils his life.’

‘We’ve no means of knowing that it will.’

‘But it’s a possibility, Nick. Look at the situation. Lawrence is snatched from us in order to prevent us from playing again in Dover. If we ignore the message, will they not simply kill Lawrence in order to give us a starker warning?’

‘It’s a risk,’ admitted Nicholas, ‘but we have to take it.’

‘I’m not sure that we should.’

‘We must, Edmund. Our intentions have been made clear. Instead of giving up in the face of fear, we struggled on at the Guildhall this afternoon. That will not have gone unnoticed. If our decision endangered Lawrence’s life, his dead body would have turned up by now. Yet it has not. He’s still
alive
,’ he continued, ‘and that means we have a chance to rescue him.’

‘I wish that I had your confidence.’

‘You share my love for the company. Let that carry you through.’

Hoode was reassured. ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘We must perform the play.’

‘It will have another virtue.’

‘And what is that?’

‘It will bring our enemy out into the daylight again,’ said Nicholas. ‘I think that we’ve been watched ever since we set out from London. We know that the killer was in the audience at the Queen’s Head. I suspect that he’s seen every performance that we have so far given on tour. If we take to the boards at the Guildhall tomorrow, he’ll probably be hidden away among the other spectators.’

‘Wondering who his next victim will be,’ said Hoode with a shiver.

‘No, Edmund. Realising that he’ll not stop us.’

Nicholas stayed long enough to share a light supper with his friend and did his best to still Hoode’s apprehensions. As a courtesy, the book holder then went to Gill’s room to explain what happened on their visit to Conway’s Men.
Before he could even tap on the door, however, he saw George Dart backing out of the room on tiptoe. Dart closed the door behind him and raised a finger to his lips to signal the need for silence. Nicholas took him to the other end of the passageway before he spoke.

‘Is he asleep, George?’

‘Yes,’ said Dart. ‘He was very tired.’

‘I know that he’s in pain.’

‘He never shows it in front of the others but it is different when we are alone. Every time he moves his leg, he’s in agony. Master Gill drinks wine to deaden the pain.’ He smiled hopefully. ‘Did you find what you were after, Nick?’

‘Unhappily, no. It was a false trail.’

Dart’s face fell. ‘Like all of the others.’

‘We’ll keep looking, George.’

‘And so will I.’

‘Your task is to take care of Barnaby.’

‘That does not stop me joining in the search,’ said the willing Dart. ‘When I wheeled Master Gill back from the Guildhall, I was as vigilant as any of them. And I all but stumbled on a clue that nobody else had found.’

‘A clue?’ asked Nicholas with interest.

‘That’s what I thought it might be at the time.’

‘And now?’

‘I was probably misled by him.’

‘By whom, George?’

‘It does not matter now. Master Gill told me to forget the man.’

‘What man?’

‘A beggar in the street.’

‘Go on. Tell me what happened.’

‘Well,’ said Dart, biting at a fingernail, ‘the poor wretch looked so miserable, sitting in a doorway like a stray dog, that I took pity on him. I stopped to give him a coin even though Master Gill chided me for doing so. The beggar was very grateful. He asked who I was and what I was doing in Dover. When I told him that I belonged to Westfield’s Men and that we were looking for Master Firethorn, he said that he could help me, if only I was to put more money into his palm. But I had none left to give.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘What I was told to do by Master Gill. He ordered me to wheel him back here and told me that I was a fool to listen to the fellow.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he was telling a lie.’

‘Was that the impression that you got?’

‘No, Nick. I felt that he was in earnest. But Master Gill insisted that it was only a ruse to get more money out of me. If I gave the beggar a bag of gold, he said, I’d get nothing but falsehood out of him.’

‘Who knows?’

‘Master Gill was certain that the man was deceiving me.’

‘Yet he
might
have seen something,’ said Nicholas.

‘Oh, there was no question of that.’

‘Why not?’

‘The beggar was blind.’

Lawrence Firethorn had never before had such sympathy for the blind. Deprived of his sight by the piece of material tied across his eyes, he came to understand their plight and their helplessness. Firethorn had the additional handicaps of being tied up and gagged so he could not use touch and taste by way of guidance. All that he could rely on were his sense of smell and his hearing, and they gave him only limited intelligence. It was night. That much was certain. The tumult of the harbour had given way to a cloying silence that was broken from time to time only by the distant barking of a dog or the cry of a drunken man trying to find his way home. Firethorn could smell fish. Indeed, he could smell little else inside the room where he was locked. He decided that he was incarcerated in a warehouse of some sort. The abiding stink suggested that there was no window to admit any fresh air. As time wore on, the atmosphere became increasingly oppressive.

His captors had left him alone. That meant they had no fear that he could escape from his prison. Firethorn was tied to a stout wooden post and, even though he strained every sinew in an effort to break free, he could not budge the timber. He was there for the whole night. What happened then, he could only conjecture. He could certainly expect no sympathy from the two men who held him. When they moved him to the warehouse, they had been rough to the point of brutality, taking full advantage of his inability to defend himself. Firethorn vowed to take revenge on them a hundred times but he was in no position to exact it. Everything depended on other people. Whether or not he
stayed alive depended on his captors. Whether or not he was rescued, depended on Westfield’s Men.

Firethorn was afraid. When he fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion, the same question was repeating itself inside his mind: ‘Nick Bracewell – where
are
you?’

Any fears that Westfield’s Men would be unequal to the challenge that lay ahead were swiftly dispelled. When they gathered at the Guildhall early on the following morning, they had shaken off their despair and found a new resolution. Nicholas explained to them why he believed that Firethorn was still alive and they were further bolstered. There was also a strong rumour that their patron would arrive in Dover in time to see them perform. It served to make the actors apply themselves more rigorously. As a result, the rehearsal bore no resemblance to the halting performance of the previous day. Mistakes were still made but they were quickly rectified. Owen Elias’s grasp on his character and his lines was now secure. George Dart contrived to prompt audibly at the correct moments. Even Barnaby Gill, normally so peevish at rehearsals, was lulled into a rare state of optimism by the way that the company lifted itself out of its pervading woe. It augured well for the afternoon performance.

While most of the others returned to the Lion for refreshment, Nicholas remained behind with George Dart to put everything in readiness. Scenery was set up for the opening of the play and properties placed on stage. Benches were arranged so that everyone had a good view of the
action. Gatherers had to be instructed in their role so that nobody slipped past them without paying an entrance fee. Sunlight streamed in through the windows on both side walls to eliminate any need for candles. When the work was done, Nicholas spared a few minutes to follow up the potential clue that Dart had mentioned. The two of them walked to the exact spot where the blind beggar had sat on the previous day but the man was not there.

‘Are you sure that it was here?’ asked Nicholas.

‘This was the very doorway.’

‘I saw no blind beggar when I passed by with Owen.’

‘Perchance he moved.’

‘Why should he do that?’

‘He had money to spend. I gave it to him.’

‘Look about for him. Try the streets nearby.’

They split up and went down all the adjacent streets and lanes. Their search was thorough but, once again, completely futile. Nicholas was disappointed. A tiny wisp of hope seemed to have vanished the moment that it appeared.

Impressed by the reputation of Westfield’s Men, and lured by the title of the play, a large audience descended on the Guildhall that afternoon. Most paid for a seat but there was also standing room at the rear and a number of sailors had been tempted away from their taverns to watch
A Trick To Catch A Chaste Lady
. The mayor and his wife were there again, as were most of the city worthies. Sebastian Frant brought his daughter this time and they sat near the front so that they would get full value from the performance.
Lord Westfield did not arrive in time but John Strood did, mingling with the standees at the back of the hall and wondering what had drawn his former shipmate, Nicholas Bracewell, into a theatre troupe. It struck him as an odd choice of profession.