‘It is, Edmund. I did not think to fool you so easily, but it seems that I did. Had you looked at my companions, you’d have seen that they, too, are old friends.’
‘Frank and James,’ said the playwright, recognising Quilter and Ingram and shaking each by the hand. ‘What mean these disguises?’
‘All will be explained in time,’ said Nicholas. ‘I must be brief. I called simply to see how remarkable a recovery Doctor Mordrake has brought about, and to tell you what happened after I left here last night.’
‘I thought that you went off to see Michael.’
‘And so I did. By the time I’d delivered him and Doctor Zander to a magistrate, it was far too late to call back here. And today has kept me fettered to the Queen’s Head.’
Hoode blinked. ‘What’s this about a magistrate?’
Nicholas gave him an abbreviated account of what had taken place in Cornhill. Hoode was extremely angry at Doctor Zander but, in spite of what had been done to him, managed a vestigial sympathy for Michael Grammaticus.
‘Ambition is a cruel master,’ he said. ‘It drove Michael much farther than he was able to go. I’ve been at the mercy of that ambition myself. I know the overwhelming urge to see your play performed upon a stage. It’s like a madness.’
‘Michael will pay dearly for it,’ said Nicholas. ‘But we must away, Edmund.’
‘Dressed in those rags? Will you beg in the streets?’
‘We’ll not allow that,’ said Quilter sternly, taking Nicholas by the arm.
Hoode laughed. ‘You’d make a good officer, Frank. But do not treat my friend Tom Rooke too harshly. I need him for one of my plays. And when he’s Nick Bracewell again,’ he went on, grinning happily, ‘I need him for all my plays.’
Nicholas slipped his arm back into the sling and replaced the eye patch. After giving the playwright a wave, he twisted his body into a grotesque shape and limped away between the two officers. Hoode went back inside and met Adele on the stairs.
‘No,’ he told her. ‘He was no friend of mine. I’ve never set eyes on that mangy creature before.’
Lawrence Firethorn did not know what sort of reception he would get at home. On the ride back to Shoreditch, he was not certain whether his wife had mellowed or if a night apart from her husband had merely hardened her heart. When he reached the house in Old Street, therefore, he tethered his horse to the gatepost in case he needed to make a swift departure. Finding that the front door was no longer locked, he took it as a good omen and stepped inside.
‘Margery!’ he cooed. ‘Where are you, my sweetness?’
‘In the kitchen,’ she announced in a rasping voice.
‘I’m back early today, as you will see.’
He went into the kitchen where his wife had been talking to her brother-in-law as she mixed some dough in a bowl. Jarrold could see that Margery was throbbing with displeasure. Not wishing to come between the couple at such a delicate moment, he gave a nervous smile and tried to steal away, but Firethorn flung his arms around the man to embrace him.
‘Thank God you came to stay with us, Jonathan!’ he declared. ‘You’ve been our salvation. Westfield’s Men owe you so much.’
‘They owe me nothing, Lawrence,’ said the other man, quailing before the frank display of emotion. ‘If anything is owed, it’s my apology. I hoped to get to the Queen’s Head this afternoon to watch the play, but I was detained by a bookseller with whom I was doing some business. Will you forgive me?’
‘After what you did, I’d forgive you anything.’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Margery, suspiciously. ‘You’ve hardly had a word to say to Jonathan since he’s been here, yet now you greet him as if he’s the best friend you have in the world.’
‘I do so on behalf of the whole company,’ said Firethorn. ‘Has your brother-in-law not told you what help he rendered us, Margery?’
‘No, Lawrence.’
‘How could I tell what I did not even know about?’ said Jarrold.
‘Have you ever heard such modesty?’ cried Firethorn, taking him by the cheeks to plant a kiss on his forehead. ‘But for you, Jonathan Jarrold, all would have been lost. But for you, Edmund would have languished in his bed forever. But for you, that wicked doctor would have gone on poisoning him while Michael Grammaticus reaped the benefit of his absence. You exposed their villainy.’
The bookseller was baffled. ‘Did I? When was this?’
Firethorn explained how Doctor Mordrake had been called in, and how Zander and Grammaticus had been arrested for their crime. Jarrold was shocked to hear that his former customer had been involved in such gross deception, but glad that the information he supplied about Stephen Wragby had been crucial. For her part, Margery was torn between joy and remorse.
‘Edmund recovered?’ she cried with delight. ‘Back with us again?’
‘He will be very soon,’ said Firethorn.
‘And this is where you were last night? Helping to catch those two villains?’
‘Yes,’ lied her husband, seeing a way to get off the marital hook. ‘They fought hard, Margery. By the time that Nick and I hauled them off to a magistrate, the city gates had been closed. I know that I promised to be back early, but I had to look into the truth of what Jonathan told me about Michael Grammaticus.’
‘I only spoke of him to Nicholas Bracewell,’ said Jarrold.
‘Nick and I have no secrets.’
‘What will happen to The Siege of Troy? Michael claimed to have written it.’
‘We’ll perform it as a play by Stephen Wragby.’
Jarrold was about to ask another question but he was elbowed gently in the ribs by Margery. Realising that he was now in the way, he mumbled an excuse and backed out of the kitchen. She gazed up lovingly at her husband.
‘It appears that I mistook you, Lawrence.’
‘I bear no grudge, my love.’
‘But I locked you out of your own house.’
‘You felt that you had good cause.’
‘Why did you not explain it all to me this morning?’
‘Because I had to get to the Queen’s Head early and did not wish to disturb you. As you’ve heard, my love, I’ve had much on my mind these past few days.’
‘And all that I did was to add to your woes.’
‘You were not to know, Margery.’
‘I feel so mean and unjust,’ she said. ‘You’ve every right to despise me.’
He laughed artlessly. ‘Why on earth should I do that?’ He spread his arms. ‘Come to me, Margery, and we’ll say no more about it.’
She hurled herself into his embrace and surrendered willingly to his kiss, leaving the imprints of her flour-covered hands on the back of his doublet. After a moment, she pushed him away and wrinkled her nose.
‘I can smell horse dung,’ she said.
Dorothea Tate took some time to find her bearings. Having crossed London Bridge on her own, she searched for the place by the river where she and Hywel Rees had spent their nights when they first came to the city. It brought back some happy memories and she stayed to enjoy them until she was driven away by other vagrants who had claimed the refuge as their own. Dorothea wandered aimlessly, sorry that she had let everyone down by fleeing without explanation, but driven by the fear that she had been an unfair burden. She felt that it was wrong of her to impose on compassionate people like Anne Hendrik and Nicholas Bracewell. Now that they had helped her over the death of her friend, it was time for her to stand on her own feet again.
When she grew hungry, she begged some stale bread off an old woman in the market and drank water from a pump. It tasted brackish. Dorothea spat it out. Recalling the meals she had been served in Bankside, she was full of regrets but she did not even think of returning. Since she had run away, she believed, they would not have her back again. Theirs was one world, hers another. She trudged on until her feet brought her to a building she recognised with a tremor of fear. The facade of Bridewell towered over her and seemed to crush her spirit. It was then that she realised why she had come. An unseen hand had guided her to the workhouse. This was where she could get revenge.