‘Forget it,’ he interrupted, holding up a blue-veined hand. ‘You will have enough to think about in Holland without worrying about your property here. Put it from your mind. It is safe enough in our keeping. So is the workshop. Stay as long as you wish, Anne,’ he urged. ‘We have commissions to keep us busy until Christmas, and more will surely come in. London will not go bare-headed while you are away.’
She squeezed him by the shoulders and kissed him softly on the cheek. A faint blush attacked his pallor. No more words were needed. With a grateful nod, she turned away from him.
When she went back into the parlour of her house, she found Nicholas Bracewell sitting pensively on a chair beside their luggage. He was so pre-occupied that he did not even notice her at first. It was only when Anne stood over him that he became aware of her presence.
‘Oh!’ He sat up with a start. ‘I did not see you.’
‘You were miles away, Nick. We both know where.’
‘Do we?’
‘Bohemia.’
‘No, Anne,’ he explained. ‘You are wrong. My thoughts certainly touched on Bohemia but they had not raced ahead to the country itself. I am still troubled about something much nearer home.’
‘Troubled?’
‘Sit here and I will tell you all.’
‘Do we have time before we leave?’
‘This is something for which we must make time. I have tried to talk to Master Firethorn about it but he brushes the matter away. And I may not even mention it to Edmund because I have sworn to divulge the secret to none of the company.’
‘Secret?’
Surrendering his chair to her, Nicholas pulled the stool across so that he could sit beside her. Anne could see from his knotted brow that his mind was vexed. She took his hand.
‘Are you not breaking your oath in confiding in me?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You are not one of Westfield’s Men and I know that I can trust you implicitly. Besides, I need a pair of sympathetic ears so that I can talk about the problem.’
‘What problem?’
‘This tour on which we are about to embark. It arose out of an invitation to visit the Imperial Court in Prague and to play there for two weeks. The invitation came with the suggestion of the route we should take so that we might acquaint others with the work of Westfield’s Men. Hospitality has been arranged for us on the way to these places. Someone has gone to great trouble on our behalf.’
‘Is this not a matter for celebration?’
‘Indeed, it is.’
‘Then where is the problem?’
‘Here,’ said Nicholas, taking a pouch from the inside of his buff jerkin. ‘It was given to Master Firethorn by Lord Westfield himself with express orders. It contains documents to be delivered to one Talbot Royden, an English doctor at the Court of Rudolph the Second. We are to be couriers, it seems.’
‘That is not unusual, Nick,’ she said. ‘I am a courier myself for Preben. As soon as he heard that I was travelling to Holland, he asked me to bear a letter for him.’
‘Did it come with an appreciable amount of money?’
‘Not a penny.’
‘This did,’ he said, holding up the pouch.
‘Payment for carrying the documents.’
‘Nobody is that generous,’ he said sceptically. ‘There is enough money here to support us for most of the journey. And when we land in Flushing, two wagons with fresh horses will be put at our disposal. Who is providing all this help?’
‘Your host in Bohemia.’
‘He makes promise of payment when we arrive, but that will be for the entertainment we provide. Who is ensuring that we will eat well and travel in comfort on the way to Prague?’
‘Lord Westfield.’
Nicholas laughed and shook his head. ‘He is as deep in debt as ever, Anne. Our patron has neither the resources nor the inclination to assist the company so generously. When he handed over this pouch, he did so in someone else’s stead.’
‘And who might that be?’
‘That is what has been exercising my mind.’
‘Does Lord Westfield have close friends at Court?’
‘Dozens.’
‘Could not one of them have supplied the money?’
‘Why did he not present it in person?’ asked Nicholas. ‘And what is so important about these documents that their very existence must be kept secret?’ He replaced the pouch inside his jerkin. ‘Why all this mystery?’
‘I have no explanation.’
‘Nor did I expect one. I merely wished to bring the matter out into the open to see if it really is as curious and alarming as I feared.’
‘Alarming?’
‘Westfield’s Men are being used, Anne,’ he decided. ‘By whom and for what purpose, I do not yet know. That fact is disturbing enough in itself. But there is another possibility to consider.’
‘What is that?’
‘Someone is so anxious to see these documents safely delivered to this Talbot Royden in Prague that we are being handsomely paid to take them there. Why hide them in the baggage of a theatre company when they could travel more swiftly by other means?’
‘It does not make sense, Nick.’
‘Unless letters sent by messenger are intercepted before they reach the person to whom they were directed. Documents which would be confiscated from other couriers may be sneaked through by us. Supposing we are caught in possession of them?’
‘By whom?’
‘I do not know,’ he confessed, standing up. ‘That is part of the problem, Anne. I am hopelessly in the dark. But I sense danger here. In carrying those documents, we are not just performing a favour for a friend of Lord Westfield. We may be making ourselves a target.’
***
London Bridge was one of the busiest thoroughfares in the City. It was the one means of crossing the broad back of the River Thames on foot or on horseback, and it was also a place where many lived and where people came to buy from the shops that lined both sides of the narrow road. While the plague was claiming its victims from every ward, it seemed unable to touch the inhabitants of the bridge, and this guarantee of safety brought the crowds in their usual abundance. Carts and wagons rolled constantly to and fro to increase the bustle and the general pandemonium.
From a vantage point on the bridge, it was possible to take in the whole vast panorama of London, a higgledy-piggledy mass of houses, shops, taverns, ordinaries, prisons, civic buildings and churches, held in place by the high City wall, dominated by the soaring magnificence of Saint Paul’s Cathedral and guarded with grim solidity by the impregnable Tower. The multifarious sights and diverse sounds of London were supplemented by the noisome smells of the capital. Billingsgate sent up its abiding stink of fish, but it was mixed with many other pungent aromas and garnished with the sharp odour of the Thames itself.
Anyone looking down from the bridge that day would have seen one spectacle that was unique. Westfield’s Men were giving an impromptu performance on the wharf below. No stage was set up and no audience had paid to watch, but a dozen minor tragedies were being played out with great intensity. The company was about to set sail for Deptford, where they would transfer to the larger vessel that would cross the sea to Holland. Tearful wives and howling children had come to send their beloved off with a forlorn hug. Distraught mistresses clung to bodies with which they had been entwined throughout the night. Whole families surrounded some of the actors, with parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and even doddering grandparents in attendance for a last sighting.
No parting was more touching in its sincerity nor more agonising in its pain than that between Lawrence and Margery Firethorn. Both arms around his children, the actor wept bitterly and gave his wife the same advice after each relay of kisses planted upon her upturned face.
‘And Margery, my good, sweet wife…’
‘Yes, Lawrence?’
‘Keep your house fair and clean, which I know you will.’
‘Yes, husband.’
‘Every evening, throw water before your door and have in your window a goodly store of rue and herb of grace.’