‘Then we are all done for!’ wailed Dart.
‘Only if we are foolish enough to stay,’ said Owen Elias. ‘We will quit this infected city and stage our plays in healthier places. Banbury’s Men begin their tour tomorrow.’
‘It is true,’ confirmed Nicholas. ‘Other companies will soon do the same, Westfield’s Men among them. If we are to keep our art in repair and ourselves in employment, we must ride out of London and try our luck in the provinces.’
There was an awkward silence as each man weighed up the implications for himself. Thomas Skillen was close to despair. When the company went on tour, there was no chance that they would take him with them and it might be six months or more before they returned to the capital. What hope had he of surviving the rigors of the plague? Even if he did, how could an old man with no income keep well-fed and warm during the harsh winter that lay ahead?
George Dart had his own quandary. Terrified to be left behind, he feared the consequences of going. When the company went on tour, it cut its number to lower its operating costs and made greater demands on its individual members. The young assistant stagekeeper was routinely pressed to the limit by Westfield’s Men when they performed at the Queen’s Head. On tour, as he knew from experience, he would be burdened with additional duties and taxed with greater responsibilities. Staring into his ale, Dart was beset by a crisis of confidence.
Owen Elias was the least vexed by the notion of travel. A sharer with the company, the resilient Welshman was certain to be included in the touring company and would make the most of the situation, adapting easily to the different audiences and performance conditions they might find in each town and taking his pleasures along the way with his usual jovial lechery. Elias was a born actor and nothing could dampen his enthusiasm for his craft. But he was also a caring man who was very conscious of the prospects faced, respectively, by Thomas Skillen and George Dart. For the sake of his two colleagues, he did not talk excitedly about the compensatory joys of touring because the former would not experience them and they would be a continual ordeal to the latter.
Nicholas Bracewell was quietly resigned. Westfield’s Men faced the stark choice between flight from London and complete extinction. Now that he and Anne Hendrik were happily reunited at last, he hated the idea of having to part from her again and he was all too aware of the fact that it was a previous tour to the West Country which had split them apart and evicted him from his lodging in Bankside. But it was not only personal considerations which saddened Nicholas. Everyone in the company would suffer. Those who embarked in pursuit of the uncertain rewards of a provincial tour would also be tearing themselves away from families and loved ones. Those who were discarded by Westfield’s Men-and it would fall to Nicholas to inform them of their dismissal-were effectively being thrown into penury. Thomas Skillen was among them, and Nicholas knew in his heart that his dear old friend and colleague would begin to wither once his beloved theatre company had left him behind.
Nicholas finished his ale and looked around at the others.
‘We must count our blessings,’ he said softly. ‘Many have already succumbed to the disease. We may have lost our home here; still, we have our health and strength.’
‘How long will that last?’ murmured Skillen.
‘In your case-forever!’ said Elias with a forced smile.
‘I will be lucky to reach the end of the month.’
‘Is there no remedy against the plague?’ asked Dart.
‘None that has yet been found,’ admitted Nicholas. ‘We do not even know whence it comes or why it has been sent.’
Skillen was bitter. ‘Its purpose is all to clear. It is God’s instrument for the punishment of sin. A brutal justice that carries off the innocent as well as the guilty.’
‘You are wrong, Thomas,’ argued Elias. ‘This pestilence is caused by a poison in the air. It strikes hardest when the weather is at its warmest. Heat and contagion have ever been yoke-devils.’
‘Master Gill has another explanation,’ said Dart meekly. ‘He told me that our destiny is written across the heavens in the stars. If we want to know whence the plague arises, we should consult an astrologer.’
‘Go shake your ears!’ exclaimed Elias with scorn. ‘Do not listen to a word that Barnaby tells you. He is just as likely to persuade you that the cure for this disease lies between your boyish buttocks, and he will urge you to unbutton so that he may conduct his search. Stars in the heavens! Ha! There are only two orbs that interest Barnaby Gill, and they lie close to the earth. Every pretty youth has a pair inside his breeches.’
George Dart blushed a deep crimson and Thomas Skillen forgot his misery long enough to emit a loud chortle. Before the Welshman could get into his stride, Nicholas jumped in to take control of the conversation.
‘This is idle speculation,’ he said firmly. ‘The plague is a mystery that has yet to be divined. Some believe you may ward off infection with onions, cloves, lemons, vinegar or wormwood. Others seek a remedy in tobacco, arsenic, quicksilver or even dried toads. In times of distress, people will grasp at any false nostrum that is offered. Every quack and mountebank has his own useless treatment to foist upon desperate victims. This one sells you some lily root boiled in white wine while that one purveys a draught concocted of salad-oil, sack, and gunpowder.’
‘Gunpowder!’ repeated Dart in astonishment.
‘There are worse remedies than that,’ warned Elias.
‘Indeed, there are,’ continued Nicholas. ‘The sovereign cure is one that only the very rich and the very gullible may sample. It is a specific that draws out the poison and provokes a violent sweat in the patient. Its chief ingredient is that rarest commodity-powdered unicorn’s horn.’
‘Is there such a thing?’ gasped Dart.
‘Only if you are ready to believe in it.’
‘Nick is right,’ added Elias. ‘The only true relief from the disease is a compound made from holly leaves, horse dung, and the testicles of a tiger, cooked slowly over the flames from the mouth of a Welsh dragon!’
‘Has that been known to work?’ asked a wide-eyed Dart.
‘Infallibly.’
‘A Welsh dragon?’
‘I saw the wondrous beast myself.’
‘Owen is teasing you,’ said Nicholas with a smile. ‘Pay no heed to him, George. There is no remedy. Take my word for it.’
‘Someone must have caught the disease and survived.’
‘None that I know of,’ muttered Skillen.
‘Nor I,’ agreed Elias.
The three of them turned to look at a pensive Nicholas.
‘There was one survivor,’ he recalled at length. ‘I have met him myself, so I know it to be true. His name is Doctor John Mordrake and he lives in Knightrider Street. By all accounts, he is a noted physician, philosopher, and alchemist. Doctor ordrake contracted the disease and cured himself.’
‘Impossible!’ announced Skillen.
‘He is living proof to the contrary, Thomas.’
‘How did he do it?’ asked Dart. ‘What was his remedy?’
‘That remains a secret,’ said Nicholas. ‘All I can do is to repeat common report. People who witnessed his miraculous recovery came to the same conclusion. There was only one way that Doctor Mordrake could possibly have done it.’
‘And how was that?’
‘By magic.’
***
Margery Firethorn was one of the most hospitable women in the whole of Shoreditch, but her customary open-armed welcome was tinged with regret when Barnaby Gill and Edmund Hoode arrived at the house in Old Street. The two were conducted into the parlour with a faint air of reluctance. They understood why and sympathised with her. Margery was not simply inviting some close friends into her home. She was admitting the two men who were-along with Lawrence Firethorn-the principal sharers in Westfield’s Men and therefore responsible for all major decisions affecting the company. They were there to discuss the projected tour of the provinces. The visitors had come to take her husband away from her for an indefinite period.