‘I did not mean to put you to choler in this way.’
‘What was the name?’
‘I assumed that you knew Margery was there.’
‘The name!’ demanded Firethorn.
‘It was the Unicorn.’
***
Cecily Gilbourne did not waste much time on the formalities. Romantic dalliance was cast ruthlessly aside in favour of more tangible pleasure. As soon as Edmund Hoode was conducted in to her, she gave him a kiss on the cheek and took him through into the next chamber. He looked down at the bed on which they spent their torrid night together and he blenched. There was no resemblance to the Garden of Eden now. It reminded him of the gruesome rack which he had once beheld in the house of Richard Topcliffe, the master torturer. The bed was an instrument of pain.
‘Have you written that sonnet yet?’ she asked.
‘It is still forming in my mind, Cecily.’
‘But you promised to quote it to me.’
‘Did I?’ He saw a way to delay her ardour. ‘Step back into the next chamber and I’ll try a line or two for you.’
‘In here,’ she insisted. ‘You swore that you would stroke my body with your poetry.’
‘Did I?’ gulped Hoode.
‘Have you so soon forgotten?’
She pushed him into a sitting position on the bed. He was terrified. Cecily Gilbourne’s appetite was too great for him to satisfy. Making love to her had turned into an ordeal. The thought that he would have to quote a sonnet to her in the middle of the exercise made it even more unappealing. Hoode looked around for escape but she was already unhooking his doublet.
‘Why make such haste?’ he said, panic-stricken.
She forced him back. ‘Do you need to ask?’
‘Will you not take refreshment beforehand, Cecily?’
‘This is my refreshment!’
She writhed about on top of him until she was panting, then she began to pluck at her clothing. He had no idea that a dress could be removed so easily. When Cecily switched her attentions to his hose, his panic gave way to hysteria.
‘I feel the first line of my sonnet coming!’
‘Hold still while I take these off.’
‘“O hot Sicilian Cecily…” Stay your hand. Please!’
‘I am in too hot and Sicilian a mood!’
‘Cecily!’ he protested.
‘Edmund!’ she purred. ‘My rhyming couplet!’
And before he could move, she flung herself full upon him and fixed her lips ineluctably on his. Hoode felt the waters closing over his head. He was just about to abandon all hope and submit when he heard a thumping noise on the door. The maidservant called out the warning.
‘Mistress! Mistress! Beware!’
‘What is it?’ snarled Cecily in mid-rhyme.
‘Master Hoode’s wife is without.’
‘His wife!’
‘Yes!’
‘But he does not have a wife.’
‘I do, I do,’ said Hoode gratefully. ‘Can she be here?’
‘Asking to come in,’ said the maidservant.
‘Demanding!’ thundered a voice on the other side of the door. ‘Edmund! Are you there?’
‘No, my dear.’
‘Stand aside, girl,’ ordered the unexpected visitor.
The maidservant gave a little scream, the door burst open and the redoubtable figure of Margery Firethorn came through it at speed. She bristled at the sight of betrayal. Cecily Gilbourne retreated to a corner of the room, snatching up a sheet to cover herself and trying to show what dignity she could muster. Hoode threshed about helplessly on the bed. Margery did not stand on ceremony. Bestowing a glare of contempt on Cecily, she grabbed Hoode by the arm, hauled him off the bed and dragged him behind her like a sack of grain.
Hoode gladly withstood the discomfort of his departure. Bouncing down the stairs of the Unicorn was infinitely preferable to being eaten alive by a rampant lover with only one word in her sexual vocabulary-“Again!” Margery played her part to the hilt. It was only when she had brought him out into the street that she relaxed and permitted herself a chuckle. Hoode was so thankful that he threw his arms impulsively around her and gave her a resounding kiss.
Lawrence Firethorn chose that moment to steal upon them.
***
Nicholas Bracewell knew where to find him. When the man was not at home, there was only one place he could be. It did not take the book holder long to walk to the precinct. He made his way across the Great Yard and into the theatre. Geoffrey Bless, the old watchdog, was slumped in his chair fast asleep, his eyes closed to shut out the fearful sight he had seen at Blackfriars that evening. The porter did not even stir when Nicholas took the key ring gently from his gnarled hand.
Creeping quietly up the staircase, Nicholas came to the door of the theatre and searched for the key to unlock it. He stepped into the auditorium to find it in darkness, the shutters now firmly closed to block out the last of the day. The place seemed deserted but Nicholas was certain that he was not alone. As he felt his way along, one hand held his dagger at the ready. He halted close to the stage.
‘Come forth, sir,’ he said. ‘I know that you are here.’
There was a long pause before flickering light slowly appeared. A branched candelabra was carried on stage and set on the table, which had been used during the brief rehearsal. A figure lowered himself onto the bench behind the table and set out some rolls of parchment before him. He seemed as confident and relaxed as if sitting in his own study.
‘I expected you,’ said Caleb Hay with a smile.
‘Did you?’
‘Sooner or later.’
‘Then you will know why I have come.’
‘Put that dagger away, sir. I am not armed. I will not talk to a man who threatens me with a weapon.’
‘It is for my defence.’
‘Against what? An old man with a pile of documents?’
Nicholas nodded and sheathed his dagger. Candlelight now illumined the area immediately in front of the stage. He looked across to the place where Raphael Parsons had fallen. The body had been removed but the floor was still covered by a dark stain. Caleb Hay glanced down at it.
‘Master Parsons held one rehearsal too many in here.’
‘Was he your next victim?’
‘Do not look to me. He was killed by a disgruntled father.’
‘And spared a more lingering death at the end of a rope,’ said Nicholas. ‘Is that why you were lurking in the precinct this evening? Until you could come upon him alone here in the theatre? Until you could let yourself in with Master Fulbeck’s keys and take him unawares?’
‘Why should I wish to murder Raphael Parsons?’
‘For the same reason that you murdered Cyril Fulbeck and Jonas Applegarth.’
‘The Master of the Chapel was my trusted friend. As for your fat playwright, how could a weak fellow like myself hoist such a weight upon the gallows?’
‘With the aid of a workbench,’ said Nicholas. ‘It was easier to lever him up from that. You used another lever to bring Jonas to the Queen’s Head in the first place. That letter, purporting to be from Lawrence Firethorn. An able scrivener would have had no trouble in writing that.’
‘Able scriveners are quiet, sedentary souls like me.’
‘You are not as weak and harmless as you appear. That was the mistake that Cyril Fulbeck made. Thinking you safe, he let you close enough to strike.’
‘He let me close enough a hundred times, yet lived.’
‘The case was altered the last time you met.’
‘Pray tell me why,’ challenged Hay. ‘Here I sit at a judicial bench and yet I am accused of unspeakable crimes. A friend whom I cherished. A playwright whom I never met. What flight of folly makes you link my name with their fate?’
‘Religion!’ said Nicholas.
‘Indeed?’
‘The old religion.’
‘All three of us were Dominican friars? Is that your argument?’
‘No, sir,’ returned Nicholas. ‘I thought at first the theatre was the common bond between them. Cyril Fulbeck was involved with the Chapel Children and Jonas Applegarth was engaged by Westfield’s Men. One here at Blackfriars and the other at the Queen’s Head, both places of antiquity in their different ways and therefore fit subjects of study for a historian of London. Only someone who knew each room, cellar and passageway at the Queen’s Head could have evaded me.’