‘I’ll not be satisfied until I kill you,’ said Hibbert, removing his hat and flicking it away. ‘Come on, sir.’
‘Leave some meat on him for me to carve,’ asked Elias, handing his rapier to Nicholas. ‘I’ve my own grudge against this knave.’ Hibbert thrust wildly at him and the Welshman had to jump back quickly out of range. ‘God’s blood!’ he protested. ‘Can you not even fight like a man?’
‘Let’s find out,’ said Nicholas, circling his opponent.
‘I’m ready for you,’ goaded Hibbert.
‘How ready?’
‘I’ll show you.’
Hibbert thrust hard but Nicholas parried with ease. A second thrust and six fierce slashes of the blade were also harmlessly deflected. Hibbert came at him again. Light on his feet and well balanced, he was no mean swordsman. When he launched another ferocious attack, his rapier flashed murderously in the air but each stroke was deftly parried. Nicholas was happy to give ground, testing him out, lulling the man into false confidence, even giving a grunt of pain as if he had been wounded.
But the winner was never in doubt. Nicholas had studied the finer points of swordsmanship. He was stronger, faster and more nimble. He had had far more experience with a weapon in his hand than Hibbert. When he had taken everything that his opponent could throw at him, he retaliated with a dazzling series of cuts and thrusts that forced Hibbert backwards until he was up against a wall. Nicholas feinted, moved swiftly to the side, thrust again and twisted his wrist. Hibbert cried out as blood gushed from his hand. His sword went spinning in the air.
Nicholas rested the point of his blade against Hibbert’s throat.
‘Now, then,’ he said, ‘let’s have some honest answers.’
‘Run him through, Nick,’ urged Elias. ‘I’ll swear you killed him in self-defence for that’s the truth. He drew first when you had no weapon.’
‘No, no,’ begged Hibbert. ‘Spare my life — please!’
‘He’d not have spared yours, Nick.’
‘Peace, Owen,’ said Nicholas. ‘Leave this to me.’ He flicked his sword so that the point drew blood from Hibbert’s throat. The playwright emitted a gasp of fear. ‘A young woman lured Dick Honeydew away in that churchyard. Who was she?’
‘In truth, I do not know,’ replied Hibbert.
‘Give me her name.’
‘I would, if I knew what it was.’
‘You know it only too well,’ said Nicholas, remembering the letter he had seen, ‘for you lived with her at one time. I think that she has learnt of your ruse. The woman is your wife.’
Hibbert gave a shudder and pulled himself back against the wall in a vain attempt to escape the pressure of the sword point. There was terror in his eyes and sweat dribbled freely down his face. All his hopes had been vanquished. He was caught.
‘Admit it,’ said Nicholas. ‘Is she your wife?’
‘Probably,’ confessed Hibbert, ‘but I cannot say which one.’
Richard Honeydew was mystified. From the various sounds he could hear from below and in the adjoining rooms, he was being held in a busy inn but he could not tell in which part of the city it might be. What puzzled him was that the woman who had fed him seemed to be alone. Since carrying him upstairs, the man had departed and stayed away all evening. The boy had heard a bolt being pushed home after his departure. When he picked up clear sounds that the woman was going to bed, he wondered why the man had not returned. The candle was blown out in the room and the tiny filter of light that came through the crack in the cupboard door was extinguished.
Stiff and aching, Honeydew was nevertheless relieved. The man posed the real threat. With him out of the way, the boy felt safer. He was also rescued from any embarrassment. Living in a crowded house in Shoreditch meant that privacy was almost impossible. Lawrence Firethorn was a lusty husband and Margery a vigorous wife. The noises that came from their bedchamber made the other apprentices snigger. They even put theirs ears to the floorboards to hear more clearly. Honeydew never joined them. Not really understanding what was going on in the marital bed, he did his best not to listen.
It was different now. He was less than six feet from a bed and could hear it report every movement that the woman made. Had the man shared it with her, Honeydew could not have blocked out the sounds of any love making that might have ensued. It would have distressed him. He did not wish to lose his innocence yet. In playing the part of Mistress Malevole, he had already been forced to grow up a little, finding sinister qualities in his voice and his manner that had never been there before. It had frightened him. He was still a boy with a boy’s unclouded naivete.
Honeydew remembered the evening when The Malevolent Comedy had had to be created anew and dictated to the scrivener. Nicholas Bracewell had felt certain that some of its characters were based on real people whom the author wished to ridicule. Mistress Malevole was one of them, a beautiful but devious woman who achieved her ends by all manner of trickery. Honeydew was hit by a sudden realisation. He might have met her. The woman who was keeping him prisoner had called him by the name of his character in the play, and there had been a sneer in her voice. When he looked at her, he was staring into a mirror. His captor was the real Mistress Malevole. He wanted to scream.
Lawrence Firethorn opened his mouth to let out a laugh of disbelief.
‘Can this be so, Nick?’ he asked.
‘Owen was there at the time.’
‘Saul Hibbert is a bigamist?’
‘He admitted to three wives at least,’ said Nicholas, ‘and there may be more. It explains why he kept on the move. He would meet, woo and marry an unsuspecting bride, claim that he was sick and travel to another town on the pretence of seeing a physician there. After a lapse of time, he’d write a letter to say that he was dying and ask for money to repay his debts.’
‘Who collected the money?’
‘An accomplice who delivered the letter. He’d be paid a small amount for his work and the remainder would go to Master Hibbert — or Hatfield, as he was known in most cases. Our designing author preyed on women for a living. He boasted to me that he once earned eighty pounds in a year by such a deceitful means.’
‘It was so with his play,’ noted Firethorn, ‘for what was that but a raid on gullible ladies who had once trusted him? He even gave us the full names of Rosamund, Chloe and Eleanor. Which one of them has learnt the truth about their husband and come after him?’
It was early and Firethorn had entered the city as soon as the gate had been opened. He and Nicholas met at the Queen’s Head where the book holder had spent the night. In the light of day, the facial wounds that Nicholas had picked up during the scuffle looked even worse. The bruises were purple, the scar on his temple more livid and his lower lip almost twice its normal size. But there was no hint of self-pity. He was still exhilarated by the way that Saul Hibbert had been unmasked.
‘Let me get my hands on the wretch!’ said Firethorn, vengefully.
‘You’ll have to wait, Lawrence.’
‘Why — where is he?’
‘Lying in prison,’ replied Nicholas. ‘We had him arrested and taken before a magistrate. Owen and I bore witness to his crimes and he made a full confession. I also took the letter with me as evidence.’
‘What letter?’
‘The one he wrote to all his discarded wives or mistresses. I found the latest one when I searched his room yesterday. Depending on their circumstances, he asked the women for various amounts to clear his supposed debts. They paid up in the mistaken belief that their beloved was truly dying.’
‘His letters served a double purpose, then.’
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘It brought him money by cruel deception and ensured that none of the ladies came looking for him because they thought him dead. Until, that is, he wrote The Malevolent Comedy.’
‘Did one of his “wives” catch wind of it?’
‘Apparently so, though he can only hazard a guess at which one.’