The Merry Devils

It was a brief but distressing incident. When he came to the next corner, however, he saw something much more appalling than a gang of drunken youths. Huddled in the shadow of a doorway down the adjacent lane, a man was molesting a woman. He had lifted her skirts up and held her in a firm embrace. Pollard could not see exactly what was going on but he heard her muffled protests. Raising his stick, he advanced on the wrongdoer and yelled a command.

'Unhand that lady, sir!'

'I fart at thee!' roared the man.

'Leave go of her or I will beat you soundly.'

'Let a poor girl earn her living!' shrieked the woman.

'Can I not help you?' said Pollard.

She answered the question with such a barrage of abuse that he went puce. Now that he was close enough to realise what they were doing, he was mortified. Far from protesting, the woman had been urging her client on to a hotter carnality. The last thing she needed during her transaction was the interference of a Puritan.

'A plague upon you!' she howled.

'Cast out your sins!' he retaliated.

'Will you have me draw my sword?' warned the other man.

As a fresh burst of vituperation came from the woman, Pollard backed away then strode off down the street. Within only a short time of his arrival in Bankside, he had enough material for an entire sermon. There was worse to come. His steps now took him along Rose Alley, past the jostling elbows of the habitues and beneath the dangling temptation of the vivid inn signs. Crude sounds of jollity hammered at his ears then something loomed up to capture all his attention. It was London's newest theatre--the Rose. Built on the site of a former rose garden in the Liberty of the Clink, it was of cylindrical shape, constructed around a timber frame on a brick foundation. To the crowds who flocked there every day, it was a favourite place or recreation.

To Isaac Pollard, it was a symbol of corruption.

As his anger made the single eyebrow rise and fill like rolling waves, he caught sight of a playbill that was stuck on a nearby post. It advertised one of the companies due to perform at The Rose in the near future.

Westfield's Men--in The Merry Devils.

Pollard tore down the poster with vicious religiosity.

*

'What you tell me is most curious and most interesting, Master Willoughby.'

'Yet you do not seem surprised.'

'Nor am I, sir.'

'You knew that this would happen?'

'I entertained the possibility.'

'But you gave me no forewarning.'

"That was not what you paid me to do.'

Doctor John Mordrake was a man of encyclopaedic knowledge and sound commercial sense. Having devoted his life to his studies, he was going to profit from them in order to buy the books or the equipment that would help him to advance the frontiers of his work. He dealt with the highest and the lowest in society, providing an astonishing range of services, but he always set a price on what he did.

Ralph Willoughby was conscious of this fact. He knew that his visit to Knightrider Street would be an expensive one. Mordrake's time could not be bought cheaply and he had already listened for half-an-hour to the outpourings of his caller. Willoughby, however, had reached the point where he was prepared to spend anything to secure help. Doctor John Mordrake was his last hope, the one man who might pull him back from the abyss of despair that confronted him.

They sat face to face on stools. Mordrake watched him with an amused concern throughout. Most people who consulted him came in search of personal gain but Willoughby had wanted an adventure of the mind. That pleased Mordrake who sensed a kindred spirit.

'You were at Cambridge, I believe, Master Willoughby?'

'That is so, sir.'

'Which college?'

'Corpus Christi.'

'At what age did you become a student?'

'Seventeen.'

'That is late. I was barely fourteen when I went to Oxford.' The old man smiled nostalgically. 'It was an ascetic existence and '. thrived on it. We rose at four, prayed, listened to lectures, prayed again, then studied by candlelight in our cold rooms. We conversed mostly in Latin.'

'As did we, sir. Latin and Hebrew.'

'Why did you leave the university?' Its dictates became irksome to me.'

'And you chose the theatre instead?' said Mordrake in surprise. 'You left academe to be among what Horace so rightly calls mendici, mimi, balatrones, hoc genus omne?'

'Yes,' said Willoughby with a wistful half-smile. 'I went to be among beggars, actors, buffoons and that class of persons.'

'In what did the attraction lie?'

'The words of Cicero.'

'Cicero?'

'Poetarum licentiae liberoria.'

'The freer utterance of the poet's licence.'

'That is what I sought.'

'And did you find it, Master Willoughby?'

'For a time.'

'What else did you find, sir?'

'Pleasure.'

'Cicero has spoken on that subject, too,' noted Mordrake with scholarly glee. 'Voluptus est illecebra turpitudinis. Pleasure is an incitement to vileness.'

Willoughby fell silent and stared down at the floor. Though lie was dressed with his usual ostentatious flair, he did not have the manner that went with the garb. His face was drawn, his jaw slack, his hands clasped tightly together. Mordrake could almost feel the man's anguish.

'How can I help you?' he said.

It was a full minute before the visitor answered. He turned eyes of supplication on the old man. His voice was a solemn whisper.

'Did I see a devil at the Queen's Head?'

'Yes.'

'How came it there?'

'At your own request, Master Willoughby.'

'Rut you told me it could not happen in daylight.'

'I said that it was unlikely but did not rule it out. The devil would not have come simply in answer to the summons in your play.'

"What brought it forth, then?'

'You did, sir.'

'How?'

'You have an affinity with the spirit world.'

Willoughby was rocked. His darkest fear was confirmed. Words that he had written raised up a devil. The apparition at the Queen's Head had come in search of him.

'You should have stayed at Cambridge,' said Mordrake sagely. 'You should have taken your degree and entered the Church. It is safer there. The duty of a divine is to justify the ways of God to man. Christianity gives answers. The duty of a poet is to ask questions. That can lead to danger. Religion is there to reassure. Art disturbs.'

'Therein lies its appeal.'

'I will not deny that.'

Mordrake pulled himself to his feet and shuffled across to a long shelf on the other side of the room. It was Pilled with large, dusty leather-bound volumes and he ran his Fingers lightly across them.

'A lifetime of learning,' he said. For ten years, I travelled all over Europe. I worked in the service of the Count Palatine of Siradz, King Stephen of Poland, the Emperor Rudolph, and Count Rosenberg of Bohemia. Wherever I went, I searched for books on myth and magic and demonology. In Cologne, I found the most important work of them all.' He took down a massive volume and brought it across. 'Do you know what this is?'