Only when he Finally reached his lodging did he feel a degree of safety. Pouring water into a bowl from a pitcher, he immersed his head again then dried it on a cloth. He felt better, more settled, more ready to address the task he had set himself. He lit a candle, sat down at his table and reached for the knife to sharpen his quill. When it was ready, he dipped it into the inkwell then wrote something in bold letters on the title page of his new play.
Ralph Willoughby regarded it with an interest that soon turned to a macabre amusement and he put back his head to let out a long, low, sardonic cackle. He wanted his play to be memorable and its title gave him a mischievous satisfaction.
The Witch of Oxford.
*
Day began early at the Counter. Straw began rustling at first light and gaolers came round with luke-warm porridge to sell to the prisoners for their breakfast. Having finally managed to fall asleep, Nicholas Bracewell was almost immediately roused from his slumber. One whiff of the food made him decline it but the others in his cell slurped it down eagerly. They were a motley crew that included a cutpurse, a horse thief and the master of a brothel. There was even a confidence trickster who claimed to have a tenuous connection with the theatre.
'In Bristol once, I had some handbills printed for a lavish entertainment that was never going to take place, and I raised fifteen pounds against the promise of it. By the time my audience discovered the truth, I was far away in Coventry selling the deeds of a silver mine that I invented on the journey there.'
They were cheerful rogues who had been in and out of prisons all their lives. Nicholas did not have to ask them anything. They volunteered their stories and told them with a skill that showed long practice. When the newcomer claimed that he was in prison as a result of wrongful arrest, they mocked him with their jeers.
'Arrest is arrest, sir,' said the horse thief sagely. 'If it be rightful or wrongful, there's no difference, for the prison food still tastes the same either way.'
Their attitude was not encouraging and Nicholas was dejected when he heard tales of men who had languished in prison for years for crimes that they had never committed. He wondered again if his message had been delivered. Unless he could make contact with the outside world, nobody would know that he was locked away and his dwindling funds would eventually oblige him to shift to the Hole, which was a prospect too gruesome to contemplate. The cutpurse described what might be expected in the third grade of lodging at the Counter.
'Here, we are but next to tine jakes, sir,' lie said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. 'There, you are in it!'
Nicholas was appalled. He had to escape somehow.
While most of his companions were frankly garrulous, there was one who never uttered a word. A huge, bearded giant of a man who seemed about to burst out of his clothes, he sat quietly in a corner with a wistful expression on his beefy face. Nicholas saw that the man did not fit in with the others. They were habitual criminals for whom a prison was second home while he was weighted down by the ignominy of his situation. Nicholas moved across to sit beside him and talked to him kindly. He gradually drew the man's tale out of him.
'My name is Leonard, sir. I am a brewer's drayman.'
'What's your offence?' asked Nicholas.
'Too much drink at Hoxton Fair.'
'They arrested you for that?'
'No, sir,' explained the other. 'The ale led to something else that I am ashamed to talk of and yet, God knows, I must for a sin must be admitted before it can be pardoned.'
There was a gentle sadness about the man that touched Nicholas. Here was no son of the underworld who lived on his wits. Leonard was an honest workman who had been led astray by friends when he was in his cups and who was now paying a dreadful price for it.
Have you heard of the Great Mario, sir?' asked the drayman.
'The wrestler who travels the fairs?'
'He'll wrestle no more, sir,' said the other with sombre guilt. 'Mario came from Italy to try his skill in England. He fought for six years and was never bested until he came to Hoxton.'
'You took up his challenge?'
'Oh no, sir. I'm no brawler. I want a quiet life.' He sighed. 'But God made me strong and my fellows at the brewery know how I can toss the heavy barrels around so they put me up to it. The Great Mario was at Hoxton Fair all week. Younger men and bigger men tried to lower his reputation but he was master of them all. Then I and my fellows went to the fair on Saturday last and took some ale along the way.'
'They talked you into it,' guessed Nicholas.
'I saw no harm in it, sir, so I did it in fun to please them. There was no thought of winning the bout.'
'What happened?'
'He hurt me,' said Leonard simply. 'We wrestled but Mario could not throw me because I was too strong for him, so he uses tricks on me that were no part of a fair fight. He pokes and punches, puts a finger in my eye and another down my throat, stamps on my foot and bites me on the chest as if he would eat me. I still bear the mark.'
'You lost your temper.'
'It was the ale, sir, and the shouting of the crowd and the Great Mario cheating his way to victory. Yes, I lost my temper. When we grappled once more, I was angrier than I've ever been in my life. And there were my fellows urging me on and telling me to break his neck.' He gave a shrug. 'And so I did. I snapped him in two. He died within the hour.'
'Is that why they brought you here?' said Nicholas.
'The Counter is but a place for me to rest, sir. They mean to hang me when they can find a rope strong enough for the task.'
The vast frame shivered involuntarily then lay back against the wall. Nicholas was sufficiently moved by his predicament to forget his own for a moment. It was a cautionary tale. Leonard was the victim of his own body. Had he been a smaller or a weaker man, he would not have been forced into the contest by his friends.
He had led a blameless life yet would go to his death with a shadow across his heart.
As Nicholas reflected on it all, he was halted by a sudden thought.
'Was Hoxton Fair a large one this year?'
'Bigger than ever, sir,' said Leonard with a sad grin. 'They had fools and fire-eaters, ballad singers, a sword-swallower, hobby horses, gingerbread, roasted pig, games for children, a play for those of wiser sort, drums, rattles, trumpets and old Kindheart, the tooth-drawer. They had everything you care to mention at Hoxton, sir.'
'Acrobats?'
'Oh yes! The strangest creatures you ever did see, sir.'
Nicholas listened with total fascination.
*
Vincenlio's Revenge was not just a play which gave Lawrence Firethorn unlimited opportunity to display his art, it was a highly complex drama that required enormous technical expertise. Spectacular effects were used all the way through it. A large cast swirled about a stage that gradually became more and more littered with dead bodies as the ruthless Vincentio began to depopulate the city of Venice. Since actors became properties once they were killed, they had to be lugged away somehow and this called for careful organisation. The vital but unobtrusive work of Nicholas Bracewell was everywhere in the production. He devised the effects and orchestrated the action. Important to every play performed by Westfield's Men, the book holder was absolutely crucial to this one. lo stage it without him was inconceivable.