‘Consider it fulfilled.’
‘Welcome home, Nick,’ she whispered.
They went slowly upstairs to her bedchamber. It was something which they both felt they had deserved.
The change of venue was significant. The meeting was scheduled to take place at Lawrence Firethorn’s house in Shoreditch, a rather modest but welcoming abode that gave shelter to the actor’s own family and their servants as well as hospitality to the company’s four apprentices. What made the establishment function with such relative smoothness was the presiding genius of Margery Firethorn, a redoubtable woman who combined the roles of wife, mother, housekeeper and landlady with consummate ease and who still had enough energy left over to pursue other interests, to maintain a high standard of Christian observance and to terrorise anyone foolhardy enough to stand in her way. Even her husband, fearless in any other way, had been known to quail before her. Indirectly, it was she who had dictated the move to another place and Barnaby Gill spotted this at once.
‘Lawrence is on heat again!’ he moaned.
‘Lord save us!’ cried Edmund Hoode.
‘That is why he dare not have us at his house. In case Margery gets wind of his new amour.’
‘Who is the luckless creature, Barnaby?’
‘I know not and care not,’ said Gill with studied indifference. ‘Women are all one to me and I like not any of the infernal gender. My passions are dedicated to intimacy on a much higher plane.’ He puffed at his pipe and blew out rings of smoke. ‘What else did our Creator in his munificence make pretty boys for, I ask?’
It was a rhetorical question and Edmund Hoode would in any case not have been drawn into such a discussion. Barnaby Gill’s tendencies were well known and generally tolerated by a company that valued his acting skills and his remarkable comic gifts. Hoode had never plumbed the secret of why his companion — such a gushing fountain of pleasure upon the stage — was so morose and petulant when he left it. The playwright preferred the public clown to the private cynic. They were sitting in a room at the Queen’s Head as they waited for Firethorn to arrive. The three men were all sharers with Lord Westfield’s Men, ranked players who were named in the royal patent for the company and who took the leading roles in any performance. There were four other sharers but it was this triumvirate that effectively dictated policy and controlled the day-to-day running of the company.
Lawrence Firethorn was the undisputed leader. Even when he burst through the door and gave them an elaborate bow, he was simply asserting his superiority.
‘Gentlemen, your servant!’
‘You are late as usual, sir,’ snapped Gill.
‘I was detained by family matters.’
‘Your drink awaits you, Lawrence,’ said Hoode.
‘Thank you, Edmund. I am glad that one of my partners in this enterprise has some concern for me.’
‘Oh, I have concern in good measure,’ said Gill. ‘I was a model of concern during yesterday’s performance when I feared you might not survive to the end of it.’
‘Me, sir?’ Firethorn bridled. ‘You speak of me?’
‘Who else, sir? It was Count Orlando who was puffing and panting so in the heat of the day. And it was that same noble Italian who became so flustered that he inserted four lines from Vincentio’s Revenge.’
‘You lie, you dog!’ howled Firethorn.
‘Indeed, I do. It was six lines.’
‘My Count Orlando was simon pure.’
‘Give or take an occasional blemish.’
‘You dare to scorn my performance!’
‘By no means,’ said Gill, ready with a final thrust. ‘I thought that your Count Orlando was excellent — but not nearly as fine as your Vincentio in the same play!’
‘You viper! You maggot! You pipe-smoking pilchard!’
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ soothed Hoode. ‘We have come together to do business and not to trade abuse.’
‘The man is a scurvy rogue!’ yelled Firethorn.
‘At least I remember my lines,’ retorted the other.
‘None are worth listening to, sir.’
‘My admirers will be the judge of that.’
‘You have but one and that is Master Barnaby Gill.’
‘I will not brook insults!’
‘Then do not wear such ridiculous attire, sir.’
Gill flared up immediately. The one certain way to bring out his choleric disposition was to criticise his appearance because he took such infinite pains with it. Dressed in a peach-coloured doublet and scarlet hose, he wore a tall hat that was festooned with feathers. Rings on almost every finger completed a dazzling effect. Roused to a fever pitch, he now strutted up and down the room, pausing from time to time to stamp a foot in exasperation. Having routed his enemy, Firethorn reclined in the high-backed chair and took his first sip of the Canary wine that stood ready for him.
Hoode, meanwhile, devoted his energy to calming down the anguished clown, an almost daily task in view of the professional jealousy between Gill and Firethorn. Verbal clashes between them were the norm but they were quickly forgotten when the two actors were on stage together. Both were supreme in their own ways and it was from the dynamic between them that Westfield’s Men drew much of their motive force.
Edmund Hoode eventually imposed enough calm for the meeting to begin. As they sat around the table, he reached gratefully for his pint of ale to wash away the memory of yet another needless row between his colleagues who had left him feeling that he had been ground into dust by two whining millstones. Lawrence Firethorn, poised and peremptory, opened the business of the day.
‘We are met to confirm our future engagements,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, as you know, we play Double Deceit at The Theatre in Shoreditch. It is a well-tried piece but that is no reason for us to be complacent. We will have a testing rehearsal in the morning to add what polish we may. Westfield’s Men must be at their best, sirs.’
‘I never give less,’ said Gill sulkily.
‘As to our immediate future …’
Firethorn outlined the programme that lay ahead, most of it confined to the Queen’s Head which was their home base. One new performing venue did, however, surface.
‘We have received an invitation to visit Richmond,’ said Firethorn. ‘The date lies some weeks hence but it is important to address our minds to it now.’
‘Where will we play?’ asked Hoode.
‘In the yard of an inn.’
‘Its name?’
‘The Nine Giants.’
‘I have never heard of the place,’ sneered Gill.
‘That is no bar to it,’ said Firethorn easily. ‘It is a sizeable establishment, by all accounts, and like to give us all that the Queen’s Head can offer. The Nine Giants are nine giant oak trees that grace its paddock.’
Gill snorted. ‘You ask me to perform amid trees?’
‘Yes, Barnaby,’ said his tormentor. ‘You simply lift your back leg like any common cur and make water. Even you may win a laugh by that device.’
‘I am against the whole idea,’ said the other.
‘Your opposition is a waste of bad breath.’
‘The Nine Giants does not get my assent.’
‘Too late, sir. I have accepted the invitation on behalf of the company.’
‘You had no right to do that, Lawrence!’
‘Nor any chance to refuse,’ said Firethorn, producing the one reason that could silence Gill. ‘It was given by Lord Westfield himself. Our noble patron has commanded us to appear in Richmond.’
‘To what particular end?’ said Hoode.
‘As part of the wedding celebrations of a friend.’
‘And what will we play?’
‘That is what we must decide, Edmund. Lord Westfield has asked for a comedy that touches upon marriage.’
‘There is sense in that,’ agreed Gill, reviving at once and seeing a chance to steal some glory. ‘The ideal choice must be Cupid’s Folly.’
‘The piece grows stale, sir.’
‘How can you say that, Lawrence? My performance as Rigormortis is as fresh as a daisy.’