The Queen's Head

'Rest!' The polecat drew back his teeth in a harsh laugh. 'Alice came back to work, sir, not to rest. She was as busy as ever in the service last night.'

The sleeping figure of an old man now blocked their way. Kicking him awake with the toe of his shoe, the landlord stepped over him and went on to a door. He banged hard on it. 'Alice!'

There was no sound from within so he peered through the keyhole. He used his fist to beat a tattoo on the timber. Are you alone in there, Alice?'

with a shrug of his shoulders, he grabbed the latch of the door and lifted it. Nicholas was led into a small, filthy, cobwebbed room with peeling walls and a rising stench that hit his nostrils. A mattress lay on the floor with a ragged blanket over it. Under the blanket was a small head that the landlord nudged with his foot.

'Wake up, girl. You've a visitor.'

'Perhaps this was not a good time to call,' suggested Nicholas. 'She plainly needs her sleep.'

'I'll rouse her, sir, have no fear,' said the landlord.

After shaking her roughly by the shoulder, he took hold of the blanket and pulled it right away from her. The sight which met them made Nicholas quake. Lying on the mattress at a distorted angle was the naked body of a young woman in her early twenties. One arm was heavily strapped, one ankle covered with a grimy bandage. Eyes stared sightlessly up at the ceiling. The mouth was wide open to issue a silent scream for mercy.

Alice would not be able to tell Nicholas Bracewell anything. Her throat had been cut and the blood had gushed in a torrent down her body. The stink of death was already upon her.

(*)Chapter Seven

Lawrence Firethorn slowly began to make headway against his domestic oppression. His wife continued to watch him like a hawk and abuse him at every turn but he bore it all with Stoic mien and never struck back. Even the nightly horror of the bedchamber failed to break him. His studied patience at last had its effect. Margery listened to--if she did not believe--his protestations. She permitted his little acts of kindness and concern. She allowed herself to think of him once more as her husband.

Her suspicions did not vanish but they were gradually smothered beneath the pillow of his subtlety. Firethorn smiled, flattered, promised and pretended until he had insinuated his way back into the outer suburbs of her affections. With a skill born of long practice, he chose his moment carefully.

'Lawrence!'

'Open it, my sweet.'

'But why have you bought me a present, sir?'

'Why else, my angel? To show you that I love you.'

Margery Firethorn could not contain her almost girlish curiosity and excitement. She opened the little box and let out a gasp of wonder. Her husband had just given her a pendant that hung from a gold chain.

'This is for me?'

I had been saving it for your birthday, my dove,' he lied, 'but it seemed a more appropriate moment. I wanted you to know how deep my feelings are for you in spite of your cruelty to me.

Remorse surfaced. 'Have I been cruel?' she asked.

'Unbearably so.'

'Have I been unjust?'

'With regularity.'

'I felt I had cause, Lawrence.'

'Show it me.'

'There were...indications.'

'Produce them against me,' he challenged. 'No, I have been maligned here. Someone turned you against me. I have been a model of fidelity to you and that gift shows it.'

She bestowed a kiss of gratitude on his lips then looked into the box once more and marvelled. The pendant was small, oval and studded with semiprecious stones. Sunshine was slanting in through the chamber window to make them dance and sparkle,

'May I try it on, sir?'

'I will hold it for you, Margery.'

'It will go best with my taffeta dress,' she decided.

'It will become you whatever you wear,' he said, then collected a second kiss. 'Hold still now.'

Margery Firethorn stood in front of the mirror while he dangled the pendant around her neck. She was thrilled with the present, all the more so because it was so unexpected and--she now began to imagine--completely undeserved. A husband who had been reviled as much as hers had of late could only buy her an expensive present like that if he was besotted on her.

He nestled into her back and rubbed his beard against her hair. His eyes met hers in the mirror.

'Will it suit, madam?'

'It will suit, sir.'

'It is only a trifle,' he apologized. 'If I was a richer man, it would have been edged with pearls and encrusted with diamonds.' He squeezed her again. 'Are you pleased?'

'I will treasure it for ever.'

The third kiss was longer and more ardent. It gave him time to rehearse an excuse for the fact that he would not be able to leave the gift with her because it would be worn around the neck of Gloriana, Queen of Albion, in the forthcoming play.

'Fix the catch, Lawrence. I will wear it now.'

'You cannot, I fear.'

'Why not?'

'The catch is faulty. It will need to be repaired by the jeweller. No matter,' he said, whisking the pendant away and replacing it in its box. 'I will take it to his shop this very morning and set the fellow to work on it.'

'I am loathe to part with it.'

'It will be but a short absence.'

'Take the chain, sir. Let me keep the pendant at least.'

'Alas!' he replied, snapping the lid of the box shut. 'That is not possible. The pendant is attached to the chain for safety's sake. It cannot be removed.'

A last small cloud of suspicion drifted across her mind.

'Lawrence...'

'My love?'

'You did buy that gift for me?'

He looked so stricken at the very suggestion that she immediately took back the question and showered him with apologies. In a marriage as crazily erratic as theirs, reconciliation was always the most prized moment. It was an hour before he was able to get dressed and take his leave. The gift of the pendant had been a happy inspiration. He had been keeping it by him for just such an emergency.

Margery waved him off and addressed herself to the management of the household with increased vigour. After the storm came the blissful calm. She had been through a period of turmoil, only to emerge with a new and devoted husband.

The old and wandering husband, meanwhile, went straight to Edmund Hoode's lodging to see if another gift for a lady was ready yet. He studied the fourteen lines with rapt attention.

'It seemed to work better as a sonnet,' said Hoode.

'You've surpassed yourself, Edmund.'

'Have I?'

'This will wing its way to her heart.'

The sonnet was in praise of Lady Rosamund Varney and it punned on the words 'lady' and 'rose' with bewitching skill. Lawrence Firethorn did not believe in the lone pursuit of his prey. He cheerfully enlisted the aid of those around him. Hoode had provided the sonnet and the message now needed a bearer.

'I must find Nicholas Bracewell at once.'

*

The Curtain was situated to the south of Holywell Lane, off Shoreditch, on land that had once been part of Holywell Priory To the Puritans, who railed against the playhouses for their filth and lewdness, the Curtain was an act of sacrilege on what had once been consecrated ground. To Nicholas Bracewell, who took a more philosophical view, it was a pleasing amalgam of the sacred and the profane, in short, the stuff of theatre.

On a rare afternoon of freedom, Nicholas had come along to The Curtain to watch a performance by the Earl of Banbury's Men. He was not so much interested in the rival company as in the new play they were giving, God Speed the Fleet. This was yet another eulogy of the English navy, thinly disguised by a time shift to the previous century and a geographical shift to Venice. Nicholas was keen to see how they mounted their sea battle, hoping that he might glean some ideas that could be used when his own company staged Gloriana Triumphant.