‘I am pleased to see you so busy.’
‘There is no rest for me when Westfield’s Men take to the stage.’ He gave a shrug. ‘And far too much rest when the plague drives them out of London. We perform on occasion at the Inns of Court and elsewhere, but the theatre is our lifeblood. Take that away and we wilt.’
‘So I see,’ said Reeve, running a censorious eye over him and observing the tear in his sleeve and the stain on his ruff. ‘You are like to have a good season this year if the weather is kind to you. Have you any new plays to lift your company above its rivals?’
‘One or two.’
‘May I know what they are?’
‘I do not even have their names myself, Orlando.’
‘Come, come. You are part-author of everything that Westfield’s Men perform. Your music gives beauty to even the most beastly drama, and there has been a plentiful supply of that in this innyard, from what I hear.’
Digby became defensive. ‘We are still without compare.’
‘Only if the plays reach the standard of your music.’
‘Our repertoire is acclaimed.’
‘But old and musty. You must bake fresh bread.’
‘We do,’ said Digby. ‘We will please every palate.’
‘With what?’
‘Our next new offering.’
‘And that is?’ He raised his pomander to his nostrils and sniffed hard to ward off the dark odours of the taproom. ‘You may tell me, Peter,’ he continued as he released the chain again. ‘We are good friends, are we not? I will not betray you. The secret will be locked securely between the tongue and the lips. Nobody will ever know.’
‘I am bound by my loyalty to the company.’
‘Do I ask you to break it?’
‘Our rivals lurk on every side to bring us down.’
‘They will get no help from me.’ He put a podgy hand on Digby’s shoulder and massaged it. ‘Your new play?’
‘It is only a rumour.’
‘Tell me and it dies inside my ear.’
‘Master Firethorn warned me he would need many songs.’
‘In what, Peter?’
‘And music low and sombre, if we proceed with it.’
‘With what?’
Peter Digby weakened. He was feeling completely overawed by a companion who was prospering so well in the higher reaches of his calling. Orlando Reeve was a visible boast of success. Something was needed to match that boast and to elevate Digby’s drooping self-esteem.
‘The play could be the most popular we ever staged,’ he said. ‘I was given no details and can tell you little beyond the terms of the plot but that alone will fire the imagination.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘It is a play about a most lamentable murder.’
‘We have enough of those to vex us,’ said Reeve.
‘This one puts most of them to shame.’
‘How so?’
‘Brinklow of Greenwich. You remember the case?’
‘Clearly, Peter. The poor fool of a mathematician wed a young wife whose affections were placed elsewhere. She and her lover-Dunne, was he called? — plotted to kill her husband. The pair of them were hanged for the crime.’
‘They were hanged certainly but were they guilty?’
‘What does your play decide?’
Peter Digby shook his head. He knew nothing more. The oily smile on Orlando Reeve’s face congealed to a frosty grimace. He had heard what he had been sent to find out. Patting Digby on the shoulder in farewell, he waddled out of the taproom and headed for the stables. It had been a long and trying afternoon for him but it had yielded its bounty.
He would earn his reward.
***
The transformation in Edmund Hoode’s attitude and appearance was remarkable. Gone was the melancholy poet who was ready to lay down his pen for good. In his place was an eager and dedicated craftsman, who wanted to spend every waking hour at his table. The Roaring Boy imbued him with an elation he had not known since the night when he had climbed into bed with Mistress Jane Diamond during her husband’s convenient absence. That joy had, in fact, stopped short of consummation but this latest one would not. Written entirely in prose, the play was pitted with the faults of the novice and strung together too loosely to have full impact. But its passion was overwhelming. It was a cry from the heart that Hoode could not resist.
The faults could easily be remedied, the construction just as swiftly improved. What the playwright had been given was something far more precious even than Jane Diamond’s virtue. The Roaring Boy was a dramatic gem that needed to be cut, polished and placed in the correct setting. When that was done, the play would out-dazzle anything on the London stage.
‘Let me come with you, Nick,’ he begged.
‘The message was sent to me alone.’
‘But I must meet this Simon Chaloner. How else can I rewrite the play unless I have the true facts at my fingers? He and I must work jointly on the venture.’
‘You have made progress enough without him so far,’ said Nicholas Bracewell, glancing down at sheets of parchment on the table. ‘This play obsesses you night and day. We had to drag you away to bear your part in this afternoon’s performance. Stay here in your lodgings and work on, Edmund.’
‘I need more help.’
‘You will get it through me.’
‘Why does the fellow behave so strangely?’
‘I hope to find out.’
‘Where did he get all this evidence of duplicity?’
‘That subject, too, will be pursued.’
It was evening and the friends were back at Silver Street. The chamber was now clean, tidy and a fit place in which a playwright could labour for long hours. Fresh rushes had taken away the stench. Nicholas had called to tell his friend that word had at last come from the roaring boy who had first burst into their life at the Queen’s Head. A letter summoned the book holder to a tavern in Eastcheap. He had been warned to come alone.
Hoode was persistent. ‘Why do I not go with you and stand privily where I may overhear the conversation?’
‘He has expressly forbidden your presence.’
‘But I am slaving over his play!’
‘Not his, Edmund. Not anyone’s as yet. Simon Chaloner has set the rules and we must play by them.’ Hoode was crestfallen. ‘Take heart,’ said Nicholas. ‘I will hasten straight back here to report to you.’
‘Be quick or I’ll have torn the manuscript to shreds!’
‘Then you’d throw away a pearl out of spite.’
Hoode nodded and tried to contain his frustration. He was still shamed by the fact that he slept drunkenly through his first meeting with Simon Chaloner, and hoped that a second encounter would give him the chance to make amends for his conduct. It was not to be. Nicholas Bracewell was the chosen interlocutor. He must be left to divine the reason why the young man courted the shadows.
Nicholas took his leave. He was sorry to disappoint his friend but certain that he would elicit more from Simon Chaloner on his own. Having read the play, he understood why it had been given to them in such a covert way. If its allegations were true, it would cause tremors in legal circles and uproar among the common people. It might also help to bring the real malefactor to justice. The imperative was to establish the play’s authorship. Edmund Hoode felt that it was the work of one man but Nicholas wondered if it might not be the product of many hands. One of them, he suspected, belonged to Simon Chaloner.
The Eagle and Serpent was a large, sprawling tavern in an area famed for its boisterous inns and ordinaries. As Nicholas entered the taproom, he was hit by a wall of tobacco smoke and noise. It was an unpropitious meeting-place for two people who wanted a peaceful conversation. Nicholas was still trying to peer through the fug when a plump serving-wench came over to him.
‘What is your pleasure, sir?’ she said.
‘I have arranged to meet someone here.’
‘Then you are the gentleman I was told about.’
‘By whom?’
‘Follow me, sir.
The girl bobbed across the room and Nicholas ducked under the sagging beams as he went after her. Evidently, a private room had been hired for the occasion and that was reassuring. He and Chaloner would be able to talk without interruption. The serving-wench took him up the dimly lit staircase with sure-footed confidence. She escorted him along a dark passageway on the second floor and paused at a door to turn to him.