‘Let me fetch you another remedy,’ she suggested.
‘Dear God-no!’
‘This one comes with the apothecary’s blessing.’
‘More like his curse!’
‘It may reduce the swelling in your gum, Lawrence.’
‘I will take nothing!’ he snarled.
Firethorn had already submitted to three of his wife’s well-intentioned remedies and each had signally failed. The last-a compound of vinegar, oil and sulphur-had not only sharpened the pain to unbearable limits, it caused him to vomit uncontrollably. He vowed that nothing else would go into his diseased mouth. A fresh spasm made his eyes cloud over for a second. When he rallied slightly, he was hit by a tidal wave of guilt.
‘I have betrayed my fellows!’ he wailed.
‘Put them from your thoughts.’
‘How can I, Margery? Westfield’s Men rely on me and I was found wanting. For the first time in my life. I was prevented from doing my duty and exhibiting my genius as a player.’
‘You are not to blame,’ she said.
‘The name of Lawrence Firethorn is a symbol of true quality in our profession. Where was that true quality this afternoon? Flat on its back!’ He slapped his thigh with an angry palm. ‘I failed them. I, Margery! Who once played Hector with a broken toe. Who once conquered the known world as Antony with my arm in a sling. Who once led the company to triumph in Black Antonio when the sweating sickness was upon me. Disease and discomfort have never kept me off the stage until this fateful day. They needed me at the Queen’s Head as the exiled Duke of Genoa but I have been imprisoned here by this damnable toothache!’
In an unguarded moment, he jabbed a finger at his cheek and prodded the inflamed area. Another roar of agony made the low beams tremble. In his anguish, he believed that he could actually hear the stabbing pain as it beat out its grim message, but Margery placed another interpretation on the repetitive sound. Someone was at their front door.
‘We have a visitor,’ she said. ‘Will you receive them?’
‘Not unless it be Nick Bracewell. He is the only man I would trust to see me in this dreadful condition and not mock my plight. Nick has real compassion and I am in sore need of that.’
A servant admitted the caller. Margery stood at the door of the bedchamber and listened to the voices below. Feet began to clatter up the oaken staircase.
‘Barnaby Gill,’ she announced. ‘I’ll head him off.’
‘He is the last person I want at this hour.’
‘Leave him to me. He shall not pass.’
Margery closed the door behind her and confronted the newcomer on the narrow landing. She was a big, bosomy woman with an iron determination. When fully roused, she was more than a match for her husband, so Firethorn was confident that she would soon send the visitor on his way. A dozen armed soldiers would not be able to force their way past his wife. He lay back on his pillow and gently closed his eyelids. A tap on the door made him open them with a suddenness he instantly regretted. His swollen jaw ached vengefully.
Easing the door ajar, Margery put her head around it.
‘Barnaby brings sad tidings,’ she said.
‘I’ll none of that leering clown today!’
‘They concern Westfield’s Men.’
‘Send the rogue on his way without further ado.’
‘His news will brook no delay. Please hear him.’
Before he could protest, she stood aside to let Barnaby Gill strut into the bedchamber. Wedded to ostentation, he wore a high-necked bombasted doublet in the Spanish fashion with its collar edged at the top with pickadils. The doublet was slashed, pinked and embroidered with a centre fastening of buttons from top to bottom. Its startling lime green hue was thrown into relief by hat, gloves and hose of a darker green. Short, squat but undeniably elegant, Gill doffed his hat in greeting, then gazed down at his stricken colleague with a mixture of sympathy and cold satisfaction.
‘What ails you, Lawrence?’ he asked with token dismay.
‘You do, sir!’
‘But I have saved all our lives this afternoon.’
‘Mine is far beyond recall.’
‘Listen to Barnaby,’ prompted Margery. ‘It is needful.’
Firethorn turned a bloodshot eye on his visitor.
‘Well?’
Gill sighed. ‘Ben Skeat is no longer with us.’
‘He has no choice in the matter. His contract binds him to Westfield’s Men in perpetuity.’
‘You do not understand, Lawrence. The poor man is dead.’
‘If he feels the way I do, I am not surprised. I expect to pass out of this world myself at any moment.’ Firethorn gulped as he heard what he had just been told. ‘Dead? That dear old workhorse, Ben Skeat? Deceased? Can this be so?’
‘Sadly, it can.’
‘When did this tragedy befall us?’
‘In the middle of Act Three.’
Firethorn sat up. ‘Ben Skeat died onstage?’
‘In full view of the audience.’
‘What happened?’ asked Margery. ‘Did you bring the play to an end? Did you send all the spectators home?’
‘Did you return their money?’ said Firethorn in alarm.
‘No,’ said Gill with studied nonchalance. ‘I stepped into the breach and rescued us from a gruesome fate. Had I not led Westfield’s Men with such spirit and authority, there would not be any of them left to lead.’
‘Nick Bracewell took control, surely?’ said Firethorn.
‘Yes,’ added Margery with brisk affection. ‘Nicholas steered you through, I’ll wager.’
‘Not this time, alas!’ lied Gill. ‘I was the saviour.’
They listened with rapt attention as the visitor told a story that he had rehearsed very carefully on the journey from the Queen’s Head to Shoreditch. According to Barnaby Gill, the book holder and the rest of the company had been ready to abandon the play as soon as Ben Skeat’s death became apparent. It was left to the court jester to berate them for their faint-heartedness and to insist that they press on with the performance, albeit in an amended form. The new version of The Corrupt Bargain-Gill emphasized this-was his brainchild. As actor and as author, he had led from the front and dragged an unwilling company behind him.
Lawrence Firethorn knew him well enough to be able to separate fact from fantasy. He was so closely acquainted with Nicholas Bracewell’s handiwork that it could not be passed off as someone else’s. Margery, too, sensed that the unassuming book holder had been the real hero in this crisis as in so many previous ones. One consolation remained. The performance had continued in such a way as to disguise the true nature of the emergency from the audience. No money had been returned but a high price had still been paid.
‘Ben Skeat dead?’ Firethorn was shocked. ‘May the Lord have mercy on his soul! He will be greatly missed.’
‘As were you, Lawrence,’ said Gill pointedly.
‘Not from choice, I assure you,’ said Firethorn.
‘Indeed not,’ agreed Margery. ‘He was laid low.’
Gill raised a derisive eyebrow. ‘By a mere toothache? It would take more than that to keep me from the practice of my art. The plague itself would not detain me from my place upon the boards. Thank heaven I was there this afternoon! Ben Skeat dying on us. Nicholas Bracewell failing us. Lawrence Firethorn deserting us.’
‘I did not desert you!’ howled the other man as the pain flared up once more. ‘I was unfit for service. Felled by some malign devil.’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Leave we my condition until another time. Ben Skeat must now be our prime concern. What was the cause of his death? Who has examined the body? Where is it now? Have his relatives yet been informed? How stands it, Barnaby?’
‘I left all that to Nicholas Bracewell,’ said Gill with evident boredom. ‘Cleaning up a mess is the one thing at which he has some moderate skill. My task was to ride post-haste to Shoreditch to put you in possession of the full facts. We have lost one of our sharers, Lawrence.’