And there in the middle of it all, adding to the clamour and hindering the rescue operation, dancing on his toes and flailing his arms like a windmill in a gale, was Alexander Marwood, the embattled landlord of the Queen’s Head, a man whose whole life had been a continuous rehearsal for this one final moment of truth. The prophet of disaster had lived to see his prophecy fulfilled and he announced it with almost gleeful terror.
‘God is punishing me!’ he wailed.
‘Help with the buckets,’ urged Nicholas.
‘This play was sinful!’ continued Marwood, leaping around the stage and colliding with each member of the company in turn. ‘We are being called to account!’
‘Stamp out those rushes!’
But the landlord was too absorbed in his personal conflagration. Flaming guilt shot through his body. Smoking remorse filled his mind. He was being roasted to death like a Protestant martyr at the stake. Searing perspiration burst out of every pore. Yet deep in the great black horror of his nightmare was one tiny consolation. His prediction had been correct. Alexander Marwood had always believed that his association with Westfield’s Men would one day end in ruin. Armageddon had finally come to Gracechurch Street. There was a fleeting satisfaction in being a messenger of doom who had delivered his missive to the correct address.
Lawrence Firethorn cannoned into the landlord.
‘Out of my way!’ he boomed.
‘Look what you did to my inn!’ screeched Marwood.
‘It may yet be saved.’
‘You are to blame, Master Firethorn. You and your devilish play. You and your gibes about my ale. You and your crew of madmen. I tell you, sir-’
But Firethorn had heard enough and decided that a bucket of water over the landlord would do far more good than over the fire. He discharged his load with angry precision then ran away to refill his bucket. Drenched to the skin, Marwood went off into an even wilder set of imprecations, but nobody had time or inclination to listen. The short, thin, spindly creature was utterly alone amid the heaving sea of bodies, delivering his soliloquy to a deaf audience and grabbing at his remaining tufts of hair like a demented gardener uprooting weeds. Alexander Marwood was burning with indignation while soaking wet.
Then the miracle happened. The wind that had created the fire and comprehensively wrecked the performance now repented, vanishing as swiftly as it had come and sending in its place a gentle shower of rain. Embers lost their fierce glow. Flames climbed with less force and conviction. Smoke slowly began to clear. There was still much to do, but the fear of total devastation was past. Those struggling to subdue the fire swarmed across the stage and up into the galleries with increased vigour. They sensed victory.
Nicholas Bracewell was everywhere, giving orders to one group while leading others by example, directing the efforts of his fellows to the crucial areas and ensuring that the flames did not reach any adjacent properties. The risk of fire was a constant threat to theatre companies, and careless pipe smokers could cause appalling damage with their discarded ash. Nicholas knew only too well what an uncontrolled blaze could do, and he therefore took thorough precautions before every performance. An abundant supply of water was kept in all parts of the building and dozens of buckets were at hand. He even gave the company’s hired men some basic training in how to cope with an emergency. That training had been nullified by the size and suddenness of the fire, but it now began to show through. People started to work together instead of at random. Water continuously hit its target instead of being wasted by prodigal hands. Method replaced instinct. Confidence grew. They were winning.
‘Look to my thatch!’
Everyone heard Alexander Marwood this time. He pointed a skeletal finger up at the topmost gallery and hopped about with renewed trepidation. Burning splinters of wood had been blown up to lodge in the thatch, and it was now starting to smoke and crackle. Nicholas needed only one glance. Instant response was their only hope. Running to the side of the stage, he shinned up the timber support and hauled himself over the balustrade of the first gallery. The others all stopped to watch and exhort him on as he went up his charred route like a sailor going up the rigging. The thatch was now seething with crimson rage and threatening to explode. As soon as Nicholas reached it, therefore, he hacked out its glowing centre and a cascade of burning reeds scattered those below. Feet balancing on the balustrade, he then stretched right up to fling the upper half of his body down onto the still-burning thatch.
It was an act of such folly and bravery that it drew applause from the onlookers, but their apprehension was not stilled. High above them, glimpsed through the curling smoke of fifty dying fires, a man was risking his life to save the roof of the inn. His feet rested precariously on blackened timber, his chest was pressed down hard on smouldering thatch and his dagger was sunk deep into the reeds to give him some support. Eyes closed tight, muscles taut, he retched violently and felt the hot sweat course down his face. Only a buff jerkin and the power of his broad chest separated him from a hideous death. Nicholas Bracewell’s courage now began to look like a perverse act of suicide.
Yet somehow it worked. The rain intensified, the smoke thinned and his agony gradually subsided. Denied any licence, the fire was being choked out of existence inch by painful inch. The vast parallelogram of thatch that topped the building had been rescued. Buckets now reached the upper gallery and waves of water surged up at Nicholas. The danger was over and he dared to relax. He was not, after all, being broiled to death on the roof of the Queen’s Head. Cheers from below told him that he was the hero of the hour. It had cost him his jerkin and gained him several more minor burns, but they were a small price to pay. Effectively, he had just rendered the greatest possible service to Westfield’s Men. He had saved their theatre from certain annihilation.
Ten minutes later, the last glimmering remnants of the fire had been put out, and Nicholas stood in the middle of the yard, panting from his exertions and offering up a silent prayer of thanks. There were bruises and burns galore among his fellows, and a few broken bones among the fleeing patrons, but nobody had died and none of the horses had been injured. God had been truly merciful. Nicholas could now receive the congratulations of the others. Lawrence Firethorn was the first to wrap him in a warm and affectionate embrace.
‘Nick, dear heart! We are ever in your debt!’
‘You are our Deliverer,’ added Edmund Hoode.
‘I will never act with a brazier again,’ said Barnaby Gill testily. ‘My performance was ruined.’
Firethorn bristled. ‘The fate of the company is more important than the quality of your performance. It was your idiocy that is to blame, Barnaby. Thanks to you, our theatre was almost razed to the ground. Thanks to Nicholas, we still have a future at the Queen’s Head.’
‘Not for some time,’ said Nicholas with a sigh.
The smoke had now cleared enough for him to appraise the extent of the damage. It was far less than it might have been and was largely confined to the tiring-house and to the galleries directly above, but substantial rebuilding would still be necessary. Main beams had burnt through or been severely weakened. Floors had collapsed. Nicholas could see that it would be several weeks — if not months — before the Queen’s Head was able to host a theatre company once more.