‘Something is amiss,’ he said.
‘Other players are here before us.’
‘The truth may be harsher yet than that, Edmund.’
‘Why do the people turn away from us?’
‘I fear there is only one explanation.’
Westfield’s Men swung right into the Cornmarket then rode on down to the Cross Inn before turning gratefully into its courtyard. The journey had been a lifetime of discomfort but it was happily forgotten now. Oxford hospitality would solve all their problems.
The landlord of the Cross Inn robbed them of that illusion. Short, stout and hobbling on aged legs, he came out to give them a half-hearted greeting.
‘You are welcome, gentlemen, but you may not play here.’
‘We will act in the Town Hall,’ announced Firethorn.
‘Neither there, nor here, nor at the King’s Head nor at any place within the Oxford, I fear.’
‘What are you telling us, landlord?’
‘Sad news, sir. The plague is amongst us once more.’
‘Plague!’
The word devastated the whole company. They had come all that way to be denied the pleasure of performance and its much-needed reward. It was utterly demoralising. Plague, which had so often driven them out of London, had now shifted its ground to Oxford out of sheer spite and made their presence redundant. Disease festered in summer months and spread most easily at public gatherings. Plays, games and other communal entertainments were banned. The lodging of strangers was limited, and pigs and refuse were cleared from the streets. The haunted faces they had seen on their progress to the inn belonged to survivors. Westfield’s Men had no purchase on the minds of such creatures. People who feared that they might be struck down with the plague on the morrow did not seek amusement on their way to the grave.
The landlord tried to offer some consolation.
‘Fear not, sirs!’ he called out. ‘Our mayor will not be ungenerous. You may be given money not to play.’
‘Not to play!’ Lawrence Firethorn shuddered at the insult and bayed his reply. ‘I am being paid not to play! And will you pay the river not to flow and the stars not to shine? Will you give money to the grass to stop it growing? How much have you offered the rain not to fall and the moon not to rise? Ha!’ He smote his chest with lordly arrogance. ‘I am a force of nature and will not be stopped by some maltworm of a mayor. Oxford does not have enough gold in its coffers to buy off Lawrence Firethorn.’
‘We have the plague, sir,’ repeated the landlord.
‘A plague on your plague! And a pox on your welcome.’ He swung round in the saddle. ‘Nicholas!’
‘Yes, master.’
‘Go to this meddling mayor. Inform him who I am.’
‘Yes, master.’
‘And if he dares to offer us money to withdraw,’ said Firethorn vehemently, ‘curse him for his villainy and throw it back in his scurvy face.’
Nicholas Bracewell accepted a commission he knew that he could not fulfil because it was pointless to try to reason with the actor-manager when his blood was up. Plague was too strong an opponent and it had wrestled them to the ground once more. Whenever the company was on tour, Nicholas was accustomed to meeting civic dignitaries in order to get the required licence for performance. Westfield’s Men were usually offered handsome terms to stage their plays but not this time. As Nicholas went off, he resigned himself to the inevitable, yet he was able to snatch one crumb of comfort. A plague town was far too dangerous a place to linger. Even an assassin would keep well clear of the contagion. Nicholas could afford to relax. Inside Oxford, he was safe.
Paternoster Row was famous for its literary associations, and many printers, stationers and booksellers had their premises there. Yet it was here that they found the apothecary’s shop that they sought. After hours of combing the back streets and lanes of Cordwainer Ward, they widened their search and eventually came to the busy thoroughfare that ran along the northern side of St Paul’s Cathedral. Merchants, silkmen and lacemen also lived in the area, which was justly celebrated as well for the number and quality of its taverns. For these and other reasons, Paternoster Row was never quiet or empty and Anne Hendrik was grateful for the reassuring presence of Leonard as she made her way through the crowd in his wake. They were an incongruous couple. His shambling bulk reduced her trim elegance to almost childlike stature. Unused to the company of a lady, Leonard fell back on a kind of heavy-handed gallantry that only made his awkwardness the more poignant.
When Anne called on him at the Queen’s Head, he had been more than helpful, telling her all he could remember about his meeting with the doomed traveller from Devon. She could see why Nicholas had chosen this friend to represent him at the funeral. Leonard might be slow witted, but he was a kind man and completely trustworthy. With touching candour, he told her how he had wept at the graveside and wished that he could do something to avenge the girl’s death. Anne gave him that opportunity. It was pleasant to be with a person who had such an uncritical affection for Nicholas Bracewell, and Leonard’s powerful frame was a guarantee of her safety in the bustling streets.
They visited several shops without success but Anne was systematic. None of the apothecaries was able to help her but each one gave her a degree of assistance, albeit with reluctance in some cases, talking to her about the constituent elements of poisons and sending her on to another possible source of enquiry. The process had taken them into Paternoster Row and they called at the address they had been given. It was a small but well-stocked shop, and the man behind the counter had a neatness of garb and politeness of manner that set him apart from the grubby appearance and surly attitude of some of his fellows. The apothecary had brown hair, a pointed beard and the remains of an almost startling handsomeness. His faint accent joined with his exaggerated courtesy towards Anne to betray his nationality.
‘What may I get for madame?’ he said. ‘Perfumes from Arabia? Spices from the East? My stock is at your disposal.’
‘Does it include poison?’ she asked.
‘Poison?’
‘Do you carry these items?’
Anne Hendrik gave him the list of possible ingredients, which she had first devised with the aid of the surgeon. At each shop, her list was amended or enlarged in line with the advice of respective apothecaries. From the general pool of expertise, she had fished up a final inventory. Philippe Lavalle studied it with interest and surprise. He was a French Huguenot who fled from his native country over twenty years ago to escape persecution. It had been a great struggle to establish himself at first but now, under the name of Philip Lovel, he was a respected member of his profession. Poverty was his chief customer. People who could not afford to send for a doctor or a physician would come to him. He could diagnose diseases, prescribe cures for many of them and bleed a patient where necessary. Anne Hendrik was not typical of his customers at all and he had assumed she was there to purchase some of the perfumes and spices that he kept in the earthenware pots that were arranged so tidily on his shelves.
‘You want this poison, madame?’ he said cautiously.