The cart creaked to a halt beside a huge pit that was still occupied by busy gravediggers. Fresh mounds of earth showed that other pits had already been dug and filled. Plague victims needed to go deep into the earth lest their infection sprout forth. The driver and his assistant unloaded the corpses with as much concern as if they were handling sacks of vegetables. Human beings were dragged off the cart and thrown along the edge of the pit to await the drop into their final resting place.
Nicholas Bracewell and Edmund Hoode were far enough away to miss the worst of the stench but close enough to observe the creature who crept out of his hiding place under a bush. The man was short, ragged and hirsute, old by every external sign yet as nimble as a monkey. While the driver and his assistant had their backs turned, the newcomer moved between the winding sheets as if he knew what he would find inside them. Using a knife to slit open the material, he groped here and grabbed there until he had quite a haul from his bold plundering. It was when he bent over the body of Gabriel Hawkes that Nicholas moved into action.
Darting forward at speed, he chased the man back to the bushes from which the latter had emerged, diving on him to bring the fellow rolling to the ground. The knife was brandished in Nicholas's face but it did not deter him. Years at sea with bellicose sailors had taught him how to handle himself in a fight and he quickly disarmed his assailant, winding him at the same time with a punch in the stomach. Hoode came running up to join him.
The man retreated in a defensive snivel.
'Leave off, good sirs. I do no harm.'
'Robbing the dead is both sin and crime,' said Nicholas. 'You have defiled the body of our friend.'
'He is past caring.'
'We are not.'
'Judge me truly,' said the man, sitting up on his haunches. 'I only take from those that have no need. These things would only end up in a pit of lime and what's the use of that. Better that they help the living than lie beneath the ground with the dead.'
'You are a scurvy rogue,' said Hoode.
'Necessity compels me, sir.' He was almost chirpy now. 'Plague is meat and drink to me. It is the only time we poor people may be rich for a day. The bodies of the deceased sustain us. Their loss is our gain. When they become naked, we are clothed. When they are hungry, we are fed. Their sickness is our health.
'Give me what you took,' demanded Nicholas.
'It is all mine.'
'Keep most of it. I want what was stolen from that last body. He was a good friend to us.'
'But not to me,' replied the man peevishly. "There was nothing on him to take. A miserable wretch indeed!'
Nicholas dispensed with further wrangling. Grabbing the man by his beard, he shook him violently until the creature howled for mercy.
'Now, sir. Give me what was taken.'
The man spat in annoyance then slowly opened the palm of his left hand. Nestling in it was the tiny jewelled earring that Gabriel Hawkes used to wear. It sparkled in the grubby hand of its thief. Nicholas took the earring and stood up to examine it. Neither he nor Hoode made any move when the man gathered up the rest of his haul and scampered away like an old sheep dog.
The two friends exchanged a glance. Gabriel had at least been spared this final indignity. He owned little enough in life and did not deserve to have it snatched from him in death. They walked back towards the pit and saw that the bodies were now being heaved into it before being covered with spadefuls of lime. The stink was overpowering but they did not turn back. As they looked down into the gaping tomb, they saw dozens of tormented bodies lying across each other at angles. It was now impossible to tell them apart.
Nicholas tossed the earring into the pit then offered up a silent prayer. Edmund Hoode was horrified by the callous anonymity of the mass burial.
'Which one is Gabriel?' he asked.
'God will know,' said Nicholas.
They lingered until the busy spades hid the shameful sight with layers of earth. It was all so functional and impersonal. Both of them were deeply affected. When they finally turned and strolled away, neither was able to speak for several minutes. Edmund Hoode eventually came out of his brooding solemnity.
'Why, what a foul contagion it is!'
'A devilish pestilence,' agreed Nicholas.
'I speak not of the plague.'
'Then what?'
'That other fatal disease. It struck down Gabriel Hawkes and, in time, it will account for us as well.'
'How say you?'
"I talk of the theatre, Nick. That fever of the blood which drives us to madness all our lives and hurries us towards our graves.' Hoode gave a mirthless laugh. 'Who else would take up this profession but a sick man? We are both infected beyond cure. We have caught the germs of false hope and empty fame. The theatre will kill us all.'
'No,' said Nicholas. 'It keeps us alive.'
'Only so that we may suffer gross affliction.'
'The loss of our friend has hurt you badly.'
'He was destroyed by his profession.'
'Or by someone in it.' Nicholas stopped. 'Gabriel Hawkes did not simply die of the plague. The disease would not have carried him off that quickly without some help from another source.'
'Help?'
'He was murdered, Edmund.'
Like a true man of the theatre, Lawrence Firethorn could not resist the opportunity to deliver a speech in front of a captive audience. Westfield's Men were summoned to the Queen's Head that morning. Since the inn was their London home, it was also the most appropriate point of departure. The company gathered in the room that was used as the tiring-house during performance. A great adventure was now in the offing.
They were all there, including Barnaby Gill, Rowland Carr, Simon Dowsett, Walter Fenby, the beaming George Dart and Richard Honeydew with the other boy apprentices. Edmund
Hoode sat pale and wan in the window. Christopher Millfield lounged in cavalier fashion against a beam. Nicholas Bracewell stood at the back so that he was out of range of the full blast of Firethorn's lecture and well-placed to gauge its effect on individual members of the company.
Also in the room, like a spectre at the feast, was the hollow-cheeked Alexander Marwood, the luckless landlord of the Queen's Head. Short, skinny and losing his hair by the week, Marwood had an uneasy relationship with Westfield's Men and only ever renewed their contract as an essay in self-torture. With no love for drama itself, he found the regular invasion by plays and players an ordeal that kept his nervous twitch in full employment. Westfield's Men brought danger to his property, to his reputation, to his serving wenches and to his sanity. He was better off without them. Yet now that they were going, now that they were quitting his hostelry for the open road, now that his yard would no longer be packed with thirsty patrons on most afternoons, now that he envisaged empty spaces and unsold beer and falling profits, he came round to the idea that they were the foundation of his livelihood.
'Do not leave me,' he said wistfully.
'We will return, Master Marwood,' promised Nicholas.
'The company will be much missed.'
'We do not leave of our own accord.'
'This plague is a curse upon us!'
'It may yet bestow some blessings.'
One of them was to shake off the gloomy landlord and escape his endless litany of complaints. Nicholas had been quick to spot that compensation. As the person who dealt most often with Alexander Marwood, he bore the brunt of the other's sustained melancholy. It was just one of the duties that Firethorn had cunningly assigned to him.
The actor-manager now got to his feet and raised up a hand. Silence fell. He held it for a full minute.