The Bawdy Basket (27 page)

‘Thank you, Edmund,’ said Nicholas. ‘All that I request is the use of your time.’

Avice grew prickly. ‘Edmund’s time is devoted to me, sir.’

‘And rightly so, Mistress Radley. But did you not claim earlier that
The Merchant of Calais
was your choice of all his plays?’

‘I did. Its theme touches my heart.’

‘Would you not be proud, then, if that play – the one you most admire – were the means by which Westfield’s Men remained upon the stage to perform the rest of Edmund Hoode’s work? Think on it,’ said Nicholas. ‘Two hours upon the boards next Tuesday could decide our whole future.’

‘I fail to see how,’ she said.

‘Nor I, Nick,’ added Hoode.

‘Then let me explain,’ said Nicholas. ‘In the past few days I have learnt a great deal about Sir Eliard Slaney. He is a callous, unscrupulous, vindictive man who has forced many people into ruin and revelled in their plight. But he is also protective of his reputation. He’ll not have his name besmirched. Many people hate him but they are too frightened to put that hatred into words. Gerard Quilter had the courage to stand up to him in court and draw some
blood from Sir Eliard. He paid dearly for that.’

‘So it appears,’ said Hoode.

Avice nudged him. ‘Do not get involved in this, Edmund.’

‘These are my fellows, Avice.’

‘You are taking leave of them to be with me.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Hoode, ‘and I do so without regret. But I cannot desert them until this ogre has been vanquished. Go on, Nick,’ he urged. ‘Instruct me.’

‘Think of the characters in
The Merchant of Calais
,’ said Nicholas. ‘Is there not one who reminds you, if only slightly, of Sir Eliard Slaney?’

‘There is Pierre Lefeaux, who supplies the loans to the merchants.’

‘Exactly!’

‘But he is French and nowhere near as rapacious as this moneylender of ours.’

‘That is why I need to call on your pen,’ said Nicholas. ‘We change his nation from France to England, then we alter his name from Pierre Lefeaux to something more akin to that of our man.’

‘Sir Peter Lefoe, perhaps?’

‘We can be more precise than that, Edmund. And more insulting. Our audience will contain many people who know Sir Eliard by repute, and some who may have suffered at his hands. They will long to see him pilloried onstage.’

‘What name would you suggest?’

‘Sir Eliard Slimy.’

Hoode laughed. ‘You have it, Nick! I’ll play the part myself.’

‘Then you must look and dress the way that he does, Edmund. I can help you there for I have seen the fellow. And the character must become more gross and disgusting,’ he insisted, ‘so that they are watching the real Sir Eliard upon stage.’

‘He’ll sue you for seditious libel,’ protested Avice.

‘That is our intent,’ replied Nicholas. ‘But before he can do that, he has to see and hear what
The Merchant of Calai
s contains. If we let it be known that Sir Eliard is to be mocked and vilified at the Queen’s Head on Tuesday, the one person who will certainly be in the gallery is the moneylender himself.’

‘What will be achieved by that?’

‘His disgrace, Avice,’ said Hoode. ‘I’ll paint such a hideous portrait of him onstage that he’ll be ridiculed by all that see it.’

‘To what end?’ she asked sharply. ‘As the author of the piece, it is you who’ll be arraigned, Edmund. Bear that in mind. When we live together in the country, my wealth is at your disposal but I’ll not pay any damages imposed upon you in court.’

Hoode was shocked. ‘Avice! You promised that we would share everything.’

‘Within certain limits.’

‘There was no talk of limits earlier.’

‘There was no possibility that you would go to prison then,’ she pointed out. ‘And that could easily happen if you write defamatory speeches about this man. What use are you to me if you are incarcerated in a cell?’

‘I looked for more understanding from you than this,’ said Hoode.

‘Edmund will not be taken to court,’ said Nicholas. ‘The changes to his play are but a device to ensure that Sir Eliard is out of his house on Tuesday afternoon. That is where the real evidence lies,’ he went on. ‘Locked away in his counting house. While he is enduring the gibes and the raillery at the Queen’s Head, we will be gathering the information that will send him and his confederates where they belong. In short, Edmund will have helped to lift the dire threat that hangs over the company.’

‘By heaven, I’ll do it, Nick!’ exclaimed Hoode.

‘Slow down,’ said Avice. ‘I am not sure that I agree.’

‘It is my bounden duty to help.’

‘Not when it may land you into trouble with the law.’

‘That will not happen, Avice. You heard what Nick said.’

‘I heard what he proposed,’ she replied, ‘but I am not convinced that you will meet with success. What if the evidence that is sought is not inside Sir Eliard’s house? The whole project then collapses around your ears. And there’s another point,’ she stressed. ‘You cannot solve one crime by committing another. Break into someone’s property and you break the law.’

‘It is a justified breach, Mistress Radley,’ said Nicholas.

‘No judge will view it that way.’

‘It is to expose a corrupt judge that we must do it.’

‘I’ll not condone a criminal act.’

‘I do not ask you to do so,’ said Nicholas, trying to mollify her. ‘This is a matter between Edmund and us. It need not concern you.’

She became proprietary. ‘Everything about Edmund concerns me.’

‘Then please support him in a worthy cause.’

‘Nick is right,’ said Hoode, excited by the notion. ‘This way answers all. We not only expose Sir Eliard Slaney onstage for the avaricious snake that he is, we clear the name of a man who was unjustly executed.’

‘I do not accept that he was.’

‘Avice!’

‘It is all guesswork and hearsay.’

‘There was no guesswork involved when they tried to kill me,’ said Nicholas bluntly. ‘Why did Sir Eliard order my death if he had nothing to hide? Here is the dagger that was commissioned for the purpose,’ he said, pulling it from his belt. ‘Sir Eliard already has to answer for the murders of Vincent Webbe and Moll Comfrey. My name came close to being added to the list of his victims.’

‘The evidence is overwhelming,’ pleaded Hoode. ‘You must accept it, Avice.’

‘All I accept is the promise you made in your sonnet.’

‘Nothing will change that.’

‘It will, if you ignore my counsel.’

‘What counsel?’

‘Keep clear of this whole business, Edmund,’ she decreed. ‘There are too many hidden dangers. I’ll not have you putting yourself at risk like this.’

‘Would you prefer me to let Westfield’s Men perish?’

‘Dismiss them from your mind.’

‘That’s heartless!’

‘It is politic,’ she said coldly. ‘Let me put it more plainly. A decision confronts you and you must think hard before you make it.’

‘Loyalty requires that I go to their aid.’

‘I demand that you do not.’

Hoode was upset. ‘You would make such an unjust demand of me?’

‘You swore to be mine and mine alone,’ she insisted. ‘All that I do is to test the strength of that vow. Choose between Westfield’s Men and me. You cannot have both.’

Lawrence Firethorn was still in a somnolent mood when he arrived home that evening. He felt like a condemned man awaiting execution. Lord Westfield was on the verge of bankruptcy, the company that bore his name was facing destruction and, during its final days, it would be hounded by the disagreeable landlord who had risen from his sick bed at the Queen’s Head. Of more immediate significance for Firethorn was the fact that his wife was in a state of hostility, brought on by his bungled attempt to entice Avice Radley. Professional ruin was allied to marital strife. When he reached Shoreditch, he went into the house with foreboding.

Alone in the parlour, Margery gave him a frosty reception.

‘So, sir,’ she said through gritted teeth, ‘you have dared to show yourself again.’

‘Do not chastise me further, my love. I have enough to bear, as it is.’

‘Why? Have you been repulsed again by Mistress Radley?’

‘That harpy is the least of my worries,’ he moaned.

‘You did not think her a harpy when you tried to board her.’

He held up a hand. ‘Please, Margery. Spare me more pain.’

‘You spared me none when you called upon the lady,’ she said. ‘How did you think I felt when I learnt that my husband cared so little for his marriage vows that he sought to prey on someone whom he had never even met before?’

‘Circumstance forced me to act as I did.’

‘The presence of a beautiful woman is all the circumstance you need.’

He attempted gallantry. ‘None is more beautiful than the one who stands before me now,’ he said with a tired smile.

‘Leave off, Lawrence. I’ll have none of your false compliments.’

‘They come from the heart.’

‘What of the compliments you paid to Mistress Radley?’

‘Forget the woman.’

‘All that your wooing did was to turn her more strongly against the company.’

‘There
is
no company,’ he cried. ‘Westfield’s Men live on borrowed time. And not because of anything that Mistress Radley has done. She is irrelevant now. It is our patron who will bring us crashing down.’

‘Lord Westfield? What’s amiss with him?’

‘Had you been speaking to me earlier, I might have told you. Our patron sent a letter that made all our other troubles seem slight. That is why I fled the house so swiftly,’ he explained. ‘I needed to share the misery with my fellows.’

Margery was disturbed. ‘What misery? Why this talk of borrowed time?’

‘My words were chosen with care, Margery. It is borrowed time because borrowing lies at the base of it. In brief, my love, Lord Westfield has borrowed us out of existence. The company will suffocate under the weight of his debts.’

Firethorn told her about the threat from Sir Eliard Slaney but said nothing about the evidence that Nicholas Bracewell had been helping to gather about the moneylender. He saw no point in confusing his wife with unnecessary detail or in relating a tale of injustice that he did not fully understand himself. What concerned Margery was the future of Westfield’s Men because it would have a direct impact on her family. She listened with growing horror, her antagonism changing slowly to sympathy.

‘So that is why you quit the house so speedily,’ she said. ‘I thought that you simply wanted to get away from your wife.’

‘No, my love. I longed to stay here and be reconciled.’

‘I nourished that same hope.’

‘Then you kept it well-concealed.’

‘Why did you not tell me that the letter was from Lord Westfield?’

‘Conversation with you was fraught with much pain. Besides,’ he said, ‘I had to see Barnaby and the others as soon as possible. There was no time for delay.’

‘Who is this moneylender?’ she asked. ‘And why does he treat Lord Westfield so ruthlessly? Is some personal grudge involved here?’

‘It matters not, Margery. The simple truth is that our patron is called upon to pay money that he does not possess.’

‘Could he not borrow it from elsewhere?’

‘Nobody else will advance him credit,’ said Firethorn. ‘He has exhausted the purses of his friends and the patience of every usurer in London. The one sensible thing that Lord Westfield did in the past was to avoid Sir Eliard Slaney, because he is the most egregious member of his trade. Now – God save him! – he’s been delivered up to the rogue and Sir Eliard means to destroy him.’

‘Can nothing be done to fend this man off?’

‘Nothing short of running him through with a sword.’

‘What did the others suggest?’

‘Barnaby merely wrung his hands in despair.’

‘And Edmund?’

‘He refused even to meet with us.’

‘Refused?’ she said in amazement. ‘When the company is about to disappear?’

‘At the end of the month,
he
is about to disappear from the company. Edmund feels that he no longer has a stake in our future.’

‘That is monstrous!’

‘Behold the work of Mistress Radley!’

‘Is Edmund so utterly under her spell that he has no speck of loyalty? What did Nicholas make of this tragedy?’ she asked. ‘If anyone can find a remedy, it will be him.’

Firethorn shook his head. ‘Even he is bereft of a solution this time, my love. Nick has a plan but it requires the help of Edmund Hoode. That traitor has already shunned us. My guess is that he’ll not even open the door to Nick Bracewell.’

‘But he must, Lawrence. They are dear friends.’

‘Not since Mistress Radley showed her evil face,’ he said bitterly. ‘All friendship ended there.
She
is his only friend now. We have been discarded. Nick will try his best to reason with Edmund but his visit will be futile. Truly, we are lost.’

Anne Hendrik was frankly appalled. Having waited up for Nicholas, she was shocked by his description of the meeting at Avice Radley’s house. Nicholas sank down into a chair with a sigh of resignation. He was deeply wounded by what he saw as the sudden end of his friendship with Edmund Hoode.

‘What has
happened
to Edmund?’ she asked.

‘He is in love, Anne.’

‘Can love cause such pain to those who were closest to him?’

‘Mistress Radley is a potent lady,’ said Nicholas. ‘And there is no denying that she has great charms. She is also a person of some wealth. If he married her, Edmund will never have to work for a living again.’

‘Would he let her buy him so easily?’

‘She, too, acts out of love. It may be a possessive love but there’s no doubting the strength of it. In her own way,’ he said defensively, ‘Mistress Radley thinks that she is protecting Edmund from trouble. My plan, I must admit, involves a risk but it is one that Edmund would cheerfully have taken in the past.’

‘Yet now he will not even listen to you.’

‘Oh, he listened, Anne. He even agreed to help. Then a choice was imposed upon him and his resolve crumbled. When the final decision was made, Westfield’s Men were outweighed in the balance by Mistress Radley.’