CHAPTER XXII
Coby jogged along Bankside, her hair and clothing uncomfortably damp from the summer drizzle. She had been to the skraylings' camp, only to discover the ambassador had returned to the Tower after all. She took a wherry across the Thames to save time, but was told by the Tower guards that the ambassador had already left for the Rose by coach, in order to arrive before the crowds. For fear of missing them again she took the same route on foot, along Thames Street to London Bridge and thence to Bankside. By the time she arrived, however, the theatre doors had closed and people were being turned away.
"Please, you have to let me in," she said to the doorman. "I have an urgent message for the ambassador's bodyguard."
"Aye, and I'm the Queen of Sheba," the man replied.
"Here, aren't you with Suffolk's Men?" his companion asked. "Clear off. We don't need any of you lot getting anywhere near the judge of this contest."
"That worried, are you?" Coby replied, her impatience getting the better of her.
The man raised two fingers at her and jerked them upwards in the favourite English gesture of defiance.
Coby backed away. She didn't want to get into a fight, and there was no other way into the theatre but past these men. She would have to wait until the ambassador came out, even though it meant missing the afternoon's rehearsals. If this business was as important as Faulkner seemed to think, Master Naismith would have reason to thank her in the end.
She crossed the lane and sat down in the shelter of a large oak tree to begin her vigil.
The rain continued, thin but steady, adding to the ominous atmosphere of the play. Act Two began with more imitation thunder and lightning and another dumb-show narrated by the goddess Ate, in which Queen Andromeda was taken captive by a band of Ethiopians, to the dismay of her husband Perseus. "Divine will rules all" was the motto of this allegory.
This second prologue was followed by the invasion of England by Scythians and then a comic interlude in which the cobbler, Strumbo, was pressed into military service by a captain of Brutus' army. It reminded Mal uncomfortably of his own situation; indeed this whole play made him uneasy. Surely a story of invasion and war was not a happy choice for a diplomatic visit?
Judging by the expression on Kiiren's face, he was indeed somewhat perplexed by the play. He frequently turned to his guests with questions, and Lord Brooke was eager to be of service in showing off his broad knowledge of history and mythology, which was perhaps the reason Effingham had invited him. Mal wondered what had moved the admiral to patronise a theatre company in the first place, as he seemed to have little interest in the dramatic arts. Simple ambition perhaps? Queen Elizabeth had been very fond of plays before her husband's death drove her into seclusion.
After a particularly long explanation of the geography of England and its relation to the homelands of the Trojans and Scythians, Lord Brooke fell to coughing, and a servant pressed a goblet of wine into his trembling hands.
"You should not have come out in this inclement weather, Brooke," Effingham said.
"It is a mild ague, nothing more," Lord Brooke wheezed. He took out a small bottle and tipped some of the contents into his wine.
Kiiren held out his hand, and the bemused Brooke passed him the bottle.
"Don't taste it, it could be poison!" Mal cried.
Everyone stared at him. Effingham sprang to his feet.
"Are you accusing my guest of trying to kill the ambassador?" The admiral's weather-beaten features were flushed with rage.
On stage, the actors fell silent, and everyone turned to stare at the lords' gallery.
"No, my lord." Mal fell to one knee and bowed his head, cursing inwardly.
"Please forgive our man Catlyn," Kiiren said, bowing low to the admiral and his party. "It is my error, being curious."
"Apology accepted, of course, Your Excellency."
Effingham sat down again, gesturing for the play to continue. Mal felt a touch on his shoulder, and looked up. Kiiren motioned for him to return to his position on guard.
"This medicine, Lord Brooke," the ambassador said, "you take it often?"
"Whenever the ague returns," Brooke said, and drank his wine down in one draught. "Bought it from an apothecary in Venice. Very learned folk, the Turks, for all their barbarity. Why, think you can do better?"
Effingham turned pale, and an awkward silence descended on the party.
"I commend your apothecary," Kiiren said. "We did not know trade in our herbs had spread so far, or their virtues had such renown."
Lord Brooke muttered something under his breath. Effingham burst into laughter.
"Hoist with your own petard, Brooke," he said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. "That'll teach you to try to best the skraylings at their own game!"
At that moment, thunder rumbled and the goddess Ate reappeared to narrate the prologue to Act Three. Mal took advantage of the distraction to retreat to his lookout post at the far end of the gallery. What had he been thinking? That Brooke would risk poisoning himself on the minuscule chance the ambassador would take an interest in his medicine? Leland had been right. He should think less and apply himself to the job he was hired to do.
After about an hour, the theatre door opened and several serving men left, complaining loudly about the crush within. Coby watched them from her vantage point across the lane.
"Run out of beer already?" the doorman asked them as they trooped away.
"Aye. And that skrayling brew as well."
"Better get plenty more, then," he shouted after them. "There's nigh on three thousand thirsty folk in there. The more you sell, the happier old Henslowe will be."
Coby leapt up. This was her chance. She strolled away down the lane, but as soon as she was out of sight of the theatre doors she backtracked towards a nearby inn which she knew belonged to Henslowe. Sure enough, the serving men were there, knocking back pints of ale to quench their own thirst before getting back to work.
"Master Henslowe told me you needed more help supplying the theatre crowds," she said to the innkeeper. "He promised me sixpence."
"Don't I know you from somewhere?" The man squinted at her in suspicion.
"I'm a friend of Ned Faulkner, Henslowe's copyist."
The innkeeper laughed, showing several missing teeth.
"Good luck to you, then, lad," he said. "Faulkner's lackey or no, that'll be the hardest sixpence you earn all year."
When the men from the theatre had finished their break, Coby lined up with them outside the brewhouse door. Someone passed her a crate of beer, which she balanced on one shoulder. With a bit of luck, she could walk straight in past the doormen and they would never see her face.
Leaning against the pillar at the end of the gallery, Mal felt rather than heard a knock on the connecting door. He opened it a crack.
"Master Catlyn?"
"Hendricks!" he said, breaking into a smile at the sight of a familiar face. "What brings you here?"
The boy looked graver than usual, and he glanced warily around.
"There is something I must tell you, sir, in private."
"Then it must wait," Mal replied. "We cannot speak privily here. I am on duty."
"Please, sir, this is very urgent," Hendricks said in a low voice. "It's about your brother."
"Which one?"
"Sandy."
Mal's heart lurched. This was too much of a coincidence. After a brief glance towards the ambassador, he beckoned the boy inside. The audience were roaring with laughter at a comical fight between Strumbo and his wife; even the ambassador and his guests were paying too much attention to the antics on stage to notice a visitor.
"Is something wrong?" he asked Hendricks, leaning close to make himself heard. "Is he – Is he dead?"
"I– I don't know, sir. I don't think so."
"All right. Tell me everything–" He held up his hand and glanced pointedly at the ambassadorial party. "Tell me in your own tongue. Speak slowly, and use simple words I can understand."
The boy cleared his throat.
"I come from your friend, Ned," he said in Dutch. "Two wicked men found him, said they would hurt him if he did not tell them about you and your brother."
"Ned is hurt?"
"Only a little. But they used him to steal your brother away."
"Steal?" Mal asked. He knew the word well, though he had only heard it used in the context of looting.
"Yes, sir."
Mal made the sign of the cross. Sweet Mother of God, Ned, what have you done?
"When?"
"Yesterday morning."
Whilst we were far away at Nonsuch. Very convenient. But the implications of that line of reasoning did not bear thinking about…
The comic scene ended, and Kiiren looked round at last.
"What is happen? Who is this?"
Mal bowed low, and gestured to Hendricks to do likewise.
"Nothing of import, sir, merely a servant come to ask if we need more refreshments."
He took a shilling from his pocket and gave it to Hendricks.
"Here's for your trouble, lad," he said in a loud voice, then added in an undertone, "Wait for me outside the theatre."
"Thank you, sir," Hendricks replied brightly, though his eyes were filled with concern. Bowing again to the lords and gentlemen, he left the gallery.
Mal spent the rest of the play in an agony of frustration, scarcely able to stay still. The clamour of the crowd was no more than a murmur in his ears, the drama onstage hollow puppetry devoid of meaning. One thought alone raged back and forth in his mind like a wounded bear: the bastards who had done this would suffer, and soon.
Coby didn't sit and wait for the play to end. First she ran to the nearby Mirror and made her excuses to Master Naismith.
"I have a chance to meet the ambassador and find out what he thought of the Admiral's Men," she added, after her initial apologies.
"Not tonight," Master Naismith said. "By skrayling tradition, the judge of a drama contest must withdraw from company after the performance, to meditate upon what he has seen."
"But–" She racked her brains for another excuse. "Master Catlyn has need of me. If I can continue to be of service, I might get to speak to the ambassador tomorrow."
"Very well then. This shabby crew need to practise without their leading strings for a while. Get back to the Rose, but do not stay o'erlong."
She thanked him profusely and ran back to the other theatre. The Rose was situated in the old gardens of the brothel of the same name, which was also owned by Henslowe. Access to the theatre was via an archway piercing the brothel, there being no lanes or alleys interrupting the continuous row of stew-houses on this stretch of Bankside. She could hardly stand around on the street here, lest she be mistaken for either a prospective customer or a male varlet. Instead she took herself along the riverbank to Falcon Stairs, where she could at least feign to be waiting for someone.
As it was, she was propositioned at least thrice before the play ended and the audience began pouring out onto the street. Her disguise might not be a complete defence, but she dreaded to think how much worse it would have been, were she dressed as a girl. No wonder the city fathers forbade women to wear men's clothes; if her sisters knew how much freedom it might win them, none would willingly don skirts again.
Theatregoers swarmed out of the narrow archway like ants from a nest, covering Bankside in a mass of noisy, sweating humanity. Fearing to be lost in the crush, Coby crossed the street and walked back towards the Rose, flattening herself against the buildings as much as possible. Better to be mistaken for a whore than be trampled or cast into the river.
After what felt like an age, the flow of people eased from a torrent to a trickle, and she spotted a coach standing outside the Rose with four mounted skraylings as escort. More skraylings, armed with long staves, issued from the theatre exit, and behind them came the ambassador in his blue robe, with Master Catlyn towering above him.
The swordsman helped the ambassador into the coach, then looked around for Coby. Catching his eye, she hurried over.
"Get in the coach," he said in a low voice.
"Sir?"
"Just do it, will you?"
She did as she was told, cowed by his sudden grim demeanour. His anger was understandable, she told herself, and not directed at her. She knew well that feeling of panic at being separated from one's family.
The ambassador frowned at her as she got in, and looked questioningly at Mal.
"This servant accompanies us?" he asked.