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outside this small, stuffy room, he heard the rumble of thunder.

Chapter 6
     
    Severin Tort arrived with the tolling of the noonday bells. The sky was dark and the rain was starting. As Shakespeare pulled open the solid oak door lightning dispersed the gloom, followed almost immediately by a rolling cannon-roar of thunder.
    ‘Good day, Mr Tort. I would invite you in to wait out the storm, but I fear I do not have time for such a delay. How far is our journey?’
    ‘Shoreditch, close to the Curtain playhouse. No more than two miles from here.’
    ‘Then let us ride and pray the lightning strikes elsewhere. Follow me to the stables.’
    Both men were dressed for the impending downpour: heavy topcoats – too warm for the sultry weather – wide-brimmed hats and riding boots. They rode without talking through the grimy streets northwards to Aldgate, then west along Houndsditch on the outer side of the city wall. At Bishopsgate they turned right, past Bethlehem Hospital along the busy, well-worn street to Shoreditch. The rain was coming hard now and they kicked their horses into a canter, weaving in and out of the wagons and carts that crowded the mud-churned highway in both directions.
    Shoreditch, just a mile from London, was very different from its greater neighbour. This, as the austere city aldermen saw it, was a place of sin and debauchery, of drunken vagrants, bare-breasted whores in the street, of filth and bowling alleys and criminals. Worst of all, it housed the twin Gomorrahs of England – the playhouses known as the Theatre and the Curtain. Had it been within their power, the aldermen would have closed them down as dens of iniquity, lairs of drinking and whoredom and every other vice, but the playhouses were outside the city walls and beyond their jurisdiction.
    Severin Tort reined in outside a surprisingly fine building in a street of alehouses and tenements near Curtain Close. After the two men had dismounted and tethered their horses, Tort hammered at the door of the main house; two knocks, a pause, then three knocks.
    The door opened slowly and a man in a leather jerkin stood before them, a pair of iron scissors in his hand. He looked at the drenched figure of Severin Tort and seemed to recognise him, then studied Shakespeare. He said nothing but took a step to one side to let them in.
    Shaking the rain from his hat, Shakespeare entered a workroom. It reminded him of his father’s glovemaking and whittawing shop. The walls were limewashed and there were windows at two sides for light. A table was adorned with the tools of the seamster’s trade: needles, more scissors, threads, candles to work by. In front of it stood a high three-legged stool. Two dresses hung against a wall.
    ‘Oswald Redd here is a sharer at the Curtain. He has charge of the costumes. Mr Redd, this is John Shakespeare.’
    The two men shook hands with a perfunctory nod of the head. Redd was a good-looking man of a similar age to Shakespeare, mid to late twenties, but four or five inches shorter than Shakespeare’s six foot. He was well named, for his hair was copper-coloured, and his skin was tinted by freckles that seemed more joined up than separate. He was clearly anxious.
    ‘Mr Redd works with Mr Lanman of the Curtain. He is seamster, writer, player and carpenter.’
    ‘Does he know—’
    ‘Yes. He is giving her refuge.’ Tort turned to Redd. ‘You have my word, we can trust Mr Shakespeare.’
    Redd held up his scissors with the blades parted. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘because I’ll spill his blood with these if he does anything to harm her.’ He turned to Shakespeare. ‘She has told me of you.’
    ‘I know her of old. Four years ago I met her in Sheffield where her father had the Cutler’s Rest inn.’
    ‘What was she to you?’
    Shakespeare saw the jealousy in the man’s eyes. Bloodshot eyes which were as red as his hair. ‘A friend,’ Shakespeare said. ‘She saved my life.’ He looked more closely at Oswald Redd;