The Player and the Rebels

Five years have passed since Nicholas Marlow ran away from home at the age of eleven and after various adventures found himself a boy player in the Lord Chamberlain's company of actors. Since then the Company has flourished, but unexpected danger threatens when a performance of The Life and Death of King Richard the Second provides a prelude to the Earl of Essex's rebellion against the ageing Queen: while at the same time a sinister figure from Nicholas's past returns to draw him, briefly and fatefully, into Sir Robert Cecil's web of spies and informers.