Master of the Revels

by Nicole Galland

  Marvellous to run into you at the dinner club, myself with Blevins and you with Mr. Frederick Fugger and his tasty-looking bodyguard. Pleased I was that you and I each affected to be surprised by the other’s presence, in such a way that we also realised we shared the hope of crossing paths. Although we could not be speaking plainly, this effort on your part suggests you’re truly keen to know the bigger story of magic. And thus I continue to spill my heart here, with the intention of sending you to find this where I will hide it soon. There’s a foul complication that’s arisen over in the stink of London, and I’ve come back to Eire especially to write you of it, that you will see ’tis an urgent and demanding project I undertake, taxing to attempt alone, and why my efforts are deserving of your assistance.

  I spake with Tilney the week earlier, as I’ve writ about already, tricking him to believe ’twas in his interest to replace Shakespeare’s (nonsensical, harmless) spells. I made up my mind to continue to manipulate him with his own self-interest, rather than by spells. This being desirable not only in that it cannot be undone by others’ witchcraft, but for the additional point that it shields my actions somewhat from Tristan and his bevy: other witches working with them could easy sense a trace of glamour around Tilney, and thus know that I was up to something. Whereas if ’tis simply lying to him that I’m up to, there be nothing to suggest my presence in the mix at all.

  (Or so went my thinking, and yet, for all that, they knew to look for me, as you shall hear.)

  The chief downside to using human persuasion is that it does require more maintenance and upkeep than magic. Tilney had allowed that I might return, to check that his nonsense rhymes were not the work of his own self being bewitched. Obviously I’d be telling him that my worst fears were realised—that his nonsense was not nonsense and that he’d better be entrusting me to rewrite it all.

  I will only admit this here, as none but you will ever read these pages, (and I noticed you’ve a weakness for distinguished older gentlemen)—I found myself strangely drawn to his frowning eagle-like demeanor, and wanted an excuse to feast my eyes upon it again, wrinkled and grey-haired though he be. So I was glad ’twas necessary to return there, to ensure that he was still intending what I intended him to intend.

  Although ’tis January in our shared time, circumstances have caused me to go to the Old Smoke in April, and wasn’t I appreciating the relative warmth of the sun on the stonework that framed the heavy wooden gate. As I approached that very gate, what did I spy but a young woman clad unconvincingly as a lad who came out the entrance, in togemans that surely came straight from a theatre, for no gentleman would allow his servants to go prancing about the streets in such mad attire—a doublet of velvet with a black woolen coat over it, and the finest knit stockings I’ve seen in years, and silver points and buttons, but the cap of a cony-catcher. I noticed the togs, in truth, before I even noticed her face or carriage, but then it was clear as water from the lakes of Kerry that, despite her not being so very tall, she must be a kinswoman of Tristan Lyons.

  If she be in Tristan’s clan, then she must have come about the Macbeth spells, for why else would Tristan, who is now so desperate short of agents, Send a DOer here? Meaning my injecting of real spells into the play must have lasting power, at least on this Strand. It pleases me greatly to know that, should anything happen to me, ’tis possible you yet have access to the direst spells.

  And of course I knew at once: she being of Tristan’s tribe, I must destroy her. I’d assumed that Tristan would come after me his own self if he sensed my meddling in this DTAP, for ’tis a place he’s most familiar with. And if Tristan is Sent here, then, sad as it will make my heart (and other parts of my anatomy), I’ll end him as I ended Frank Oda outside Kyoto. And ’tis the same means I’ll be using, now that I have mastered it: those same deadly and absolutely taboo spells I’m imbedding in Macbeth, when spoken by a witch, can burn a soul right out of existence. That’s right handy, so it is!

  But in Tristan’s case, ’twould be a loss of a most magnificent male specimen. So I know I’ll do it should he come here, but some soft womanish part of me hopes he might not, in truth, ever think to come himself. Meanwhile, there is the kinswoman to consider. First, of course, I’ll want to see if she can be useful to me, and then ’tis simple enough to be shuffling her off this mortal coil.

  But for the moment, until I’d a chance to work out details, I let her pass me, and she took not a wink of notice of me, absorbed in her thoughts as she was. So in I sallied through the gatehouse and up to the main hall and asked after Master Tilney. Eventually I was escorted up the winding stone stairs to the office and the aristocratic Master.

  Now, this room wasn’t so grand as the hall below, but still a fine chamber, high-ceilinged enough for a wooden minstrels’ balcony running the whole of one side, from the days when Henry VIII had chased all the Catholics out. And great stained glass windows on two walls. And a huge square table filled the centre, with sundry scribe desks resting on it, and drawers of shelves all along the walls, and piles of parchment and paper everywhere.

  “God ye good den,” said I, showing him courtesy. He looked not displeased to see me, but neither did he seem as pleased as most fellas do to see me, when it’s their looking pleased that I’m after.

  “Grace,” he said, which gave me shivers sure enough. “Welcome.”

  “The flaxen-haired lad who just left here is a spy.”

  “Which lad? And a spy for whom?” His tone was not urgent or even interested but almost bored, so it was. He must be alerted to supposed spies quite regular-like, although why anyone would have cause to spy on theatrical productions is curious to me.

  “A lad I’m sure has just appeared here for the first time, perhaps seeking work he was? Wearing an odd assortment of clothes.”

  Mr. Tilney raised his lordly brows once, in acknowledgement of my superior discernment. He considered me as if I were an oracle. “For whom does he spy? And why?” asked Tilney next.

  “Now isn’t that a bit of a tale,” I said. “All I would entreat of you is not to let the lad influence your thinking in any wise about Macbeth.”

  He sighed heavily at this, like a tired father. “And why, pray tell, would he be in the business of doing such a thing?”

  “He’s been sent by a rival of mine,” I dissembled skilfully, “who would replace Shakespeare’s authentic spell that is there now with a different authentic spell, rather than swapping it out with something not a spell, which is what I am after.”

  “Indeed,” said Tilney, just precisely as the patriarch supervillains say it on the silver screen. “And what be the name of this foe of yours who’s sent him here?”

  “Nobody you’d know by name.”

  “How curious to hear,” he continued evenly. “Because he was in fact sent by his cousin William Shakespeare.”

  I didn’t know I could mask my own astonishment so well as I did that moment. “Well, naturally the lad will say that,” I said, as if I had anticipated this ploy, “to gain entrance to your offices.”

  “Mr. Shakespeare wrote to me a few days back and told me so himself. If there be any intrigue concerning the lad, William Shakespeare himself is engaged in it, in which case I must question him directly.” He reached for a bell on the wall behind him and pulled it. “I’ll send a messenger at once to summon him. You will remain here until I have spoken with him.”

  If he began to question Shakespeare, sure my plan would get all bolloxed up, even if I were to go all-out with the psy-ops efforts. But with the girl-lad passing as Shakespeare’s kin, I could not call her out either. Well played, Tristan, I thought with irritation. Now there was no way around it: I must simply off her at the soonest possible moment.

  “My mistake,” I said. “At least, I think so. ’Tis possible the lad is secretly in the service of some other.”

  “What business would this some other have with you, I wonder?” said Tilney. “That same lad was asking after you.”

  �
��Was he?” I gasped, and my amazement was not counterfeited. That was proof, then: Tristan’s onto me, sure. But why would the girl want to chat me up? If she entertained the delusion she could talk me out of my righteous undertaking, then her brother was doing a fecked job of educating her. “I know not why the lad would be asking after me. Notice if he would influence you regarding the spells, is all I’m saying.”

  “’Tis utter rubbish how obsessed you all are with a comedic chant,” he said, nearly under his own breath. But he tugged the cord again, twice this time, which I took to mean he’d cancelled the messenger. “The witchy bit is just an excuse to use squibs and thunder-runs, Mr. Shakespeare even confessed as much.”

  “Nonetheless, if the lad do even mention it, then he is under the sway of someone other than his cousin.”

  “This conversation no longer interests me. If you’ve come only to warn me of this, you have laboured for nothing.”

  “Not at all! ’Twas a coincidence I happened to see him, is all,” I said, with a cheery smile that made not the slightest dent in his magnificent dourness. “I was coming to you anyhow. You commanded me to return, that I may examine your new verses and check to see you did not write them under the influence of witchcraft.”

  He gave me a long look, and I felt as if I were waiting to find out if I had won a prize.

  “Very well,” he said, and reached for the manuscript, which had migrated upstairs since I’d last been here.

  We stood together, elbow to elbow, which thrilled me in a way I still cannot make sense of, but his upright, stern comportment was a most agreeable thing to be pressing up against. He opened the manuscript to the second witch scene, and I gasped a little with concern and pointed to a passing phrase he’d written. Where once it read, as Shakespeare himself writ, “Thrice to thine and thrice to mine, / And thrice again, to make up nine . . .” it now read, “Two and a quarter goes to you, to me the same amount is due, / And doubling all makes nine, that’s true.”

  The fella might have a knack for maths, but a poet he certainly isn’t! But that wasn’t the point here. “Doubling all makes nine,” I recited, my finger underlying his phrase. “Now it might just be a coincidence, but that happens to be a phrase made famous by Agnes Moorcock, a witch of Essex some two decades gone, for the raising of the most excellent radishes.”

  “Radishes?” echoed Tilney sceptically. “What have radishes to do with the number nine?”

  “Pardon, sir, ’tis not done to discuss the complexities of spells with non-witches. I’m sure ’tis a coincidence and not evidence that you were bewitched in the writing of your lines. Now to the big scene with the dangerous spells . . .”

  And thus we came to the scene wherein I planned to insert the most dangerous of all spells ever uttered or even written—the one including the phrase “scorch their minds and raze the rubble.” ’Tis the spell I used to dispose of Frank Oda in Kyoto and the spell I intend to be using, soon, on Tristan’s kinswoman—and the spell I intend all witches everywhere in future generations to learn, and utter freely, without care that it’s taboo.

  So as my eyes gazed upon the paper, I gasped in a tone of dismay and counterfeited nearly to swoon, so great was the shock I pretended to have. “’Tis as I feared, sir,” said I. “There is about you, here or in your lodgings, or a visitor to these offices, some witch with malice towards yourself, for you have written here words that will compel the Court Witch to accuse yourself and Mr. Shakespeare of witchcraft.”

  A bit pale he went at that, but he frowned too. “And why should I believe you?” he asked. “I’ve no memory of encountering any who might be a witch—”

  “Well, you wouldn’t remember it, would you, sir? Not if she put a spell of forgetting upon you.”

  “Yet why should I believe you that these are real spells?”

  “As I said, ’tis wholly against my interest to have magic be uttered in the court where Lady Emilia will call it out and add a general level of hysteria to the whole of Lond—”

  Tilney recoiled and stared at me, his face ashen. “Who?” he demanded.

  “Lady Emilia Lanier,” I said, sniffling and making a great show of continuing to recover my composure. “I should not have told you the name of her, but there is no undoing it now. I beg you, do not bandy it about.”

  “Lady Emilia Lanier,” he echoed weakly. “She who was born Aemilia Bassano? And is even now a lady in Queen Anne’s retinue?”

  “I know not her family of birth, but yes, ’tis she. Do you know her, sir? If she has any great cause to love yourself or Mr. Shakespeare, you might yet be spared, but if not, I think ’tis better to let me amend the verses.”

  He nearly staggered back against me, and there was a long pause while I enjoyed the warmth of him, until he pulled away a bit to examine me, or rather my forehead, such being the difference in our heights.

  “I must think on this matter,” he said. “That it be Emilia Lanier makes this troublesome.”

  “How long can you wait, sir? They begin rehearsals very soon.”

  “Give me your verses, then,” he said. “I shall use them. But know this: you alone shall be accountable if Lady Emilia objects.”

  “I have nothing to hide,” I lied, “and thus nothing to fear. And I hope you will not receive it amiss that, in anticipation of such a discovery, ’tis already writ.” (For sure don’t I know there are options enough to either undermine the Court Witch or, in a worst case, easily escape her wrath, thanks to Rose.) Then I opened my purse and drew out the little scroll upon which I had penned, in the prettiest and daintiest hand I could, the most dread spell ever our race has uttered. I placed it on the table and he closed his hand over it.

  “I will write in the changes myself tomorrow.”

  I beamed. “So Mr. Shakespeare and I have writ a play together!” I said.

  Tilney did not smile. Indeed, he gave me a look implying that ’twas a bit naughty I was being. “I do this not for your pleasure, but for my own interests. If I develop any thought to doubt you, look you beware. I know you for a witch, and I have the King’s ear.”

  “You would not so impugn a helpless woman,” I said. “Surely.”

  “If you have played me for a fool, I will indeed,” he said. “God ye good day, Grace the Witch. I do not imagine we shall have cause to converse between now and when the play is shown at court.” As an afterthought he added, “May I tell my new clerk where he might find you?”

  “He might find me anywhere,” I said. “He may find me when I choose to be found.”

  He grimaced and waved me away. The dismissal left me wishing for just one more moment of his attention. Except that I now needed every moment for things of greater import.

  Then where did I go but to Rose’s, to prod her about the Lyons girl. She answered me nothing, the shrew, but would agree only to Send me here to Ireland, that I might capture all of this in writing to demonstrate to you, my newest friend, how particular I am being in considering your future.

  Now I must be returning to DODO, to keep Blevins from getting suspicious of my absences. And also in the hopes of crossing paths with you again, to sound you out further and sense for certain if you are worthy of receiving this. If our encounter proves promising—meaning, if I am entirely confident you cherish my crusade more than your loyalty to your bosses—then it’s returning here straight I’ll be and continuing this narrative.

  And while I’m back here in 1606, of course, I’ll find the little Lyons whelp and rid London of her.

  ROBIN’S AFTER ACTION REPORT, STRAND 1 (CONT.)

  Tilney released me that first day in the late afternoon.

  I felt so damn stymied. I couldn’t fiddle with the Macbeth script until I was back in the office the next day—but the more urgent concern was Tristan, of course. Hanging with the theatre crowd would at least get me access to Burbage, and maybe he knew more about Gráinne than he was letting on. So I headed south, through the city and back over the Thames, to the mucky neighborhood of Sout
hwark, ignoring the calls from the Paris Gardens’ sex-and-animal-torture festival. The King’s Men had performed Hamlet that afternoon, and Will had already retired to Silver Street to write, so I attached myself to Ned. The King’s Men—there were about fifteen of us, including the boy players like myself—hit a local tavern for a dinner of palatable rabbit stew. I tried to sit near Burbage, but I was way too low-status to score, even when posing as Ned Shakespeare’s BFF. After supping, we all waddled up Long Southwark to a tippling house for a pot of ale.

  The smell of hops, which permeates most watering holes in the modern world, was absent—hops hadn’t quite caught on yet. Each tap-house brewed its own ale, and each favored different spices and seasonings, which subtly scented the whole establishment. One place would have a whiff of mace, while the one right next to it, in all other manner similar, would smell slightly of pepper, or clove, or anise. The King’s Men didn’t want to offend any of the landlords, so they made a regular circuit of the twenty-odd taverns along the rowdy street. Tonight—my first night out with the boys—was the Peacock, where the ale was seasoned with violets. I tried to think of a joke I could make about “drinking violets” to Burbage, to start some chummy convo with him. As the company settled rowdily around a long lantern-lit table, I looked around for him. Shit.

  “Where be Burbage?” I asked Ned over the clamor of the tipsy patrons. He shook his head and continued an enthusiastic conversation with Andrew North about a jig they were writing together, a piece so marvelous and original that it would revolutionize the art of jigs. I left them to it and queried John Lowin about Burbage. Then Heminge, then Condell, then Robert Armin. None of them knew where he was; they all assumed he’d gone off with a woman. I don’t know what Gráinne looks like, and the odds of her happening to be here were infinitesimal. In fact, having secured her evil explosive magic spell in the Macbeth script, she really had no cause to stay in town at all.

  Until, that is, the play’s premiere, two and a half weeks hence. That’s when she would zap Tristan. Did she herself even yet know that was on her dance card? She would only bother to come here if she had reason to suspect he was around, so something’s gotta happen in the interim to make her suspicious. But what could that be when he was in diachronic suspension?