A Verse to Murder

by Peter Tonkin

  There was a moment of silence as she returned to that painful subject once again. Will knew that the inn was burned and her father beaten to death by Gelly Merrick and his bullies working for the Earl of Essex during their successful attempt to kidnap and interrogate her, for she had told the truth about her reason for boarding with her cousin Martin in his already crowded tenement behind Three Cranes Wharf. ‘Well, let us look at these rooms you have secured,’ she suggested quietly.

  ‘I have secured them only if you approve of them,’ said Will.

  ‘Well, I’m sure I shall approve them and I will need to do so speedily or we will find ourselves locked out of the city at curfew.’

  Rosalind was as good as her word and approved the rooms on Maiden Lane so that they could get back before curfew. The owner’s agent was a sober, sensible man whose steady professionalism was not tainted by puritan disapproval. The paperwork was ready. The paperwork was signed and the deposit paid. So all that needed to be arranged was the carting of Will’s and Rosalind’s necessaries from one side of the Thames to the other. His consisted of his clothing, his papers, his travelling trunk which doubled as his writing desk, his wardrobe and his bed; hers consisted of little more than the clothes she stood up in. And her cousin Martin was a carter by profession so it seemed that there were no obstacles remaining to complicate their plans.

  ii

  Although they had taken a wherry to the south bank from Three Cranes Stairs, the quickest way to return to St Helen’s was across London Bridge. Side by side they hurried up the slope of the South Wark and under the arch of the southern gatehouse, the tarred and mummified heads of traitors on their pikes high above outlined against a clear blue evening sky that would not have been out of place in a stained-glass window. It was not yet sunset but Will had completely forgotten that he was due at John Gerard’s house then in any case. Rosalind filled his mind for the moment, to the exclusion of everything else.

  The constricted bustle of the Bridge closed around them at once. It was nine hundred feet long and thirty feet wide. But there were houses on either hand, nearly two hundred of them, some rising to seven stories, many almost joining together above their heads. At bridge level, most of them opened into shop-fronts selling everything from fish to furbelows, jackets to jewelry, leather to lace. There was a lively crush here as last-minute shoppers mixed with farmers driving their sheep through for tomorrow’s early markets and even the occasional wagon or coach travelling northward or southward through the throng. Every now and then there was an open space - for the drawbridge, for example, designed to let tall ships run further upstream - and in front of the public toilets though these were little more than boards with holes cut in them that conveniently overhung the river.

  ‘Perhaps we’d have been better on a wherry,’ shouted Will a little nervously. He was a private person and was uneasy in crowds and gatherings of all sorts - except for dramatic ones.

  ‘Nonsense,’ answered Rosalind, her eyes shining. ‘You forget, sir, that Saffron Waldon has nothing to offer that equals this, not even on market day!’

  At last the crush eased as they came out into the open area in front of Nonsuch House, the residence of Sir Thomas Walsingham, patron of poets and master of spies in succession to his late uncle Sir Francis, and current employer of Ingram Frizer as the earl of Essex employed Nicholas Skeres and sometimes it seemed that the Devil himself employed Robert Poley, the three intelligencers responsible for Kit Marlowe’s murder.

  Nonsuch House was the point at which Will developed an unsettling feeling that Rosalind and he were being watched. By the time they came out past the northern latrines and under the gatehouse exit where the planks beneath them vibrated unsettlingly as the watermills between the northernmost starlings were vigorously turned by a falling tide, he was certain that they were being followed.

  ‘Do you feel there are eyes on us?’ he whispered to Rosalind. As an ex-employee of Robert Poley she was likely to be even more acute in such matters than he.

  ‘Those of a small man,’ she replied. ‘Twenty-five years of age I’d guess, straight nose, frog’s eyes, thin beard, big hands; no great peacock in his dress but no poor beggar neither. He was lingering outside Nonsuch House but fell in behind us as we passed.’

  *

  ‘If he knew to follow us then he likely knows who we are. So it takes no Tom Musgrave, Master of Logic, to calculate that he knows where we are likely going no matter where we chose to visit on our way thither.’

  ‘Spoken like a true intelligencer,’ she said. ‘And doubly true if he is actually employed by the owner of Nonsuch House.’

  ‘As you say. Sir Thomas Walsingham knows almost all there is to know about me. His wife Lady Audrey and sister-in-law Kate Shelton know all there is to know about Tom Musgrave too. So there is no point in trying to lose any spy he sets on us.’

  ‘I agree,’ she said decisively. ‘We either allow him to follow us or we find some convenient alley and kill him.’

  ‘I would not see him killed until we discover why he dogs our footsteps as well as the truth of who actually set him on to do so and for what reason.’

  ‘Again, spoken like an old intelligencer,’ she said approvingly. ‘I might almost be talking with Robert Poley except that Poley would likely have a third way at hand - use a convenient alley to render him helpless or unconscious then hand him over to Torturer Topcliffe to see what information the Tower’s racks could pull out of him, whether he’s Walsingham’s man or not.’

  ‘Agreed. But there is yet another possibility…’

  ‘I have foreseen it, Will. What if our dwarfish friend actually works for Poley rather than for Walsingham. Then any damage we might do him is likely to land us in the Tower stretched on one of Topcliffe’s racks.’

  ‘A terrible fate, as befell poor Thomas Kyd racked as part of the investigation into Kit Marlowe’s doings. He died a cripple in consequence aged only thirty-six.’

  ‘And I have heard tell that a woman dressed in nothing more than a shift for interrogation, may be stretched on a rack at about waist height, convenient to her torturer’s lusts. Step into the frame, pull up her hem and there she lies, wide open to any desires and helpless to resist. Poor Anne Bellamy was neither the first nor the last by all accounts; I hear Topcliffe made her pregnant then gave her as wife to one of his henchmen.’

  ‘Truly. In this as in so much, women have so much more to fear than men.’

  ‘Nothing more than womankind’s just deserts. Our sex are the originators of the original sin, according to the Good Book and elders in almost every church. Had Eve not listened to the Serpent and so caused Adam’s fall we would all still be living in Eden.’

  ‘Truly?’ The inflection with which he said the word betrayed his surprise that she should admit so much - or at least seem to do so.

  ‘Well, here am I, another Eve, with or without the Serpent’s prompting, tempting you out of Eden - or St Helen’s at least, hard by the churchyard and an edifice of absolute rectitude - down to the Land of Nod. Which I have to admit is south of Eden rather than east of it, but every bit as replete with all the sins of spirit and flesh.’ Her tone had lightened from mock-seriousness to cheerful irony as she spoke.

  ‘Oh do not fear for me,’ answered the playwright, joining in her game with relief and alacrity. ‘I met another, earlier, Eve in paradisiacal Stratford where I was born and raised, though I must admit that it was quite another type of serpent that caused my troubles. And I am indeed come east of Eden in consequence.’

  This conversation, witty though skirting impiety if not blasphemy, took them up Fish Street past the cross-roads with Thames Street and into Bishopsgate which ran northward into the parish of St Helen’s. And the animated manner in which it was conducted covered - as it was designed to do - the fact that every now and then one or the other of the conversants would look back to check on the slight man with frogs’ eyes who continued to follow them through the crowds like a hound coursing a pair o
f hares. But neither the hares nor their courser realized that there were more men involved in the pursuit and the hunter himself was being hunted.

  iii

  As Will stoked the fire into a blaze that could heat his room in St Helen’s, Rosalind went round tidying. They had peered out of the window as soon as they arrived, pausing only to shrug off their cloaks, and knew that their mysterious shadow still lingered outside, shivering in a shady corner by the churchyard. But the fact that he was obviously so cold made then crave warmth even more. So Will took up the poker while Rosalind began to take up the papers.

  ‘Take care with those,’ ordered Will turning, poker in hand, as she started piling his documents together.

  ‘I’m only clearing the bed,’ she answered, apparently innocently, her words robbing him of his breath for a moment. ‘The skirts of my dress are thick with mud from Dead Man’s Place and will need to be dried and brushed before I return to Three Cranes Warf so I will avail myself of the security and warmth of your blankets as we hang it in front of the fire. And the blankets will also assist my shift in protecting my person from your prying eyes and the serpent that caused your troubles in Stratford. Besides, why can I not make a neat pile out of these chaotic scribblings?’

  He put the poker down then strode across the room frowning. ‘These are not scribblings, they are three part-completed plays. The one you are holding is my updating of the ancient play of Hamlet as possibly originally penned by Thomas Kyd. This one here is a part finished presentation of the murder of Julius Caesar and the third, as yet untouched, is my History of Henry the Fifth.’

  ‘You are working on three at once? Surely that is madness! How do you hold them all separately in your head, even though you are taking two from old plays and one, from the look of things, straight out of Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives.’

  ‘I do so because I have to.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because one of them must be ready for performance at the opening of The Globe. A new theatre requires a new play. I have just not yet decided which one is best to proceed with.’

  ‘Proceed with the one you can complete most swiftly.’

  ‘That’s a logical thought and worthy of Tom Musgrave himself but not as simple as it sounds. There is an impediment in each one which I have not yet managed to overcome. Take the Caesar for instance. I have written everything past the scene of his brutal murder and showed it on the stage which is unusual but effective I believe. It flowed as sweetly as the Avon right up to the spoken duello between Brutus and Mark Antony as each tries to sway the crowd to his will. But now I need to polish their speeches before I work out a final act when Brutus and Cassius die in the battle at Philippi. Hamlet requires further work too - in the original the old king is stabbed in his orchard and that’s too simple, too pat. He must die in some shocking, insidious manner - the more unnatural the better. If he is to return as a ghost he needs clearer and more powerful motivation…’

  ‘And Henry?’

  ‘In some ways the most difficult. I wrote it originally to follow my plays of Henry the Fourth but I am rewriting it removing the character Falstaff because Will Kemp - who played him to such great acclaim - actually damaged the drama with his incessant clowning. So he is no longer with our troupe and I have therefore written him out of the drama. I have made up the missing Falstaff lines with speeches from a Chorus - that proved so successful in my play of Romeo - but there is still something missing. It is all too easy for Henry. His character is too simple, his actions too heroic. Without the comic relief it is all… What did Robert Poley say when we discussed it just after Christmas? It is all just tennis balls, Harfleur and Agincourt. As though Henry never hesitated, worried, doubted; as though he could never be overcome. Not a man but a kind of god or super-man.’

  ‘I see what you mean. Even Achilles had his heel - and that weakness makes him more interesting. But…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Is there not another element that might be borne in mind? Could not your play reflect events that are happening now?’ She sat on the edge of his bed and began to remove her filthy shoes. Then, seemingly forgetting his presence she pulled up the muddied hem of her skirt and began to remove her wet-footed hose and the garters holding them in place.

  ‘I have been accused of using Falstaff to unmask the way that Captains like Sir Thomas North have fleeced the exchequer,’ Will continued in a rather constricted voice. ‘They do so by supplying fewer, worse trained and ill-equipped companies of soldiers than those they were paid to supply, and yet take full pay and pocket the difference. The Earl of Essex believes that is part of the reason no-one else has been successful in Ireland. Something he is hell-bent on overcoming.’

  ‘Ireland - there’s your focus!’ she said, lowering her hem once more. ‘Why not work on your play of Henry and try to have it open The Globe just as the Earl of Essex leads his army into Ireland: Henry the Fifth re-born, marching away to victory!’

  *

  As Rosalind arranged her shoes and hose in front of the fire, leaving room for a chair on which she proposed to place her dress as well, Will piled the sheets of paper comprising the three plays on top of each-other, with Caesar lying sideways in the middle to separate Hamlet and Henry. After Rosalind’s suggestion, he thoughtfully made sure that Henry was on top.

  Then they turned their attention to her soiled dress and he began to unlace it down the back. After a few moments he pulled it wide at her direction; she shrugged her shoulders and it slid to the floor. She stepped daintily out of it, stooped, lifted it and crossed to the fire, holding it high and then laying it over the chair-back. She did all this slowly and carefully, apparently unaware that the firelight shone through the fine linen of her smock effectively rendering her naked.

  She turned, wide-eyed, and her gaze fell upon his straining codpiece. ‘Why Master Shakespeare…’ she said in tones of theatrical outrage.

  What she might have said next was interrupted by a fist hammering on the door.

  Rosalind gave a tiny scream and dived for the bed. Will crossed to the door, grabbing the handle and holding it securely shut. ‘Who’s there?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s Tom, Will,’ came the answer. ‘I’ve brought you the man who followed you and Rosalind from Nonsuch.’

  Will swung round. ‘Shall I let him in?’

  ‘Yes!’ she answered. There was nothing to see of her but her head as the blankets even covered her arms and shoulders. ‘Tom has seen me wearing less than this and the other man would need the eyes of Argus to see through your blankets.’

  ‘Let’s hope he’s not a churchwarden, then, or we’ll both be shamed at services tomorrow!’

  As he said this, Will released the handle and Tom opened the door, pushing the slight man into the room, following close on his heels.

  ‘This is John Weevil,’ he said. ‘A friend of George Chapman’s and a kind of poet, I understand.’

  ‘Weever!’ snapped the frog-eyed man. ‘It’s John Weever!’

  iii

  ‘I know of Master Weever,’ said Will. ‘Are you not employed on producing epigrams in preparation for a volume?’

  ‘I am,’ answered Weever.

  ‘But you are a Cambridge man…’ added Will.

  ‘Queen’s College,’ supplied Weever proudly.

  ‘Not quite the nest of spies that Corpus Christi is,’ supplied Tom. ‘But even so…’

  ‘I am no spy, sir!’ snapped Weever, outraged.

  ‘So, Master Weevil,’ purred Tom, ‘then perhaps you would be kind enough to explain to Master Shakespeare here why you were following him.’

  ‘I was not following him!’ spat. Weever.

  ‘Ah,’ said Tom. ‘So it was a kind of concurrence that you should be waiting outside Nonsuch and yet planning to come here to St Helen’s. And that you did so by dogging Master Shakespeare’s footsteps. All this for no reason?’

  ‘Yes!’ spat Weever. ‘No! I was not following hi
m. I was following her!’

  ‘You were following Mistress Fletcher? In God’s name, why?’ demanded Will.

  ‘I was commanded to do so. Mistress Fletcher has eyes on her - more than she knows, perhaps.’

  ‘More than she knows for certain!’ snarled Rosalind. ‘Who set you on me and why, you bull’s pizzle!’

  Weever, very much the pale, slim animal’s member she had just likened him to, looked at the outraged woman, at Will, who towered over him threateningly and at Tom who terrifyingly towered over them all. ‘Bacon,’ he said. ‘Sir Anthony Bacon, secretary to the Earl of Essex. His concern is simple. Your father was killed and yourself taken forcibly by the Earl’s men and interrogated by Sir Francis, Sir Antony’s brother. But you are a creature of Robert Poley’s and a limb of The Council and therefore of Secretary Cecil, the Earl’s greatest enemy at court. He had determined you will be overwatched until he can discern your intentions and decide how best to proceed with you.’

  Immediately the conversation Will and Rosalind had had about what to do with the man following them gained new and unsettling significance. If they did in fact damage or dispose of this pizzle of a poet, the Earl of Essex had almost limitless ways of proceeding with them in which ravishment on the rack was likely one of the least uncomfortable.

  Ten minutes later, Tom was leaning back with his shoulders against Will’s door forming an extremely efficient barrier. Not that Essex’ no longer very secret agent John Weever showed much inclination for escape. ‘But why should the Earl be so interested in me now?’ wondered Rosalind.

  ‘He’s on the point of being confirmed as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,’ Tom pointed out.

  ‘A poisoned chalice if ever there was one,’ observed Will.

  ‘But a chalice nevertheless that he himself has asked for,’ emphasized Rosalind.

  ‘The Earl is well aware of the dangers,’ said Weever. ‘But he is also well aware of the possible rewards.’