by Peter Tonkin
As they parted company, Tom was going over and over the logic he applied to the revelation that Poley was the Pursuivant Marshal, even if only temporarily and as part of a dark bargain forced on two mortal enemies and immensely powerful men. He could not fault his reasoning. The diminutive, hunched Secretary Cecil was secretly convinced that Essex had a plan in which he would snatch the throne from the elderly and vacillating woman who saw him as the son she had never had and spoiled him in consequence - while the power-hungry Earl regarded her simply as an increasingly senile impediment to his plans. Essex in turn suspected that Cecil, although he had no direct ambition to succeed to the throne, nevertheless planned to control whoever sat on it like a puppet master with his marionette.
Essex might well be desperate enough to accept Cecil’s chief spy as co-commander of his army of pursuivants if he got his wish to be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland as an immediate consequence. For Ireland represented so much to the upright, manly, strapping and thoroughly spoilt thirty-three year old Earl. It was where his father Walter Devereux, first Earl of Essex and Earl Marshal of Ireland, had thrown away the family’s fortune fighting to bring peace to the troubled country - and then been poisoned and died aged thirty five; only two years older than his son was now. Ironically enough, thought Tom, he had been poisoned with hemlock. The lethal dose had been slipped into his wine at a formal dinner in Dublin Castle. It was never discovered who had performed the lethal act, though the Catholics against whom he was fighting had always seemed the most likely culprits. Ireland was where Essex could revenge his father, rebuild his standing in the country and at court after years of failure and disobedience.
Essex had made his reputation for disobedience at the age of 23 when he sailed with Drake aboard his English Armada to Spain against the Queen’s direct orders, thought Tom. But then at 25 he proved himself a more reliable - and able - leader while fighting for the Hugenot King Henri IV of France whose father had been assassinated by the same brand of Catholic extremists the Earl Marshal of England was there to protect his Queen from. But Henri had become a Catholic himself only a couple of years later, cynically observing ‘Paris is worth a mass’. Thus almost all of Essex’ good work on the continent was undone in a flash. And in many ways, thought Tom, Essex had gone downhill from there, with the exception of that one shining moment of glory when he headed the raid that captured Cadiz three years ago in 1596.
His command of the naval expedition to the Azores two years ago had gone badly. Raleigh, his second in command, had followed the Queen’s wishes and planned to attack the Spanish fleet which was bound for the Channel but Essex went after a treasure ship instead, against orders once more - so that the Spaniards, unopposed, were able to mount a new Armada against an undefended South Coast. Only another Heaven-sent storm had saved England from invasion.
Since then, matters had gone from bad to worse. Only last year the Queen had actually boxed Essex’ ears when he insulted her at a meeting of the Council. ‘Your conditions are as twisted as your carcase,’ he spat and she, nearly knocking him off his feet answered, ‘Go to the devil! Get you gone and be hanged!’
There was little doubt in Tom’s mind that Essex had worked himself into such a tight corner that only a resounding success in Ireland would free him and re-establish his reputation. Success which he and his circle were sure he would achieve.
But that thought led onto another. With Essex successful and Ireland finally at peace, who would join men like Humphrey Gilbert and Walter Raleigh and own great, hugely profitable estates there? That was an important consideration because the largest and potentially the richest of all the estates was that one centred on Kilcolman Castle, the burned-out residence of the late Edmund Spenser. If Essex defeated the Irish rebels and brought peace to Ireland, Spenser’s estates could be worth an almost incalculable fortune, which could be - at the least - a potent motive for murder.
But why drag Will Shakespeare into the matter?
*
Tom was still turning this vital question over when he reached Maiden Lane. He did not need to bestir the Master of Logic to deduce where Will and Rosalind were planning on setting up home. Martin Fletcher’s wagon, pulled by the inestimable filly Titania was standing outside, the horse named for the queen of fairyland contentedly cropping grass from the edge of the rutted mud path. More than that, Peter Street the carpenter led a crew who had been working on reassembling The Globe, clearly helping Will take his necessaries up into his room and, no doubt, to reassemble his bed so that he and Rosalind would sleep comfortably tonight. Dick Burbage was overseeing the whole process, as his training as a carpenter permitted, though he was not the sort of leader who delegated all the work and ended up doing nothing himself. His sleeves were rolled up and he was working as hard as all the rest.
‘Tom,’ he greeted his friend as Tom came down Maiden Lane.
‘Dick,’ answered Tom companionably. ‘Everything in hand?’
‘Snug and settled. Will can even see The Globe from his window. A mixed blessing at the moment.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘He’s in a kind of race. He must finish the play we need for the opening before the thatchers get the roof on our new theatre. We need time to rehearse and perfect production and performance of course.’
‘Of course. Any duellos, as there were so bountifully in Romeo? You know my rates for advising and training in swordplay are very reasonable.’
‘Not as far as I know. But he has yet to vouchsafe which particular play he wishes us to perform. He tells me he’s working on three at once and has yet to make up his mind between them. Should he fail us, we will have to go with Henry Four Part One, his most successful play so far. Though we have no Will Kempe to play Falstaff.’
‘Armin could carry it, surely, though his clowning is more Terence than Plautus.’
‘Certainly Armin is noted for his wit rather than his buffoonery, though I do not doubt he could carry Falstaff off if the need arose. But I would rather have a new play nevertheless.’
While they held this conversation, Tom and Dick worked their way through the street door and up the stairs to Will’s new rooms. Here things were beginning to settle. The bed frame was erected and secured in the back room. The mattress was laid in place. The bedding was piled convenient to use. This was the smaller of the rooms and lacked a window - relying on light from the front room for brightness as well as the fire and a range of candles and lamps. Will’s precious travelling trunk and papers were neatly positioned in the front room beneath the window which looked across Maiden Lane at Sir Nicholas Brend’s field where The Globe stood part competed. A tall wardrobe had appeared and been erected in this room as the other one was too small. A table had also appeared and was laden with food and drink - almost as though Titania below had exercised some of her magic powers. The rooms both had fire-places and both were blazing, bringing warmth and dryness to accommodation that had clearly lain empty for some time.
‘All well, Will?’ asked Tom, for his friend was clearly finding all the bustle going on around him unsettling at the very least.
Will glanced up, frowning. Rosalind answered for him. ‘All’s well, thank’ee Tom. Though it seems we left St Helen’s just in the nick of time. Apparently there were strangers there looking for Will earlier this afternoon.’
‘Pursuivants?’
‘No-one is certain but we fear so.’
ii
By an elegant exercise in irony, the whole of Monday’s lessons in the art and science of defence with Tom Musgrave had been cancelled. Several had been booked by Edmund Spenser himself and the others by young men who were now keen to use the time in preparation for his funeral tomorrow. Tom had been working on Spenser’s technique - especially the lunge. The poet had been a short man with a limited reach and he had been all too well aware that the thrust would not serve him against a taller opponent with longer arms - which seemed to include just about every adult man in London with the exception of Robert Cecil t
he Lord Secretary who was stunted and crookbacked. Tom, like the red-headed, brown-eyed charmer Sir Walter Raleigh topped six feet in height. Cecil barely made it past five feet and did not quite reach either man’s shoulder. The only person he topped at court was the queen herself. Something that Tom made light of but which Raleigh rarely failed to snigger at. Elizabeth herself called Cecil ‘My Dwarf’, ‘My Elf,’ and occasionally ‘My Ape’. When she did so, Cecil made a show of sharing the jest - but Tom had seen the look in his eyes. It was bad enough that the enormous intellect Cecil owned was trapped in that twisted, simian body but the pain and humiliation were compounded by the fact that the aging Queen surrounded herself with tall, strapping and famously good-looking men. Her playful nicknames for Cecil were in his eyes just a continuation of a childhood and youth blighted by the insults of his peers and their parents and by the agonies inflicted by doctors employed by his sadly disappointed father to try and straighten his carcase, which was, in Essex’ insulting words to the outraged Queen herself, ‘twisted’.
It was ironic, too, that poor little Spenser was being given such a grand farewell at the expense of the equally impecunious but famously tall and good-looking Robert Devereux.
That thought prompted Tom’s next action. He was at liberty because of Spenser’s sudden death - therefore he would go down to West Minster and see how the preparations in the Abbey were going. He would be attending the funeral in some capacity himself tomorrow - perhaps merely as a spectator if it was to be the poets who carried the coffin and led the mourning. But there would be more than mere poets attending - his aristocratic students had started cancelling tomorrow’s lessons as well as today’s already for this was clearly going to be an important social event, even though the Queen was not likely to be present. He wanted to see the place before the crush began.
‘Ugo,’ he called. ‘I’m going to visit Westminster Abbey to look at the preparations for tomorrow. Coming?’
‘Ja,’ said the Dutchman. ‘It’s a pretty morning, cold but clear. A good day to be out, especially if we go by the river.’
Side by side they walked down Water Lane to the Blackfriars Steps. Tom caught the eye of a ferryman, ‘Westward Ho!’ he called, ‘to the Queen’s Bridge steps.’
‘Right you are masters,’ the ferryman replied, easing his boat alongside. ‘Queen’s Bridge steps and Her Majesty’s court it is.’
*
The wherry took them swiftly upriver to the west, easily avoiding the occasional block of ice left over from when the river was entirely frozen at the end of last year. On the nearby north bank they passed the stinking outwash of the Fleet River with the Bridewell beside it - once a palace now yet another prison. Then Whitefriars was followed by The Inner Temple with the Temple garden and Middle Temple steps. On their left, the more distant South Bank was just a series of low, field-covered hills with pasture for cows. The South Wark and its taverns, baiting pits and theatres was, like London Bridge, well behind them. Nothing more of note lay ahead until Lambeth Palace opposite West Minster - a short ferry ride for the Archbishop of Canterbury to go from his London home to the principal London place of worship although the Church of St Peter also known as Westminster Abbey, was not actually under his jurisdiction at all but under that of the Dean, and, above him, the Queen.
The north bank continued to be packed - though it was really the west bank now as the river had swung through a right angle to run south. Arundel Palace, Somerset Palace and The Savoy, stood cheek-by-jowl with Essex House, Durham House, York Place and Scotland Yard. Then the Court steps were succeeded by the Privy Steps leading up into White Hall, the Star Chamber Steps and the Queen’s Bridge leading up into West Minster.
It was as they approached the top of the Queen’s Bridge steps that Ugo suddenly demanded, ‘How do you propose to get in? The Abbey isn’t open to every Tom or Dick...’
‘...Or Harry. I thought you’d never ask. I propose to use my most potent arts of persuasion and fabrication.’
‘Lies and prevarication.’
‘You never know - it might work. It has in the past.’
‘Not that I can remember.’
This conversation brought them up to the east-facing rear of the Abbey with Henry VII’s magnificent new chapel extending the building further toward the river. The whole area was a flurry of activity. Workmen and onlookers teemed around the west-facing front of the building but the Dean of Westminster’s men oversaw who was permitted entry and who was doomed to stand outside and gape.
At first it seemed that Tom and Ugo were destined to remain amongst the latter, but then chance intervened. Tom spotted two unlikely companions in the Great West Doorway talking to the Dean’s guards. An improbable pairing indeed - Sir Francis Bacon, Essex’ secretary, and Sir Walter Raleigh, Essex’ most bitter rival. Both men knew Tom and both were likely to be indulgent with him. He shouldered over to them with Ugo close behind.
‘Good day, Sir Walter,’ called Tom, keeping his voice quiet and courteous - Raleigh had an occasionally unpredictable temper, as was often the case with red-headed people, Tom had noticed. Though Raleigh’s hair and beard were much darker than the red heads of freckled and bellicose Irish men and women, he thought, more foxy than anything else. Unlike the glorious waves that adorned his mistress’ head - a delicious mixture or mahogany, auburn and deep copper. Raleigh’s quick brown eyes sought him out at once. As did those of Bacon, standing like a weasel beside him. For a moment Tom almost felt himself to be in one of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales where animals and humans became one and the same. Chaucer was probably lingering somewhere in his mind because he knew of Essex’ plan to bury Spenser beside the dead man’s poetic hero; unless his ghost was hovering nearby.
‘Master Musgrave,’ said Sir Walter, breaking into Tom’s thoughts amiably enough. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Sir Francis, your servant, sir.’ Tom bowed to both Bacon and Raleigh at once then straightened. ‘Well, Sir Walter, Master Stell and I have come to scout out the Abbey in preparation for tomorrow. As you may know, Spenser was a pupil of mine, so we will seek to attend the ceremony. In fact it was I who was first summoned to view the corpse, before the Earl of Essex became involved and Sir Thomas Gerard the Knight Marshal took matters in hand.’
Raleigh and Bacon exchanged a brief glance.
‘Then you had best come in,’ said Sir Walter. And Tom had the strangest feeling that he and Ugo were like two chickens being invited into the fox’s den.
iii
Side by side, Tom and Ugo entered through the Great West Door into the towering space of the nave. Columns reached heavenwards on either hand and stepped forward, one after the other into the dazzling distance. Widely travelled though they were, environments like this were few and far-between in Tom’s and Ugo’s experience. Only in wild forests had Tom come across columns anywhere near as tall as these; and when he glanced up, it was almost as though he was looking at the sky. There was a kind of hush about the place that belied the scurrying of the workmen and their overseers. Footsteps, whispered conversations and occasional clang of a dropped implement seemed to echo unnaturally. The whole experience was so overpowering that it took Tom an instant or two before he realised that the fox and the weasel were following hard on their heels, discuss ing - of all things - the removal of Sir Walter’s household from Durham House to his newly furbished residence in Sherborne.
Tom and Ugo walked toward the altar and the choir screen straight ahead. Tom couldn’t get over the difference between this magnificence and the interiors of the simple Protestant churches he was used to. He had only seen fretwork equal to that on the choir screen in Catholic chapels in Italy and Spain. It all added to the strange, unsettling feeling that was beginning to grow on him.
Following their ears rather than any clear notion of precisely where they were going, Tom and Ugo went to the right of the choir and crossed the great open space where the North and South Transepts joined the east-running Nave. Each transept was the
better part of one hundred feet wide - three times the width of London Bridge, though from the North Door to the southernmost chapels it was less than a third of the Bridge’s length. Still, to capture such height and distance within the shell of a building seemed simply miraculous to the pair of them.
The workers preparing Spenser’s grave seemed almost miniscule in comparison with their surroundings. They had lifted a series of flagstones and were digging into the earth beneath. It was a hard job by the look of it thought Tom, for the clay soil had lain undisturbed for centuries, compacted by the weight of the flags and those numberless people walking upon them. But on the other hand, he realised as Ugo and he came closer to the grave, the hard earth meant that the sides of the grave itself stood almost as solidly as the walls all around them, the pit followed the outer edges of the missing stones and sank squarely to where the gravedigger and his assistants were labouring.
Having reached his objective, Tom straightened and looked around, wondering where he would be able to place himself tomorrow when Essex, his acolytes and his tame poets led by George Chapman would be surrounding the bier or the coffin, reciting their self-serving doggerel and pretending heartbreak when they would mostly be dancing with inner joy that the death of a rival gave them such an excellent chance to advance their own reputations. Forgetting that Bacon and Raleigh were still behind them, Tom said to Ugo, ‘We had best search out somewhere to sit and bring a bucket for vomit if we are going to suffer interminable poetising and stomach-heaving elegies.’
‘Now, Master Musgrave,’ purred Bacon, ‘How is it that you know so much of the Earl’s plans? I had supposed them still to be secret.’
*
‘I had supposed them common knowledge, Sir Francis,’ answered Tom, schooling his face into a look of open innocence. ‘Has not George Chapman contacted many of the leading poets in the city? If my Lord of Essex hoped to keep things secret, he could hardly have done worse than to order his plans passed out to the greatest collection of chattering magpies in the land! I can assure you, sir, that Alabaster, Harvey, Holland and Weevil at the very least - probably with Chapman himself - will be seated in various taverns, ale-pots at their elbows, scribbling their doggerel and testing it at the top of their voices on anyone who will listen and a good few who would rather not.’