A Verse to Murder

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘In time we might,’ said Ugo. ‘But in the mean-time what are we going to do with Hal?’

  *

  ‘We could just leave him in the grave where we found him,’ said Kate. ‘That would be easiest and quickest.’

  ‘And it would alert whoever put him here as to what has been done - for I will not leave without these poems - though at this stage it will not alert them as to by whom it was done.’

  ‘Is that such a bad thing?’ wondered Kate.

  ‘It depends on who they send hunting after the truth, and whether the hunt comes to our doors. But still, I think if we just leave him here we will have missed a trick.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Missed an opportunity to sew confusion where there might have been more certainty and thus to give us time to begin a hunt of our own.’

  ‘So. What can we do with him that will sew this confusion?’ asked Kate.

  ‘I can tell you what we can not do,’ said Ugo, the practical man. ‘We cannot carry him out of this place. Whoever brought him here must have planned to do so. They must have found some way of hiding him as they transported him - from Billingsgate if you are right about Forman’s privy - and therefore likely bundled in a wherry. We have nothing equivalent to carry him away in. Whatever else, he must stay in the Abbey. All the alternatives are too full of risk.’

  ‘And yet,’ said Kate thoughtfully, ‘to work your plan and sew confusion, he must vanish.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Tom. ‘And I have just the place in mind. Ugo, let down the rope once more and help me up. Then we can go to work.’

  The top of Queen Catherine of Valois’ tomb slid silently open to reveal the empty vault beneath. As Kate held it balanced with her back against husband King Henry’s tomb, Tom and Ugo lowered Hal’s battered body into it then the three of them slid the lid closed once more. As they did so, Tom explained more of his thinking to them. ‘Whoever put the body on top of Spenser’s was relying on the Dean’s grave digger and sexton returning to find it in the morning. They would report it to the Dean’s guards, who would report it to the Dean. The Abbey is a Royal Peculiar - although the Archbishop of Canterbury uses it for coronations and similar special occasions, it does not fall directly under his control, or that of any bishop. It is controlled directly by the crown. The Dean, therefore, would report either to the Council or - more likely - to Essex as the man who took charge yesterday and who is in any case Earl Marshal and already involved as such. Not that it matters - the next step is the same no matter who takes it.’

  ‘Well...’ Kate didn’t sound altogether convinced. ‘What is that?’

  ‘The body is examined and murder pronounced. The poem is examined and its authorship assigned. The man who wrote the poem stands accused of pinning it to Hal’s breast, thus murdering him, and putting him in Spenser’s grave.’

  ‘For what reason? What good could anyone hope to derive? To write a poem, kill a boy and place his body in a grave?’

  ‘It will be suggested that Will Shakespeare wrote the poem. Therefore Will Shakespeare killed the boy and placed him here in the deluded hope that he would be buried with Spenser and no-one any the wiser.’

  ‘That reasoning is fit for Bedlam,’ said Kate roundly. ‘You yourself said you were not sure the poem is Will’s. What motive would Will have for killing the boy then posting a poem on his breast - and hiding him here of all places?’

  ‘You do not see the grim subtlety of the plan, Kate. There is no real logic here - merely rumour and supposition, guilt by accusation. It is the questions that do the work, not the answers.’

  ‘How so?’ she demanded.

  ‘Will does not have to have written the poem. Someone will tell the Earl Marshal or the Council that Will wrote the poem and that should be enough. If they seek for motive in the murder, why Hal had been telling folk that Will Shakespeare bought just such poison as killed Spenser on the night that he died, which fact compounds his guilt even though the lad is no longer alive to repeat the accusation. And as for why or how he hid the body here, that will be a matter for the questioning.’

  ‘But Will would admit to none of this, surely...’ said Kate, shaking her head in confusion.

  ‘What Will admits to, whether it’s true or not, whether it hangs him or not, will likely depend on how fiercely Rackmaster Topcliffe tightens the ropes on his rack as he seeks Will’s confession to everything. And you know that just before his joints are torn apart like poor Thomas Kyd’s, Will will tell them anything they want to hear.’

  iv

  Rosalind answered Tom’s knock next morning wearing a shawl over her shift, looking so thoroughly dishevelled that Kate gave a knowing wink. ‘A sportive night, mistress?’ she asked. Although she and Tom had indeed sported until near dawn, not one red hair was out of place and her dress was fit to attend at court.

  Rosalind gave a wry laugh. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘You clearly do not know my Will. He has been up all night scribbling away. It seems that the state of King Henry’s tomb has inspired him. His body has not been in the bedroom, let alone in the bed, and his mind has been centuries distant.’

  ‘Well,’ said Tom, ‘we have brought bread, milk and cheese. Even Will needs to eat and drink - no matter what century his mind is in.’

  ‘Come in then, and welcome,’ said Rosalind, stepping back.

  Will was scribbling away, seated at the travelling trunk he used as a writing desk in spite of the fact that he had a table now. He hardly glanced up as Tom, Ugo and Kate entered. ‘Rosalind tells us you have become a soul inspired,’ said Tom, strolling across the room to stand behind his friend as Ugo handed over the food and the women prepared breakfast.

  ‘I shall make Henry much less certain of the rightness of his cause, of the inevitability of victory, despite the support of the Church in the matter of Salic Law. Of the responsibility he bears for the death of his men in battle. He will search his soul, wander the camp during the night before Agincourt seeking to settle matters with his army - many of them soon to die - his conscience and his God. He’ll care nothing for his place in history or his monument - his battered arms will suffice if he wins and his bones unmarked if not. He’ll see himself as just another soldier among soldiers, prouder of his scars than of his escutcheons. Then there is the attempted assassination by Cambridge, Scrope and Grey which will show him having to exercise kingly authority and dispense royal justice. My sources say Agincourt was fought on St Crispin’s Day - I’m certain I can make good use of that! Moreover, I have some great speeches for him, like Antony’s speeches to the citizens after Caesar’s death in North’s Plutarch which I am preparing for my play of Julius Caesar. Speeches to rouse their pride and their passion. And Henry will have good reason to utter them for the Dauphin is the villain of the piece, though his part is not large - like that of Don John in Much Ado. He sent the tennis balls, he sent the challenges, he led the French knights at Agincourt, he ordered the camp boys killed. While Catherine of Anjou is Henry’s sweet Kate, though a modest and quiet one - not like your Kate or my shrewish Kate at all! I have it all in head now...’

  ‘And lucky not to get my shoe in your head as well,’ added Kate.

  ‘And your problem with Falstaff now that Kempe has left the company?’ asked Tom to change the subject before Kate carried out her threat.

  ‘Solved! I do not know how I missed it! I shall use the Ancient Pistol - he was almost as popular as Falstaff in any case - and Armin shall play him! It will all work so well and should be ready soon enough to please Burbage...’

  ‘Still, you must eat, Will. Come, you know you will not lose the thread if the interruption is short. And besides, I have something that I need you to see.’

  ‘Write this?’ said Will five minutes later looking down at the sonnet spread on the table just as it had been spread across Hal’s dead chest. ‘Well, I did and I didn’t. It is taken from one of my sonnets. The first line of the original is “When in the chronicle of wasted time...”. Whoever did
this has changed that. Then the rest goes on as more and more changes are added. What is this? Where did you get it?’ He was too surprised to be angry yet and so far had no idea of the dangers the verse might represent.

  ‘In many ways it’s the elegy to Edmund Spenser you never wrote.’ Tom spoke to Will’s back as the poet rummaged in his travelling trunk, emerging with a slim volume which obviously contained some of his poems - presumably the original of this one, thought Tom.

  ‘Well, the original is about Spenser, certainly; but not the man so much as his style of poetry,’ said Will as he straightened. He opened the volume and leafed through it until he found the sonnet he was seeking. ‘You see? I use antique words such as he used, wights, blazon. I talk of knights and ladies from his Fairy Queene. The conceit on which the poem rests is simple - ancient poetry describing love and beauty is just a prophesy of modern loveliness which we have no poets worthy of expressing.’

  ‘And the name of the beauty that it flatters?’ asked Rosalind sharply.

  ‘No-one real, my love. A creature of poetic fancy. I wrote it when I was under the patronage of the Earl of Southampton.’

  ‘But what can you discern from the rewritten verse?’ asked Tom quietly.

  *

  ‘Well, it’s still a sonnet,’ said Will, ‘though it’s nowhere near as well constructed as mine. However I have to admit the octave and the sestet break between lines eight and nine as mine does. And the sense moves on from one to the other. The new poem also has the same rhyme scheme as I use...’ he was frowning now. ‘This forgery is better made than it seemed at first. Where did you get it?’

  ‘Later. What else can you see in it?’

  Will’s frown deepened, but he leaned forward, smoothing the paper across the table and pausing to study it long enough to take a bite of bread and cheese. He chewed meditatively. ‘It is a fitting elegy to Spencer,’ he said at last speaking round his mouthful, ‘but a double-edged one like a dagger. It says his old-fashioned poetry is better than anything we modern men can compose in memory of him.

  ‘But that being said,’ he continued, ‘it mentions everything that got Mother Hubberd banned and burned for satire so sharp that it was seen as treason in some quarters. On top of that, it mentions the destruction of his lands and income, which is what brought him begging to the Council. On the one hand this is an elegy but on the other it is a kind of accusation. Were it the certain case that Spenser had been murdered, this is a list of why, with decided hints as to who might have done it.’ He looked up, suddenly pale ‘If the Council, the Earl of Essex or Sir Walter Raleigh were to see this and suppose I wrote it, I would be in chains by the end of the day.’

  ‘A dangerous situation,’ said Rosalind quietly, ‘considering that the pursuivants may be after you as well.’

  ‘Well,’ he said with a weak attempt at humour, ‘at least I’d get the choice between the Tower and the Marshalsea.’

  ‘I’m not sure you would be alone however,’ said Tom. ‘This is a distillation of points made by other elegies read at Spenser’s grave-side yesterday.’

  ‘So it is. Where did you get it?’

  ‘It was in Spenser’s grave with the other poems.’

  A kind of ripple went through the room. Both Will and Rosalind felt it and looked at Ugo, who was in turn looking at Kate, its source. ‘What has moved you?’ asked Rosalind.

  ‘Tom,’ said Kate by way of answer. ‘It is time to tell the whole truth, surely. When we all know then we can all take action and confront this, perhaps even overcome it.’

  ‘You are right,’ said Tom. And he realised that she was. Steeped in duplicity and spycraft far deeper than he was himself - deeper perhaps than anyone of his acquaintance other than Poley; though Rosalind ran her a close second - she saw the way forward more clearly than he. But he still had to be careful how he broke the news. Ideally, he thought, he should make sure that his revelations also answered some important questions.

  ‘Last Friday afternoon,’ he said. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘In my old rooms,’ said Will.

  ‘Working on three plays at once,’ supplied Rosalind. ‘The Theatre is being rebuilt as The Globe, the Admiral’s Men were at The Rose with Ben Jonson’s comedy The Case is Altered. The Swan is closed for the Council are still vexed at Master Langley who owns it, there was a display of rapier-play at Newington Butts and Pembroke’s men were at The Curtain reviving Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy. There was no work for The Lord Chamberlain’s men therefore. Besides, the weather was abominable, so there would have been no audience neither. Will was at home at work and I was with him, watching him work.’

  ‘I was wrestling with the problems you know about - which my visit to the Abbey yesterday relieved. So if I can get back to...’

  ‘You were named as someone buying poisons from John Gerard’s shop late that afternoon. Belladonna and hemlock.’

  ‘Well that is a lie. Who says I did so?’

  ‘The apprentice. He said he did not see your face for your hood was up and your scarf wrapped tight but you gave your name.’

  ‘A trick and a lie,’ said Rosalind, knowledgeably. ‘Philip of Spain could come thus muffled and say his name was Will Shakespeare and it would be no more true. Where is this apprentice. Let me examine him. It will go harder for him than if I were Topcliffe himself.’

  So Tom told her where the apprentice was - and everything he knew so far about what was going on.

  v

  Will Shakespeare sat, white-faced and slack-jawed as Tom finished his summation. He had suffered brushes with the undercover world before, usually at Tom’s side, but this was clearly beyond anything he had ever imagined, let alone experienced. And Will had quite an imagination, thought Tom.

  It was Rosalind, far more experienced in these dark matters than her current lover, who went to the heart of the problem. ‘So someone we cannot identify killed Edmund Spenser and covered the fact - either himself or through an associate - by buying poison in Will’s name from John Gerard’s apprentice, Hal, clearly expecting him to be willing and able to inform against Will when the authorities came after him. But how were the authorities to be alerted? What was to prompt them to ask Hal who had bought what?’

  ‘The fact that Spenser was being treated by John Gerard, his master,’ answered Tom.

  ‘I see that. But this Hal went to Simon Forman’s house in search of whatever Forman had drawn for his master’s daughter Elizabeth. Seemingly he became curious, searched too far and fell to his death down the stair. Is this too large a coincidence - that it should be Forman, who you suspect of supplying the lethal dose, who was also known to the girl and the ill-fated apprentice?’

  ‘No,’ said Tom ‘I have been looking at the situation from the opposite angle. Perhaps it was Gerard’s shop and the apprentice Hal that were chosen because Forman was already acquainted with the girl. I will have to ask how she came to go to Forman in the first place...’

  ‘He is notorious for doing precisely what she demanded of him,’ said Ugo. ‘Predictions, love potions, elixirs to prolong performance in bed and such...’

  Kate had the grace to blush, Tom noted.

  ‘Still,’ he continued, ‘it would be interesting to discover whether he was already at work on her behalf before she met Donne.’

  ‘Could Donne be part of the trap?’ wondered Rosalind. ‘Is there anything Forman could promise him for meeting the girl apparently by chance but actually by design?’

  ‘There is,’ struck in Kate suddenly. ‘I have spent some time with him. No frolics, Tom, I swear! But he is in love with the niece of Sir Thomas Egerton, to whom he is chief secretary. She is Ann More, daughter of the Lieutenant of the Tower. Donne would likely do anything for someone who predicted a happy outcome between himself and Mistress Ann and could provide some magical tokens to make the outcome certain, as both her father and Sir Thomas are dead set against the relationship.’

  ‘So,’ continued Tom, ‘for various possible reasons, App
rentice Hal was chosen and fed the name Will Shakespeare. Then the murder proceeded by administration of the poison...’

  ‘Through Spenser’s ear as he slept... Horrible...’ whispered Will.

  ‘But in the mean-time, Hal broke into the Billingsgate house while Forman was away...’

  ‘Administering the fatal dose?’ wondered Rosalind.

  *

  ‘Possibly,’ allowed Tom. ‘But for the reasons I have detailed Hal fell down the stairs and killed himself.’

  ‘Probably,’ inserted Ugo. ‘But he could have been pushed and we’d be none the wiser.’

  ‘I’ll allow that,’ agreed Tom. ‘Then Forman, probably not alone, conceivably in company with George Chapman, came back to the empty house - as they supposed - and discovered a dead boy at the foot of the stair. They cleaned up as best they could, put the corpse in the privy - the house being well supplied with chamber pots and a kennel running to the river right outside.’

  ‘Can we assume,’ asked Rosalind, ‘that it must have been one or the other of them who pretended to be Will if they knew who the boy was?’

  ‘Because they saw him while buying the hemlock from Gerard’s shop?’ probed Tom. ‘Perhaps. But Hal had Elizabeth’s chart somewhere about his person - that would have identified him as clearly as a passport from the Council.’