My Name Is Will

by Jess Winfield

  As he came closer and his eyes adjusted to the dark, he suddenly recognized the face in the corner. “What ho . . . HA! Richard Field or I’m a dotard!” Richard Field stood up and they embraced. “With the dust of London still on his boots?” William continued.

  “ ’ Tis of the selfsame dust as that of Stratford, which is ever on yours,” Field answered.

  William and Richard Field were old friends and classmates, and their fathers friends and business associates before that. While several of the youth of Stratford had left the King’s New School for Oxford or Cambridge, and a few had gone to the seminaries in Rheims, Douai, or Rome, young Richard Field had gone directly to London.

  William slid onto a seat next to him. “You take your life into your hands, coming into a Catholic inn,” William teased.

  “Not in this Queen’s reign, for the law is on my side,” Field shot back. Then more seriously, and low, “It is you who risk all, coming here. Even in darkened Catholic inns, there are spies.”

  “What spies here, if not the apprentice to a Puritan printer?” William said in jest, but George Cawdrey nodded toward a table by the front door, where sat a pale, thin fellow with a straggling red beard, talking to Thomas Barber, the Bear’s proprietor. William didn’t recognize him, and turned to his friends with a shrug.

  George Cawdrey answered William’s silent question. “ ’ Tis Davy Jones’s friend, the author of The Death of Robin Hood.”

  “Anthony Munday,” said Arthur Cawdrey.

  “I’faith? Marry, he must be wanting of ale indeed to bring his custom hither,” William replied.

  “Speak not too loudly, William,” said Richard Field, low enough that Munday couldn’t hear, “for his forked tongue, ’tis said, reaches even to Walsingham, and thence to the Queen herself.”

  William scoffed, and if anything he raised his voice. “What has Munday, that whoreson bombast-monger and splitter of infinitives, to do with Sir Francis Walsingham and his network of spies?”

  Munday glanced at them, but then returned to his conversation with Barber.

  “No rolling stone you, William,” said Field quietly after a moment. “You gather too much moss and too little news here in Stratford. Walsingham uses players and playwrights both as informants. They’re well-suited to the task, for they travel, they mix amongst all classes. The wealthy and powerful patronize them, drink with them, oft try to bed them. And where the promise of dalliance is offered, mayhap the lips will loosen, in hope that secrets given will be repaid with secret places offered. And amongst players are not just spies but also the spied upon, for they carry with them documents, parts, sides, and other such papers amongst which seditious tracts may be hid. And even in their lines, coded words and veiled references may be strewn. If a Caesar say, ‘Let my Roman legions march on Gaul,’ might it not be a popish call to arms against the Huguenots? The printed word may be a sharp and many-edged weapon, my friend.

  “Which puts me in mind . . .” Field said. He opened a leather bag on the bench next to him and pulled out four new books, which he set in front of William. “For you, from the shop where I am apprenticed, and others roundabout.”

  William looked at the books.

  “Plutarch’s Lives . . . a new Ovid . . . Orlando Furioso, I have wished for this!”

  “And the last volume of Holinshed, The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland,” said Field. “Hot from the press, and best of the volumes yet, William. He does a passing fine rendering of the War of the Roses, right through the accession of Elizabeth.” He pointed to a spot in the text as William flipped through it. “I particularly recommend the entry on Richard III.”

  They paused as a man descended from the rooms on the second story. His back was to them as he came down the stairs and took a table to himself, not far from Anthony Munday, but William nevertheless recognized him as Simon Pray, the strange horseman who’d given him the locked box from Thomas Cottom.

  “And this?” William continued, holding up a volume entitled The Palace of Pleasure.

  “A collection of stories, one a new translation of the old tale of ‘Romeus and Giulietta’ of which I know you to be fond. Dully told, I fear, but it is at least in English; I know you came back wounded from your battle with the French and Italian texts.”

  At the table by the front door, Anthony Munday’s voice had begun to rise as the level of ale in his cup had lowered. He was jabbing a finger at Thomas Barber.

  “I have said it in print and will say it here in popish Warwickshire, to any who may hear,” and he raised his voice to fill the room, “the death of Thomas Cottom was the just punishment of a traitor to the state most foul.” He looked about as if seeing who would respond and how, and his gaze rested particularly on the man who had come down moments before. There was a silence and a shuffling of feet as Munday took another draught from his mug. “As were the deaths of William Fillbie, Luke Kirbie, Ralph Sherwin, Edmund Campion, and all other wicked priests of the Jesuit seminaries past, present, or yet to come, for they are all traitors to Her Majesty.”

  George Cawdry whispered to the others at the table, “Are we to let this gauntlet fall untouched?”

  “I have naught to say,” said William.

  “Ah, of course . . . gentle William,” said George. “He has a sharp tongue for fellow players, and a sugared one for maids, but in matters of church and state, the greatest part of his valor is ever his discretion.”

  “Yet one may wonder at his discretion with maids, for judging by his face, they answer his sugared tongue with sharpened nails,” chuckled Arthur. William touched his slashed cheek and looked toward Munday.

  Munday drained his mug, and shrugged. “ ’ Tis as I reckoned it. No Catholic will speak in defense of his evil faith; mayhap God, in punishment, has stricken dumb their tongues.”

  At last the horseman turned around. “ ’ Tis said that Father Edmund Campion spoke most eloquently from the gallows,” he said. Edmund Campion was one of the first, and certainly the most revered, of the recently martyred Catholic priests.

  “ ’ Tis said that the serpent spoke eloquently to make us all sinners,” said Munday, turning to engage the horseman with a thin-lipped grin. “What of it? Campion died as a traitor deserves.”

  “Deserves?” said the horseman. “No man deserves drawing and quartering. ’Tis a punishment fit only for a demon, not a free Englishman of whatever faith.”

  “It is a punishment fit for a traitor,” said Munday.

  “Catholics be no traitors if they serve their Queen,” said the horseman. “They ask only the liberty to pursue the truth of religion in open discourse. If the Queen fear but the truth, she is not half the prince I think her to be.”

  “Take care,” said Munday. “Your words border on treason. Campion died a traitor to his church, his Queen, and his God. He groveled by the end.”

  “He did no such thing,” said Richard Field. “I was there, and you lie.”

  There was a heavy silence. “You saw Campion die?” asked William.

  “Ay. I was there.”

  All the faces in the pub that were within earshot turned to Richard Field.

  “It was a miserable day, even for December. Cold and muddy with incessant rain the two days past. The tree at Tyburn is bigger than you might think, and is not — as I believed in my innocence — a tree at all, but a man-made structure topped by a triangle of three beams. Each might hang eight men at once; though that day there were but three. A scaffold, like unto a theater, towering over even the tree itself, stands to one side and others, smaller, roundabout. The scaffolds might hold a thousand or more, though there were many times that in the crowd that day.

  “Campion arrived tied to a hurdle, having been drawn through the streets from the Tower. Already he was caked in mud, and covered in manure fresh from the horse that drew him, and he had been spat upon, and rotten lettuce and other refuse clung to his hair and brows, for he had been abused by many along the way. The crowd was exceeding restive a
nd cried at Campion, ‘Traitor! Papist!’ or at each other, ‘Sinner! Repent!’ or ‘Get you to Rome, if Romish you be!’ and the like. There was a great press, but I stood low upon the scaffold with a clear view. The hangman cut Campion from his hurdle and assisted him to his feet. He looked half dead already, starved and limping. He’d been racked three times before his trial. . . .”

  Field paused, then said softly, “To which mockery I also bore witness. Upon the first day before his judges, when asked to raise his hand to swear an oath, he was unable, for the damage to his shoulder.”

  William felt a throb of pain in his own shoulder at the mention.

  “Another prisoner standing nearby,” Field continued, “taking pity, kissed his hand gently then raised it for him, so he might swear his truth before God.

  “Three days his trial lasted, and though he was weak and racked they made him now debate the causes for which he had craved hearing. And yet they would not let him sit, nor gave him books nor paper nor pen with which to prepare or take notes. And though he could not for his injuries write, the Crown demanded any evidence he might present must be in writing.

  “So the trial went, to its foregone conclusion.

  “But on his last living day, at least, his shoulder was well enough that as he was taken from the hurdle and placed upon a cart, he was able to cross himself. The cart was rolled under the tripartite tree, the noose fitted to his neck, and he began to speak words of St. Paul, first in Latin then in English. But he was not allowed to continue, for one in the throng shouted at him to confess his treason.

  “Campion said simply, ‘I am a Catholic man, and a priest; in that faith have I lived hitherto, and in that faith I do intend to die; and if you esteem my religion treason, then of force I must grant unto you. As for any other treason, I never committed any; God is my judge.’

  “He would have spoken more, but others who deemed their words of greater worth than those of the condemned would have their say.”

  Field turned to look at Munday with distaste.

  “Anthony Munday it was who stood upon the scaffold, as trumpets sounded to silence the multitude, and he spoke for the Crown, reading from his Discovery of Edmund Campion a passage that he deemed worthy of the occasion of the man’s martyrdom.

  “He so assailed the life of Campion, and in such vicious prose, that the faithful to the Pope there attending began to hiss and curse, and Munday’s response thereto was so splenetic and ill-mannered that even many who had come in joy to see Campion die joined the call, and Munday was shouted down, unable to continue.”

  Those in the room turned to Anthony Munday at his table, but he remained impassive, allowing Field to finish.

  “Finally Campion himself, pressed to beg the Queen’s forgiveness, asked, ‘Wherein have I offended her? In this I am innocent. This is my last speech; in this give me credit — I have and do pray for her.’ He spoke most eloquently of his love for England and Elizabeth; swore that he never did aught nor intended aught to affright Her Majesty’s power or sovereignty. He prayed the country would find the strength to encourage open discourse, to allow Catholics and reformers alike to worship in unencumbered peace. And finally, nearing tears, he beseeched any who, during his torment on the rack, he might have betrayed to forgive him his weakness. He meant to say more, but of his infirmity stumbled on his words, and taking advantage of the pause, the executioner began his office.

  “First the horse was whipped and the cart lurched out from beneath him, and so Campion swung. Although he neither kicked nor struggled, he was quite alive, and his body of its own will gasped for air. It found some, but too little, and after several minutes, his face took on a purple hue, and his eyes began to bulge grotesquely from his head.

  “The crowd gasped as one when despite his mortal state, his lips moved once again in prayer. Seeming angered to have his skill thus challenged, the executioner took this as his cue to lower the noose. Campion’s feet barely touched the ground. The hangman with his knife quickly stripped from the priest — who was still alive but swooning — what rags were left about him, so that he was naked to the world. Then holding his knife aloft, he grabbed the poor priest’s ballocks and his prick, full erect — which, a bystander noted to his wife, was a product of the asphyxiation — and with a single upward cut sliced the lot from the trunk.

  “A profusion of blood gushed forth the gaping hole, and more dripped from the member itself as the hangman held it in front of Campion’s bulging eyes. He tossed the gory manhood into a fire that stood nearby within Campion’s gaze, and the sickly smell of burning flesh wafted over all the amazed mob, and some vomited with the sight and smell of it.

  “But the deed was not yet full wrought, for Campion yet lived, and the executioner raised his knife aloft again and sliced ope the poor priest’s belly, so that his entrails burst forth, and while he watched — though his sight, I thought, or hoped, seemed to be dimming now — the hangman drew out the entrails and fed them, still attached at the bodily end, into the fire, at which you could hear the choked cry of the priest’s agony even through his noose. Quickly then the hangman pulled out the martyr’s heart, which he held quickly aloft to beat twice in front of Campion’s eyes ere they became fixed and it was clear his spirit had fled his body’s torment.

  “His heart went on the fire, and finally his stomach and lungs, and all was consumed while the hangman cut down the shell of Campion, and laid it upon a table. Trading his knife for axe, the executioner heaved a single mighty stroke, which cut off Campion’s head as you might trim a hen for dinner, and then with many grievous blows cut the remnants into four, leaving a limb attached each to a quarter of the gory trunk.

  “It was at the last but one of these blows that I felt, like the first hint of a hot rain, a single drop of blood upon my hand. A miracle it was to guide it there, for I would not have thought myself close enough to the spectacle to allow it, but there it was, the blood of a martyr upon my hand. And I beg salvation for my guilt in the affair, for by my standing by, and watching as it were a bearbaiting or game of bowls, I am complicit.”

  Richard Field raised his hand and regarded the back of it, turning it to catch the dim light fighting through the greasy front windows of the inn. As if his mind were quite far away, he said, “A spot of blood upon my hand, but a stain everlasting upon my soul.” He rubbed the spot on his hand absently. “All the seas of Neptune will not wash it away, nor all the perfumes of Araby mask its stench.”

  After a moment he continued.

  “There were two executions yet to be done that day, but I had seen enough for a lifetime. As I pushed my way out through the blood-lusting crowd, they pressed to take my place for a better view of the next display, for the hangman was pulling another priest from his hurdle. He couldn’t stand on his own, and I heard the hangman brag that he had made the priest a foot longer by his racking. That was the last I heard.”

  Again they were silent. “God have mercy on their souls,” said George Cawdrey, and drained his mug.

  “And ours,” added William.

  They drank morosely for a moment. William had listened to the narrative thinking of the identical fate of Thomas Cottom. The emptiness in his own gut grew with the tale of Campion’s disemboweling. “What nation have we become,” he said to his companions, “where men of the cloth, of whatever cloth they be cut, are cut thus? We would not slaughter our farm animals with such dishonor, and yet a man, a priest, who gives his life to the service of God, is made to suffer such outrageous fortune.”

  Finally, Anthony Munday spoke. “Neither Campion nor Cottom nor any wicked Jesuit priest died for any service to God but rather for treason to the Queen, affirmed and proven in the Queen’s court, and therefore true in the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet the horror of their deaths pales to the torments that await all such sinners in hell.”

  Richard Field turned red. “Then what more painful torments await Anthony Munday, who profits by the horror?” said Field.

  “What mean y
ou?” asked William.

  Field gestured at Munday with disgust. “He sells pamphlets purporting to tell the tale of the demise of the Jesuit priests Campion, Cottom, and others beside. They are true in the particulars, mayhap, but like a painting drawn in ill light, are colored ill, in sickly hues that please only his spymaster, Walsingham.”

  “He should be answered,” William said, anger finally rising within him and wrenching his ankles, knees, and shoulders that ached from his own brief encounter with the rack. “All these petty tyrants of small minds and smaller domains, these wardens of the inns and justices of the squares and constables of the church and magistrates of the bedroom — all these arbiters of righteousness, self-proclaimed, self-anointed, their logic turned upon itself like a snake swallowing its tail, all should be answered. They are devils, who would cast not just the first, but every stone, leaving naught behind of this earth but base mud and filth,” William said, his thoughts getting ahead of his tongue.

  In the darkened corner, the horseman also rose. “England may yet be exorcised of these devils and their minions and masters,” he said. He came to the table where William and his friends were sitting. They waited, tense, to learn his intentions. The horseman knelt at Richard Field’s side and picked up the hand upon which Campion’s blood had been spilled. He bowed and kissed it, and his eyes burned black as he said in a whisper that was like the roar of blood in a vein, “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. O Domine Iesu Christi, hanc manum puram ex sanguine hoc sanctissimo atque hunc virum malis manibus ex corpore expulsis ut vivat in pacem facere digneris!” He stood and cried out in English, rasping from deep in his throat, “Out, daemon, OUT!” The light in the already dark room seemed to dim as the horseman’s robes rose and rustled.

  In the stunned silence that followed, the horseman looked about the room. He looked at Anthony Munday, who remained impassive, watching him carefully. The horseman pulled his hood over his head and turned to go, but then stopped and, turning back, leaned on the table and whispered urgently in William’s ear: “You are in danger. By my weakness, we are all endangered, but you and your family the most.”