by Tony Hays
“Tread carefully, Simon,” Burbage warned. “I loved Will as a brother, but he was forever a difficult man to understand. He always left me with the feeling that he knew more than he would tell, and perhaps he did, perhaps he did not. With Will, you could never be certain. A never-ending stream of odd creatures was constantly seeking him at the rear of the Globe.”
Richard stopped again and chuckled. “Do you know the story of when he first came to London?”
“No,” I answered. “By the time that I returned from the Low Countries, he was already well established here.”
———
We were at the Theatre then, he said, beyond Bishopsgate in Shoreditch.
I saw him first, looking more like a young scarecrow than a promising poet. He stood outside the Theatre, his hat in his hands. “Master Burbage,” he said. “Perhaps you remember me, from Stratford-upon-Avon.”
“Ah! The young poet. So you have come to the city? Follow me and we will speak with my father.”
I was surprised that he had come so far on a half-hearted offer from months past. But there was something in his eyes, something that seemed to reach out and absorb everything around him. His earnest nature made me smile.
Father was busy as always, shouting at the apprentices, shouting at Cuthbert. It seemed that Father was eternally shouting at someone.
“What is it, Richard? The costumes have not been repaired. Will Kemp is drunk again. We have a performance this afternoon. I do not have time for interruptions.”
“Father, this is the Shakespeare boy from Stratford. You remember him. He rewrote that speech.”
Father glanced quickly, rudely at Will. “Oh yes, the writer. Well, I haven’t time or room for him.”
“But, Master Burbage, you said—” Will began to protest.
“I know, I know,” Father answered with a wave of his hand. “Very well. Richard, we need someone to tend the horses during performances. Show him his duties.”
“Tending horses!” Will exclaimed.
“That is the best I can offer you,” Father said. “Perhaps later we can talk about other things.”
To his credit, Will did not protest. Within a fortnight, he had organized a pack of urchins to handle his duties. After that, you could find him amongst the groundlings, watching every performance from the crowded floor where the cracking of discarded nutshells underfoot sometimes overwhelmed the voices of the actors. In less than a year, he had written a play that my father loved. Then he no longer had charge of the horses.
———
Burbage nodded. “Go and see that Silver Street family,” he said after a moment of silence. “That Mountjoy affair. Will had to be deposed. I never heard how it was resolved, but someone was sure to be unhappy.”
“Unhappy enough to murder Will for revenge?”
Again, Richard shrugged. “Perhaps. That suit was brought about the time that Will moved back to Stratford, and we did not see him much at the Globe.”
And it was filed about the time that Will destroyed my marriage by bedding my wife. Although I did not tell Burbage this, I felt certain he knew. Nothing good could come from traveling that ground again.
“Old man Mountjoy is alive, but I think his wife is dead. Stephen Belott, the son-in-law, still trades in hats on Silver Street.”
I rose. “Give my best to Cuthbert, Richard.”
“You will not stay and let us stand you to a beaker?”
“Perhaps I will come by later. I intend to put up at the Cross Keys.” The old inn was on Gracechurch Street near Corn Hill. The companies had often used its courtyard to perform their plays.
I turned to leave this place that was so much a part of Will’s life, so much the reason that he was who he was.
“You will miss him, you know.” Burbage’s voice drifted over my shoulder. “I know something of your feud with Will, and I do not fault you for feeling as you do. You must remember that we players are paid for pretending to be someone else, from the groundlings who paid their penny to those in the gallery who paid two. And when you spend your life in such a pursuit, it frees you to do things that you yourself would not do. But that is a poor excuse for such behaviour, such betrayal. I am but a player, a good one, granted. But there are many players. There was ever only one Will Shakespeare. And we are better men for having known him.”
I did not turn during his soliloquy. Straightening my shoulders, I slipped out of the gallery and left Will’s wooden “O,” his theatre, behind me.
———
“Aye, we have room.” The innkeeper at the Cross Keys was a surly old man. He seemed not to have changed one whit since I last stayed under his roof, with one exception. His unshaven face had once been half-covered in thick black hair. Now, every single strand was pure white.
He threw me a key and pointed me across the cobbled innyard. But he turned back. “Don’t I know ye?”
“From a long time ago. I am of Stratford-upon-Avon, and I once stayed here often.”
He nodded. “I remember ye now. Friend of the player Shakespeare. Someone asked after you this morn. And this forenoon a messenger brought this.”
Snatching a scrap of paper, folded over with a red wax seal affixed, he handed it to me. “You must be an important man to receive notes from a noble.”
I glanced at the seal.
Southampton.
“You would do well to mind your own business.”
His laugh emerged as a grunt. “You would do well to remember that you’re in London now. Everyone seeks a profit, and knowledge is the most commonly traded.”
Without opening the note, I took my bag and headed towards my room. How did Southampton know I would be here? I had only just told Burbage an hour before, hardly time to alert Southampton and for him to dispatch a message here. And what of this other man seeking me, or was he simply Southampton’s messenger?
And if Southampton were already aware of my task, then others would be also. Shaking my head to clear it as I mounted the steps to the first gallery, I dropped my bag and went for my dagger.
A light was shining in my chamber.
For a second, I considered fleeing; but if one man was in my chamber, another would likely be waiting outside the inn.
With my dagger in hand, I eased open the door.
“By God’s grace, Simon! Would you come in and shut the door? The wind is getting chilly.”
I near fainted from relief. Ben Jonson.
“Ben! You nearly caused me to have an apoplexy! How did you get here before me?”
Jonson, the redheaded giant, cut a slice of apple with his dagger and popped it into his mouth. “I was at the Rose and stopped by the Globe. Burbage told me you were in town and what brought you. I decided that you might need my help.”
“But how did you know what chamber—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Ben interrupted me with a laugh from deep in his belly. “Well, of course I paid old Hal to put you in this chamber, Simon. I am hardly one of these mystics, and while I do believe that the stars move our lives, I could not tell you how.”
“Old Hal could have told me you were waiting.”
“Then, where would the surprise be?”
Ben Jonson was both Will Shakespeare’s boon companion and chief rival, all at the same time. Their differences on poetry and playwriting could fill a book, and they loved nothing better than drinking late into the night arguing about those differences. At the heart of it, though, they admired and respected each other.
Setting my tired leather bag on the bed, I plopped down beside it. “Why should I need your help, Master Jonson?”
“Because you are asking questions that should not be asked. And if no one has tried to kill you yet, do not be concerned. They will. And soon. And when that time comes, you will need me.”
Ben had a mighty reputation as a brawler, and the temper fueled by that red hair was just as legendary. I had seen both in action personally.
“I can take care of m
yself, Ben. But, since you are here, what do you know of Will’s claim that he was poisoned?”
“He told me the same thing the last time I visited him in Stratford. And then a post rider brought the news yesterday that Will was dead and brought also the rumour that you thought it was murder. I knew that it would bring you here, but I thought you would arrive sooner.”
“I went to Castle Bromwich to obtain permission from Sir Walter Devereux to conduct this enquiry.”
Ben nodded. “Prudent.”
“Do you believe Will’s accusations?”
That red head and red beard bobbed up and down. “I do.”
I did not say anything for a long moment. Ben Jonson knew London far better than I. And after speaking with Burbage, I was convinced that the answer to Will’s death lay here. Jane Davenant’s concerns were mostly likely a subterfuge to try and bed me. Though why she would want to, I had no idea.
“Then you should see this.” My decision made, I withdrew the message from Southampton from my shirt. Ben’s eyebrows rose sharply.
“He wasted no time.”
“ ‘To Master Simon Saddler. The earl of Southampton requires you to call upon him at Holborn on the morrow at the noon hour.’ ”
“Wriothesley has always been a man of few words,” Ben quipped.
“I have only been in London a half day, and I told only Burbage that I would be staying here. Yet Southampton was able to have a message waiting for me when I arrived.”
Jonson shrugged. “He probably had messages delivered to all of the most promising inns. That he knew you were coming, that begs a different answer.” He paused. “What is the name of the bailiff in Stratford—Strong, Stout…”
“Smythe.”
“Aye, he has business interests here. He may have seen a future profit in letting Southampton know what you were about.”
It made a certain sense. “Ben, did you and Drayton really come to Stratford some weeks ago?”
He nodded. “Aye, but Will drank little. I have heard that rumour that he caught a fever from drinking with us, but Will feared Mistress Shakespeare’s temper.”
“Do you think she could have poisoned him?”
“Anne? Anne Hathaway would take more pleasure in beating him to death with a stick at the market cross in Stratford. She would not hide it. Will’s death could have been natural. But he seemed in fine health when Drayton and I were with him. He spoke of plans to come up here to London and spend a few days away from Anne. He even talked of giving the Globe a new play. I think the country squire’s life was wearing on him, Simon. Will appeared, I don’t know, restless. He spoke almost without cease about his plans, even of building a bigger theatre than the Globe.”
This was certainly not the Will I had seen more than a week before his death. A thought occurred.
“Did Will mention Burbage in connection to this new venture?”
“No.”
“Would such a theatre hurt the Globe’s receipts?”
Ben shook his head at me sadly. “Simon, Simon, you can find a reason for hundreds of people to want Will Shakespeare dead, just as you could find a hundred who wish me dead. Should you not seek other answers? Consider this: perhaps he was killed not because of something he had done or was doing, but because of something he had known.”
“Answer the question, Ben. Would his plan have damaged the Globe’s profits?”
“Aye, it would. But that would hardly matter to Will.”
“Was he not a shareholder?”
Jonson shook his red head. “Not any longer. Three years past, when the cannon set the Globe on fire, Will sold his shares in the theatre. He had overextended himself and did not wish to go into debt to pay his portion of the rebuilding costs. It made good sense at the time.”
“But he was partners with Heminges, Condell, Burbage, all the others, for so long. Why would he want to compete with them?”
“He tried to buy his shares back when his fortunes improved, but no one wished to sell.” Ben stopped and ran a hand through his hair. “Few loves exist, Simon, like that of a playwright for theatres. Yes, for Will and me, our true passion has always been poetry, and we have written plays for the coins they make us, but something happens to a man when he sees a world he has created brought to life on the stage. It is as close to being a god as a man can get.”
“ ’Tis arrogance to even believe that, let alone give the words voice.”
His eyes narrowed at me. “There is nothing of the poet in you. My meaning is that when you have been part of that world, when you have seen worlds that you created come to life, all you wish to do is return to it. So, yes, his plans could have cost his old friends some money, but they would understand his motives all too well, and they would not begrudge him.”
I saw the logic in his answer. I posed another question. “What do you think of the rumour that Will got Jane Davenant with child?”
That belly-deep laugh exploded from Ben. “Again, the questions.” He threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine, certainly it is possible. We had both tasted her pleasures. She was one of the main reasons to stop at the Crown, at least for us. Jane always seemed to enjoy the company of players and poets more than that of other men.”
He said it with such candour that it was difficult not to believe him.
“I knew Will Shakespeare all of his life, but I never once knew him to deny lying with a woman if he had. When rumours first surfaced that young Will Davenant was his child, he immediately told me that such was a lie, that he had never bedded Mistress Davenant. Why would he protect her?”
And before Ben could get a word out of his opening mouth, I answered myself.
“ ’Twas not Jane Davenant he was protecting. ’Twas the child.”
“Aye. In truth, no one knows who is the father of Davenant’s child, but it could have been Will. And he did not wish the mother’s sins visited on the boy.”
“He told you this?”
The redhead laughed again. “Remember, I was part of that select fraternity, Master Saddler. I, too, had shared Mistress Davenant.”
“He doted on the boy, you know.”
“Aye, he did.”
I did not share my belief that Will used the boy as a substitute of sorts for his own dead son. It had no bearing on this enquiry.
“Go, Ben. I am exhausted and need my rest. Join me tomorrow if you wish. Southampton will be my first task.”
The giant stood. “I have taken the chamber next to this one. You underestimate the dangers of your path, Simon. If Will was truly murdered, do you not think that that same person would not hesitate to destroy you?”
“So far,” I answered, “the major difficulty that I have encountered is people who talk in riddles.”
He just laughed and slipped from the room.
Alone, I considered the implications of Ben Jonson’s interest in this affair. Oddly, I had first met him apart from Will. We both served under Sir Francis Vere in the Low Countries and knew each other there as only brothers-in-arms can. Since then, we had met several times over the years. When I was much younger, I often visited Will in London, as time and my fortunes allowed. Ben was frequently a drinking companion. But I could not say that I became any closer to Ben than others we caroused with. We never spoke of our common history.
Will often referred to Jonson as his greatest rival. Could that rivalry have driven Jonson to poisoning his friend? And could fear of discovery have driven him to call up an ages-old friendship to steer me from him? After all, he had visited Will at the onset of his illness and then again during it. Could he have been delivering the poison?
My head ached from such thoughts. And I finally drifted off to a sleep filled with yet more.
———
In my dreams, I was suffocating, fighting for breath, and Peg and Will stood laughing at me as I died. I opened my eyes and they disappeared.
But I was still suffocating.
A pillow or something like it was clamped over my face.
A great weight pressed against my chest.
I twisted from side to side.
I kicked.
My arms flailed.
And then…
It was gone.
The weight left my chest.
I opened my mouth and swallowed a huge gulp of air.
Standing over me was Ben Jonson, holding a wiggling, jerking man by the scruff of his neck.
Coughing and hacking, I scrambled to my feet, and I crushed my fist into his face, breaking at least two of his teeth. He began spluttering and spitting blood and teeth across the room as Ben looked at me in wonder.
Ben threw him to the floor, and he cowered against the bed. “Who sent you?”
The man was young, perhaps twenty years. But his life had been hard. He drank heavily, the red-tipped nose and red-rimmed eyes telling the story all too well. Under the grimy rags that were his clothes, it seemed he had not bathed in his entire life.
Jonson’s hand flashed, and the intruder went sprawling across the chamber. “Who sent you?”
“I do not know. ’Twas a man in St. Paul’s churchyard, wearing a cloak with a hood. He offered me a crown to kill this one.”
I was somehow insulted by being called “this one.”
“Show me the crown.”
The scoundrel produced the silver coin from his filthy breeches.
“Not much reward for killing a man.”
“I have done it for less.” The man had little remorse, if any. “What will you do with me now?”
I glanced at Ben. My first impulse was to turn him over to the local constable. But with a crown in his pocket, he could bribe his way out of the clink. After all, he had not actually killed me. “Go, and keep your blood money.”
Stumbling to his feet, he bounced off of one wall and out the door.
“How do I know that you did not pay him to attack me so that you could prove yourself as a guardian?”
Ben chuckled. “Are you mad? Do you think that I have that sort of money to waste on something like that? Sit, Simon.”
I did.
“I loved Will Shakespeare as much as you once did. Was there jealousy between us? Certainly. Show me two poets who do not envy each other. He was the measure by which I judged myself, though I would never have told him that. But I do not know who might have tried to steal him from our midst. All I do know is that it was not I.”