Shakespeare No More

by Tony Hays

  ———

  Hours later, after darkness had fallen, I found myself alone in our house, sitting in the same chair where I had determined to pursue Will’s killer. Just a few embers burned orange in my hearth, not enough to provide any light.

  ———

  A part of me hoped against hope that I was wrong yet again. But I knew that I was not. So, I waited.

  The first sound was faint, like that of a mouse searching the house for a bit of food. But then it grew louder, and I rose and faded into the darkest part of the house.

  The door opened, slowly, carefully, and a shadow slipped ­inside.

  I reached out in the dark to make certain that all was prepared.

  The shadow, illuminated by a passing lantern, made for the stairs.

  And just as it began its ascent, I leaned forward, touched a bit of paper to an ember and lit my lantern, casting a yellow circle of light around the room.

  “How long have you known?” said a familiar voice.

  “Not for certain until last night, but I began to wonder much earlier. In truth, I am not sure why it took me so long to realise it. Tell me, were you seeking the letters for Southampton or so you could blackmail the king?”

  “What do I care for Southampton?”

  “You poisoned Shakespeare on his orders.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. I was well paid. How did you learn the truth? Or did you guess it?”

  “Two things pointed me in your direction. When we first met, you told me that you could not read. So, that left me wondering why you would lie about what was contained in the letters. As I cast about for an answer, I realised that it could be a ruse to remain close to me. You might not be able to read the letters, but you had seen them and would recognize them again. And you knew that they would be worth a great deal to the king.”

  “Perhaps I lied about my ability to read,” Malcolm said.

  “Perhaps, but then, last night, John expressed surprise that I could still read his notes, as they are written in an abbreviated Latin. Hence, even if you could read, you would not have been able to read the casebook.

  “Finally, as we entered Stratford yesterday, I invited you to stay here, at my house. You said that you would stop at Perrott’s. But we had not passed the inn. And you claimed never to have been to Stratford before. Yet you navigated quite easily around the town without once asking for directions. Tell me, Malcolm, does the king know that you killed Shakespeare?”

  No answer.

  “You came to Stratford in search of the book.”

  “Aye, I preferred not to cause more of a commotion than necessary, but Hall resisted. Let me guess, you began to wonder when we were assaulted by the bandits?”

  “It just seemed too easy.”

  “Duvall was angry that we shed so much blood. I should have killed you when we had all the letters,” Malcolm Gray said. “I think I will kill you now. It will be better that way.”

  I moved nearer the shadows. “I could always cry for help.”

  “You could,” he said, producing a dagger from his waist. “At least the player had the courtesy to die quietly.”

  “Did you really think that I came here alone?”

  Malcolm’s smile slipped a little. “Who else could be with you? Now, tell me where the letters are, and I will make certain you die swiftly, without much pain.”

  ’Twas my turn to smile. “Many miles away from here.”

  His eyes grew wide. “No! He said you would have them close by.”

  “Who said that, Malcolm? Who is guiding your hand now?”

  But rather than answer, he bellowed and lunged for me, dagger first.

  I sidestepped his thrust, though it caught in my shirt and ripped it.

  Grabbing his arm as it moved past, I yanked him towards me, using his momentum against him. His head cracked with a sickening thud, and he collapsed in a heap on the hearth.

  “Quickly, John, Hamnet!” I shouted for my friends and they rushed into the room with lamps. “Tie his hands!”

  And they set to work, but John placed a hand over Hamnet’s. “Hold.” He reached down and felt of Malcolm’s throat. “He is dead, Simon.”

  “Do not worry, Constable. His guilt is beyond question,” Sir Walter Devereux said, coming down the stairs. “John, you were masterful as the accused innocent.”

  John Hall chuckled. “I learned something after all from Will Shakespeare. But was it necessary, Simon?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said with a nod. “With suspicion falling on you, he felt comfortable enough to try for the letters. He had to know that the longer he stayed in Stratford, the more likely that Anne or Susanna or Judith would recognize him as Will’s mysterious London visitor. So, the sooner he could find his treasure and leave, the better it was for him.”

  “He was taking a great chance nonetheless,” John pointed out.

  “He was, but the reward might have been great as well. King James was most anxious to acquire all of them.”

  “What are these letters you keep talking about?” Sir Walter was perplexed, and I could not blame him. How much to tell? That was my worry.

  “Will did some writing for the king. It was most sensitive, and the king feared that they would fall into the wrong hands. I was engaged to recover them for the king.” My answer held some truth and some falsehood, but it was enough. “I was forced to secrete a small number of the documents along the way. Those were the ones that Malcolm wanted. He intended to ransom them back to the king, for a princely sum, I imagine.”

  “Who was this Malcolm Gray?” Hamnet asked.

  Such was a good question, and one that I could not immediately answer. “I do not know, not really,” I admitted. “He was the kind of man that men of wealth and power turn to when they have distasteful jobs to be performed.”

  “For whom did he work?”

  I shrugged. “For whoever paid him the most, I suspect.” I considered my audience—John, Hamnet and Sir Walter. “I believe, though I cannot prove it, that Malcolm was hired by Southampton to kill Shakespeare. Will was ‘involved’ in the Overbury Affair, and there has been concern that he might have been forced to give testimony at the trial of Somerset and his wife, testimony that could be…embarrassing to the king.”

  “But Southampton was Will’s patron,” John protested.

  “Aye,” I agreed. “He was. But that was when both of them were young. Remember that when James came to the throne, Southampton was still in the Tower over the Essex Affair. James freed him, but I doubt that Southampton has felt secure at court. Anything that he could do to curry favor with the Crown must have seemed like a good idea to him.

  “But now, it is all past. Malcolm admitted to poisoning Will. On whose orders he did such is not provable, not now at any rate. We will have to be satisfied with a small bit of justice.”

  “But if there are others who bear responsibility for Will’s death, should they not be pursued?” Hamnet argued.

  “Simon is right,” Sir Walter interjected. “Will Shakespeare was not Sir Thomas Overbury. There would be no enthusiasm for prosecuting Southampton; indeed, considering all that we now know, I doubt that the king would sanction such a course of action.”

  ———

  That evening, I sent a message to London by Matthew. He was instructed to wait for an answer. In the meantime, Mary had recovered enough to be taken home. While relations were better between myself and Peg, I was still distant. But now I was not angry with her or with Will. Now, I was angry with myself, for missing the obvious for far too long, and for losing so much time with Peg by my self-pity. Thankfully, Peg seemed to understand without my speaking it aloud.

  Within the week, Matthew had returned. The response was what I expected.

  ———

  And so, six months later, I rode the short distance to Kenilworth. I was expected, and though I was the object of many stares and whispered questions, I was swept into an inner chamber quickly.

  “Och, man. You have
given me several sleepless nights.” There was no mistaking the Scottish brogue. King James stood, facing me, his hands on his hips, shaking his head in disapproval.

  Taking a knee, I lowered my head. “My apologies, Your Majesty.”

  “Stand up, man. Let us speak frankly to one another.”

  I rose. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Gray is dead.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “ ’Tis a pity. He had his uses.” James paused. “Indeed, I am learning that many people used his services. I did not order him to kill Shakespeare. Had I questioned, even for a moment, the poet’s discretion, I would never have used him.”

  “I never thought otherwise, Your Majesty. Both of us know who commissioned Gray for that.”

  The king nodded. “You understand that I cannot move against him.”

  “I do.”

  “We have just ended Somerset’s trial. The trial of another noble would be…inconvenient.”

  Neither of us spoke during the moment that followed.

  “The other letters?”

  I had known this was coming. Slipping my hand inside my shirt, I withdrew a slip of paper and handed it to him.

  He unfolded it and read it in silence. “Wargrave? Very clever, Constable Saddler. We shall speak no more about this matter.”

  “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

  “Tell me, Master Saddler, did you accomplish anything in your unusual investigation? Was all of your bashing about worth the trouble?”

  “Yes. It was. I understand my friend much better now.”

  “And that was worth nearly losing your life, several times over?”

  “Aye. It was.”

  James nodded. “You have proven yourself a good and true servant, Master Saddler. With Gray dead, I will occasionally need someone of your talents.”

  Knowing that I might regret it later, I bowed and said, “I serve at your command, Your Majesty.”

  And thus ended the Overbury Affair and the case of the murder of ­William Shakespeare.

  Chapter Sıxteen

  I am still a constable in Stratford, though I seem to have little time for that. The king was true to his word. He has called me to his service a number of times over the years since Will’s death. I have served him honourably, I hope. Perhaps if time and health allow, I will be able to record something of those adventures as well.

  Margaret did marry Matthew, and I will someday give them the wool business. Mary has also grown into a beautiful young woman.

  Peg and I are in love once more, the kind of love that only a lifetime can breed. Mary will marry soon, and we will have the house on Henley Street to ourselves again. I take great comfort in Peg’s love, and visions of her with Will no longer haunt my dreams.

  ———

  Susanna and John Hall moved into New Place with Anne Shakespeare. Susanna had a plaque placed at her father’s grave with a curse for anyone who would attempt to intrude on his eternal sleep. She put word about that Will had feared that his bones would be unearthed and placed in a charnel house. I have always believed that she did that to keep anyone from ever discovering the truth of her father’s death. In truth, Will had never worried about such things as charnel houses.

  “Simon,” he told me once, “life is but an unweeded garden that grows rank and gross. The only thing we know for certain is that someday our bones will lie in cold obstrution and rot as is the natural order. The rest is nothing.”

  Author’s Note

  The possibility that Shakespeare was murdered was first floated back in the 1970s by handwriting expert Charles Hamilton. The academic community condemned him because he was not one of them. But he did read secretary hand (that form of writing prevalent in the Elizabethan/Jacobean Age). And he was an acknowledged expert on handwriting. Hamilton was a key figure in exposing the purported Hitler diaries as forgeries. I would be inclined to listen to him, but the academic world is so territorial that they refused even to countenance Hamilton.

  A few years ago, the theory popped back up, brought to the forefront again by…an academic. However, this time it was a university pathologist who had been involved in the exhumation of famous post-Civil War outlaw Jesse James. He proposed exhuming Shakespeare to test the poisoning theory. But he indicated that the family’s permission would have to be obtained. As anyone even remotely familiar with Shakespeare would know, the famous poet and playwright has no direct descendants. As I write this, yet another attempt is being made to exhume Shakespeare, this time to see if he smoked marijuana and also to try and answer questions about his death.

  At any rate, this is a novel built around the idea that Shakespeare may have been murdered. The only cause of death over the centuries has been the old story about him, Ben Jonson, and Michael Drayton drinking, after which Shakespeare contracted a fever and died.

  Of other matters, some are true, some are not. Shakespeare did suffer financial reversals in the first years after he returned to Stratford, and he came into a good deal of money in the months surrounding Sir Thomas Overbury’s murder. I have linked the two, though there may be no connection.

  Charles Hamilton’s favorite suspect in the supposed murder of William Shakespeare was Thomas Quiney. And Quiney was much the way that I have portrayed him. He came from a respected Stratford family, but apparently none of that respectability rubbed off on him. The changes in Shakespeare’s will did indeed keep Quiney from profiting from his father-in-law’s estate while preserving Judith’s inheritance.

  Sir Thomas Overbury was murdered. Frances, countess of Somerset, admitted her guilt. Robert Carr, earl of Somerset, proclaimed his innocence but was convicted at trial in late April 1616. According to contemporary records, Sir Edward Coke and Sir Francis Bacon did indeed find letters from the king to Carr in the earl’s rooms at Whitehall Palace. And Coke did turn them over to the king without revealing their contents.

  For the record, I am not an Oxfordian or a Baconian. I believe that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the poetry and plays historically attributed to him. I find that those who refuse to believe that a simple boy from Warwickshire could write such masterpieces as King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello are embarrassingly narrow-minded. Genius is not restricted to the nobility or wealthier classes. Genius comes from every walk of life.

  The last paragraph of the book contains quotations from Hamlet and Measure for Measure, and “obstrution” is not a typo­graphical error. As I am certain that there are errors elsewhere, they are mine and mine alone.

  About the Author

  In addition to writing fiction, Tony Hays was a working journalist who covered topics as varied as political corruption, Civil War history, the war on terror, and narcotics trafficking. The latter earned his newspaper a state award for public service.

  His novels include an award-nominated four-book Arthurian mystery series. He resided in Tennessee.

  Tony Hays died suddenly in Egypt in January 2015 at the age of 58.

  Critical Acclaim for the Historical Mystery Novels of Tony Hays

  “Hays turns a time-honored historical legend on its head, creating a new mystery series steeped in mythology.… The popularity of both historical mysteries and new twists on the Arthurian tales will provide a tailor-made audience for this promising new series.”

  —Booklist [on The Killing Way]

  “Sure to appeal to fans of medieval intrigues and stirring battles.”

  —Kirkus Reviews [on The Divine Sacrifice]

  “Hays has captured the Arthurian legend and made it his own. Many complex plot threads and believable characters make this a series to be savored by historical mystery and Arthurian fiction fans.”

  —Library Journal [starred review of The Beloved Dead, RT Book Awards finalist]

  “Utterly convincing characters and a perfect balance between action and sleuthing distinguish Hays’s suspenseful fourth mystery set in King Arthur’s Britain.… Hays just keeps getting better with each entry in this intriguin
g historical series.”

  —Publishers Weekly [starred review of The Stolen Bride]

  Mystery Fiction by Tony Hays

  Murder on the Twelfth Night

  Murder in the Latin Quarter

  The Trouble with Patriots

  The Killing Way

  The Divine Sacrifice

  The Beloved Dead

  The Stolen Bride