by Ann Swinfen
Even if I were not overheard by the killer, someone else might overhear and then gossip about what I was about to reveal to Master Burbage. Until he decided what to do, any careless gossip could only cause trouble. I knew that he always arrived at the playhouse long before the players, so that he could deal with his accounts and various business matters in peace, for he had interests in other ventures besides the two playhouses, the Theatre and the Curtain. I would catch him now before the rest of the company (who were late risers) arrived at the Theatre.
It proved that I had made the right decision. After the doorkeeper admitted me to the Theatre, I found Master Burbage at work alone in his small office behind the tiring house. I had been afraid Cuthbert might also be there. Unlike his younger brother Richard, Burbage’s elder son was only interested in the business affairs of the company, although he could take small parts of a few lines when needed. However, this morning Cuthbert was not assisting his father with the accounts. On the whole, Master Burbage was looking well content as he turned over the pages of his ledger. In the past I had known him pale with anxiety when bad weather or epidemics closed the playhouses. This year, matters were looking more fortunate.
‘I have completed the copying out of the roles,’ I said, laying down the individual parts, fanlike, on his desk. ‘And here is Will’s original play book.’
‘I will lock it away,’ he said, taking it from me and carrying it off to the store.
‘Take a seat, Kit,’ he said when he returned.
He poured us both ale and pushed a plate of fruit buns toward me, still warm from the bake house. I saw that his papers were already liberally sprinkled with crumbs. I took one gladly, for the walk across London had given me an appetite. He picked up my sheaf of papers and quickly scanned them, then smiled.
‘This is excellent,’ he said. ‘We can read through after the performance this afternoon and start rehearsing the day after tomorrow. You have saved us considerable time and worry.’
He drew up a heavy purse attached to his belt and counted out a small pile of coins which he pushed across the desk to me.
‘I am afraid that I am not able to pay a copyist a great deal of money, but I hope you will accept this.’
I was in no position to be proud and refuse, so I thanked him and slipped the coins into my own purse.
Burbage drank deeply of his ale and sighed with pleasure. ‘Ah, that is good. This heat is very trying, but it has served us well.’ He tapped his account book with the feathered tip of his quill. ‘We have had larger audiences this year than I ever remember. London has developed a great love for the playhouse, it is quite the favourite entertainment nowadays, surpassing even bear baiting and cock fighting.’
He took another gulp of his ale.
‘I saw your expression of surprise just now, when I was in a hurry to lock away Will’s play book, but our books are a commodity almost above price. Our whole business rests on them. I am grateful that we have play makers like Will and Tom Kyd who can write fast and feed the hungry maw of London, ever demanding something new.’
‘It astonishes me that the players can learn so many parts so quickly,’ I said. ‘Surely, once they are memorised, you do not need the play books?’
‘Perhaps not, though new players join us from time to time and must learn fresh parts. Nay, the real reason we guard them is that we must ensure no other players steal them.’
‘Would they do that?’ I was amazed.
He laughed at my innocence.
‘Of course they would. Not every company has a Shakespeare or a Marlowe, scribbling away for them. And like us they must supply fresh entertainment for the groundlings or they will starve for want of an audience. Theft of our plays has happened in the past, and I intend to ensure that it does not happen here in future.’
‘Very wise,’ I said, though it was a crime I had not suspected before.
He looked down again at my copies of the players’ parts.
‘You have an excellent clear hand, and have written these out very quickly. Now that you no longer work at St Thomas’s, could I interest you in becoming our copyist? I know that it would be a very inferior position for someone of your standing, but perhaps until you find another post . . . ?’ He looked at me quizzically.
It was an inferior position. I was, after all, an experienced physician, licensed by the Royal College to practise. Working as a minor clerk to a company of players would be considerably below my station. On the others hand, I must eat and pay my rent.
‘I shall still have some medical work,’ I said hesitantly. ‘Dr Nuñez has arranged for me to take over some of his families. All of them with some position in society. If they summon me, I must go.’
‘I understand that,’ he said. ‘However, the copying may done whenever you are not occupied with patients. As long as it is done as soon as it is needed. You may work here, in the book room. I will provide paper, ink, and quills. As I said, I cannot afford to pay much. Let us say, a shilling a play?’
I could not accept so little. I shook my head.
He smiled. I guessed he expected me to negotiate, he was a shrewd businessman, after all.
‘I think five shillings would be nearer the mark,’ I said. ‘I spent a good while on that.’ I nodded toward the stack of paper.
‘Four and sixpence,’ he said, ‘and dinner at my expense every night except Sundays, during the season when the playhouse is open.’
‘Done,’ I said, and we shook hands on it.
Clearly he thought our business was finished, but I must screw up my courage to speak about the death of Wandesford.
‘Master Burbage,’ I said, ‘the night before last at the inn, Master Wandesford’s death–’
‘Ah, a sad business.’ He shook his head. ‘Poor fellow! And just when the Lord Chamberlain was entertaining us, and his lady present . . . I have arranged for the funeral in two days’ time, at St Botolph’s. You will be very welcome, if you would care to come. I realise you did not know him well. I fear few of us did. He kept very much to himself.’
In two days’ time! There was not a moment to waste. I began again, clearing my throat.
‘Master Burbage, I believe you think he died of a heart attack.’
‘Aye. Well, was not that what you said?’
‘I said merely that his heart had stopped. Which indeed it had, but not from a heart attack. Indeed, not from natural causes.’
He looked at me in alarm. ‘Not from natural causes? But you said nothing at the time.’
‘I thought it unwise, with Lord Hunsdon and Mistress Bassano there. Besides, the person who killed him was almost certainly there as well.’
He turned quite pale and poured himself more ale, with a hand that shook.
‘I think you had better explain yourself, Kit.’
‘He died from poisoning by atropa belladonna, or to give it its common name, deadly nightshade.’
I went on to explain the symptoms I had observed in Wandesford both before the meal and as he lay dying, my tasting of the dregs of wine left in his glass, and my own earlier experience of such a poisoning. Out of my satchel, I drew the phial containing the wine and placed it on the table in front of him.
For a long time he said nothing, though he picked up the phial and turned it in his hands, as if it might give him some guidance.
Finally I broke the silence. ‘I am not sure of this, but I believe when a death is due to natural causes, there is no need for a coroner’s inquest, but if there is a suspicion of foul play, then it must be reported to the coroner and an inquest held, in the presence of the deceased. Is that not correct?’
I ran a finger round the neck of my shirt. It was not only the hot weather that was making me sweat.
‘In this heat, it will be vital to hold the inquest quickly,’ I said, ‘before the condition of the body becomes intolerable. I understand the inquest must be super visum corporis, that is, in sight of the body. Where is Master Wandesford’s body now?’
‘In the crypt of St Botolph’s. It is relatively cool there, but you are right, if there is to be an inquest, it cannot be delayed.’
‘Then should we report to the coroner?’
‘Kit, this is not something you or I can decide. Lord Hunsdon was the highest ranking person present. He believed the death was caused by a heart attack and there an end to it. We cannot go to the coroner without consulting him.’
This did not come as altogether a surprise. I was handing over responsibility to Master Burbage, and he would hand it over to Lord Hunsdon.
‘What do you think will be his view of the matter?’ I said.
‘He will not be pleased,’ Burbage said bluntly. ‘He wanted the whole matter kept quiet, to avoid scandal. A cousin of the Queen, entertaining a company of players to dinner at a public inn, together with his mistress? And one of the company dying at the very table where he was seated? That would have been scandal enough, but there would have been no need for an inquest if it had been due to natural causes.’
He raked his fingers through his thinning hair.
‘But this – poison by belladonna! What you are saying is murder.’
‘Aye,’ I said grimly. ‘It is murder.’
He set the phial down on the table. ‘You would be prepared to give evidence at an inquest? That in your opinion it was murder?’
I swallowed with difficulty, but then I nodded. I was always loathe to draw attention to myself, but it could not be avoided.
‘It is my duty,’ I said quietly. ‘My duty as a physician. And my duty to the dead.’
‘I fear it may make you unpopular with Lord Hunsdon, and he is a powerful man, first cousin to the Queen.’
I nodded again. I did not need to be continually reminded of Lord Hunsdon’s close link to the Queen. There were many who said his lordship might be even more closely related to Her Majesty. At the time of his birth, his mother, Mary Boleyn, was married to William Carey, but she was also King Henry’s mistress. It was possible that Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, was the Queen’s illegitimate half brother. No one, of course, mentioned this in company.
Master Burbage heaved a sigh, then rose to his feet.
‘There is nothing for it. We must put the case before Lord Hunsdon and seek his guidance. It will be for him to decide whether the coroner should be informed.’
I said nothing, but I was troubled. If Lord Hunsdon decided against notifying the coroner, would he be breaking the law? And if so, should I defy him and report the killing myself? It was an unpleasant prospect.
The phial was still on the table. As I reached out to pick it up, Burbage said, ‘You may leave that here.’
Nevertheless, I did pick it up and returned it to my satchel. ‘Perhaps not,’ I said. ‘The killer was certainly present at the meal. If he saw me pour Wandesford’s wine into the phial, he will be anxious to destroy it. And it is evidence, which the coroner will wish to see.’
‘You do not really believe the killer was one of my company?’ There was a note of pleading in Burbage’s voice.
‘I think we cannot be too careful.’
Master Burbage left word with the doorkeeper Pillings that Cuthbert was to oversee the preparations for the afternoon’s performance and hand out the parts from Will’s play that I had copied for the players to learn, then we walked as briskly as we could bear through the stifling crowds of the City, down Bishopsgate Street, past the Green Dragon, then along Gracechurch Street and Fish Street, until we reached Old Swan Stairs. As with all the other wherry stations on both sides of the river, the boats could only be reached by walking out over the glistening mud, stinking of dead fish and sewage. Boards had been laid, but they were slippery and treacherous. More than once I thought I should fall.
Master Burbage signalled to the nearest wherry. ‘Somerset Place,’ he said.
‘Aye, maister,’ the wherry man said in a resigned tone of voice. It was a fair way to row from Old Swan Stairs to the mansion on the Strand.
‘Does Lord Hunsdon own Somerset Place?’ I asked as we sat down on the seat in the stern of the wherry.
‘I believe it is rightly the property of the Crown.’ Burbage removed the cap he had donned on leaving the playhouse and used it to fan himself. ‘After the Earl of Somerset was executed, it was seized for the Crown, but I have never heard that Her Majesty has used it since she came to the throne, though she lived there when her sister was queen. Perhaps that is an unpleasant memory for her. I believe she has granted it as a residence to her cousin.’
The river was so low, even in the centre, that from time to time the wherry lodged on mud banks, so that the wherryman was forced to push us off with an oar. Moreover, he was so exhausted with the heat and he rowed so slowly that I thought we should never make any headway against the current, even as sluggish as it was. It began to seem that we would have taken less time had we walked all the way from Shoreditch to the Strand.
At last, however, the imposing Arundel House appeared on our right, standing behind its fine sweep of gardens which stretched down to the Thames. Just beyond it upriver lay the sprawling shape of Somerset Place. Here, too, formal gardens were laid out between the mansion and the shore, but there was scaffolding erected up one side of the building itself.
Master Burbage pulled a face. ‘The Earl began building that more than forty years ago, and it is still not finished. It is a scandal!’
I recalled that before he became the great playhouse owner that he was today, Master Burbage had been a builder. Indeed, he had built both the Theatre and the Curtain.
‘It is a very handsome building, though,’ I said.
Somerset Place was three stories high, very elegant and modern, with large windows and a colonnaded portico. My father had once pointed it out to me as an example of the Italianate style, the first in London. It was, understandably, somewhat marred by the present excrescence of scaffolding. Even from this distance, out on the river, the scaffold boards look old, warped, and weathered. I wondered whether they had remained there since the Earl of Somerset died, leaving his great project unfinished.
Our exit from the wherry involved the same nervous traverse across boards, though these were less slippery, having been subjected to little traffic from the public. We climbed the steps to the water gate and were admitted to the mansion’s grounds by a liveried servant.
Once we were within the walled precinct of the gardens, sounds from the outside world of city and river were cut off. As we were conducted along a cool path between pleached lime trees, we were enveloped in the languid perfume of roses, growing in profusion within their geometric beds and climbing up ornamental pergolas, while my gown brushed against a low border of lavender beside the path, releasing its sweet but slightly astringent scent, and disturbing a cloud of bees. The air was full of them, flying purposefully along their invisible aerial highroads, back and forth from the abundance of flowers which filled the immaculate garden across to a row of hives, dripping with their sticky gold, which stood under the shelter of the brick wall surrounding the property. One zipped past my face with a hum like an arrow in flight, so close I could feel the tremor in the air.
We emerged from the garden on to a low terrace which lay all along this southern face of the building. At its centre, the façade was pierced by an elaborate archway leading to the central quadrangle, around which the house was built. Although we were conducted swiftly toward an outside stairway leading to the first floor, I had time to notice the decorative terracotta plaques adorning the walls of this inner courtyard, one above every third window. I had no time to study them closely, but I thought they depicted the gods and goddesses of classical mythology.
Another servant in Hunsdon’s livery awaited us at the top of the steps. He led us through a doorway and along a corridor laid with expensive turkey carpets, so that I was anxious, lest my shoes leave muddy footprints all the way. At the end of the corridor he showed us into a small chamber, saying that Lord Hunsdon would see us presently.
At first even Master Burbage hesitated to sit down on the chairs which had been padded in the new fashion, layers of horsehair covered with French damask, but after we had waited about an hour, he yielded to temptation. I went to stand by the window, looking out over the garden to the river, which was almost empty of boats. Until the tide came in, nothing larger than a wherry would be able to navigate it. The farmers who sent produce by barge down from Oxfordshire, and all the counties in between, must be cursing the shrinking of the river. And the London shopkeepers who depended on them would be cursing too, finding themselves unable to supply their customers. Were it not for the small farmers between Southwark and Lambeth, and those along the road to Hackney Downs, London would have started to go hungry, an ironic state of affairs in a year of abundant harvests.
Finally I sat down myself on the seat built into the window embrasure.
‘How long do you suppose he intends to keep us waiting?’ I said softly.
Master Burbage shrugged. ‘Great men, Kit, great men.’
‘It is uncivil, great man or not,’ I muttered, but hardly loud enough for him to hear.
At last there came the sound of footsteps along the corridor, though they were muffled by the carpet. They were too light and swift to be Lord Hunsdon, nor were they the dignified tread of an upper servant. The door opened and Aemilia Bassano swept in.
Maria Nagaya, mother of the young Tsarevich, whom I had met in Muscovy, had been exceptionally beautiful in a remote, imperial way. Aemilia Bassano possessed beauty of quite a different kind. She was dressed today in a grass green gown of some very light material. Not silk, but perhaps a very fine linen or Italian cotton, with a thread almost as fine as a human hair. The split over-skirt showed the under-skirt of pure white, delicately embroidered with pale yellow flowers and leaves of the same green as the gown. Her sleeves were of an unfashionable cut, loose and trailing, like something out of an old tapestry, and they looked marvellously cool. Her ruff was narrow and simple, and her only jewellery a gold cross set with pearls. Caged in the heavy folds of my physician’s gown, I envied her.