by Robert Nye
Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies Soon break,
soon wither, soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
I’d sooner hear Kit’s laugh than these damned bees. Stabbed to death through both eyes in a Deptford tavern brawl, they said. Over some squabble about a game of backgammon, they said. That the knife was stuck in by one Ingram, a hired assassin, because poor Kit Marlowe could never keep his mouth shut concerning Mr Secretary Cecil’s business - they never said that.
They never do. They never say things like that. Not the Cecils and the Howards of this world. How long, I wonder, before my loving cousin comes down the garden path, plump, bandy, diffident, tip-toeing oh ever so carefully between those delightful beds of strawberries like little robin-redbreasts flirting under furred green leaves, with a hero-worshipping smile on his foolish face and a backgammon board tucked under his left arm?
*
Of course, I don’t trust Stukeley. Not an inch. The man is a fool in himself, but who may be using him? Howard? King James? King James using Howard to use Stukeley? The ramifications are endless. But of one thing I am sure: That there is a plot.
Perhaps I did wrong to send Bess and Carew on to London. Yet Bess didn’t demur. She wanted it. And if I am to be assassinated, then they are better by far out of the way.
Four nights now I’ve slept in Stukeley’s house. Sam King and the Indian take turns to guard my door.
I leave nothing to chance. I never go out. Robin spends much of the day with his eye on the cook. The little Frenchman tastes my meat before I eat it. A careless quack of a doctor, but not without pluck. I pay him well for his service. He seems to respect me.
Four nights and five days
My dear cousin has still not ‘explained all to me in private.’ I have learned not a single one of his ‘good reasons’ for this further delay. He absents himself, for the most part, from our company. He goes down into Plymouth. It seems he has important duties there.
*
Midnight
Cousin Lewis just came to my chamber.
(The Indian didn’t want to admit him. I called out my permission. But Christoval came in as well.)
Stukeley looked very pleased with himself. Not so pleased with the Indian.
‘Sir Walter,’ he said, ‘I have news for you.’
‘Midnight news,’ I observed, ‘is in my experience bad.’
‘This is neither good news nor bad. But it’s definitely hopeful?
Stukeley rubbed his hands together. He has most dainty fingers, like tassels. His nails, as I notice, are bitten right down to the quick.
I said nothing. I was weary. I stifled a yawn.
Stukeley glanced sideways at the Indian. ‘Does this fellow speak English?’
‘A little.’
‘Enough to understand what we say?’
‘Perhaps. I don’t know. You can trust him, if that’s what you mean.’
My keeper stood there a moment, hesitating, his face petulant in the candlelight. Then he gave a broad wink. ‘I will tell you tomorrow,’ he said.
‘As you wish.’
‘Let us meet by the sundial. In private.’
‘By all means, if it pleases you.’
‘At noon,’ Stukeley whispered. ‘We shall meet by the sundial at noon.’
Til be there.’
‘Sundials don’t speak English,’ Stukeley told me.
‘They don’t even speak Spanish,’ I said.
‘Exactly. Nor do they have ears, my dear cousin.’
He chuckled to himself, quite delighted by this observation. I managed a smile. Then he left me. The Indian left too, without a sign one way or the other to indicate if this asinine exchange had been understood by him.
Till tomorrow, then. Till noon. By the deaf-and-dumb sundial.
In folly ripe, in reason rotten
40
17 July
Woke late from a mad dream.
I dreamt I was in the Tower, but the Tower was a ship. I sailed in the Tower to Guiana, in a stone ship of death. When I got there, Guiana was a woman. This woman was half Elizabeth and half Bess. She had the eyes of my wife, one blue, one black, but those eyes were set in the white ageing face of the Queen in the year of my fall. She stood on a globe of the world. There was a storm on her left hand, the sun was shining on her right. I was struck down by the thunderbolt over her left shoulder. ‘Why did you send me to London?’ she said. ‘You have condemned me now. My father will cut off my head!’ She kicked me. She was wearing golden slippers. ‘Get up,’ she said. ‘Get up and dance with me.’ I got up. Her head was gone. There was blood on her dress. I danced with the headless woman. She had long jewelled hands, like the Queen’s. She tore off her gown: Bess’s body. ‘Now, Sir Water,’ she said. ‘We make love!’ She called me Sir Water, not Sir Walter. Her voice seemed to come from her privy parts. When I looked at them, they looked like the Orinoco - the shape of that river on my sea charts, but with a membrane of thick gold that linked their lips. I was naked. She took my member in her fingers. She played with it My old rod would not rise. She drew back from me then. Her vulva seemed to laugh at me. ‘Sir Water!’ it screamed (Bess’s scream). ‘O Sir Water indeed! You are impotent! Swisser Swatter! You were never the Golden Man! Husband, you condemned me! You condemned me to my virginity! You condemned me to death!’ Then the Indian came. He made love to her. His phallus was gold. I watched them. His great member pierced her membrane. Her legs danced with delight, she was down in the dirt on her back. ‘This is the cannon royal,’ said the Indian. ‘This is the bastard cannon. This is the petro.’ He thrust in and out, as if naming the pleasures he gave her. I watched, weeping, yet unable to move from the scene. When the woman was satisfied, he sprang from her. I saw that his gold phallus was still erect. King James was now at my elbow. He started pawing the Indian. ‘You are very well hung, man,’ his Majesty said. Then he pointed at me. ‘We command you to graciously bugger him!’ The Indian shrugged, then stepped forwards. ‘Not here!’ screeched King James. ‘On the scaffold! In our brother’s public square in Madrid!’ The Indian shouted. A great golden shout of approval. Then he danced with the King and the woman, a slow, stately pavane, all three mocking me.
I woke then, my pillow stained with tears. There was blood on the sheet. I must have been coughing.
Mem. I shall ask Monsieur Manourie for a different sleeping draught.
*
Stukeley was leaning on the sundial. He looked like some gross parody of my youth. That is to say, he was got up for some reason in garments which were all the rage some half a century since. His rich red velvet doublet was peascod-bellied, with winking buttons down the front, and silver thread points. Its collar, lace-edged and turned-over, met his weak double chins. He had leg-o’-mutton sleeves and picka-dils. The pickadils were dark with perspiration. Skin-tight Venetian breeches completed the costume. He consulted a gold-cased pocket-watch.
‘You are six minutes late.’
I offered my apologies. He waved them away with a gesture no doubt intended to be magnanimous.
‘It is no matter. But I like to be punctual myself.’
‘Time has bald followers,’ I remarked.
My cousin blinked like an owl. He’s got fatter since those days when he was first my keeper. Also his hair, never plentiful, is now fast receding from his forehead.
‘Do you laugh at me, Sir Walter?’
‘No, Sir Lewis. I quote Shakespeare. One of the little errors in his comedy of them.’
Stukeley mopped at his brow with a fringed silk handkercHicf. ‘I never could understand Shakespeare. He was very obscure.’
‘He didn’t waste time,’ I observed. ‘He went bald before thirty.’ ‘Did he?’ ‘I think so.’ ‘You knew him?’
‘Not well. He was never one for company. He’d say he was in pain. He didn’t go out.’ ‘That’s interesting.’
‘Isn’
t it?’
‘What do you think he was doing?’
‘He could have been busy writing,’ I suggested.
Stukeley snorted. ‘Counting his money, more likely. He liked money. I’ve heard that. He made quite a pile from his stuff.’
I nodded absent-mindedly, coughing, and turning aside. This gave me the chance to be sure that Sam King had taken up position in the orchard. He was well-hidden in a pear tree. I caught the sun’s glint on the barrel of his harquebus.
‘Cousin,’ Stukeley said, snapping out of his daydream concerning the playwriting profits made by the burgher from Stratford. ‘Why don’t you trust me, cousin?’
‘I gave you my sword.’
‘That is not what I mean. And you know it.’
I consulted the sundial. ‘Tempus fugit,’ I said. ‘Are you going to tell me this news of yours?’
‘Of course. But your attitude dismays me. I am your kinsman. Sir Richard Grenville was my uncle. I know how close you were to him. Well, he’s my hero too.’
‘He died bravely,’ I said.
‘And you have lived bravely, Sir Walter. Can you not see? To my eyes, you are as great a hero as Grenville ever was. Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins. England had heroes once. You’re the only one left. I would like to be your friend. It means the world to me.’
I studied him. ‘Is that why you’re wearing fancy dress?’
Stukeley blushed. ‘You are shrewd, sir. Yes. I know it’s absurd. But my boyhood was fed on such noble dreams. Of all the great heroes. Of England’s glory in the golden days.’
‘It was perhaps not quite as glorious as you imagine,’ I said mildly. ‘As for heroes - they are out of date, I think.’
My cousin sighed. ‘You will not take me seriously!’
‘I take you very seriously. Come, this news! Why have you brought me here? What reason do you have for our delay? For one who watches the clock so attentively, it appears to me that you waste a deal of time.’
Stukeley walked twice round the sundial, hands clasped in a knot behind his back, his head bowed as if deliberating some weighty matter of state. Then he came to a halt, arms akimbo.
‘I have sold all your tobacco,’ he announced. ‘You have what?’
‘Sold the cargo of your Destiny,’ Stukeley said with pride. ‘There was twenty-five hundredweight. The merchant offered £100 a hundredweight. I beat him up to £112. A pound a pound, I told him; Sir Walter Ralegh is not a man to be cheated. You realise what that means? £2800!’
I sat down on the stone steps and busied myself lighting my pipe.
‘Of course, he’ll get more for it in London, I know that,’ Stukeley prattled on. ‘Good Spanish tobacco fetches anything up to £2 a pound in Gracechurch Street. But one has to allow these fellows their margin of profit.’ He chuckled. ‘Besides, the fool thought he was getting such a good bargain that he didn’t inspect all the bales with the proper thoroughness. Some of them are soaking wet! I expect you knew that?’
‘I didn’t,’ I said.
‘You must have had a rough crossing?’
‘I did,’ I said.
‘Well, that would account for it.’
Stukeley came and stood between me and the sun. He looked like a bandy blackbird. ‘Have I not done well, Sir
Walter?’
I puffed a cloud of smoke to blot him out. I said: ‘Sir Lewis, you have done splendidly. For yourself!’ He took two swift steps backwards. I must say I prefer him at a distance.
‘Cousin, you wrong me once more! I acted on your behalf, as your humble agent. The money is yours, just as soon as I have it to hand.’
‘No percentage for your trouble?’
‘Not a penny.’
‘I see.’
I saw Sam also, peering from the tree. I was comforted by the fact that he had his gun levelled on a bough, its muzzle pointed straight at Stukeley’s back.
‘One fifth must go to his Majesty,’ my cousin said.
‘Of course. That was stated in my Commission.’
A fifth is only £560. Leaving £2240 for your use.’
‘You are excellent at arithmetic, Sir Lewis.’
He stamped his foot. ‘And you are excellent at arrogance, Sir Walter.’
‘So I have often been told.’ I sent another puff of sweet tobacco in his direction. ‘Cousin, perhaps you will pardon an old man his stupidity. I fail to understand how your sale of my cargo will help me one whit. Is it my wife and heir that you seek to benefit? Where I am going, they don’t accept payments in pounds sterling.’
‘You mean in Spain? But—’
‘I mean in heaven, man!’
Stukeley sat down beside me. He had trouble with his sword. It was a large black-hilted affair, some species of antique. In the end, he had to unstrap it. The weapon lay on the flagstones between us.
‘Listen carefully,’ Stukeley said in a whisper. ‘The Lord Admiral is your friend, and so am I. I told you when we met that there were sound reasons for returning here. The sale of the Destin’s cargo is but one of them. I deliberately forebore from giving you the rest of it immediately. I did not want to seem to buy your trust. But now I see that nothing will satisfy you short of the whole truth. I regret that. God knows, I have given no cause for you to hate me—’
‘Hate you?’ I said. ‘Are you crazy? I am old, I am sick, I must die. I assure you, I am past hating anybody.’
‘Not even the King?’ Stukeley hissed.
His breath smelt foul. He stuffs himself with sweetmeats. His teeth are rotten. Ulcerated gums.
I said: ‘As Jesus is my judge, I hate no man.’
‘King James is not a man,’ my cousin snickered. ‘You know the latest gossip? He made Buckingham—’
‘This noonday heat is intolerable,’ I cried, interrupting him. ‘It’s making my head ache. Will you please kindly come to the point?’
‘Very well,’ Stukeley murmured. ‘I will come to the point. It is this. His Majesty is a weakling. He’s been forced into a corner again by the Spanish Ambassador over this business of the Prince of Wales having to marry the Infanta. James does not want it. Prince Charles does not want it. No Spanish marriage will ever go through. Count Gondomar must know that himself. Talk of the Spanish Match has dragged on for years now, James always finding excuses to postpone it. But Gondomar has got him where he wants him. And, in return for not demanding the marriage, he’s demanding your head! The King has little choice. You are being sacrificed to Spain to get James off the hook another time.’
‘Cousin Lewis,’ I said, ‘you are no politician. His Majesty has cause enough in himself to be rid of me.’
‘Perhaps so. But not by having you dispatched like a common pick-purse in Spain. That’s an insult to England. My Lord Admiral himself says so. The whole Council are up in arms. But King James is powerless. He has to please Gondomar. And Gondomar hates you. He’s obsessed with the need for revenge. It’s a personal thing. Count Gondomar -there’s your real enemy.’
‘I never met this man,’ I pointed out. ‘Why should he flatter me with so much hatred? What have I done that makes him want revenge?’
‘You murdered his kinsman,’ said Stukeley.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Count Gondomar was born Don Diego Sarmiento de
Acuna. He had a cousin, Don Diego Palomeque de Acuna. This Palomeque was the Governor at San Thome!’
Here was news, I sucked hard at my pipe. I said nothing.
Stukeley hugged his knees, delighted that at last he had won my complete attention. ‘All this is true,’ he went on in a rush. ‘My Lord Admiral Howard knows it. He has told the King. His Majesty expresses much distaste for being employed in a personal vendetta. All London knows also that Count Gondomar is sick. He suffers from a cancer in his gut. They say that he has the pox also. I can well believe it! He sleeps with Coke’s wife, Lady Hatton. He cannot be long for this world, eh? With a mistress like that! In any event, I have it on good authority that he will soon be withdraw
n as Ambassador. Meanwhile, our best policy is to wait. Every day that passes improves your chances. Do you see? King Philip of Spain may very well decline this petition to have you dispatched in Madrid. Why should he dirty his hands to satisfy Gondomar’s lust for blood? His minister, the Duke of Lerma, will never agree to it. The Lord Admiral says so.’
I stared up at the pear tree. Sam must be getting tired
To tell truth, I was weary myself.
‘We have two alternatives,’ Stukeley said, counting them out on his fingertips. ‘If, as I hope and pray, Spain refuses to go along with Gondomar, then the Council will press for your trial. That would give you the chance to redeem yourself. If not, and the worst comes to the worst, then you could use the tobacco money ‘
He left the sentence unfinished. It hung on the summer air like the mouthful of smoke I blew between us.
‘To do what?’ I enquired.
‘To do what your wife wished,’ said Stukeley.
*
I have set down this curious conversation to the best of my remembrance, and in so doing to come at any sense there might be in it. Since doing that, I have also discussed with Sam King every material point which may be extracted from my cousin’s rigmarole, and sought to relate these to his behaviour towards me, both now and in those far-off days when he was first my keeper. We are agreed that Stukeley is not to be trusted. If nothing else, his many fulsome protestations of allegiance serve to put me on my guard. It could well be, as Sam suggests, that the man is plain mad. There is a streak of insanity in all the Stukeleys. My cousin’s father, Captain Thomas Stukeley, killed at the battle of Alcazar in ‘78 when fighting for the Pope, was a villainous eccentric fellow, a traitor, a soldier of fortune, who dubbed himself ‘Duke of Ireland’— I’ve said this before. What I didn’t say was that, amongst other lunacies, this clown once declared himself Henry the 8th’s bastard son! No, cousin Lewis is definitely to be treated with very great caution. My own view, for what it is worth (and I confess myself exhausted and confused by the mental wilderness through which Stukeley leads me) - my private suspicion is that all this talk of Gondomar lusting for my blood, of our delay here being occasioned by the possibility that King Philip may decline the offer of the privilege of hanging me in Madrid, et cetera, et cetera, could be part of a well-laid plot in which my kinsman acts directly for King James. How do I know that he does not detain me here in his house simply to trick me into uttering incautious remarks which he passes on verbatim to his Majesty? As for the selling of my cargo, and his assurance that he will hand this money over to me to assist my escape into France - why, the whole wretched business stinks of James! What better proof could he have to demonstrate to the world that I am indeed a despicable villain?