A Dead Man in Deptford

by Anthony Burgess

  - It is so assigned, Kit said. Our rulers decide, then call on God to justify. So God is dragged into presiding over the state's enactments, and God's eternal foe is conjured to inspire warlocks and witches, Jews and Jesuits and others of the heretical brood.

  - And hath God an eternal foe? Sir Walter asked.

  - If God exists he must have, Kit said. For the universe, though conceived as one thing as the name saith, yet is properly sustained through the action of opposites. That is, I think, good Brunonian doctrine. All change is the clash of opposites.

  - And opposites, the Earl said, are not chemical or physical or whatever the term may be, they are moral, would you say that?

  - Morality is to be kept out of it, said Harlot. Morality is made by men. The moral is the expedient, an empiric matter, no more.

  - So there be two forces opposed and one may follow either?

  I see, Warner said, head shaking, that you require the pursuit of learning to be a matter of ecstatic spasms. The pursuit is not venery. I know what you are coming to. It is a matter of the imperfect balance of humours in you, I say this without intention of offending. You would be happy to conjure Merlin in Glastonbury or elsewhere and thus gain great knowledge without the agony of the long pursuit.

  - Well, Bruno believes in the ecstasy of the magic of the sudden revelation. A truth flashes out from no place. By occult means one may invoke such flashes.

  - You mean, Kit said, necromancy?

  - Have a care, the Earl said. It is a perilous word and a perilous mode of enquiry, if indeed it be possible. To call on the dead is not in our province. And yet Holy Mother Church counsels praying to the dead. To enquire of the dead what shall be, to require of the dead a power not given to them that live - well, we all shake heads. Nonetheless, must not all roads be travelled? Some lead nowhere so, in no ill humour, smiling rather, though thinly, we must trudge back to engage yet another path. Is not this (to Warner) your agony of the long pursuit?

  - When you and I have played at ruff or trump, Sir Walter began.

  - And you have won invariably by some diabolic means.

  - You have taken the cards and used them for conjuration. Nay, divination, a word that containeth holiness most unholily. Do you really believe they can foretell, or is it no more than a game to follow the other game?

  - Cards, entrails, stars. Harlot here is a stargazer. Surgentia sidera dicunt, so Virgil prophesied. They talk to him.

  - They are implacably silent, Harlot said gravely. I call myself an astronomer. Astrology is a noble term for an ignoble superstition. The stars tell us nothing except that they are there and very distant.

  - But the Queen herself listens when the astrologers speak.

  - The Queen is exalted by her blood not by her intellect. Oh, that is fair, her wit, she is a wise woman though no witch. Those books must be answered with scorn, this thing of Richard Harvey's of terrible threatenings and menaces in the stars. Harvey, and Hariot turned to Kit with brows abeetle, him you will know, he was at Cambridge.

  - And his brother Gabriel. Asses, good for nothing. Asstro-logy is good for them both.

  - The stars, the Earl said, rule us, so we are told. Stars reign at our nativity and allot us whatever it be they allot us.

  - Ass, Warner said, trology. I see. That will do for the clown or vice in one of your plays. A joke, a jape, we must not be diverted by such in our graver dealings. So, my dear lord, I beg you, no talk of the stars or of conjurations or the like. Stern enquiry will, in a figure not a fact, lead us ad astra.

  - I know, the Earl said, and I but play with the other conjectures. But there is a power in words. Can words work on matter? They can on spirit. Grinning, he mock-thundered: Sint mihi dei Acherontis propitii; valeat numen triplex Jehovae; ignei, aerii, aquatici, terreni spiritus salvete!

  - Avete, Sir Walter corrected. There is better stuff to learn by heart. It is late, let us finish, you will need link boys. Merlin, throw open the door to let the fumes out. Good. Servants are never to be trusted, let my untrustworthy ones hear us fall to our knees and join in a prayer. For prayers, he roared to the departing blue smoke, are better than all these disputations.

  Come, then. Our Father, which art in heaven -

  P o O R Kit's prancer had been prigged, cant of the moon minions. Brown Peter, grazing near the Scadbury woods, had got himself filched; some filthy thief had abducted him and he was not to be seen again. It was the loss of a love, a whinnying and nuzzling friend that, after munching of his oats, had loved his treat of honeycake, who, as Kit had dreamed of other love when mounted, had sometimes in the jogging brought him to the blissful small death. So there was no more riding to the larger bliss whereof that had been a comfit or kickshaws of parody, nor, to tell truth, was the old love at all holding. Tom Walsingham had laughed from the cottage bed when Kit had slunk back in misery to announce he was bereft and must march the dusty London road. And once, driven by remembered transports, he had borrowed Ned Alleyn's pampered jade to visit, presenting himself boldly at the manor house in Frizer's despite, there to find Edmund the elder inheriting brother in full possession, Lord of the, not dead of an imposthume nor poisoned by Frizer but displaying all the outer symptoma of the French pox, nose two great holes and such teeth as had not rotted out very black, cheeks blotched, groaning with stiff joints, voice a muted corncrake call with Who is the fellow? One that should not be here, master, for he is a foul bugger. Kit had worn his sword, his own not Poley's father's, but had made for Frizer with his fists. Then the great door slammed, and was it Tom's far laughter he soon heard?

  Such love between men of age ripe for marriage could not with ease be sustained, there being no nest to tend, no partitioning of the labour proper to the bonding of the opposed and complementary sexes God, perhaps in doubtful wisdom, had made, he to work, she to the distaff. If there had been in Tom Walsingham's brain a flame or even a flicker of response to Kit's poetic ardency or the cunning of his learning, then there would have been other linkings and knottings and the joy of discourse in the cool of after love, but there was there a great idleness, a pouting for praise though nought to be praised, a too great leaning on Ingram Frizer who had him in a sort of fawning thrall that Kit could not for all of his taking thought comprehend.

  I was at that time lodged with Tom Kyd, a man lonely and timid with boy and woman alike, moaning that his new play did not go well and yet seeking to instruct me in the right fashioning of what he called a decasyllabon. I had left Ned Alleyn because he was to marry and also because he had puffed himself up with fame and gave too many orders. Kit would sometimes come when Kyd was out to woo me to undressing with I love thee I love thee, but I was older and shaving once a week and conning the parts of young men, though this would be a sharp declension from the glory of Bel-Imperia and Zenocrate. I had come to hate the prying paws of the small gallants who came to the tiring room, by wine emboldened, saying What hast under here? - fardingale or stuffed bodice - and a moment only sweetheart, it is my need. So in something like gentleness I would thrust Kit away, and he would shrug and droop but bear small malice. One day I put it to him:

  - Why boys, why men, why never girls nor women?

  - There is a divine command, Lucretius calls on Alma Venus, delight of gods and men, and it may not be questioned. She commands me the way I must go and ever has, and nothing may be done.

  - And why does she, what is the reason in nature?

  - It is not in nature, Alma Venus rides all above her, one may say it is a rebuke to nature, we will go our own way nor follow the bestial law of breeding. And thus too we may escape from our mothers. To bed a woman, which I have never done, has a strong stench of incest.

  - You like not your mother?

  - I love her as a son should, but best from afar.

  And he would cross the river to the Bankside, to visit the loud and bloody world where Henslowe ruled, where paid venery could not be free of the consort of bulls bellowing and bears roaring for bass, dogs howling,
yapping, screaming for alto and treble. And now and then there was a crying ape that rode a dog's back, and was rent, dog too, by the other dogs. In the Paris Garden house where Henslowe kept his geese there was a back room where gander goslings might be tupped for a tester. Kit's presence in a manner remained after his departure in the token of a tobacco reek, for he would pleasure his lungs with the nymph while he indulged the satyr in his loins. Some, though not often to his face, spoke of Mr TS, the tobacco sodomite.

  It was in the April of the year 1588, for which the stars of their scryers made monstrous predictions, that Kit heard himself called in an alehouse, which was as good as a public place, by the name of atheist. This was grave, this was perilous, this was worse than an ascription of disbelief in God, for meaning denial of the authority of England's holy Church it meant also denial of the Queen her right to rule it and the realm over which it was an unsleeping paraclete. But the word was uttered by none in authority, merely by the ruffians William Bradley and George Orwell, who sat at their ease at a table in the corner by the door of the Unicorn.

  - Mr Marlin the ace, he is.

  - Pardon me?

  - Atheist, he means, Bradley said. He has never seen the word writ down.

  - He or you says say that I am atheist? You will recall some years back what I did to you and that other damned rogue. And Kit's right hand was on the sword handle. Have a care, filth.

  - I am no filth. The damned rogue you speak of is in the Clink. A foolish rogue. And I do not say you are atheist, nor does he, it is what Ball the Cutter is shouting around.

  - Cutting Ball is saying that I am an atheist? You know what the word means, scum?

  - I am no scum. It is you that must have a care. George here, see, will have his dagger out. It meaneth one that says God must be spelt arsiversy.

  Kit looked around. It was noontime, there were few drinkers. None heard. Let it pass, these two were foolish. Ned Alleyn had said he would be here with his brother, there was business. Kit had for Ned a speech revised in his bosom. He went to the inner room and entered without a knock. The brothers looked up from bread and a cold roast fowl. There was a bottle and two glasses half-filled with red. Jack Alleyn raised his to Kit, saying:

  - Well, we shall be brothers in the business, you may see at year's end if not before. The Unicorn shall go to another, and Jack Alleyn is to be with his brother Ned in the putting on of the plays you make. Commodities, playing apparels and the like. A cool head and no grasping in Henslowe's manner. Sit. Drink. Eat if you will. He called Harry loudly.

  - I am glad, Kit said. Tavern-keeping is for lesser talents. But you will have money to put in?

  - It will be slow work drubbing creditors. But yes, there is a little saved. Ah, here is a glass and a plate and a knife.

  - Bradley and Orwell are there, Kit said. Bradley to me spoke the word atheist.

  - Ah, Ned Alleyn said. That will be Robin Greene. He has it in print. Atheist. And for those that cannot read he has his bully Ball bawling it about. You must act about this. It does none of us good.

  - He has writ a pamphlet about my atheism?

  - A story of sorts. I have not seen it. It is on sale in Paul's yard. Beware of Ball though if you tax him with it. Cutting is a right name. He cuts more than purses.

  - It is Greene I will see. Having stamped his unwashed bravo into the mud. I will not have this.

  - Have a care with what you are doing, Kit, Ned said. I mean the play. It will be a fine play but the theme is perilous.

  - Is everything perilous these days?

  Ned Alleyn mused on that a space, then said:

  - Aye, everything is. To act is and to put on plays is. They say we incite prentice riots, the killing of a woman with child is a small matter to that. And now you are to have calling up of the devil and the selling of a man's soul. It is a fine part though, do not mistake me. But you do not condemn.

  - I have here, Kit said, withdrawing the sheet from his bosom, a speech that calls on God and is waterlogged with repentance. The play will be seen as manner of a stern warning to them that dabble in the forbidden.

  - There be some that say, Jack Alleyn said, looking stern with his one dark eye, that you so dabble. Conspiracies of evil and the taking of tobacco in a hidden room.

  - A small town this, Kit sighed, unlike Paris. Well, there it is, Ned, tell me later what you think. Now I will take a walk to Paul's and see me an atheist in print. Then I shall take Robin Greene by his steeple beard and topple him.

  The yard of St Paul's was full of stalls with books for sale, all passed by the suspicious eyes of the State that the Queen's peace be not perturbed, nought subversive, heretical, republican, mild stuff all: Let the Sad Sinner be Called to Breast Beating; Of the Manner of Life of the Virginian Heathens; Primulus and Hostilia; A Little Garland of Ditties of Love Unrequited; A Sweet and Most Easy Guide to the Rebeck; The Panacea that is Flowers of Sulphur and Much Else Thereto Appertaining; Perimedes the Blacksmith. This last was by Robert Greene, Master of Arts. Kit paid his grumbling shilling and took it to the steps of the church to read in the mild April sun. He read that Greene had had it in derision

  for that I could not make my verses jet upon the stage in tragicall buskins, everie worde fylling the mouth like the fa-burden of Bowe Belle, daring God out of heaven with that atheist Tamburlan, or blaspheming with the madde prieste of the Sunne. But let me rather pocket up the asse at Diogenes his hande than wantonly set out such impious instances of intolerable poetrie, such madde and scoffying poets that have prophetical spirites as bred of Merlin's race. If there be anie in England that sette the ende of scholarism in an Englysh blank verse, I thinke eyther it is the humor of a novice that tickels them with self-love or so much frequenting the hothouse.

  So. He, Kit, was not termed atheist but the fabricator of one, but there he was as Merlin. Prophetical, how? Scoffing, how? And what did Greene know of the priest of the sun who was Giordano Bruno? He flushed at that hothouse, which had more than one meaning but one most clear that saw Kit emerging smoking from.

  He had the mean book open and near-splitting at the spine when he marched to Greene's hovel, truly in the ownership of Em Ball his succuba and that of many nameless beside, not far from his own dwelling that, now he thought on it, was little more than a hovel though cleanly cleanly. On the cobbles urchins waded barefoot through horse dung and sparse mud the sun engilded. One of these, though which one he knew not and it made little difference, would be the bastard brat Fortunatus that could also be Faustus, though Faust it was said was Alemanish for a fist. With book in fist he with the other fist fisted the door and Em Ball came to it chewing. Ah? She was slatternly but bright of eye and in no more than a stained gown. Ah? Kit strode in to find Greene at table eating and writing, needing a third hand to replenish with Rhenish a greasy glass. And there was another at the table, his gross belly forbidding a close encounter with it. Spice and aliger rode the bad air. Pickled herrings and mouldy bread. The other man, Kit saw with shock, was Dick Tarleton. Come low, God, how very low, Tarleton of the Queen's Men, the Queen's own unrebukable clown that had gone too far with his mock of the Earl of Leicester than whom no man with impunity might. Well, Dick Tarleton swollen and in decay, his belly a very ascites or wineskin, swilling deep of ale not of Rhenish. Cutting Ball was not to be seen, doubtless out at his cutting. Kit said, waving pages:

  - I have read this. More, I have bought it.

  - Every penny helps, Greene said, munching. Em Ball reseated herself with bold eyes on Kit, taking between her fingers the bony corpse of a herring soused to chew. Her teeth were whiter than seemed proper for a slattern. Tarleton sighed deeply after the deep draught and said: Here we have who?

  - This is Merlin the Marlin that dared God out of heaven.

  - The tambourine man that goes ding ding rattle to God's deep sackbuts. And he squinted comically.

  - Not tambourine, Kit said. Though I like your quips well enough. I was taken with your Seven Deadly Sins.

/>   - You write for the Admiral? Well, he has lifted himself above the Queen, which is a foul fault. The Queen's Men, Tarleton sang waveringly, not beer and bread and beans men but fine men wine men music while we dine men. Let it go.

  - You have some complaint? Greene asked.

  - What do you know of what you term the blasphemy of Bruno?

  - Caught that, did you? Sit, sit, eat if you will. There is not enough Rhenish to offer. It was discreet, what I wrote. I could have been less discreet. We all know what proceeds at Durham House.

  - And what precisely proceeds?

  - Talk, Godless talk I am told. Sit. Kit sat. He said:

  - Charity compels pity. Your Alphonsus was poor stuff, rejected by all except the company at Stoke Newington, where it was howled off. Jealousy makes for poor writing. There is a sob of self-pity on every page. Poor Greene that lacks the gift. You stole too much from my Tamburlaine, a foul fault. More of this and I will act.

  - How act?

  - You know how. The stinking brother of your trull here will be thrown a corpse in Fleet Ditch first if he does not stop his foul chant that I hear of, then your beard for a beginning will be shorn and very roughly.

  - You will not talk so, said eating Em Ball, though very mildly.

  Greene leaned back comfortably, cursed his pen-point, then took a sharp knife to mend it. Mending it, he said to Tarleton:

  - You see, Dick, what they are like. Scholarship mocked and loud words to conceal emptiness. Bow Bell clanging to call atheists to their devil worship. Look, he said fiercely, leaning forward, to Kit. What jealousy can there be in me? I wrote better than the stage deserves. I took your tone to make play with it, which pudding brains like yours could not see.

  - You have much to learn, Kit said. If a play is not liked the play is bad. There can be no talk of too good for the groundlings. You speak of scholarship and yet look at you. Living off holy mutton with a bare-arsed bastard. You may take offence if you will. I have taken it already. He tore the book and scattered it over the table. Now Tarleton spoke, his Socratic snub nose twitching:

  - I will not have this of tibs and trulls and holy mutton. To me they have been kind and give hospitality where the better sort as they are called spit and spew at my presence. It would be unwise to have Dick Tarleton as your enemy.