A Dead Man in Deptford
Page 18
- Here then ye be, masters. Here ye have the Limboes.
They were pushed, with some courtesy shown in the light or token nature of the push, through a hatch into unwindowed darkness where a candle set on a black stone showed walls of ill-hewn blocks, a floor uneven and slimy, what seemed to be initials of prisoners long gone carved on a wooden bench which was all there was for sitting, resting, sleeping.
- There is no air. We are below ground, Kit panted as he was manacled to Tom by the jailer, then both to the floor rings.
- Nay, ye be above the gateway. That black stone is the black dog of Newgate, but he will not bark till ye are in the way of dashing out your brains against him. Here then ye stay.
- Food, drink?
- We will see of that when your bellies do rumble for a breakfast. And he shuffled out in his filth and odour of ancient mutton fat. The thick door slammed, a key ground. Why, this is hell nor am I out of it. There were scufflings in the dark. Rats.
- We could catch one, Tom said, and eat it raw. Though rats are as they say inesculent. The learned word bounced hollowly.
- A man should not play with these things. Jails and privation and death. I sit comfortably with my pen penning men into pens of this kind. I did not think I could be so short of breath.
- Breathe deep. There is air enough. No, not enough. Husband what we have.
- We will be out tomorrow for the coroner?
- I think not. It is a verdict foreknown, Wyld said. He will be a witness himself, our proxy. There are witnesses enough, no question, self-defence. Acquittal without doubt. Then release.
- When?
- Alas, not till next Sessions. December, I believe. That makes two months.
- In this hole?
- Ah no, I know something of the procedure. This little hell is to break a man's spirit for the night. Then comes the larger purgatory. Though that is now a word banned by the theologians. What do we do this night, compose a play? No, we rhyme, it is proper for poets manacled. The beneficent chains of. Half a couplet each.
- I cannot. See those whiskers twitching, it smells us.
- Try. Country air, washed lambs, lilywhite shepherdesses. It is all a sham. The pastoral sham that denies the black holes and the foul stinks of true life, if that it can be called. Here we are with our precious learning in the anteroom of thieves and murderers and coiners. There was a time when we would have been Franciscans or Dominicans. Ah well. Beneath an oak the pouting Lycidas -
- I cannot. Wait. Saw not his flock that nibbled the green grass.
- Not good. His inner eye fair Phyllida beguiled.
- You cannot say that. Nominative Phyllis. In fancy not reality she smiled. I cannot. Let us cry to be let out.
- In the darkmans couch a hogshead. We must learn the cant. The inner world alone exists. The soul floats free.
At dawn, after fits of sleep from which Kit started yelping and while Tom awake and worried said Calm, calm, another jailer came to them, grinding the key and letting a cockcrow in, chewing bread most visibly, an unwashed Newgate veteran, in frayed leather and gaping boots through which black-nailed hooves peered. He said:
- The garnish.
- A tester? Tom knew the term, Kit not.
- You be gentry coves. A silver bit. Receiving the coin he bit it, stowed it, then set himself to loosing their shackles with a key that made rat-squeals. Now it is to be the Master's side, you be not common enough for the common. Middle Ward is crammed that you do use your chum's famble for scratching of a pock boil, Stone Hold is right aswim with the fever.
They followed him to a region where was grudging light and air, a sorry mockery of the true world without, with space and open cells with bedboards and men free of limb and shambling though groaning.
- And that is the boozing ken where a man may booze an he have the tink. You may pay the Master there.
The Master appeared masterly in a manner proper to a prison, in hose, doublet, ruff even much creased and greased and reechy, with face and hands proudly unwashed, with beard lousy and uncombed. He took from Kit what was almost his final shilling, biting it more in custom than suspicion, and lordlily showing that there was the boozing ken. It was a mere foul tavern under a groined vault. The cove of the ken was brother to the Master, and he served hard bread and pies, stewed prunes as this were a brothel, ale watered as he would, since none could go elsewhere. There were benches but most stood about. Here were upright men, rufflers, abram-men, high-pads, buff-knappers, rattling-mumpers, tat-mongers, wiper-drawers, kidlays and moon-cursers (I thank Greene and Nashe for the trade-names), as also gentlemen, like Kit and Tom, rendered unfortunate. Here strangely was a freedom not to be found in the free city without, since a man could curse Church and State without fear of arrest since he was already arrested. Kit cursed by the anus of Chrysostom and the pocked nose of St Anselm. Dick Baines heard him. He was ordering a lamb's wool to the tapster's grumbles and said:
- So the Jesuit-chasing grows hot. You two are my supplements?
- Mr Watson and I are here as true malefactors.
- For true crime?
- We killed a man.
- God's my little life. You expect the rope? Perhaps it is not discreet to ask. A life's but a span. I think much on its brevity. There be great coiners here. I have met a Mr John Pole or Poole, a papist and a most ambitious counterfeiter as it is put. Coining and papistry go together, you know that, modes of disruption and falsehood. He is a slugabed and late riser but you will meet him.
There was generosity here, no man might go without for lack of money, so by eleven o'clock of the morning Kit was well on to sousing and could hardly see straight when Wyld, in the mode of a friendly neighbour, came to tell them of the coroner's verdict.
- It is as I said. The jury found Bradley killed in self-defence, his body has been claimed by his father and is due for quick burial because of this unseasonal heat. Mr Watson here may wait for acquittal at the next Sessions.
- Why not now? glazed Kit asked.
- It is not within the coroner's authority. You, Mr Marlin, are free to go now on surety of forty pound, since you struck not the final blow, remissible when the Sessions clears you.
- Bail money? Where shall I find that?
- Raleigh, Tom said, no, Raleigh is in Ireland planting outlandish tubers, the wizard Earl, no, not he, Alleyn, Henslowe, no. Do, he said urgently to Wyld, tell all to my dear wife, she will raise money to pay for my privilege of incarceration, she will bring in pies and a roast and a flagon. Why do we labour hard and lack money so much?
- Lack of money, aye, an old bent man of fifty or so said, bowing but already bowed. I see two poets here, I am honoured, Marlin, he said bowing to Tom, and the other one, bowing to Kit. Mr Baines, he is beginning his day's work as informer, see, told me of you and the interest you have in money. He is not good as an informer, we inform him great lies and he is happy with them, my name is Pole or Poole as you please.
- God help me, it will have to be Walsingham, Kit said thickly with drink. Forty pound, oh no.
- I go, Wyld said, leaving you my copy of the report. I will do what you say, Mr Watson. And he left. Tom read: Instantly William Bradleigh maide assalte upon Th. Watson and then and there wounded strooke and illtreated him with sworde and dagere of iron and steele so that he despared of hys lyfe wherefore Thos Watson with his sworde of iron and steele of a valew of 3s 4d did defend himself and -
- Mr Baines, Pole or Poole said, has thought much on money but to little purpose. He will have it that money is nothing, a token of value and no more, whereas I have it that coin of gold and silver has a beauty of lustre. Heap it, I say. Coin it if you can, and to say it hath no value when a skilful coiner can take church plate and cut and face it to angels and the like is the veriest idiocy.
Kit felt he needed his head clear so took a draught of aliger from a jug that was seasoning a gentleman prisoner's oysters just brought in. He recited as best he could from memory;
Pole o
r Poole attended avidly, a free bestowal from a poet, and said:
- That is fine, though there are too many somethings. And you put your finger on my meaning, which is that the wealth is in the thing and not in its most vulgar passing from hand to dirty hand, aye, gold comes first, but your fine stones follow. Amethysts, diamonds, aye aye aye. And fine plate in the churches and cathedrals stolen I may say here without fear by them that say that what was by good Catholics built is owned by good protestants. So the stealing back is by way of enforced restitution. Glastonbury, Canterbury, other edifices of the faith yield fine metals to be melted, cut and stamped. Mr Baines wished to know if I knew who had taken plate from Glastonbury and I gave him names of men non-existent and he wrote them down, he has this case with quill and knife and inkhorn. He writes much down.
- So, Kit said, we have as good a right to coin as the Queen her majesty?
- Aye. I like your line of a little room.
- Infinite riches in a. I must sleep.
Kit lay that afternoon on a bare board, sleeping little but transporting himself to the warm air of the Middle Sea, where his Jew named Barabas cheated Turks and Christians alike. Baines found him at dusk, saying:
- Well, now I may leave. I have crowned my stay, which thank God is over, with discovery of a Jesuit that was disguised as a trader of nags. He was heading his letter to a friend with AMDG, which as all know is Ad Mariam Del' Genetricem, foul idolatry, to pray to God's mother is forbidden.
- You have it wrong, Tom Watson said from the neighbour bed. It is Ad Maiorem Del Gloriam. Has anyone come for me?
- Is that true? Well, it is all one, filthy jesuitry.
- You report to whom? Kit asked. Direct to Sir Francis?
- No, to Poley. Poley has been back in England these three weeks.
- Ask Poley to arrange for my bail. Wait. I will write him a note. And Kit took from his bosom his three pages of The Massacre at Paris. Lend me your pen and inkhorn.
- And, Baines said while Kit wrote, he was to end his letter with LDS, which I take to be a request for money, though he puts the pence before the solidarii.
- Laus Deo Semper, worried Tom corrected.
- Is that true? That makes it worse. You know much, he added in suspicion.
When Kit rose next morning but one after tortured sleep (here he was selling himself back to the Service, no longer even when freed from here a free man), he first pissed into the great sunken well of the Master's Hold. Then buttoning he passed blear-eyed into the boozing ken where boozing already proceeded. There he saw to little surprise Nicholas Skeres. Skeres greeted him familiarly with Kit Merlin. He was his first filthy self of the meeting at Dover that time and seemed much at his ease with whip-jacks, adam-tilers and clapperdogeons. He offered Kit ale and part of a cold pasty, asking him to ware of the fingernails therein. Then he said:
- There be two quick to act as Service sureties, Kitchen of Clifford's Inn and Humph Rowland the horner. Robin Poley was pleased to hear of your eagerness to be back at work after your playhouse diversions. There is much to do. Enemies everywhere, indeed from the extremities, Catholic and Puritan. You are to see him at Seething Lane. Sir Francis is very sick, all is in Robin Poley's hands.
- I am free to leave?
- Ah, here is Tom Watson. Ale for the swordsman.
- My wife? Has aught come?
- It will be a wearisome wait. Even the innocent are made to feel guilty. They say guilt is man's born condition, prisons are here to remind us of it. You must hope the Sessions jury is of the same mind as the coroner's. Aye, free to leave. Come.
K i T1" s first act in his own dwelling, whose lintel he thankfully kissed, was to flint a candle and welcome the nymph into the very pits of his lungs. Then he washed with vigour and thoroughly and changed his shirt. Yet it seemed a prison dankness still clung to him and could be sniffed in the locks of his hair even when he had laved it. And when he confronted Poley at Seething Lane he felt the shame of a felon. Poley, fattened somewhat and very daintily dressed and with most clean fingernails, was inclined to smother him in love and welcome, my dear Kit, it has been so long, I have had a hard time, I know the hell of imprisonment, and I have had the rigours of much travel in the cause, thank God we are together again, call me Robin.
- Robin, Kit said doubtfully, well, sir, and so I call you Robin.
- You must listen with care to all I now say, dear Kit. You owe us, you know that.
- The forty pound will come back to you in December.
- There was cheating that time in Flushing, do not think we can with impunity be cheated, dear Kit, Baines told us everything, yet you could not be wholly blamed, Sir Francis's mind was made up, there was the Spanish danger about, I know, I know. Well, in effect you said Drake could attack Cadiz and we could proceed to war and the war was won and there is an end to it. But, and here he grew somewhat fierce and struck the table with the heel of his hand, there is no end to it. The war will be resumed. There will be no strike in the Channel, not ever again, ah no. So where will they strike now?
- I presume from another quarter.
- I like thy wit well i'faith, as the clowns say. I have seen plays, even yours of Faustus and the devil. I like not thy wit well at the moment. The answer is from the north, to wit Scotland. There be Calvinists in Scotland and Catholics in Scotland, so Scotland is a pretty parcel of enmity. And their king is in it, it is perhaps no wonder when we murdered his mother.
- So you admit to murder?
- Of course, murder, there was no other way. King James Sixth is a drunken fool and a known bugger and there be earls up there that have cajoled him into asking old Philip of Spain to send some of Parma's troops from the Low Countries to join with an army of Scots Catholics from the north to invade us. There, that is a surprise for you.
- It would fail.
- It must fail, true, but it will set the Catholic nobility here to thinking of ancient rights of succession. The Queen is old but still will not name a successor, you know that. You are a friend of one Catholic earl, he added in a kind of reproach.
- Hardly a friend. I cannot deny meeting with him if it is the Earl of Northumberland you mean. He is no Catholic.
- You are slow to lose your innocence. He remembers a father dead for the faith, old allegiances will rush back in if they are pricked by certain possibilities.
- What would you have me do? Robin, he added.
- Dear Kit, you must proceed to Edinburgh. It is a pleasant voyage from Deptford if this calm weather holds. You will resume your old guise as one converted to the old faith, that served you well that time you will not easily forget -
- Never never.
- It is a precept of Machiavelli that you must never see the bloodier consequences of your acts for those melt manhood. This you must have read.
- I do not think so. What must I do?
- Meet the Earl of Huntly. Young Fowler in Edinburgh also poses as a Catholic but he works for us. He has told Huntly, also Errol and Angus, that one hot for their cause will come from England to learn more of strategy and give the names of some below the border who will raise banners for the English side. You will have a travelling companion.
- Not Skeres?
- Ah no, not old Nick. It must be someone better able to assume high rank. You will see.
- When?
- Before their drunken sodomitical idiot of a king proceeds to Denmark for his wedding to their princess Anne. I shall be there. He will splutter out nonsense but it will not all be nonsense. There is somewhat required of their king.
- An undertaking not to invade?
- It will not come to that. In one week come to see me, do not forget you must hold to that as to an oath and no more spells in Newgate for brawling in the street. You have no sword, I see.
- Taken. Forbidden the use of a weapon sine die so that friends of the dead one may the more easily strike me down. But I shall keep myself safe and be here when you say. I am, he added grudgingly, beholden.
- That is Tom Watson, Kit said. He has been beguiling his prison hours. You can say the play is near complete. Can you give me money?
Henslowe began to whine. Ned Alleyn said:
- I have a shilling or so. But things are not easy, what with talk of the censorship. The Queen's Men are snuffed out like a candle and the Admiral's are to take over the Theatre for half a year if we are permitted to act at all.
- Why leave the Rose?
- Money as always. Lord Strange's Men pay a fair rent for the Rose that they may become known. And they borrow me.
- I know nothing of this Lord Strange. Who is in the company?
- New men. Tooley, Ostler, Alex Cooke, Dicky Robinson. One newly up from the country trying his hand, Shogspaw or Shagspeer or some such name. There have been things proceeding behind your back.
- And who is Lord Strange?
- One that is more than the loaner of a protective name. He thinks highly of players, he had his own company up in the north where he keeps his estate. He thinks highly of Dick Burbage who is like to lead them. My lord Pembroke has, I think, put the notion in some heads. Truly his lady perhaps. Sir Philip Sidney's sister, it is in the blood.
- Sidney thought little of plays.
- She is in love with some Frenchman called Garnier. She translates him. There is hope for us all on the lay side, the clerisy thinks us to be filth and disruption.
They were seated in a waterside inn named the Red Hat, whose sign was a devil clothed as a cardinal. Ned Alleyn had taken the pages of The Rich Jew from Henslowe. You cannot, he said, leave Machiavelli alone. And he recited to the inn:
- And the tragedy of the Guise? Kit asked.
- In time, in time, Henslowe said. I tell you, it is a hard world.
- He means, Ned Alleyn said, that Sackerson the bear is to have a tooth drawn and the French pox is rampant. Fear not, Pip, all may yet be well.
- If life were but easier.
Kit found himself singing without much tune:
It all came back to him, the evening with Captain Foscue in Rheims, the lie the doomed priest had sung about the deadliness of thinking. A mild-seeming man he did not know, fiddle-shaped brow and an auburn beard, nodded now at those lines. Kit rose. He must pack his three shirts and proceed to Deptford, a matter of catching the evening tide.