A Dead Man in Deptford

by Anthony Burgess

  - No majordomo's chain as yet?

  - I have it but do not flaunt it. My master asked you to come to him but you have not obeyed. For this Yule, said he. There is to be a great fire tomorrow in the great hall and the tenants and servants are to be given drink and pasties. Holly and ivy are all about, aye.

  - Mr Walsingham is doubtless Lord of the Manor at Scadbury but he is not my lord and you may not talk of obedience.

  - I cry your mastership's mercy. He is, he told Skeres, to be the poet that resideth. A good poet, he admitted, I have some lines off.

  - A thousand. Ilium.

  - All one.

  - You do not have it right. But it is good for you to have me even if deformedly by heart. Do, Mr Skeres, devour all my pigeon. I have no appetite.

  - No? Is there roast pig? he asked young Kate Shilliber, in whose bosom some ivy rested. We shall have roast pig. We will, he told Kit, have roast pig, being entitled to it. We have roasted our pig and at leisure we will crunch his crackling. No more.

  - I said Winchester, Frizer leered, because I was thinking on Winchester geese. They are all across the river in the Bishop thereof his jurisdiction. But they hiss not in my direction, I will not have it. Cleanness of life, master poet, is the clench and the out-about. So I attain where I am through cleanness. In buying and eke selling. And if there be coneys to be catched -

  - Enough enough, Skeres said, digging the stuffing out of Kit's dove with a long clean finger.

  - Aye, discretion. Take counsel from one that knoweth. My master's brother that had been Lord was pecked most viciously by the geese. A skellet with holes all agape. When he died, I was there, the forcemeat burst out of him.

  - No, no, Skeres protested, desisting from his finger-poking. Be cleanly, we are in gentlefolk's company. Gentry coves they call them in the place that shall have no name.

  - So, Frizer said, each night after supper you will recite what lines you have writ in the day and my master will nod or shake according to whether they be good or no. I have a pretty taste in such things I may say, I have read books to him.

  - You are then raised above majordomo, Kit said. He could not take offence: they were drunk and this was Christmas Eve, but he had not known that their friendship or alliance had brought two worlds together. You are Aristotle to his Alexander. Or Seneca to his Nero.

  - You will not call him Nero, Frizer said with sudden sharpness. I know of the emperors, you think I do not, and Nero was cruel but my master is not. Save to them deserving of it. Things are changed and changed mightily. There is to be no more beastliness.

  - What beastliness do you mean? And on whose part?

  - It is Christmas, I say no more. Think on the pretty child in the stable with beasts all about him. Though no geese either of Winchester or Jerusalem. It is the season of cleanly love.

  Robert Greene, staggering in, took that as a stage cue. Love, he cried, and charity, which may be accounted the same thing. Of your charity a pot of Malmsey. I will pay on the feast of Stephen, my credit is good. He saw Kit and raised a finger as in menace. I forgive my enemies. My salvation is in my Saviour who saveth me hence the redundancy and pleonasm of my asseveration. Cutting cutteth and Em emmeth and Master Greene of arts a master is alone. Malmsey.

  - Are all drunk this night save myself? said Kit rising and seeking to push his way out. Skeres pushed him back to sitting. He said:

  - All friends here. I take it thou wilt spend Yule with a dog in the manger.

  - I am not thou.

  - Friends, Kit, thou art thou and I to thee am thou. With Ingram here the case may well be different.

  - I will not thee and thou him, Frizer said with lofty humility. It is not deference but difference.

  - I will thou thee, Greene cried, thou famous gracer of tragedians that hast said with the fool in his heart that there is no God. Yet all must meet him that will mete out condign punishment. Be warned. A pot of Malmsey.

  - Oh, for God's good sake, Kit said, again seeking his way out.

  - God, Greene said, he useth in manner of an expletive lacking a signification of ontological import. He will not buy me a pot. So let him proceed out into the darkness.

  Kit was let leave, but old Shilliber called him to pay. Kit threw silver on to the table for what he had consumed and what not. Greene bowed him officiously to the street and followed him. He bawled:

  - Ball, Ball. Butter-cutter. And there was Ball with his dagger out. Come, Greene said, it is Christmas and we must love our enemies. Ball did not clearly understand. Cutter, Greene said, do to him what he did to you. The wrist he writeth his tragedies withal, nick only. Kit had no sword (sine die) to draw. He put up fists. This to Ball was a convenience. He struck with his dagger and drew blood from the right wrist. The blood pumped. Kit remembered a lesson from Warner. Not the vein, not. He ran pumping blood. All of his body would be out through that one grinning mouth. The candles from within had shown it. He ran to another candle, one within a doorway. Tom Kyd was at the door. Help me, Kit cried. I lose blood, I will lose it all.

  - You are bleeding over everything, Kyd protested within. It was, as I know too well, a very mean dwelling. Kyd had decked it with a little holly for his Saviour.

  - That kerchief there. Knot it tight.

  The knotted kerchief was deeply embloodied. "Tighter tighter. Kit lay on what had been my bed, fancying he might soon meet the God of whose existence he was unsure. Weak, he was weak. Another, cleaner, bandage. Kyd rummaged and found an old shirt of mine, torn, abandoned. The bleeding eased, thanks be to God or someone, something. The wound was tightly bound.

  - I had thought, Kyd said, to spend my Christmas alone. I bought some boned beef, it may be enough for two. Mistress Heywood made me a pudding that will go in the pot. I was on my way out to buy pottle ale. It seems you have an enemy. This season should be all forgiveness. I forgive you.

  - For what you forgive me?

  - For overbearingness and unlawful pride.

  - Oh my God.

  - Your God, aye, and the God of all. That blood is staunched but not Christ's that floweth over all the world.

  - Greene feigned to forgive me too but I was slashed just the same. See, the blood starts once more but not so much. I am thirsty. Get your pottle ale, I have money.

  - I forgive without feigning.

  - Forgive for success. I do not like jealousy.

  - I am not jealous. I am he that wrote The Spanish Tragedy. You may stay a day or so and help me with the new work.

  - Help the great Thomas Kyd? The honour is extreme.

  - Only God is great. All honour to his Son that is born this night.

  - Amen. Kyd nodded and left the little jail of a bedroom. He seemed to forget totally Kit's wound. Kit left the bed where I had slept and which had been untouched since my leaving to see with mild curiosity the chamber where Kyd had made his one masterwork for the playhouse. This had its pallet with a stained pillow and a mound of rags of sackcloth for blankets. The two candles had no sconces but were affixed by their own wax to the few bare portions of the table which was mostly deep in paper. There were plays abandoned - Alexander and Roxana, Have at You Mad Knave, The Tragedy of Vitellius, Moses and Pharaoh, The Comedy of Perkin Warbeck. Kyd, seeing Kit enter, was eager to lift towards him hands filled with manuscript as with flowers carelessly yet lavishly uprooted, saying:

  - This is a great poem on St Paul.

  - Who will buy it?

  - All who love God.

  - And all who love poetry?

  - The poetry is in the fervency of belief. Read. Kit read the sheet proffered.

  - You want my help in what capacity, poetic or theological?

  - That is but a draft. I have worked long at it, I need a fresh eye and ear. Your bleeding has stopped.

  - Saul did not smite the Christian Hebrews. He smote only the Greeks who had turned to Christ. Of these St Stephanos was the first.

  - I am no master of arts in divinity.

  -And I am no lov
er of the turncoat Saul or Paul. A juggler only. Raleigh's man Harlot could give him lessons. Why not call your poem Fast and Loose? Fast-bound in devotion, loose in form. And he that was fast or speedy to persecute was loosed from his obligations by a fit of the falling sickness. The title could have manifold meanings.

  - That is blasphemy but I am not shocked. I am not shocked by a dog's yapping or an owl's hooting. I will write Greekish blood. I thank you for your help. I will eat my boned beef and pudding alone.

  Kit felt shame and pity. He said:

  - That was foolish. I am somewhat lightheaded with the loss of blood. How do you live these days?

  - Botching and collaborating. It is not easy. I am back to the noverint's work for the odd shilling. I cannot seem to conceive a play entire. Give me the plotting scene by scene and I can manage the verse. Can you lend that help?

  - Alas. But Sir Walter will pay well for your Italian hand. - That atheist?

  - Not so. All his work at present is confuting the Arians. He needs the chief Arian arguments copied out the better to refute them. I have them in a book. I can bring the book. I can show what must be copied. Can you do that?

  - Perhaps. I will see. Is it in reality some atheist trick?

  - Devout as you would wish. A humble search for truth. The slashing of the Arians, the logical confirming of Christ's divinity. Will you do it? Your admirable Italian hand.

  - I will see.

  That was unwisdom on Kit's part, as time would show. And where was I that Christmas? I had found Tom Kyd very wearisome with his moans at what he termed the hell of dramaturgy and indeed also his envy at the acclaim Kit's work had earned. I had abandoned the Lord Admiral's Men through dislike of Alleyn's imperiousness and had discovered the talent of song with Lord Strange's Men, as also the skill of comic gallantry in what young noblemen's parts I was granted. And I was lodged now with the new player and playmaker (botcher, collaborator) from Warwickshire, a mild man but ambitious, who sucked me dry, but ever with a mild smile, of all I knew of the craft. He moaned this Christmas, indeed wept, because he was absent from his three children that had ever loved the games of the season and the gifts. He moaned less that he was absent from his wife.

  LENT came and the playhouses were closed, but Henslowe and Alleyn, in their money-loving cunning, found that they might, without censure, play The Rich Jew of Malta at the Cross Keys in Gracechurch Street. This was but an inn with a fairsized yard, the stage no more than a set of creaking boards resting on empty barrels not well roped together, so that when Barabas was told that he had committed and he proceeded to complete the accusation with fornication, but that was in another country and besides the wench is dead, he began to roll off as towards that other country. But all was secured and all rolled well to its end with Barabas falling from the upper gallery into the seething cauldron with

  Tom Watson was with Kit in the yard; both wished to be among the groundlings. Tom had been found to have killed Bradley in self-defence and recommended for the Queen's pardon, which he graciously got before Shrove Tuesday. He had written some of The Rich Jew in Newgate, cheering his heavy heart with most bitter comedy.

  - So the Admiral's and Pembroke's are joined together here?

  - Aye, lofty men that are friends and became so when they presided over the murder of Mary of Scots.

  - Say not murder so loud.

  There seemed to be no informers here. Kit let his eye in panorama roll over the cram of chewers of sausages and nuts, drinkers too of ale, the Cross Kevs being about its primal function, and wondered to himself what message they were receiving from the bawlings of Ned Alleyn whose great nose of pulped and painted paper was, like the barrels, insecure and had at times to be held fast by hand. They knew no Jews, an alien race of myth that had killed Christ and made money through usury. They were in leather and broadcloth, holding in their unwashed odour like precious incense, though it escaped in whiffs and slamming underarm blasts. Some held wormy cheese in one hand and a knot of garlic in the other, teeth champing and eyes on stage, a sort of divided animals. Were they then to be taught naught but gross comic murder, language mere noise (but was it more in the endless Sunday sermons they were whipped to attending?), history a gallimaufrey of rivalry and blood? They wished diversion, no more. Diversion filled no empty heads, save with ride in triumph through Persepolis and avaunt avoid Mephistophilis and (so it would be now) master I'll worship thy nose for this. The Countess of Pembroke had, so the Wizard Earl had told him, urged the need to use the playhouse to refine and instruct, following Garnier and such. History, she had said, was at least knowledge.

  There was a prayer for the Queen at the end, might she be protected from filthy bugaboos and foul atheistical papishes and puritanicals, and then all rushed to leave, clumsy clogs clattering, keep thine elbow to thyself, what sayest thou bully, chill deal thee one, out on it, thy nose is like his though it will not come apart if I tweak it, and so forth. Then Kit, turning himself to leave with Tom Watson, saw Baines and another. Baines said:

  - Well, there you have it, the diseases of money of which I spoke that time, the dire sin of amassing wealth contrary to Gresham. I am glad to see you both out of Newgate, that was no good spell. I was away after, as you may know. This is Mr Chomley, a Richard like myself.

  - Chomley?

  - Chumley or Cholmondeley, there be many spellings and soundings. I am happy to see you, Mr Marlin or Morley.

  - Marlowe will do. There be many soundings and spellings.

  - I have long admired, Cholmondeley said. He was an intense dark young man in dark doublet well cut and unstained. Kit felt he could not greatly like the maroon eyes that seemed to melt in admiration most factitious. The eyes seemed greatly under the control of him who had them. Admired you for poesy and for boldness also.

  - Boldness?

  - Come, if I do not presume, and let me buy you some potion apt for one I admire. They have wine at the Black Bull and we may broach a bottle. And your friend.

  - Watson. Kit, I must go to my wife.

  - And you no wife, Mr Marlowe, a free man. Shall we then? So at the Black Bull on Gracechurch Street on an afternoon of Lent, a fine season for the fishmongers, they sat, Baines and Cholmondeley facing Kit, and a bottle was broached. The wine was not good, it had a flavour of nose-dropping when the throat catches it, but Kit drank and listened. Cholmondeley said:

  - Boldness I said. There has been a man hanged for boldness each hour of the London day. You have been courageous in your boldness and remain, as I said, a free man.

  - Bold in my boldness, so?

  - If more were so bold then the world might grow less fearsome. That courage encourages. I would be bold too.

  - Then be bold.

  - Bold to say that there is no God, that all comes from an accidental seed, that sin is a fabrication of such men as would have others tremble in fear, that religion is a lie.

  - You believe that?

  - These are ideas that pass through the brain of the bold man. I think you hold such and speak them. I do not yet have the boldness.

  - And where have I spoken such heresies?

  - Oh, around and about. I would not say heresies.

  - What are you? Kit asked. Where do you come from, where were you educated, in whose employ are you?

  - A Cheshire man with a brother a knight, brought up in private tutelage, as for my employ I have been in the service of many but am too hot in nature to stay long. Last year I was apprehended in the Strand for rioting after the Portingal adventure. I was spoken well of by my lord Essex that lost most through the expedition.

  - You are in the employ of my lord Essex?

  - Well, Baines said, we must all go where we can. With Mr Secretary near to death the Service is like to fall apart.

  - I take it, Kit said, that you would have me talk of Sir Walter's imputed atheism so that you may pass this on to my lord Essex. I am not so simple but you I think are, both. When I reach the street I will spew up your wine.

/>   - You are wrong, Cholmondeley said very mildly. You have too much fire, it is the poetic faculty. I have fire too but it is held well in check. I thought there might be friendship.

  - The friendship of fellow atheists?

  - Fellow enquirers into the truth. Well, you are in some agitation it is no wonder, you found fault in the acting of your new play I do not doubt.

  - You are bold enough in your talk, Kit said to Baines. You were quick to tell Poley of my failure in duty at Flushing. That is the way of the puling schoolboy. It was not manly.

  - Nor is your speaking friendly.

  - Here is a curse for your tablets, Kit said in glee and anger. May the hosts of Beelzebub bite off your pricks and then spit them out as unsavoury, may Belial juggle with your ballocks, may the great Lucifer himself pedicate and irrumate you in fine Catullan fashion. Hell's a fable, though not for you, in hell is a special stinking zone for spies.

  - That is far from friendly, Baines said.

  - Of which you are one, Cholmondeley said. So the hell is for you too.

  - Like God, if he exists, I am what I am.

  And Kit left, tipping the bottle of wine before departing, so that a quantity dripped into Baines's lap. He would not find that friendly either.

  KIT rode on Jack Cade, Perkin was unwell in the fetlock, rode with reluctance (how free was he?) through Chislehurst, Mottingham, Eltham. The news of Sir Francis Walsingham's death had come to him and the Lord of the Manor at the manor house in Scadbury. I have not seen but have heard of this building, being told it was a fine one though somewhat neglected for lack of money, the great disease of our time, half-timbered with a long gallery some seventy feet by thirteen, a ceiling of curved braces and panels of devices with some meaning for the Walsingham family though not for others. There were carved corner posts and gables and surfaces of the style termed magpie because, I take it, of the black and white. There was wainscoting not hangings and there were touches of the Flemish, or so I was told. The building was said to be by Athelwold Smythson, of the family of the Robert Smythson who was to erect in Derbyshire Hardwick Hall more glass than wall.