A Dead Man in Deptford

by Anthony Burgess

  - They are already come. They wait on you.

  - They?

  - You have this chamber and the garden for your meeting. They have ordered dinner at noon. Fish in a pastry coffin. I have wine.

  They? Kit went where told, bearing his leathern bag. It was the room he knew, he had dined there with Tom before they embarked for Scotland. Frizer and Skeres sat together at the table, counting money. Skeres had endued his dirty self. Frizer whined at once:

  - Nothing. I bear no grudge. Your anger was in order. My shin hurts but it is a reminder that I was wrong. It is enough that a man die without our sneering.

  - You did not sneer. You exclaimed on the hangman's bad art. Well, so I am forgiven. I am to meet Mr Poley here. I was not told of my meeting you too.

  - Friends, friends, again and again friends, Skeres said. May we thou and thee? May you be called Kit?

  - Christopher.

  - Formal, aye, but a holy name. Shall I explain? Ingram and I are in Deptford to collect a debt. We have collected it and now count.

  - A hundred per centum?

  - A hundred and twenty. A difficult young man, dead of the plague, alas, but his father very hearty. He too was difficult but we prevailed.

  Kit sat. Frizer and Skeres were already on wine. There were four cups. Without invitation Kit poured for himself. Money was neither clean nor filthy, it was merely needful. He said:

  - Are you in the lending spirit now?

  Both looked up from their coins in some surprise. Frizer said:

  - What in the way of pledge?

  - I understood you loaned without security.

  - Never, Skeres said. There is always something - a messuage, a fine wardrobe, a stable of horses. You need money?

  - Somewhat desperately. Else I would not ask.

  - Else you would not lower yourself, Frizer said. Well, your good life at Scadbury was assured by lending on what you would call usury. But you praised usury in your play of the rich Jew.

  - Hardly praised. He died in a hot cauldron.

  - And dies again soon with the opening of the playhouses, Skeres said. Dies and is reborn. Plays preach of the resurrection.

  - Profound, Kit said. Most deep.

  - You repeat yourself. The words mean the same. How much do you require?

  - Five pound only.

  - At one hundred and fifty per centum, Skeres said. Do you agree?

  - I must.

  As a pledge we will have your sword and belt, Frizer said. A mere token. A manner of a receipt or quittance.

  - So, Kit said, unfastening, I am disarmed.

  - You are with friends, Mr Christopher, Skeres said. And you shall be with another friend at noon. Ingram's master will be along to eat with us.

  - He was most distraught at your manner of parting, Frizer said. What he called his triumph was, he saw, very hollow and unworthy. He will not have it that dead Penry was arrested in England. Young men will have their dreams and boasts.

  - And the money?

  - Fear not, Skeres said. It will be placed down for you when we play at the tables.

  - I am not here to play backgammon.

  - You are here to eat and drink and make merry, and what better merriment than a clinking of dice over the tables?

  - Much depends on the dice.

  Skeres laughed, showing teeth that appeared paint-blackened. Have no fear of the dice. I am no man of the barred catertreys. Nor is our Ingram, no cleaner or fairer man ever walked. You are among friends.

  - As you are warm to remind me.

  - Good, good and again good. Skeres stood, stretched, and walked to the wall where a lute hung. An instrument of music among people who detest pagan twanging, he said. Ah well, they are in barber-shops too. This is damnably mistuned, dirty thumb on the strings.

  - There is a softness in you then, Kit said.

  - You know how soft and sugared and dulcet. I am most pliable. I will do anything for peace. And gain, of course, I must live. What shall I sing? Ah, I know. Listen. It appeared that he knew but one triad of the mode major. He sang, and the voice was high and sweet, nay over-sweet:

  I forget the words. Their author must remind me.

  -No matter, Kit said. I have forgot them myself. The writing down of verses is a means of cleansing the mind of them.

  - Cleanse? Frizer said. You say cleanse as if the verses were filth. They are surely not so. A shepherd sings to his love, what could be prettier or more wholesome? But writing them did you have a shepherdess in your mind? Did you see some young and pretty lass ready to be wooed to lift her kirtle and say now Roger?

  - A boy rather in a shepherdess guise, Frizer said, twanging. There is a sour note, let me screw. It is the way of the stage, is it not? Now thrust in to the sticking place. There, better. I have wondered oft what a man and a boy will do together. It is against nature.

  - It is called the sin of Sodom, Kit said. The God of the Hebrews warned his people of the need to fill the land with little Hebrews. Those who took their love otherwise must be punished with fire and brimstone. We inherit the law of the Hebrews.

  - But even in Aristotle, Frizer said, it is laid down that love is for engendering.

  - You have read Aristotle?

  - I have little Greek, alas. But it is logic, is it not, that entwining is for engendering?

  - Do you entwine and engender, Mr Frizer?

  - Oh, I have had moments in hayfields but not in indentured beds. Nick Skeres here too. Couple but not beget, not knowingly. We are like you, not men for marriage. But why should a boy's body excite lust?

  - Because of smoothness and pliability, much like a woman you will say. But love is raised above the animal, for animals are driven only to beget. So was it prized by the Greeks. Including Aristotle.

  - But it is against nature, Frizer said again.

  - Many things are. This for an example. And Kit took out his pipe and tobacco. Skeres was eager, over-eager, to look for a flint and kindling on the window ledge. On the mantelpiece a candle waited in its sconce. Skeres inflamed. Kit lighted from the candle and drew in, drew out. Frizer feigned suffocation, saying:

  - Well, that is a stink that Scadbury will no longer know. Though it seems to me embedded in the walls and hangings.

  - Novelty, Kit said, puffing, oft entails suffering.

  - Like the sodomitical act, Skeres said, sitting. It must be most painful to have a hard rod thrust into the nether orifice. That was a most painful punishment you had for the King in your play. Painful but fitting.

  - There are emollients, Kit said, oil, butter and the like. The pleasure is considerable.

  - For the giver or the taker?

  - For both.

  - Ah, both Skeres and Frizer went. For the serving girl the Widow Bull employed had entered with knives, trenchers, and a fine salt cellar. Kit said:

  - The Lord of the Manor is to come when?

  - Oh, Frizer said, we may eat without him. This is a feast for us three. As for the reckoning, there is time enough. You are a good girl, my dear? he said to the wench who placed knives and trenchers. He stroked her arm. You go not with naughty men? Which of us three would you say was the naughtiest?

  - I know not, sir. And she left to collect the fish baked in its coffin.

  - He may come early or late, Frizer said. He rides about London on marriage business, lawyers and the like. And there is Mr Poley to come. Well, we shall sup together. What shall we sup on?

  - Flesh, Skeres said. The Widow Bull oft visits the royal slaughterhouse. "There is good flesh there. Flesh, he said again. In his mouth it seemed not savoury. Then the steaming coffin was brought in. Frizer served, cracking the brown crust, letting odours arise. Dates, mace, nutmeg, cloves, rosemary, thyme, dace, trout, pike.

  - You recall Dover, Mr Christopher? Skeres asked. There is nothing like a sole of Dover, but this is good. And he piled spiced fish on pastry and hungrily and smokily ate. He said, through smoke: We eat the fishes of the seas and the rivers. We do
not speak of hunting or killing but of catching. They are caught and napped on the head. Or, with crabs and lobsters, they are not napped but boiled alive. Do we feel pity or compassion? No, they belong to a world not ours. Now, to slaughter a calf or a bullock or a lamb is to feel a certain remorse, for they seem close to us. Is that not so? A man is a kind of brute but he is not a kind of fish. But to kill a calf is to wish to eat it, to kill a man is what? Whatever it is, it is, like your manner of love, against nature. But if your manner of love is good, why is not the killing of a man?

  - There is little connection, Kit said, eating with small appetite. Except that the loving and the killing are acts gratuitous that proclaim the nature of humanity. But to kill a man or indeed woman or child is to offend against a principle of cognition. For we know the world to exist only by our seeing it. You shut eyes in a man's death and in a sense you kill the universe.

  - At Cambridge you learned this? Frizer asked, the palm of his hand a mess of broken crust and fish.

  - At Cambridge I thought on these things.

  - He is a man of thought, Skeres said to Frizer, not like us, who are more lowly. But thought will have a man killed sooner than following his round of work and rest and devotion and begetting. Thought is a dagger, he said, and looked for applause. Frizer nodded many times and, feigning a greater pain than he could properly have felt in his kicked shin, picked up the emptied wine jug and went with it to the kitchen to be filled. Skeres in small irritation spat into his hand a multitude of pike bones, saving: Why have they so many? A man's bones are few and sturdy. I know them all.

  - You have broken them all?

  - Mr Christopher, I break no bones. You mind the time you puked at the Babington executions? I puked too, inwardly. The tearing and cracking. An end should be quick and sharp without malice.

  - For whom do you work now?

  - For myself. For one and another. Not much now for Robin Poley. Sometimes for him. But not now much. The ship from Flushing is in late today. It is the Good Hope.

  - I sailed thither on the Peppercorn.

  - Aye, the Peppercorn now doth the coastal waters. It leaks and needs caulking. Ah, here is Ingram with a brimming crock. We are having a good day together. Shall we play the tables now?

  - I cannot bend my mind to it. Later. When Robin Poley has come and we have talked.

  - You seem much agitated. You have brought your bag. You need money. Are you to be sent on a voyage?

  - Why do you so swing between filth and cleanliness?

  - Is that meant unkindly? I think not. It depends on the part I must play. This morning it was a foul part, a villainous part. You are a man of the playhouse, you know of playing parts. Great God in heaven, he is here.

  And indeed Poley was there, in travelling gear of leather, great cloak eased off his left shoulder, surprised at the sight of Frizer, who stood in deference, not so surprised at Skeres's presence, smiling with a certain weariness at Kit. He said:

  - Gusts when we did not expect them. A calm sea churned without warning. A little sickness. Take that wreck of a dish away. I munched bread, my stomach is a basket of it. I will, by your leave, taste wine. And so he did, sitting. He sniffed and rotated upper lip and nose. Fie, what a stink. There is a Raleigh smell about. Ah, yes, Kit. Out into the garden with us. I fancy landward air.

  In the garden, among the pinks and primroses and violets, under a beech and the mild sun, they took seats on a gnarled bench. Poley said he must take breath after the voyage. He was becoming weary of it all. To live in retired ease, plant the bergamot, watch walnuts fatten. Had Kit heard ever of one Jane Dormer? No, she had been near friend to Queen Mary that we now term bloody, had wed the Count of Feria that had been near friend to King Philip. And now as a duchess she is appointed governess of Flanders. This strengthens the Catholic cause. The danger hath a stronger smell than it had hitherto.

  - So now Lord Strange must have a watch set on him?

  - His cousin is coming. He is no fool, very wary. We must arrange a Catholic welcome, have intimate meetings, gain evidence in good black ink, strike. It will be Babington over again. I rely on your play-acting. Practise the signum crucis.

  - I have my own troubles.

  - I know of your troubles. I know of your one trouble. Your trouble is not with the Privv Council but with one sole member thereof.

  - Absent in Flushing as you were you know of these things?

  - It has been in preparation, the destruction of Raleigh. The outer works are first attacked. You should never have let yourself be befriended by him.

  - He is one of the men in England who look forward. Must I fawn on the spoilt brat Essex?

  - Cut out Raleigh's heart and present it to Essex on a gold plate and you will be raised, knighted, ennobled. I see what is turning in your brain. You think I have influence.

  - You have. With Heneage, Cecil.

  - They are my masters. The question is whether they have influence over his lordship. Only her majesty has influence, but he is still, as you say, a spoilt brat. He will do for himself yet, you will see. Or perhaps you will not see. What I can do is to cry out the weightiness of your part in what must be done.

  - Is it so weighty?

  - It could be done by any man of wit and skill loyal to the Service. But there is the matter of experience. You helped send the Babington plotters to the gallows.

  - I saw them go to the gallows. I think you did not.

  - It is best not to see these things, as I have said before.

  - I saw Penry hanged and drawn.

  Aye, the other face of the seditious coin. Atheism is in comparison a friend to the established Church. The Raleigh atheism, which even the exiled Catholics now scream at, harms none. But by definition it is foul subversion. Essex plays on that. It is madness that a private though most virulent quarrel should film and obscure the true struggle. As a servant of the Service you must play your part and hope that you be not too strongly drawn into the other contention.

  - The poet was in ancient times considered a vates or prophet. It is in some measure true. I cannot prophesy of the future of this realm but I see in terrible clarity a future for myself. The arrest, the charge, the dungeon, the rack.

  - You will never go to the gallows, Kit. As for arrest and the rack, it is the common expectation of us all. You think myself to be unaffected? I feigned papistry so well that the mask was taken for the true visage. Even Walsingham had his doubts of me. I spent, to my thinking, too long in the Tower. These are gloomy thoughts for a May day. See the bees and butterflies, blessed creatures. Hear that blackbird, or perhaps it is a thrush. We take what life we can.

  - I think I must be done with the Service. It was unseemly to think on a bargain.

  - There is no bargaining, there never is. We do our duty, and there are no reservations, also few rewards. You must not say you are done with the Service. Ponder the consequences of that. You know too much.

  - Meaning enough to wreck a plot through treasonous exposure? I may be many things, but I am a loyal subject.

  - Aye, like the stout patriots who sought England's redemption through a Spanish invasion. Loyalty is a wide word.

  - Now I am made to see Lord Strange hanged and hacked, screaming to heaven of a long occluded faith.

  - His lordship would have a cleaner death, the privilege of his rank. A clean lopping on Tower Hill. His supporters would, true, not fare so well. But it is the price they know must be paid. Do not talk of leaving the Service. Think on what you said. I must take now what the Spanish call the siesta. That means the sixth hour, noon. The sun is past its zenith. The rolling and tossing have made me sleepy as well as queasy. Do not add to my queasiness. Think. We will meet at supper. I must ask the Widow Bull for a bed.

  And he rose, nodding also yawning. Kit sat on among the nodding flowers, the green bushes that gleamed as with a varnishing, under the great tree that breathed through the multiple mouths of its leaves. Butterflies, yes, bees. He had lost family, country
must be next. He did not propose pain or death for himself; though lined and losing hair he was still young. The power of the poet pulsed blood through his body. The truth of life lay in the vatic messages words sent, meanings beyond what the world called meaning. The old gods lived; Apollo blazed in the sun. He must serve what must be served. He pondered, and the answers to questions of immediate import made little sense. Kill that you be not killed. Bring to birth rather, one whose forfeiture of the right of fatherhood granted an unfleshly manner of begetting. He stood, somewhat sick with too much wine, the wine over-heavy, a slight crown of pain about his temples, then he walked to a patch of grass, somewhat over a grave's length, with daisies on it, under the arching branches of an elm that was rooted not in this garden but in the neighbour garden. There he laid out his length. He would think no more, he would sleep.

  He dreamed in fragments, sudden flashes of light (could light inhere then in the brain?), scenes with a mild sun, with a burning sun that seared the eyeballs of the figure in the dream that was the dreamer, with a moon gibbous or dying. He was in a Hellas he did not know except from books, a warm Hellas conjured by a northern scholar. All was absurd - fauns, centaurs, the fruits of an imagined lawful coupling. There was the Minotaur too, bred out of the cursed Pasiphae lying waiting for the bull's impossible pounce on the wooden cow, made on orders by Daedalus in distraction, obsessed as he was by the mastery of the mystery of flight. These, like the words of a poem, were all signs of a deep reality not with ease to be fathomed. Then Helen approached him from the Trojan battlements. She should not do this, she should know his nature, she should not be naked, bore his eyes with her breasts, oppose to his flaccid rod the mouth of the cave whose interior was the labyrinth where the rending Minotaur bellowed. No, no, he would not. And then blissful darkness, real daylight not intruding, resting on his eyelids.

  He woke stiff, yawning and unrefreshed. The sun had sloped down the sky. He must deliver his message of one word, cheat the lenders, put money in his purse and take the river that would take him to the sea. Through the window he saw Skeres and Frizer playing at tables. He went round to the side of the house and entered that room. Skeres said:

  - Take Ingram's place. He is on a losing streak, though it is but for a penny, discountable enough.