The Book of Air and Shadows

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The Book of Air and Shadows Page 27

by Michael Gruber


  The King falleth asleep in Act III which they tell me he doeth always but the Quene & Princesse clap full lustilie & after-ward wee are fed cakes & malmsey wine in a side chamber. Now comes in a noble lord Sir Robert Veney, dressed verie fine & he is of my lord the Earl of Rochester’s partie. He hath speche with W.S. & Mr Burbadge & then W.S. beckons me with a confuzed looke upon his face & I go as bid & this Veney carryes me a little way across the chamber & askes me if I know what is afoot. Yea, sir, saies I: for you have told me of it in youre cypher, my Lord, & he giveth me privilie (but onlie seeminge privilie) a sealed letter & he saith boy I would see feare upon thy face now, as one seeing a ghost. And he departs & I thrust the letter into my bosom & it takes no schill at playinge for me to tremmble & shew a timorous face.

  Then they all wished to learn what the Lord Veney hath sayde to me, but I would not, sayinge tis a private matter & they all of them mock me, what private matter doth a lord have with lykes of thee save venerie & they make much witt on this, grasping theyre cods & cavorting & callinge me Lord Veneries punk. But I see W.S. doth not join, or but a littel, & regards me some thinge solemn.

  Next daye in Black-Friers he cometh in to the closet where I sit alone at my countynge bookes & sitts him down: quoth he Dick you are a brave-looking fellowe but not I thinke so prettie as to make rampant the lustes of Sir Robert Veney & besides you are made to tupp maydes. Come, then, have I not ben your goode cosen? Tell me what hath passed between you & this gentleman; or if you cannot upon your honour tell it in fulle then do you drawe the matter lightly, so I maye know its shape & that it concernes not me & this company. Why think you, sir, saies I, that it might concern you & he then toucheth the sign royal upon his liverie coate & saies lad you are no lack-wit. We are the Kinges Men & this Veney is in the bosom of my Lord Rochester & my Lord rules the King as all men know. Now if My Lord need anie conversation with oure company he will send to me, or Mr Burbadge, or Mr Hemmynge, or anie sharer: so must I aske why he calleth oute a boye; a boye lately come to us, with a storie he is my cosen; a boye who when he sits to meate maketh privilie the sign of the cross upon his harte. Soe my cosen, cozzen me not. And he lookes at me verie close & severe as I have not before seen hym looke at anie man: and I bethinke me he sees alle, I am undone; but I draw up my courage thinkeing too: ah he snaps at the bayte.

  Whereupon I fall upon my knees crieing oh my cosen spare your wrath though I am a traitoure; I am set to spye on thee for My Lord Rochester. He groweth pale: how cometh this, saies he, I have done nothinge against that noble lord & it seemeth he still doth smyle upon me. Quoth I: oh sir it has all to doe with weightie matteres of faith & politicks & the devizes of the great & I am just a poore boye a ship-wracked mariner & how come I to meddel with these thinges: & I commence to weepe: & these reale teares, I trowe. He asketh, art my cosen in dede or wase that false invention? I say no twas all trewth & sware on my motheres grave that the Earle hath chose mee for that reasoun soe thou might truste mee the mor.

  Then he raiseth me up to chayre, saying, now doe you be a true man, my lad & tell me all. Soe saie I to hym all we have agreed between us my lord what was all writ in your last cypher, viz: the King desireth a Catholic match for Prince Henry in the cause of peace, the which the Puritans in Parliament right hartilie contemn; my lord the Earle favours this and hath the charge of it, for which the Puritans hate him all; these knaves crie out the late Quene did not treate us so (though I thinke she did, but theyre memorie fadeth with tyme), & mutter this King is but a brat of a papist whore; the King groweth wearie with the comparisoun & with the despisinge of the Quene his mother & wishes to shew himself a greater monarch than Elizabeth. Now my lord Earle hath conceived a plan. What if a playe should be made upon Queen Mary of Scotland, such as would shew her in a better light & shew olde Bess as a tyrannous harridan enslaved to canting Puritans, which when it be broadlie heard shall temper the feelinges of the people toward the Quene of Scotland. For such thinges hath been done before: wase not Harry Bolingbroke the usurper made noble and Crookback Dick shown vile cruel caitiff? And would such a playe not discomforte the Puritan factioun & turn the people gainst them? And who in Englande writes best such playes?

  At this he catches my meaning & cries what, he desires me to write this playe? I saie yes cosen, His lordship the Earle thus commands thee. But W.S. cries him such a playe was ne’er heard of before. You know the King hath dismissd the Black-Friars boyes & ruined theyre company for a slight gainst Scotland in theyre Edward Second, what should he doe to a playe that slighteth greate Elizabeth & the Protestant church entire? Zblood! I believe thee not, boye; this mustbe some practice upon me by mine enemies.

  At this wase I some-wyse discomfited, my Lord, for I see he is close to uncovering our strategems, but I saie, nay, sir, it is by the Earles own command, for lookest thou: this is why my lord Veney approached me and not you or another sharer. Wee are all overlooked by spyes & this can not be seen to come of the Earle. It must be wrote out in secret, onlie I knowinge & thee & shewn to the Earle & he will soften the King to let it playe. For his majestie is timorous; he would crush the Puritans but dare not, or not now. For this projected playe is but parte of a grander complot that needeth more tyme to hatch: the Spanish marriage, new-made bischops, new lawes gainst Puritain conventicles & relief for papists. As I sayde this I study him close but could find nothinge revealled in his face. Quoth he, why should the King favour papists now, who near slew him in the Yeare Five? And I answer, why should he give his sonne to them that paid Guy Fawkes his fee? It is policie cosen, and the lykes of us can not compass it, but muste do as we are bid by the greate. But one thynge is sure: the King must have his bischops to rule the church & here is he closer to the papists than to the Puritans. And he saies still I can not credit it & heere I take out from my bosom the letter forged with my lord of Rochesters seale: credit then this, saith I & give it over. Soe he doth reade it; & after saith, my lord desires it by Christmas. Quaere: Canst thou do it by then? Aye, saies he, I have a smale thinge to be done with, a playe of the New Worlde & ship-wracke & magickal islandes & thy boat-swaine in it too, another fort-nighte sees it done. Then maye I starte upon this & maye God keepe us alle, upon sayinge so he doth crosse himselfe as doe I, the while thinkynge now sir we have thee.

  Then his face that was cast in lines of care doth clear of a sudden & he smileth sayinge you promised to shew me how to worke arithmetick in the new stile & he grasps at the proper word & I say algorism thou meanest & he writes it in hys booke & asks in what tongue is that word & I saye my maistre sayed it wase Arabian & he saith it some few tymes. Soe we commence to studie arithmetick & methinkes my lord that we must go earlie to the field & have oure witts about us if we are to catch this onne. For never saw I man soe close-barred & deep-moated gainst the examination of other men. Mr Burbadge playeth his parte upon the stage to be suire, yet when dismounted is plain Dick: but this Shaxespure playeth ever & all ways & I thinke no man can see the man who lieth beneathe the player. With alle honour & my humble duty to yr. Lordship & may God confound thy enemies & the foes of alle trew religion from London this Friday the 26th Januarye 1610 Richard Bracegirdle

  12

  Crosetti had been questioned by the police hundreds of times, but never before by one who was not a close relative. He found it a good deal easier to lie to strangers, especially as they were handling him with care. They were all in the living room of the family home, Detective Murray perched on the couch, Detective Fernandez in the facing armchair with his pad out, Crosetti in the other armchair of the worn blue brocade suite, coffee things on the coffee table, coffee having been poured by Mary Peg before her discreet exit. Behind Crosetti’s head was the large oil painting, manufactured from a photo, of Lieutenant Crosetti, heroic cop, in his heavily bemedaled blues, with his young family around him.

  The eyes of the two cops occasionally flicked toward this icon as they put their questions; there was no danger that they were going to get rough. In any case, aside from compl
icity in the conversion of Sidney Glaser’s property (the Bracegirdle manuscripts) to unauthorized use, Crosetti had not done anything wrong, and the policemen did not press him on this point. They wanted to know about Bulstrode in a routine way, because they had found Crosetti’s name in his appointment book and they were going through the usual motions. They were mildly interested in Rolly; that she had disappeared interested them, but when Crosetti told them about the London letter, their interest vanished. Leaving the country wasn’t a crime. Crosetti knew better than to try to engage them in speculation about the murder; cops weren’t there to supply information but to obtain it. They stayed twenty minutes, some of which were given over to reminiscences of the late Lieutenant Crosetti, and left as cheerful as homicide detectives ever get.

  A cop who was your sister was a different item, and when Patty Dolan came by forty minutes later, Crosetti was perfectly willing to get into her face. After having established that he was but a minor figure in the life of the victim, he asked, “So what do you guys think?” Meaning her fellow cops; as he said this, he glanced at his mother as well.

  “Well, the guy was a Brit and gay,” said Patty. “They’re figuring it for a sex thing that went sour.”

  “I doubt that,” said Crosetti.

  “Why, did you have sex with him?” asked the big sister. “You explored all his little twists?”

  “No, did you? The first time I saw him I thought, Gee, Patty would really go for this guy. He’s fat and sweaty and bald…”

  This was a reference to Jerry Dolan, her husband. The Crosettis were the kind of family where physical imperfections were fair game among the sibs. Patty Dolan herself had come in for enough of it herself growing up. She was a blocky woman with a strong-featured face not unlike the one her dad wore in the oil painting. She had his black hair too, but with the mom’s blue eyes.

  “Look who’s talking,” said the detective, and her hand darted out in a practiced move to wring the loose flab above Crosetti’s belt. He batted the hand away and said, “No, seriously. I assume you know the guy was involved in a big-money con a few years back. And he ripped me off on a valuable manuscript. That speaks to bad character.”

  “Which could’ve extended into his sex life. What’s your point?”

  “I don’t know if I have one,” said Crosetti. “But look at the pattern. He cheats me and disappears to England. Carolyn Rolly ditches her whole life and disappears to England too, or so she says, in a letter that I know for a fact contains nine-tenths bullshit. Then Bulstrode comes back here and gets tortured to death. Did you find that manuscript on him?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not my case.”

  “Well, if it’s missing, there’s your motive.”

  “What was it worth?”

  “Hard to say. Fanny says maybe fifty grand at auction.”

  At this, Detective Dolan raised an eyebrow, protruded her lower lip. “That’s a lot of money.”

  “It’s chump change compared to its real value.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Crosetti looked at his mother. “Should we tell her?”

  “Unless you want her to beat it out of you,” said Mary Peg.

  Crosetti told her what they knew and what the Bracegirdle letter suggested, after which Patty turned to her mother. “You believe all this?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mary Peg. “Fanny tells us that the original sheets we have here are genuine seventeenth century, so maybe the Bracegirdle letter is legit too. There really might be an unknown manuscript play by William Shakespeare buried someplace. Maybe Bulstrode got a line on it, and maybe not. Maybe he told someone about it while he was over in England looking and maybe the word got out to the kind of people who kill people for money.”

  “That’s a lot of maybes, Ma. What I don’t like is that Allie is mixed up in a chain of events that lead to a really nasty killing. And that he was involved with this woman who disappeared.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Crosetti.

  “Just that looking at it from the cop point of view, if we assume for a minute that this murder isn’t just a sex thing like the guys on the case think, it’s much more likely that it was a scam, just like the one that got Bulstrode into trouble in the first place. Someone slips a phony clue into an old book so that it gets discovered by someone-this Rolly woman-who’s bound to send it to Bulstrode…you’re shaking your head.”

  Crosetti had been, and now he said, with some ascerbity, “No, the find was genuine. I was there, Patty. It was pure accident that those volumes were burned and sent to be broken up.”

  “True, but she could’ve had those sheets prepared and just pretended to find them in those books.”

  “And somehow slipped them into all the volumes hoping for a fire? That’s nuts. I saw them come out of those covers with my own eyes.”

  “Oh, there’s good evidence! Any con man can do that kind of switch. I’m sorry, but when I hear about the secret treasure and the mysterious manuscript, I grab hold of my wallet.”

  “This is ridiculous,” said Crosetti, his voice rising. “This is a real manuscript, by a real guy, and the cipher is a real cipher. Ask Fanny if you don’t believe me. Or Klim.”

  “Klim?”

  “Yeah, our new houseguest. He’s in your old room.”

  Patty gave her mother a look. Who said, “Don’t give me that cop stare, Patricia. He’s a perfectly respectable Polish gentleman who’s helping us with deciphering these letters. And I have to say that you’re being unduly suspicious and even unfair to your brother.”

  “Fine,” said Dolan, suppressing a sigh. Getting between Mary Peg and her baby was ever a losing proposition. “But if a smooth-talking character shows up with a package he says is the Shakespeare manuscript and wants ten grand good faith money…”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” said mother and son almost simultaneously, which was funny enough to discharge the tensions. The family detective said she’d keep track of the Bulstrode case to the extent her duties and department protocol allowed and keep them abreast of any relevant findings.

  As soon as she left, Mary Peg said, “I’m going to see if Radi wants any coffee. I think he’s been up all night.”

  “Radi?”

  “Oh, mind your own business!” said Mary Peg and walked out of the kitchen, leaving Crosetti to ponder the hitherto unrelated categories of Mom and Romance. He went to work, where he had to dissemble about his special knowledge of Bulstrode and his recent doings while Sidney Glaser went on about how shocking it was when someone one knew was actually murdered, and how this was yet another indication of the collapse of the city and of Western civ. On his return home that evening he entered a house full of the rich smell of cooking stew. He found his mother and Radeslaw Klim in the kitchen, drinking sherry and laughing. She was not sitting on his lap, but Crosetti would not have been surprised to see it, given the atmosphere in the room: not all the steam was coming from the pot on the stove.

  “Hello, darling,” said Mary Peg gaily, “have some sherry.” Crosetti had not before this been so greeted upon entering his home. He looked at his mother and observed that she seemed ten years younger. Two bright bars of pink stood on her cheeks, but there was a touch of nervousness in her eyes, as if she were a girl again, entertaining a boy on a porch swing with her dad nosing around. Klim stood and extended his hand, and they shook formally. Crosetti felt that he was in a movie, not one he ever would have directed or even wanted to see, one of those family farces where the single mom falls for the unsuitable man and the kids conspire to break it up, only to find…

  But before he could organize his discomfort into an attitude, Mary Peg said, in her hostess voice, an uncharacteristic chirp, “I was just telling Radi about your interest in Polish movies. He knows a lot about them.”

  “Really,” said Crosetti politely. He went to the jug of red wine that stood (as one like it had always stood) in a corner of the kitchen counter and poured a juice glass full.<
br />
  “Not at all,” said Klim. “I am a fan only. Of course I do not need the little words under the screen to enjoy.”

  “Uh-huh. What Polish films in particular?”

  “Oh, recently I have liked ´Zycie jako ´smiertelna choroba of Zanussi. Very beautiful, although the Catholic…what do you say? Preaching?”

  “Proselytizing.”

  “Yes, just so. This is too crude, too-what you say-obvious, to me. Of course, Kiéslowski did the same more subtler. He often would say, we don’t hit on the head with the church, is as bad as hitting on the head with the communism. It is enough we have a moral cinema without seeming to. As for example in Trois couleurs and of course in Dekalog.”

  “Wait a minute, you knew Kiéslowski?”

  “Oh, yes. It is a very small country and we were from the same neighborhood in Warsaw and I am only a few years older. Kicking balls on the street and so on. Later I was able to be of some service to him.”

  “You mean on the films?”

  “Indirectly. I was assigned to spy on him, since I had an acquaintance with him already. I see you are shocked. Well, it is true. Everyone was spied on and everyone spied. Lech Walesa himself was an agent for a time. The best you could hope for was a spy who would be sympathetic and report only what one wished to have the authorities know, and so I was for Krzysztof.”

  After this, for some twenty minutes the two men talked about Polish movies, one of Crosetti’s abiding loves, and he learned at last how to actually pronounce the names of directors and films he had worshipped for years. The conversation circled back to the great Kiéslowski, and Klim happened to remark, “I was in one of his films, you know.”

  “No kidding!”

  “Not at all kidding. Robotnicy in 1971. I was one of young police in background, crushers of workers’ movement. A quite insane time, which I think is very much similar to the time of your man Bracegirdle. I should say also I have made progress of a sort on your cipher.”

 

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