Rotten at the Heart

by Bartholomew Daniels

  “What can you tell me of his final illness?” I asked. “As a man is much revealed in how he bears his sufferings.”

  “With grace, sir,” said the chambermaid, “most of those long weeks. As he oft reminded, he was a soldier first, and as I did have care of his person, I did see some fearsome scars from his time at that art. He once said that such insult as sickness offered paled much compared to those he had suffered from human hands.”

  “You said most of those long weeks?”

  “Save that last night, sir,” she replied, “when his illness returned much fierce and I think he did suffer greatly, though I think he bore that as well as could be wished.”

  “And you alone attended him then?”

  “I tended to my station, which was to clean his person, clothing, and bed.”

  “You alone and no other?”

  And she took fear, I think, in this question’s repetition. “Mary was my help, but being new to the household and still in her learning was help only. She would bring his meals and carry what I instructed to the laundries. The late Lord did enjoy her company, as she is young, and comely, and had better manners than us most.”

  Seeing no maid young and comely present, I asked after her. “And where might I find this Mary that I may have her thoughts, too?”

  Some looks were exchanged amongst the staff that, in their discomfort, told me much, especially in company of her answer. “The younger Lord Carey, sir – John, not George – did take her immediate into his employ at his father’s death,” the chambermaid answered.

  “To attend his person,” the cook added with sufficient shading to make her suspicion plain.

  “Our house scribe,” said John Carey at my admittance, “who I do hold, in credit to your late publicity, in higher regard than I had previous. For I oft must use the weight of my name and office to despoil reluctant virgins and leave them despairing, and yet you sink your spear where you will on the strength of your words alone. If you can offer some instruction in this art, I think it will profit you more than those simple antics on which you current waste your talents.”

  I bowed, seeming to accept his jibe in good humour, though the edge of the words was spoke more cruel than would have been the words alone.

  “I beg pardon for this additional intrusion, my lord,” I said, “but your brother has asked that I have the thoughts of your father’s staff, and I am told that Mary, who was late and only brief in your father’s service, is now in yours. In fact, I believe you may have mentioned her on our first meeting.”

  “Ah, the fair Mary, a tasty morsel I did oft encounter in my father’s room and of that blushing and blooming ripening that I hear tell you, too, do much enjoy. Yes, when my father did finally pass, I moved quick to secure her, and her service. But even that first morning, when I had so looked forward to having her help me dress – I much enjoy the first reaction when a new girl learns I am free with my nakedness – I noticed that her hands were sorely poxed. I was much pained to have her discharged from the household, as I could not risk that she was in fact less virginal than she appeared and that her pox might infect not only her hands, but also, well, such other parts of her person of which I would make use.”

  And so the girl who, by the chambermaid’s account, brought the late Lord Chamberlain his last meal, in which likely was secreted the poison that killed him, displayed such pox as handling that poison could cause.

  “Discharged, sir? Have you any thought where she might be found?”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “Selling what only goods as she has to those who might take less caution of their health, I should think,” he said. “But should a man of your talents find her, you can no doubt talk your way into those sweet chambers that would cost most others dear, if you fear not her pox.”

  “Norton, I think,” answered the cook, when I asked after Mary’s surname and any other particulars they might offer. “From her speaking, I would guess her from Yorkshire.”

  “Where would she go in London, being now put out of Somerset?” I asked.

  “On such rare days as we had liberty, she would visit her father, who lives somewhere near. Close to the river, I think she said.”

  “Did you notice any injury to her hand in her last day?”

  “Aye,” answered the chambermaid. “Just that last day. She was puzzled to have what seemed a burn, having not burned herself. I wondered if it might be due the medicines for our late Lord.”

  “Medicines?”

  She nodded. “In his illness, there were many doctors hence – some from the Queen’s own service, the late Lord being a cousin of hers and much favoured. Oft they would provide some powder or potion to be added to his meals. Just that last night, another in the robe and cap of their practice was in the kitchen providing Mary yet another powder. I think I surprised her when I entered, and she spilled the powder on the table, sweeping it quick into her hand and then dusting it onto our Lord’s supper.”

  “How was this doctor called?”

  “He offered no name to me, nor I should think to her, as in habit they would brusque present their wares and instructions and take their leave, chambermaids and cooks being of little account. I did wonder what skills as a physician he might have, though, as he had clear at least once failed himself, and dire, too.”

  “Failed himself how?” I asked.

  “His face. His nose must once have been most grievous injured and tended poor to have healed so hideous.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Baron Carey, wishing still to meet clear of the eyes and ears of Somerset, joined me a few streets east, and we walked along the Thames.

  “I see you now carry a blade,” he said, noting the rapier I had relieved from our company’s stores the morning I left for Stratford. It was now my constant companion. “May I see it?”

  I drew the sword and handed it to Carey. He made a brief inspection of it and passed it back. I placed it back in its scabbard, and he reached over and took my right arm near the wrist, squeezing up toward the elbow.

  “I would recommend something heavier, but fear you wield as much as your stature can bear. I hope at least that its presence will serve deterrent, but recommend, should you again face threat, that you make better use of your legs than your arms.”

  “Always my first instinct, my lord.”

  We passed a short distance in silence and in the smell of the river in the summer sun – that of fish and of filth, of fair water and foul waste, the Thames being the fat vein on which the city fed and that sewer into which it emptied, a standing symbol of man’s penchant to despoil that on which he most depends.

  “I was sorry to hear of your son,” he said.

  “And I that his sorry passing delayed my office,” I replied.

  He made a soft grunt of excuse. “I am impatient by nature, but I pray you know my sorrow true. Such words beyond that seem too many or too few, and I have no gift for them anyway.” A pause. “So, what news?”

  I told to him the scheme of lands and shares I had heard from Webb, my telling oft interrupted by his temper – his brother, by the tale’s end, being dead many times over and by imaginative and unpleasant means. Some other parties to this scheme, too, were much abused. He took some minutes to reclaim himself, until his breath came steadier.

  “These vultures took scent of my father’s death and then schemed to abuse the carrion of his estate for their foul purpose,” he said. “The prospect of his recovery making their plot void, I fear some had a hand in its membership then murdered him, or perhaps all hands, in conspiracy.”

  “It is a company of some weight, and to make charge of conspiracy on this alone would be a tricky business,” I said. “Especially since involvement of any beyond your brother may be most difficult to prove.”

  Carey nodded. “It shames me to think it, but my brother alone is of such character that he would do this deed himself, just for his own benefit, and likely even take some joy in it. I can, at least, make this entire ente
rprise known, and put out the fires of greed they have lit beneath their boiling cauldron of speculation, leaving them all to suffer with the cold soup of their losses.”

  “You may wish to wait, my lord, as we still have some chance to trace this matter back to its true author. Did any in your circle know of the hideous-nosed man?”

  Carey shook his head. “I made broad inquiry, but none recalled him, and he would be easy recalled. Though it now seems, perhaps, that any who did know of him would have good cause to say other.”

  “More cause than you know, my lord.” I told him what I had learned from his servants, of the man’s ploy as doctor, I feared this news might rouse another bought of Carey’s tempers, but he seemed instead only saddened.

  “I remember Mary, as she was most kind to my father in his illness and he did much favour her company. My brother again in play, wanting to make her servant to his lusts and then having her discharged on account of some pox? An easy tale to credit given both his character and his appetites, but could it be he suspects your true mission and would have her beyond your questioning?”

  “Perhaps, my Lord, but current past my knowing.”

  He shook his head slow. “I shall ask audience of the Queen and relay to her such as we know. I will not have this scheme continue and these vultures profit by my father’s murder just so that I have chance to exercise my wrath.”

  “As you will, my lord, but would it be wise to wait some few days? This Somerset scheme is only at its beginning and it will not yield its players their profits for some weeks, so we need make no rush to still it. But once the parties to this scheme see it known, they will make quick to cover what signs they may. Current, we know of their scheme, but they do not know we know. Their ignorance ought be our weapon.”

  “But how to wield it?” asked Carey

  “You can ask after our deformed assailant more close in the acquaintance of those we know involved, but not to them direct, and perhaps hear of such man in service to one or another of the conspirators. And having Mary’s name and some hint of her father’s lodgings, and her being of some remarkable beauty, I should think she will be not to hard found. I can seek her out and have her testimony in this matter.”

  Carey made a kind of laugh, as though in observance of some irony.

  “How is it now my timid playwright has such an appetite for this work? For on my first offering it to you, you took some pains to avoid it. I would have thought you happy to have it done.”

  And I had to reflect a minute, it not having occurred to me that, in my encouraging Carey, I was extending this charge that I did so fear when he, in suggesting to make straight to the Queen, had offered it over.

  “It may be a weakness of my art, my lord. Having such a story begun, I must know its end.”

  “Then I shall count myself blessed by the service of your curiosity,” Carey said. “And I shall make those inquiries you recommend.”

  He turned back toward Somerset and I continued on toward Bishopsgate, knowing I had in my last answer to him been false. It was not curiosity that now compelled me, but rather the sense that my conscience – which I had long considered to be well or at least sufficiently formed – had in late days been shown to me much wanting in its constitution, leaving me so distressed in my own company that I could not keep it much longer were I not amended.

  I cannot know what lies beyond this life, and I do increasingly fear nothing but the thinking that my son’s eyes might be now upon me – and not clouded in childish worship, but instead invested with such vision as to know the truth of me whole – that weighed heavy. I would at least this office perform, full and in good conscience, if only for my own selfishness. For I could bear no longer such thoughts and melancholies that current oppressed me of my own account. It seems a man must serve something, thus our human appetite for gods, as they give us compass. And perhaps I had at last found one worthy of my worship.

  Truth seemed as fair a god as any.

  CHAPTER 20

  I arrived back at the theatre just as the afternoon performance had concluded, the crowd streaming out and seeming in good humour. My fellows, still in their costumes and paint, made me much welcome with both their usual insults and their honest sympathies, my having had no occasion to see them prior to departing for Stratford, nor since; my day being spent first with Webb, then at Somerset and then with Carey. It much buoyed my soul to be back in their company.

  Jenkins, still in his womanly garb, curtsied and gestured toward my sword. “I see my fair charms hath made thy steel firm, good sir.”

  Burbage overspoke the general laughter. “I would suffer you not to endure such little injury as that narrow blade might inflect, my lady, when you should instead be penetrated by my broader sword.” And more laughter, but then Burbage to me, “Pray tell me, though, Will, that your rapier be mere ornament for your dealings with Carey, and not carried in true need?”

  And so I related such events as had transpired since I had made their company last, all being much aghast to hear how near death I had passed at St Paul’s, and much intrigued with the news as I had from Webb and of Somerset House.

  “After St Paul’s, we can at least consider Carey’s favour true,” Burbage said, “him taking such risk on your behalf.”

  “Having beheld this contest,” I said, “I think Carey at little risk in any matter settled with swords.”

  “We would be advised,” said Heminges, “to remember our lord’s martial talents before we next perform for him. For should he make stern critique, it seems as like to cost us our heads as his patronage.”

  Burbage produced a bottle of the sack he so favoured, and the bottle made the rounds of the Company. I was surprised to see Jenkins, who had only recent made the bottle’s acquaintance, drink from it so lusty.

  “In drinking, at least, I see Jenkins is your good pupil,” I said to Burbage.

  “Such good pupil that we must either increase his wage that he may pay for his drink, or increase mine that I can continue to supply him, as he current does much abuse my charity.”

  “Take care, boy, that drink does not become your master,” I said to Jenkins.

  “I have served worse,” he replied.

  “And so he is Burbage’s good pupil,” said Heminges.

  “I do not call drink my master, sir,” said Burbage in pretend umbrage.

  “Perhaps your scourge?” asked Heminges,

  “Oh, scourge, to be sure,” replied Burbage.

  “We need another bottle,” said Jenkins, as, omitted in the conversation, he had taken chance to finish the first.

  Burbage smacked Jenkins sound behind the head and laughed. “Then fetch it, boy, for you know well where it is stored.”

  As Jenkins made his unsteady way across the stage, Burbage spoke to me.

  “What news as to our lease?”

  “Webb is to meet Miller today, and is optimistic for our interests. I should have word tomorrow.”

  “Since we know at best our respite will be limited, we have continued our search,” Heminges said, “and have found a baiting ring in Bankside for sale that can be had cheap, as it is in sorry repair. But its foundations are solid and well suited in size and shape to our needs.”

  “And we could buy it outright, Will,” said Burbage, “so as to avoid in future such mischief as our lease has caused us. Its current owner is in some distress and we could have this place right quick.”

  “This seems a wise course,” I answered. “But what of any temporary stage, should we have need?”

  At this, their faces soured. “Henslowe is at some mischief, Will. At every venue where we inquire, he already has claimed every date available. As his troupe already has a stage, I can’t think why he would empty his purse so, save to do us ill by leaving us no stage.”

  “To plot to do us such ill, he would first need know our ills,” I said.

  “And know them before us,” Burbage said. “At the Rose, at least, he bought their open dates some weeks
ago.”

  That night for the first time in my remembering, I made sleep easy – wearied, I suppose, by the week’s travels and trials and the day’s long business. However, I awoke not to dawn but in full dark and from the grasp of a dream. In my sleeping, I relived the attack – not that which Carey had so conclusively thwarted, but that first attempt – and relived it complete, in every detail. The scrape of feet behind me, the sight of the blade passing above me as I spun and turned beneath it, my foe’s awkward steps past me, that pregnant moment where we both stood, blades extended. But in my dream, he did not turn and flee into the darkness, but instead reached up and lowered the cowl that had hid his features from me complete. I watched, expecting to see that ruined nose with which I was now over-familiar. But instead the space that would hold a face yawned full black and empty, as complete a hole as had been my son’s grave. The hole seemed to spread, as if it gave off dark the way a candle gave off light. And I somehow knew that this dark did not obscure what it covered, but instead consumed it. This time it was I who turned and ran. And while there was no sound, my every sense tingles with the knowledge that the consuming dark was at my heels, gaining, ever gaining. It was then that I awoke.

  It is not much my habit to dream over much, but what dreams I have, at least those that rise above that simple litter of sleep, the half-remembered detritus of nightly musings, oft seem to hold for me some portent, some knowing, that I had in my conscious thinking ignored. I puzzled hard at this consuming darkness that in dreaming had taken the place of my expected assailant, but could take no meaning from it beyond my own peril, which I did now suspect was only little diminished by the death of that single foe felled by Carey’s blade. For a moment I was sore tempted to return to Carey and accept his offer to explain what mischief we present knew to the Queen and leave its disposition to her good offices. But if truth be my god, I could little expect its service to pass without sacrifice. For every god of my acquaintance thirsts hard for human suffering to sate its holy appetites.