Rotten at the Heart

by Bartholomew Daniels

  Being better with words and also noting that Carey much tried Topcliffe’s spirits, I answered.

  “The man’s nose had been most grievous harmed,” I said, “such that it seemed to be made now almost entire of scars.”

  “You say scars and not a scar,” said Topcliffe, “so the effect was not one of a single insult but of varied injuries?”

  “Yes and no,” I said. “Many scars, yes, but when scars on a body age, they fade or whiten so that one can tell those older from those newer. These seemed all aged the same.”

  Carey nodded. “I have known men to have noses cut off, or even bitten off, but had never seen the like.”

  Topcliffe smiled, rose, and returned to his long table, drawing an oblong object with a handle at its bottom from the chest to the far right. As he turned the crank on the bottom, the object that had seemed solid began to open, revealing that its sides were in fact a series of four blades that could flower into these sharp petals.

  “Do you know this?”

  “The pear of anguish,” Carey answered.

  Topcliffe nodded eagerly. “The first of its kind had dulled blades. It would be inserted into the mouth and opened sufficient to serve as a gag to keep a victim silent, or, with a sufficient lever for a handle, be cranked open full enough to break the teeth and separate the jaw from its hinges. Then smaller versions with the sharpened edges were made that could be inserted into, shall we say, more intimate crevices, so that men and women both might suffer the agonies of their blooming.”

  He returned the device to its case and took forth another that appeared to be the same but shrunken down to a small size, and with the pear shape split in two, the rounded sides facing out with a flat space in its middle.

  “We are vain of our faces and suffer injuries to them harder in our minds than we do such insults that leave scars others might never see. The human nose offering two orifices, I created this device.” He turned the crank on its bottom, and the separate, half-rounded sides opened in three sharpened blades each, small spikes protruding out into the flat space between them. “The spikes hold fast to the septum, while the blades then spread and sunder the nostrils entire. I have used it with great effect over the years, though not on so many who have lived. For as you know, my gentle offices here frequently are only preface to those sterner ministrations that the Crown does impose. While I am charged only with collecting truths, the Crown can collect heads. From Shakespeare’s description, it seems certain I have past made your assailant’s acquaintance, for such injury as you describe is exactly as this would have made, and I can think of no other likely cause. To your fortune, I keep detailed records of who has enjoyed my congress, on what charge, when, those instruments used, and the truths gained. As those records are kept in my office at court and not here, I shall review them when I am next there and let you know those persons who fit your charge.”

  Our session ended, Topcliffe led us out of his cellar and to his door, taking Carey’s arm just as we would leave. “I know that revulsion in which you and your fellows hold me, sir. You nobles who first profit from that knowledge that my inquiries gain and then damn me for the methods by which they are made. But I forgive you, as I understand your revulsion to be at heart a kind of fear. So many of your fellows have, over the years, due to their weak service, ended up subject to my ministry, and so you do all fear me, and then hate me, as it is man’s way to hate most what he most fears. And so God’s true service is ever lonely.”

  Carey tugged his arm lose and turned on Topcliffe, taking him by the front of his doublet and pushing him hard against the threshold of his door. “Fear you, sir? Call me coward again and we will see what courage you can manage with a foe not bound at your mercy. For it is only fear you know, and no courage, and if you are not more careful of your tongue with me, then I shall instruct you full in both.”

  Topcliffe attempted his serpent’s smile, but it was weak at the corners.

  “Review your records quick and have word to me immediate as to your findings,” said Carey, releasing Topcliffe from his hold and looking down on him with scorn. “Imagine yourself God’s servant if you will, for that imaging offends God, not me. But do not imagine that I would ever stand in fear of you, for that gives me offence, and I will have it answered.”

  We left, and the door closed behind us.

  CHAPTER 30

  The coach left Carey at Somerset, but he instructed his driver to have me home. Instead, I directed the driver to Bankside, alighting to find a complete theatre where that morning I had left bare timbers. From inside the stands, I could see the flicker of torchlight and hear the banging of hammers, and so I made my way in to find our company nailing the last boards to the floor of the stage, all else seeming done.

  Burbage noted my arrival. “You have an actor’s timing, sir, arriving for our applause, the work of things being finished. But, as you come from Topcliffe’s and seem still entire, I do rightly welcome your company.”

  “Entire in person, Burbage, but some afflicted in spirit. Though my spirits are lifted to be among these fellows and to see our stage so nearly done.” I removed my hat and swept it in a deep bow. “I do thank you all, and humbly, my hand having lent too little to this enterprise.”

  “Drop your hat and sword, sir, as you are among friends,” Heminges said. “But do take a hammer to these last, so that, on such occasion as one of our feet passes through the stage, we can call it your work.”

  And so I did, and happy. And in short minutes, the last of the stage nailed tight, Burbage stood in its middle, turning slow with his arms outstretched. “Gentlemen,” he said in such strong voice as any in audience could hear, “I give you the Globe!”

  “Will you give us her in name alone, or shall we drink to her fortune and to ours?” called Jenkins from the stage’s far side. “For you have kept locked the sack all this long day, and this workman’s life is a thirsty one.”

  “Keep you sack secured, Burbage,” I answered. “It is time we scout this neighbourhood for some tavern close. For as the theatre is the cathedral of our art, such tavern will be that chapel in which we will frequent pray to the saints of our lesser appetites. Besides, Jenkins has drunk from your purse enough. Tonight you shall all drink from mine so that I might contribute in ale what I could not in sweat.”

  “Oh!” cried Jenkins, now running across the stage to join us. “I am well blessed in the matter of masters!”

  It was no long search to find a tavern, Bankside being rife with them. And so we started in one almost direct across from our new home, and then another more toward the bridge, Jenkins then calling on us to try yet a third, him thinking Bankside a new Eden and he would have all its wonders known.

  “Do you like Will’s ale as well as my sack?” Burbage asked, Jenkins having drained another tankard.

  “As they are equal free, they are equal loved,” he answered, his words followed hard by a long belch. Jenkins smiled. “Although ale does give me the airs and seems to love me less as it will not stay long. If you sirs will excuse me, I shall visit the alley and make room for more.”

  Burbage waved to the girl to refill our tankards as Jenkins made through the crowd to water the cobbles. “Do you suppose the boy has yet had his codpiece aside in a woman’s service?” Burbage asked.

  I smiled at him. “I suspect no.”

  “He is of the age for it,” Burbage said.

  “He is of the age where he is all for it,” I said, “but knows not where to find it.”

  Burbage waved over a girl near the door, who, through her comings and goings with assorted fellows, had made clear her trade. And, being still young and in a darkened tavern after long drinking, she was still some comely.

  “What is your name, my lovely?” Burbage asked.

  “Michelle, at least for the part you would have me play. You are those actors who have taken new residence,” she said, bending over our table such that her ample orbs hung nearly free for our inspection.

&n
bsp; “A graceful name,” I said, “but short by far of the grace of that it graces.”

  She smiled. “I offer no discounts for poetry, sir, but I do love an actor. Or two, if you are an ensemble.”

  “Alas,” said Burbage, “we are old and sufficient in our charms so as to secure for free those few affections our shrivelled members might still require. But perhaps you noted our young player?”

  “That makes such regular acquaintance with the alley?” she said.

  “The same,” Burbage said. “The boy has not yet known the wonders of a woman, and having first confused you with Aphrodite until you drew near and I could tell you even more beautiful, I now pray that the boy might baptise himself in your font.”

  She blushed a little and stood straight. “Baptism is it? I would never deny a lad his sacraments. But as Jesus did drive the moneychangers from his temple, how can I expect the lad pay me, us being about the church’s business?”

  Burbage pressed a crown into her palm. “Such a lovely lad would never have cause to pay, as I’m sure you will find his charms such that your flower does open full ready in the light of his fair sun. But, this being church business, I do make my offering.”

  She looked careful at the crown, it being more than she would usual hope from a full night’s steady commerce, and it already being such hour that her future custom would be thin. “You must love the boy well to pay so dear.”

  “I do, and would have you pretend so, too.”

  She made a slight bow. “Unlike we poor children doused as infants, the boy will long remember his baptism and will never question his faith.”

  Jenkins was just back in the door, and she turned and made toward him, seeming accidental to bump him in passing. Then she was accepting his apologies, and offering hers, her hand already light on his arm, and the two were soon deep in congress, her pressing closer, the hand that rested on his arm now against his chest, its fingers curling and uncurling light in teasing. Jenkins looked some stunned, but his hand made its own awkward foray, first to the side of her bare arm, then to her waist, it creeping toward her haunches like a frightened child, the surprise on his face growing as she turned her hip toward him, so that his hand now lay flat on her rump, He looked toward our table, and Burbage raised his tankard in salute. The girl then leaned in close, her lips pressed to Jenkins’s ear as she made a whispered offer, and the two turned toward the door.

  Burbage stood. “Come,” he said. “We must see the boy off!”

  Rising, I watched the girl put her arm around Jenkins – half in pretended affection, but half also to keep the unsteady lad on his feet. “I fear his furnace may be so soaked in ale that she may find it hard to stoke,” I said.

  “Will, do you forget the insistence of those fires that burned in your youth?”

  And I thought for a moment of Anne and the urgent and passioned hours we long ago had shared. “I have not forgotten,” I said, feeling sudden cheapened to be party to this ploy, even knowing that Burbage made it from affection only and sure that Jenkins, even if he knew the truth of his lady’s attentions, would now, being full in lust’s tow, most happy continue. This new conscience of mine, it seemed, was intent on clouding in question every action.

  Burbage and I walked clear of the doors and into the street to mark the progress of Jenkins and his new love, Jenkins’s stumbling having taken them only some few yards distant.

  The girl would at least spend some few moments in more gentle embraces than common to her experience and would for those moments be far better paid. Jenkins would find in her false but willing arms a new corner of Bankside’s Eden that would likely please him even more than his bottle. There was only pleasure and no harm in this staged encounter. But even as I formed these thoughts, I was consumed by the knowledge that they were the lies of my old habit, as my Anne had charged – my way of letting words be my master by having them paint some false truth that I could believe for my convenience. For, in truth, we had stolen the lad’s chance to have a woman’s fair sun first shine on him in true affection, and I started toward the couple to stop this unholy play, which I knew now I should not have authored.

  “Will!” Burbage shouted in alarm, crashing hard into me and knocking me toward the gutter, me staggering unbalanced so as to see not entirely clear the caped man that flashed past, his sword extended and missing me by only little.

  Burbage had the man by his free arm and hurled him past, my hand going to the hilt of my own blade and drawing it clear. The man’s sword flashed back at Burbage and cut him along his arm, Burbage gasping in alarm, the swordsman gaining his release and now free to face me.

  I raised my blade, setting my feet, but deflected only barely his first flurry of swipes and thrusts. His was a more nuanced art than Carey’s, one of speed and deception, but no less sure deadly, and I was alive to this point by chance only. My vision had shrunk to his blade, attempting to mark its progress, when I heard an animal roar and the man turned, Jenkins almost upon him.

  The man raised his blade in instinct and it passed clean through Jenkins near under his heart, the combination of the man’s thrust and Jenkins’s foolish rush bringing the boy full to the sword’s hilt. Jenkins clasped that hilt hard as the man tried to pull the weapon free, and I drove my own blade into the man’s side, the blade stopping first after only a few inches, the man being still and my not having his skill or strength to thrust deeper. But I braced my feet and pushed the blade hard into him, and after a grudging budge felt it drive deep into his chest.

  The man gurgled up blood, releasing his grip on his own sword, sinking first to his knees and then collapsing to his side and rolling onto his back. Something that was not a breath bubbled final in the blood that pooled in his open mouth.

  Jenkins stood for a moment still, holding the ornate hilt that basketed the offending blade’s handle, and then started his own, slow fall. But I stepped to catch him and laid him gentle to his side.

  Kneeling by the boy, my first thought was to have the blade free of him, and I reached to grasp the handle, but Jenkins’s hands wrapped around mine.

  “I pray you don’t, sir, as I fear the sword is all that holds me together.”

  Burbage knelt now, too, at the other side, blood running down from the gash to his left arm. “He’s right, Will. We should have some surgeon’s word on this first.”

  “He’d best be quick if I am to hear it,” Jenkins said, and then there was a light cough, and some blood, too, flowing from his lips.

  “You shall hear plenty,” Burbage said, “and from me. God will not allow you so soon gone for fear I will drink all my sack alone.”

  “So far as God is concerned,” Jenkins said, “it will please him some that I die with my virtue unspoiled.” He turned his eyes to look at the girl, who stood at his head, her hands to her mouth, and her face wet with tears. “But I cannot say it pleases me.”

  At which she knelt at his head, taking his face gentle in her hands, and, leaning down, pressed her lips soft on his. Jenkins reached up his hand behind her neck and pulled her mouth tight to him, and they held their kiss a long moment before his arm went slack and his hand fell away, the fingers curled up gentle on the cobbles as the flood from two bodies pooled and framed it crimson in the faltering torchlight.

  CHAPTER 31

  It was near to an hour since Jenkins was soft transported to that undiscovered country on the lips of a kindly whore, and I sat on the threshold of the tavern, an empty sack of skin in the stinking bowels of the night. It seemed no sun could ever again grace such a world as this, but that we would instead stagger in the Stygian dark, tearing each at every other for any small advantage and in constant service to our greed, our pride, our lust, our wrath, our gods, our crowns. And to no end save to reduce the world to that valley of bones that Ezekiel did witness, save this valley being in service to none and not dry, but instead swamped in the blood and slippery with the guts of any we did ever love.

  At Jenkins’s death, I was a flurr
y of action, sending Heminges straight to Somerset to have Carey hence immediate and to brook no argument. I was not sure even what need I had for Carey’s presence, though I was full sure I had no standing to require it and did not care. As I knelt by that ruined cage of bone and flesh that had late held that sweet boy’s spirit, I knew only that he had died in service to the mission to which Carey had set me, and so I would have Carey’s thinking on this immediate, or at least have him, too, as witness to his handiwork. I had dragged forth the tavern keeper and sent him after the bailiff responsible for Bankside, it being at liberty and not of London, and me not full familiar with its governance. And finally I had asked that girl, her lips stained still with Jenkins’s blood, to fetch for Burbage what surgeon near she thought best.

  Those tasks done, I had but to await arrivals and did dear wish for some task further that could divert my mind, for it drew back constant to Jenkins and raced in that helpless thinking of every little variance that would have had him other than at the end of this dead stranger’s blade. If we had not introduced him to drink, if we had not bought him this whore, if I had been less consumed in my revels so as to note my own danger. Even if we had never taken him into our company, choosing instead some other, and so he would still be… Still be what? I realised I did not know.

  Where I could say that, had I not come to this player’s life, then I would be a Stratford glover, I could say nothing of Jenkins save what we knew of him in our company, for on no occasion had we asked after his circumstance either before our meeting or when out of our congress. I realised I was not sure even to whom else we should send word that he was dead, and then did sour recall his earlier saying he had been well served in the matter of masters. He had been foul served indeed to have made so dear a sacrifice for us, who had loved him so poorly. And the oppression of these knowings weighed so heavy that I was true glad when Burbage, the surgeon done with him, sat beside me.