The Queen sighed long. “In truth, Shakespeare, we have been long vexed in the matter of religion, and did try for some years toward tolerance – our tolerance met with rebellion and calls from the Pope for my death, as matters of religion are now close tied to matters of state. And yet Christ calls us all to mercy.”
She paused, looking about the room as though seeking counsel and none meeting her eyes.
“It seems only the playwright has any courage in his tongue today. Very well, those two, in recognition of their service, can be freed, needing only swear their loyalty. We will have word sent immediate so that they are not subject to Topcliffe’s art.”
“If it please your Majesty,” I said, “I will take word to them direct, as I am certain this august assembly requires no further council from me.”
She nodded and turned to her clerk. “Have immediate drawn such papers as he needs.”
The clerk made for the door, me following.
“Shakespeare.” The Queen spoke again when I was at the door’s verge.
“Your Majesty?”
“We alone decide whose council we require. Do not be surprised if yours is required again.”
CHAPTER 38
Topcliffe was much discomfited to be deprived of the baker and his wife, thinking the Queen too ready with her mercies.
“That they betrayed their fellows to you in fear proves their hearts false, even to their own religion,” he said. “And you now would have the cancer of their false hearts free in our midst? Do you think they will hold their promised loyalty to our Queen dearer than their promised faith to their own God?”
“I think I hold my own word dear, and I promised them no harm from helping me.”
“There is no harm from you, sir. It was their own priest who betrayed them.”
“The priest being in your hands through my agency, and so from me.”
Topcliffe snorted in disgust. “You are either weak in your heart and have thus released our enemies as salve to a conscience too easy bruised, or else are too clever in your sympathies. I warn you I have not forgot the Papist stench that surrounds your name. They and you will be watched. Perhaps we can continue this conversation on such day as you are not hid in our Queen’s skirts.”
He looked me hard in my eyes and seemed true surprised that I held that gaze unblinking. Carey was right. Topcliffe was just a savage dog, and current held firm on her Majesty’s leash. The dark power I had invested him with in my imaginings had much paled in recent days, thrown into shadow in the light of such true horrors as I had late witnessed.
“I am easy watched, sir, as I am on the stage most days. You need only leave the company of the vermin in your cellar to find me.”
He tried his serpent smile, but it now held no charm over me. “You should take more care in choosing your enemies, Shakespeare.”
“A man can be as judged by his enemies as by his friends, so to count you my enemy can only serve my honour well. Besides, as you could not even break the girl, I stand less in fear of your arts than once I did. There is, I think, more strength in her than in ten of you.”
Topcliffe’s face quivered in rage, yet I still held his gaze, and he used his rage as an excuse to look away. He turned to call his guard, a ferret-faced man with animal eyes and a mouth that never quite closed.
“Take this scribe to see Norton that he might understand my strength.” He turned back to me. “I have more Papists to question, as you could save only two. I do hope to make your company again, Shakespeare, and soon.” And he turned, hurrying down a hall, his mincing steps tapping light on the stones.
The guard gestured in the opposite direction. “This way to the fair Mary,” he said in a dripping voice. And I observed in his manner and aspect every corrupt evil I had seen in Topcliffe, but stripped of the pretence of intelligence and manners and so shown truer in its nature – a simple hunger for human suffering, a hunger Topcliffe had wrapped in pretend service to the Crown, so as to excuse the ill and misshapen desires that even his own shrivelled heart must rebel against in the nightmares that I prayed infested his sleeping. This guard was merely a carrion bird that fed in Topcliffe’s wake, sharing his inhuman appetites but having himself no talent for catching his prey.
The guard left open the door to Mary’s cell, it being immediate apparent that there was no risk of her leaving. She lay on her back on the stone floor, her late modesty poor served by the short shift of rough fabric that reached not even to her knees, the fabric variously spotted through with blood. Beyond its hem, her legs were mottled complete in bruising, even the soles of her bare feet, and so, too, her arms and hands, all of her fingers clear broken. But though her hair was matted with sweat, her face was unmarked.
“You will forgive me if I do not rise,” she said, her voice soft and her breath catching as though to draw it caused pain. “But I fear my legs no longer do me good service, and I would save such strength I have as to walk with what dignity I might muster unto the scaffold that short awaits me.”
I knelt on the floor next to her. “I will forgive it,” I said, “if you will forgive me your state.”
“You served your conscience as you understood it, sir. And I served mine. What sins we might either have committed in such service, they are not ours to loose or hold bound.” She stopped and swallowed briefly, closing her eyes a short moment. “But I do ready forgive you for any sin you imagine you have done me, and do humbly beg that you forgive me my lies to you, and your friend’s blood, which stains me more deep than these bruises.”
I nodded, unable at that moment to speak, having recent wanted vengeance for Jenkins so dear and, now seeing it, wanting it only erased.
“Your queen’s interrogator knows his art well,” she said, “understanding immediate what we treasure and not. And so has left my face intact, so that, even on the scaffold – as I will there, I am told, be better dressed and these other insults hidden – I shall have to bear men’s eyes upon me. Until the axe closes them.”
“My eyes are upon you now,” I said, “and I say true that your ruined body speaks your true beauty current more full than your untouched face.”
She closed her eyes again, swallowing again. “Oh, my body is true ruined, sir, as I was immediate stripped and bound and made prey complete to Topcliffe and then to his guards all, and so will not bring with me unspoiled that virtue I have so long protected.” Her face now ran with tears. “In truth, had he made threat of that act longer and not been so hurried to complete it, I do think I would have told him all, and thus sinned in my pride. But his lust saved me that decision, and, having taken a virtue that could not be returned, he left me able to bear all his other foul arts, having first borne that.”
And I, now, had to close for a moment my own eyes, for I could too ready imagine that scene.
“You still hold entire every virtue,” I said, “and in truth now hold more. For a virtue cannot be taken, only surrendered. Do trust me in this, as I have ready waved a white flag over all my own these long years, and have seduced others to do the same, and do true understand that pain. You will go to God as unspoiled a creature as he has yet received.”
She moved her hand the few inches to mine, covering it and squeezing such little as her ruined state allowed. “Do you now know God, sir? For you did not when last we spoke.”
“Know him, no. But do true believe that any such God as there might be would hold you dear.”
“I will pray for you, Shakespeare, that you find him. For there is peace only in him, and none in you. It is in the constant survey of that empty tumult that broils within your heart that you create your own ills.”
“And I will pray for you, though I know not where to direct it.”
At which the guard shouted in the door. “Have your arse out, scribbler. That’s time enough.”
I lifted her ruined hand and kissed it. Then set it gentle back to the floor and left her to her short and unhappy future. Walking home through the darkened streets, I wonde
red on that peace that Mary wished for me, knowing true I had seldom felt it. But knowing also that Mary’s peace stemmed from the sure knowledge of her God’s will, which will had set this good woman on this foul course that was now littered with the dead and the tortured, the blood of the guilty and the innocent running together toward whatever eternal sea might receive it. It was the tumult of uncertainty only that checked our appetites – and so I was comfortable only not sure knowing God but stumbling instead in the unsure light of such knowledge as he had granted me and hoping that that faithful effort would prove faith enough.
CHAPTER 39
It was some days later when I sat in the tavern outside which Jenkins had died, our first performance at the Globe behind us and the tavern crowded full with both our company and many from the crowd. Our spirits tried for high, but were still some haunted by Jenkins’s ghost. Burbage was lecturing Taylor, our new boy player, on the many faults in his performance.
“I am at some wonder the crowd did not run shrieking before the first act was over in horror at Taylor’s wants,” I said, finally, Burbage’s litany of failings seeming to have no end, and Taylor not yet sure enough in his place to counter Burbage’s bombast.
“He is no Jenkins, Will,” Burbage said.
“Tell me which of you would claim to be, and I will have him outside to answer it,” said a voice from behind. We turned to find Carey. “I have come to ensure you do not too much abuse your patron’s good name.”
Burbage popped from his seat and attempted a deep and theatrical bow, but, he having been some hours into his cups, overtaxed his balance and fell flat at Carey’s feet.
“Come now, Burbage,” I said. “The good Baron may have been some stern in his demands, but bootlicking is not required.”
As Burbage made to rise, Carey placed one foot to the back of his neck, pressing Burbage’s face full onto his other boot. “But I think I am growing a taste for it,” he said, Heminges and I laughing hardy, Taylor seeming afraid to take any merriment.
“Come, boy, laugh,” Carey said. “Your patron commands it.”
This pushed Taylor to hysterics, at which Carey released Burbage but claimed his seat, so that Burbage tossed Taylor from the stool next. Thus the boy was on the floor, still unable to quiet his mirth, and Burbage finally smiling, too.
“Was my boot to your liking, sir?” Carey asked.
“Like any good Englishman, my face has oft been pressed close to many royal arses, and I can tell you sure that your boot smells equal of shit,” Burbage said.
“Then I shall stand you to a round to cleanse your tongue,” Carey said, “as I would not have any think the stink that comes from your mouth be mine.”
We were at the tavern long hours, and on leaving Carey bade me to his coach, as he would have words.
“As you were instrumental in its unravelling, I would have you know the disposition of this Somerset Company business,” he said.
“I have been curious.”
“The Queen found no laws clear broken, but found also such laws as there might be insufficient. And so she has named a commission on matters of securities and exchanges that such might be better governed. Your Webb has been named to this, I would have you know.”
“And so the parties to this will escape with their profits?”
“The Crown required some expansion in its debts, and those profited from the Shoreditch episode were gently requested to finance those bonds and at such rate that will, by the end of the bonds’ terms, leave their purses at approximate such standing as they had at the matter’s start. Or so I am told, the mechanics of this all being beyond my ken.”
We rode in silence until the coach neared my rooms. Above us, a distant thunder gave herald to a storm I had smelled brewing, and the night, which had been still, began to stir.
“And you, sir?” I asked. “Are you at peace?”
He snorted. “Peace will be in short supply at Somerset, I fear. I have sent my brother to my northernmost holdings, a dreary place that tries even my rustic temperaments, having told him should I ever look on his face again, he will answer immediate for his insult to our father’s name. As he was my mother’s pet, she counts that unreasonable. But finding such holdings equal dreary, she has not decamped in his company but instead remains to torment me.” Then he slapped he seat of the coach hard and adopted a happier tone, “But there is mischief again in the Netherlands, and we may soon have a fine war. So, at peace current? No. But once at war I shall be.”
I stepped from my rooms the morning next feeling some lightened and wondering by what alchemy, as I had made witness these past weeks as some had some died, some had suffered, and some had gained – none seeming through their own merit or earning, but all greater or lesser, whether by intent or accident, at my hands. I was myself lost a son, estranged a wife, a grief to my father, known more a sinner to many than I wouldst be – though not so much a sinner as I was known to myself – and witness at the death of a boy I called friend, and not witness only, but in truth the cause of it.
Yet the sun blessed this day, which was much fair and framed in a sky washed clean in the night’s thunderings so that such scents as the breads made fresh at that baker near did have their rare chance to clear present their small glories above the usual effluent attendant to man’s greedy agencies. And I did suddenly know the sun shone on us all even, and under its grace we chose whether to trudge weary as toward dusk or dance lively as toward dawn, it being such greater or lesser weight as our personal secrets did press upon us that decided our direction. But our secrets were of our own fashioning, and such weight as they bore of our own deciding, and mine own all having been made plain before eyes both common and noble, I did this once have none to carry.
And so I decided to turn east, toward dawn, and step light for those minutes or hours or days before I was anew cursed with their kin, knowing any promise to avoid such new burden to be a naïve and false hope, but knowing too such evils as we suffer are as random and as fickle as such blessings, and that to bear each in turn with such grace as we can muster – ready to forgive our fellows such weakness as we can, and ourselves such weakness as we must – this is all we can do.
And the baker’s was near, and the bread did smell sweet.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This unexpected foray into Elizabethan mischief sprang unbidden from an unusual direction. I was on the phone with my daughter, Shannon, who was off at college and taking a Shakespeare course, and she asked me what would have happened if Shakespeare wrote noir. My immediate answer was Othello, but that conversation gave rise to a literary itch I decided I had to scratch. Shannon stuck with me through the scratching, reading along as I went, and both her audience and her insights made this a better book.
The book didn’t come first, though. First came a short story, The Bard’s Confession on the Matter of the Despoilment of the Fishmonger’s Daughter. I sent an early draft of that to my friend and fine writer, John Hornor Jacobs, whose enthusiastic encouragement to continue with the story and to undertake the novel are much appreciated. Thanks also to Steve Weddle for running the story in Needle, which you ought to be reading. And a tip of the hat to the good folks at Snubnose Press, who included the story in my short fiction collection, Old School.
I had a layman’s familiarity with Shakespeare’s plays when I undertook this project, but only a cursory understanding of his life and times. Tom McBride, English professor extraordinaire at Beloit College, was kind enough to answer a few questions and point me to the right sources to fill in the gaps. Gaps remain, I am sure, as I am no expert on either Shakespeare or Elizabethan history, but those sins are mine to bear. Where I have referenced historical events, I have tried to be true to them. The one liberty I have knowingly taken is to move a few years earlier in history the story of how Shakespeare’s troupe moved (literally) the Theatre from Shoreditch to Bankside, where it became the Globe.
As always, thanks to my agent, Stacia Decker, who encouraged this
departure from my usual, provided her customary insightful editorial direction, and then found it a home.
And, of course, to the good folks at Exhibit A – former editor Emlyn Rees, who bought and edited the book; new editor Bryon Quertermous, who shepherded it through production; their art staff for another stellar cover; and their diligent copy editor, who has again saved me from my lesser angels.
Dan O’Shea
ABOUT BARTHOLOMEW DANIELS
Bartholomew Daniels is an avid book collector and it was through his purchase of a wooden chest of unwanted novels and forgotten papers at an estate sale in Illinois last year that he made the extraordinary discovery of several lost Shakespeare journals.
Bartholomew is also a close friend of novelist Dan O’Shea, who encouraged him to set about editing these manuscripts so that modern readers might be able to thrill to them also.
Bartholomew Daniels said: “Shakespeare the writer is the colossus of English literature. But Shakespeare the man is an enigma. These manuscripts I’ve been privileged enough to discover and edit cast new light on Shakespeare’s secret life as a detective in the cut-throat world of Elizabethan England.”
Bartholomew Daniels was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped on April 23, 1959. The Chicago-area writer is a long-time Shakespeare aficionado, and sees the chance to edit the Bard’s lost journals detailing Shakespeare’s unfortunate adventures as an unwilling Elizabethan gumshoe as the chance of a lifetime.
In real life, due to legal entanglements and security concerns surrounding the lost manuscripts, Mr. Daniels lives at a secure, undisclosed location.
Mr. Daniels can be reached online at [email protected].
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