An Honourable Murderer (2 page)

“A handsome youth, that Pembroke,” said Laurence.

“But I have heard that the King thinks Pembroke's brother is a handsomer one,” I said.

Listen to us talk! As though we were fully fledged courtiers. We waited for Shakespeare to confirm or deny these latest scurrilous stories about our King. But if he knew anything he wasn't saying. In fact WS turned away, with a look of slight disapproval on his face as if we were gossiping out of turn. Another strange feature of the new reign was that, whereas under Elizabeth most of the gossip had been to do with state affairs and the succession, the current tattle mostly concerned James's favourites. It was all about who was in and who was out and who was elbowing his way to the front of the court queue. It felt to me that things weren't quite as
serious
as they used to be – or maybe I was just getting older.

I noticed that WS had moved away without answering Abel's question about whether we would be issued with new livery for the forthcoming peace celebrations. To mark James's coronation in the summer of the previous year we'd each received precisely four and a half yards of red cloth to make doublet and breeches for the procession. By that stage we were no longer the Chamberlain's but the King's Men. (Our ailing patron, Lord Hunsdon, had died though not of the general pestilence but of the pox.)

“Eighteen – nineteen – twenty boats I have seen,” said Jack Wilson, “but these ones now are nothing like so grand as the leaders.”

All of us could see the way this Spanish ‘armada' was dwindling to its conclusion. I glanced upstream at the large, anonymous barge with its lavish curtains. Behind them apparently sheltered Queen Anne as well as Robert Cecil, the crookback Secretary of State, and Charles Howard, the Lord High Admiral. Everyone knew Howard, even relatively new Londoners like myself. He had commanded the English fleet against the '88 armada and was no doubt curious to see an old enemy whose less ceremonial arrival he had fought to prevent all those years ago. I had a more particular reason for recognizing his name since, when I'd first come to London, I had been temporarily taken on by the Admiral's Men, who played under his protection – not that I'd ever seen the great man at any of our performances. He kept away. In this he was like many patrons.

There were only a handful of barges passing now. They were workaday ones rather than brightly decked out, while their oars were coated with plain varnish. Even the spray coming off them seemed not to glitter quite so much. They were full of dark-suited attendants with a scattering of soldiers. The boats in the very rear were low in the water on account of the canvas-covered cases and trunks which they carried.

The attention of the Londoners bobbing on the Thames waters had also dwindled and a buzz of talk was breaking out. The main action was over. The principal actors of the invading party – all those foreign Constables, Counts and Dukes – were on the leading craft which had already travelled upriver and were preparing to dock at Somerset House, or Denmark House as it was officially called. What was travelling in front of our eyes now was like the baggage train of an army, no doubt important for general sustenance but not very interesting.

The
Hercules
rocked slightly as the senior members and shareholders of the King's Men began to disembark. Our own little group by the railing – Jack Wilson, Abel Glaze, Laurence Savage and I – also turned our backs on the water. The show on the river was finished. And there would be no show for us in the Globe theatre this afternoon or for several afternoons to come. We were enjoying a break from playing. There was a festive, holiday spirit. The sun was out.

We jostled our way to the gangplank, the others in the lead. I felt my shoulder being grasped by a firm paw. I recognized that grasp. Only one man connected to the King's Men had that power in his fingers. I turned about to look full into the gaze of Master Benjamin Jonson.

“Well, Nicholas Revill, have you given thought to my suggestion?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I would be honoured to join you and your friends.”

“They're your friends too. Good man. You will come tonight then?”

“Where to?”

“There is a fish tavern in Bread Street – ”

“The Mermaid. I know it.”

“Good man,” repeated Jonson with real approval. “We will be enjoying ourselves from seven onwards. ‘
Pine kai eufrainou
' is what Palladas of Alexandria tells us.”

“I expect he does,” I said.

“Drink and be merry, Nicholas. Drink and be merry. We never know whether the next day will be our last.”

The grasp on my shoulder tightened even further before Jonson allowed his hand to fall away. He had a pock-marked face and a manner of getting up close when he spoke to you, even if he was only talking about the day's weather. Mind you, with Jonson, any comment about the day's weather was usually accompanied by a classical garnish – just a sliver of Latin or a sprig of Greek, as above. He prided himself on his learning and lost no opportunity of showing it off. He thought William Shakespeare was quite an ignorant, unrefined man.

Like WS, Benjamin Jonson was a player and writer, though a much more touchy one. He was always on the lookout for snubs. You'd never have thought that he was the son of a bricklayer and had served an apprenticeship in the trade or that, like Abel Glaze, he had fought in the Netherlands or that he'd killed a man in a duel and only just escaped the noose – at least you wouldn't have thought any of these things until you experienced the strength in his hands.

At this moment, from our vantage point at the head of the gangplank which linked the
Hercules
to dry land, we could see over the heads of the people milling about on the river bank. There was a stir of activity in the region of the anonymous barge moored further upriver. There was nothing really anonymous about it, of course. How could there be when the Queen of England and Scotland was involved? A knot of uniformed yeomen blocked our view but between their shoulders I could glimpse a figure being ushered into a closed carriage. The figure's face was concealed by an elaborate mask. From a practical point of view this was silly. (If you want to draw attention to yourself, wear a mask. If you're looking not to be recognized, go about bare-faced and with some tiny difference from the usual.) But it was said that Queen Anne liked dressing up and taking part in dances and masques.

Ben Jonson was still at my elbow as we paused on the gangplank, caught up in the line of our departing fellows. Beneath us was a ten-foot drop into the greasy water between the barge and the bank. I was almost fearful that a careless movement might pitch me into the river. Jonson gestured towards one of the individuals who had disembarked from the royal barge and was pacing in the Queen's wake. This was a quite elderly man with a fine, fair moustache and a forked beard.

“Look at Howard, look at the Lord High Admiral,” he said. “Observe the spring in his step. That's what a young wife will do for you. Young wives are a great preservative.”

Like Shakespeare, Ben Jonson was fond of showing his familiarity with the court high-ups. He did it more nakedly than WS, however. But it was true that Charles Howard – or the Earl of Nottingham – or the Lord High Admiral – walked with a bounce that denied his age as well as the weight of titles which he carried. He'd recently married a much younger woman.

“Get a move on, Ben,” said someone to our rear. “You're holding everyone up.”

“I'll move when I'm ready, thank you,” said Ben, deliberately not budging even though there was now space in front. I would have moved forward but he had me firmly by the elbow.

“And Cecil. You know Cecil, Nick? There he is.”

It was easy enough to spot Sir Robert Cecil, Secretary to the Privy Council. Cecil was a short man with a large head topped by a great brow. But his main emblem was the crooked back that accompanied him everywhere. Today he was on his feet although usually he would not walk any distance in public and must be transported in a chair. Seeing Cecil I felt a queasiness in my guts.

“I have met Secretary Cecil, yes.”

“
You
have met him. When?”

I recalled being taken blindfold through the midnight streets of London for my meeting with Robert Cecil in the closing days of Queen Elizabeth's reign when the Earl of Essex was plotting his treason. I recalled the task with which Cecil had entrusted me. The secrecy of it.
*

“It's of no account,” I said. “I've no wish to meet him again. He is dedicated to his plots.”

I pulled out of Jonson's grasp and started to move down the gangplank before the people behind grew impatient enough to shove us into the Thames.

“Dedicated to plots? You must tell me about it some time,” said Jonson. “I can smell a story.”

“Who's that man and the woman too?” I said to distract him.

A slight individual with prominent ears was leaning down so that Cecil might whisper something to him. He looked grave, as you would do if the second most powerful (some would say
the
most powerful) man in the kingdom was addressing you. Nearby stood a largish woman.

“That is Sir Philip Blake. I know him, know him well. The lady next to him is his wife, Lady Jane. They are both involved in this business with us. You might call them patrons.”

By this time we were on the shore. There was a certain interest from the passers-by in the presence of such important visitors to the south bank but, being sophisticated Londoners, none of us wanted to show it very much. A glimpse of Queen Anne was hardly comparable to a sight of Queen Elizabeth in the old days. And it may be that everyone's appetite for spectacle had been sated by the river-borne Spaniards. I looked about for Abel and the others but they'd made themselves scarce.

The black carriage containing the Queen stood a few dozen yards off, sealed up like a sepulchre, the horses waiting patiently in the shafts. Sir Robert Cecil was evidently going to depart with Anne but was allowing himself to finish his conversation with Sir Philip Blake first. It was a mark of Cecil's standing – some people might have said, his arrogance – that he could afford to keep the Queen waiting like this.

The Lord High Admiral strode away from the royal party. He was by himself, a fine old gentleman in an elegant ruff. Closer to, his beard was more white than fair.

“What do you bet that he's going to take a little walk on this side of the river,” said Ben Jonson. Hs eyes tracked the admiral's back. “See, I told you.”

Charles Howard had turned off in the direction of Paris Garden.

“
He
has no fear of wandering by himself in these lawless realms. Every waterman, wrinkled or otherwise, in Southwark is familiar with the victor of the Armada, and would be honoured to see him board his boat. And if we were to follow him now, Nicholas, we would no doubt see him entering the hallowed precincts of Holland's Leaguer – or some other knocking-shop.”

“Where every woman, wrinkled or otherwise, would be honoured to have him board
her
,” I said.

“Good, good, Nicholas.”

“You're very curious about the Lord High Admiral, Ben,” I said.

For myself, I was surprised rather than curious. Not so much that a man of Howard's rank might be visiting one of the local brothels – assuming that's what he was doing – but that he should be so careless about it. As Ben said, the Lord High Admiral would be easily recognized by most of the older watermen, many of whom were ex-sailors.

“There is encouragement here for all of us who are merely in our middle years, Nicholas Revill,” said Ben Jonson, almost gleefully. “Look at Nottingham. He marries when he's touching seventy, he gets his young wife with child almost straightaway, and while she is in that state which the French term
hors de combat
he takes himself off to the Southwark stews because he must have it. He must have
it
.”

“I'm not in my middle years,” was my feeble reply. But Jonson wasn't even listening.

“I will follow my admirable admiral, I think. He has given me my cue for this hot afternoon,” he said, moving off in the direction taken by Nottingham and pausing only to shout out a reminder that I should present myself at the Mermaid tavern that evening, if I chose. And so Jonson left, presumably for one of the stews which are studded across Southwark like so many buttons on a whore's outfit.

I might have done the same, I suppose. I used to frequent Holland's Leaguer sometimes when my friend Nell worked there (although I enjoyed free what others paid for). But I have lost my taste for that particular place ever since her sad departure. And because the heat which was stirring up Ben Jonson had left me feeling spiritless I made my way back to my lodgings.

*
see
Death of Kings

T
he story of my lodgings is part of the story of my time in London. Sometimes I thought my changing accommodation was a reflection of my fortunes in more than a monetary sense and, if this was so, then even the most favourable observer couldn't have said that my fortunes amounted to much. Recently, though, there'd been a welcome and overdue change, or at least a hint of it . . .

Among my earliest accommodation in the capital had been a sty on the third floor of an establishment in Ship Street. It belonged to a stuck-up woman called Ransom, who kept a slovenly house and gave herself airs and graces. The only merit of this room was a view of the river which was obtainable if you risked your neck by craning out of the little window. There were various reasons why I'd had to leave this place, reasons connected to a carelessly emptied chamber pot and a rampant daughter of the establishment.

Then I'd sunk even lower by putting up with a peculiar quartet of women in Broadwall who charged four pennies a week for a ‘chamber' that was more holes and gaps than it was floor, walls or ceiling. My landladies called themselves after the sunnier months of the year – April, May, June and July – and had a local reputation as witches. One of them was murdered at the time of the Essex uprising.