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  Shakespeare No More

  A Jacobean Mystery

  Tony Hays

  MMXV

  Perseverance Press · John Daniel & Company

  Palo Alto · McKinleyville, California

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, companies, ­institutions, organizations, or incidents is entirely coincidental.

  The interior design and the cover design of this book are intended for and limited to the publisher’s first print edition of the book and related marketing display purposes. All other use of those designs without the publisher’s permission is prohibited.

  Copyright © 2015 by Tony Hays

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN 978-1-56474-794-5

  A Perseverance Press Book

  Published by John Daniel & Company

  A division of Daniel & Daniel, Publishers, Inc.

  Post Office Box 2790

  McKinleyville, California 95519

  www.danielpublishing.com/perseverance

  Distributed by SCB Distributors (800) 729-6423

  Book design by Eric Larson, Studio E Books, Santa Barbara

  www.studio-e-books.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

  Hays, Tony.

  Shakespeare no more : a Jacobean mystery / by Tony Hays.

  pages ; cm

  ISBN [first printed edition] 978-1-56474-566-8 (softcover : acid-free paper)

  1. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616—Fiction. 2. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 3. Great Britain—History—James I, 1603-1625—Fiction. I. Title. PS3558.A877S53 2016

  813’.54—dc23

  2014041969

  To the Donegans—

  Tonya, Rob, Marc, and Amber

  Contents

  Dramatis Personae

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sıxteen

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Dramatis Personae

  In Stratford

  Simon Saddler, constable of the Stratford Corporation and ­Shakespeare’s oldest and dearest friend

  William Shakespeare, playwright and poet

  Hamnet Saddler, close friend of Shakespeare’s, and Simon’s cousin

  Anne Hathaway Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s wife

  John Hall, physician and son-in-law to Shakespeare

  Susanna Hall, Shakespeare’s elder daughter

  Elizabeth Hall, Shakespeare’s granddaughter

  Judith Quiney, Shakespeare’s younger daughter

  Thomas Quiney, tavernkeeper and son-in-law to Shakespeare

  Henry Smythe, bailiff of the Stratford Corporation

  Jack Addenbrooke, watchman

  Sir Walter Devereux, sheriff of Warwickshire

  In Oxford

  John Davenant, innkeeper

  Jane Davenant, his wife

  William Davenant, their son

  At the Globe

  Richard Burbage, player

  Cuthbert Burbage, manager

  Henry Condell, player

  John Heminges, player

  In London

  Henry Wriothesley, earl of Southampton

  George Wilkins, tavern owner and would-be playwright

  Ben Jonson, poet and playwright

  Sir Francis Bacon, Attorney General of England

  Sir Edward Coke, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench

  Lancelot Andrewes, bishop

  Malcolm Gray, servant to Sir Edward Coke

  John Donne, lawyer and priest

  Inigo Jones, architect

  Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel and Suffolk; Lord High Treasurer­

  Frances (née) Howard, countess of Somerset

  Robert Carr, earl of Somerset

  James Stuart, king of England

  Chapter One

  I am Simon Saddler, wool merchant of Stratford-upon-Avon, but more importantly, one of two constables of the Stratford Corporation. My duties include supervising the watchmen who walk the alleys and roads, hauling recusants before the bailiffs, seeking out those who fail to pay their debts, investigating thefts and enquiring into the occasional murder.

  My entire life, except for three years in the Low Countries as a soldier, has been lived here within the confines of the village. I know its streets and people better than I know myself. I used to be one of the happiest men in the town.

  Used to be.

  But no longer.

  ———

  Will Shakespeare was dead. The news ripped through Stratford like a cruel north wind, chilling the town and dampening spirits. Black wreaths appeared as if by magic on the door at New Place and the house on Henley Street. God must have thought it a sad occasion as well, for He opened His eyes and let His tears pound the land with a vengeance. Women wept in the lanes as if they had lost their husband or child. Children gathered in small groups, heads hung in sadness.

  Some of the men, however, were barely concealing their pleasure. And though Will Shakespeare was my friend from childhood, I too breathed a deep sigh of relief at his passing.

  Such a cacophony of emotions! We had schooled together here in Stratford, played children’s games. Harassed the aldermen, Will’s father included, with boyish pranks. I was by his side when he fell in love with Anne Whateley, and even when that Puritan she-devil Anne Hathaway forced him to marry her.

  Perhaps that was when I should have seen the future. For it was his own fault. Pretty Anne Whateley loved him above all else, but she would not lie with him until the marriage vows had been said. So, he plied the handsome Hathaway woman with his charms and lay with her. That would have been all right, but he got her with child, and Puritan that she was, he was trapped.

  And then, in reality, he abandoned us all, his wife, his children, me, all of his friends, to chase that dream of his in London. When he returned, as a successful poet and playwright, he entranced us all with his tales of the city and his poems of love and loss. All of us, even Peg, the wife of town constable Simon Saddler. Oh, yes, he entranced my Peg, all the way to his bed. And though it was but sport to him, he left my family in ruins. Yes, I smiled too at his death, because Peg had never forgotten him. And so the ghost of Will Shakespeare had made three in my marriage bed for nearly five years, long before he became a real spirit.

  And that was why, the week before, I had been shocked when he called for me, when he looked up at me with blackened eyes and sallow cheeks, and said, “Simon, I think someone is trying to kill me.”

  I had simply pursed my lips and voiced the thought that had tempted me since the day I caught him lying with Peg. “Are you certain that it’s not me?”

  “No, I am not. But you are my last hope.”

  “Then you have no hope at all.”

  At that, my eternally confident friend had dropped his head to his chest, coughed with a horrendous crackling sound as if his lungs were about to spew forth, and fainted.

  When his eyes slowly opened once more, panic fluttered inside me. I had never seen a person so pale and yet still breathe. “Please, Simon,” he gasped. “You have every reason to hate me, but I need you now.”

  “You surprise me, Will.”
r />   “How so?”

  “I never thought to hear you admit that you had harmed me.”

  At that my old friend, his face slack, turned from me. “I have been arrogant.”

  “Yes, you have. And your arrogance has cost me. But hate you, Will? I loved you as a brother. Until you ruined my life.”

  “Please!” But the effort sent him into a paroxysm of coughing.

  “Why do you think someone is killing you?”

  “A fortnight ago, there was nothing wrong with me.”

  “But the story in the town is that you were out carousing with Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton and that you caught a fever.”

  Will looked at me with those wan eyes. “Simon, I no longer live in London. You know Anne. Do you think she would allow me the pleasure of drinking with Ben Jonson?”

  I could not stifle the chuckle rising in my throat. Anne Shakespeare was a Puritan to the bone, and Will’s retirement to Stratford had caused much calamity at New Place. Will’s son-in-law, John Hall, would not even visit except to minister to Will. Hall was a good physician, the best in Stratford.

  “Will, neither of us is young any longer. And let us be honest, your life in London, among the fleshpots of Bankside, would have cut any man’s life span in half.”

  His face reddened and he slammed his hand against the coverlet on his bed. “You are not listening to me!”

  My face flushed too. “Do not scream at me, Will. You are not in a position to do that. We are no longer children at school. I am a constable and you are, at best, a player on the stage, and at worst an adulterer.”

  “Do not forget that I could buy and sell you, Simon. I hold tithes. I am a man of influence!”

  “And what have your precious tithes brought you but more debt?” Tithes were a tax owed to the Stratford Corporation by local landowners. Men of means would purchase portions of the tithes from the corporation as investments, generally for a term of thirty-one years, betting, of course, that they would increase year after year. Such had not been the case for Shakespeare, at least not so far. “But if you are correct, you won’t be a man of property much longer. You will be dead.”

  He began that awful, hacking cough again. “I know that I wronged you—”

  “You have wronged many people, but tell me, who among them would do more than wish you dead? Who would put the deed to the wish?”

  Will turned away from me, coughing yet again. “I have been involved in many things in my life, Simon. Some honourable; some not so praiseworthy. The list is long.”

  “Bah! Even if you were being murdered, you can hardly expect anyone to seek an answer from that.”

  “Speak to Southampton, Heminges, and Condell.”

  “What of Jonson?”

  Will swept the query away with a trembling hand. “Jonson has his own devils. Burbage, Burbage knows all. The enclosures. The tithes…” His voice drifted off as his eyes closed slowly.

  I simply shook my head. Neither the tithes nor the enclosures had aught to do with Burbage and Jonson. Although the enclosure controversy had certainly sparked bloodshed. Just two years previously, it had been proposed by certain parties to enclose lands near Welcombe and old Stratford. When property was enclosed, rights to use of that land were restricted to the owner. It was no longer available for common pasturage. The reasons for this were many, but enclosure was one of the most hotly debated topics in those days. Some nine years past, there were riots over enclosure in Northamptonshire and Warwickshire. Indeed, the Newton Rebellion brought more than a thousand folk to riot against the notorious Tresham family, who enclosed ever more land. Nearly fifty poor souls were killed in the revolt.

  The conflict was still fresh in the minds of our people, and so passionate were they on the issue that Will had kept everyone guessing about his stance; he did not want to offend either side, not the freeholders nor commons.

  “How much of what you say, old friend,” I mumbled to the now unconscious Shakespeare, “has root in anything but your fever?”

  “He does that,” a woman’s voice sounded from the doorway. “He will talk sense for a bit and then lapse into some sort of delirium and spout nonsense.”

  Anne Shakespeare was a severe-featured woman. In her youth she had been comely, but time and her famous husband’s wandering ways had cut deep lines in her face and widened her girth. She had never liked me, and I cared not for her. In my mind, it was her caustic personality and Puritan ways that had driven Will to London.

  “I take it that you do not share his belief that he is being murdered?”

  She drifted across the room before answering. “The only thing that has ever harmed Will Shakespeare is Will Shakespeare.”

  “He said that contrary to the rumours, he did not get drunk with those poets Jonson and Drayton and catch a fever.”

  “Well,” she answered with a scowl, “that much is true. Ben Jonson is not welcome in my home. He is an immoral man and a plague on this land. Bah! If William had stayed here in Stratford and helped his father, he would not be lying on his deathbed now.”

  “You think he is truly dying?”

  She whipped around towards me. “I think even a stupid man could just look at him and see that. Perhaps your much vaunted abilities have been overestimated.”

  “Mistress Shakespeare, whatever ails your husband, I can easily see that you have made life no joy for him.” I was heartily tired of her insults.

  “Life was not made for joyful purposes, but to test and challenge us and see if we are worthy of entering God’s kingdom.”

  “Well, if your goal has been to eliminate joy from life, I think you have earned God’s kingdom many times over.”

  Anne Shakespeare narrowed her eyes until they seemed but slits. “Leave my house, Simon Saddler. You are not welcome here.”

  “With pleasure.”

  I started for the door, but I could not shake the image of my old friend, haggard and pale, and I turned back.

  “You have no reason to believe that someone is poisoning Will?”

  “I have no reason to suffer your presence any longer! Now leave!”

  And I did.

  And a week later, just as he predicted, Will Shakespeare was dead.

  One of the watchmen brought me the news of Will’s passing. It left me strangely restless, and though I did feel relief, I was not certain if it were because he was dead or that his suffering had ended.

  The dark clouds seemed like a roof over the town, holding in the news of Will’s passing. I made my way through the streets that afternoon to Perrott’s tavern, near the old market, and pushed past the patrons until I found my cousin, Hamnet Saddler, at a table. Hamnet and his wife, Judith, had been closer to Will than I had been. But then again, Will had never lain with Judith. Or, if he had, Hamnet did not mind. And that was of no matter now. Judith had died some two years before, leaving Hamnet alone with their fourteen children.

  “Simon!” Hamnet hailed me. “Sit.”

  I did, and he called for a pot of strong beer for me.

  “ ’Tis a sad day, Simon,” my cousin said, taking a deep draught from his own pot.

  “For you perhaps.” I was not inclined to be sorrowful over Shakespeare’s death.

  “Simon! You were once Will’s closest friend.”

  “Aye, and I was once a child, but no more.” I left it at that. The whole town knew of our falling out, but to Will’s credit, he had never bragged about his conquest in our household, and I had no reason to share it with my cousin. But I could understand his sorrow. When Will’s twins were born, he named them for Hamnet and his wife, Judith.

  We busied ourselves with our beer. Across the crowded room, I saw a tall, thin man with a pinched face walk in. I considered him for a moment. Thomas Quiney, one of the banes of my existence as constable. The Quineys were a fine and respected family—aye, his father, Richard, had been one of Will’s best friends—but somehow Thomas had missed out on the family’s better traits. About a fortnight before, he h
ad been charged with bastardy. And, about a fortnight before that, he had married Will Shakespeare’s daughter, Judith. He was a sour-faced man who always sought some advantage, either at dice or in life in general. It was not unusual to find him drunken in the lanes of a Sunday morning.

  Judith was as comely as her new husband was not. I never understood why she agreed to marry Thomas. She was not with child. And her mother abhorred Quiney. On that point, at least, Anne Shakespeare and her husband agreed. Will detested the living scarecrow, and he made no secret of it. But Judith, who had been a very pleasant child in her youth, changed after the death of her brother, Hamnet.

  “There’s one that would have profited from Will’s death,” Hamnet Saddler said, waving his pot in Quiney’s general direction.

  “Aye?”

  “Aye,” Hamnet confirmed. “But Will managed to change his will in the last days to take care of Judith but to deny Quiney. Or so I hear.”

  Rumours and Stratford were like twin children, forever mated, forever entwined.

  “Tell me, cousin,” I said. “You knew Will better in these last years than I have. Did he ever tell you that he feared for his life? That someone might intend him harm?”

  Hamnet frowned. “Will said many things; he was quite dramatic.”

  “But did he say anything recently? In the last days or weeks?”

  “No. At least not to me.” Hamnet paused. “Last week a stranger arrived in town and asked his way to New Place. I did not like his looks, but he was probably just some friend of Will’s from London. Why?”

  I was not ready to share what Will had said to me with too many others. In all likelihood, it was just some manifestation of his illness. Oddly, I did not wish to soil his reputation by talking freely of his ramblings. “No reason, really. Here, let me stand you to another pot.”

  And that ended the conversation.

  ———

  Sleep did not come easily that night. Though we still shared the same bed, Peg and I had been distant for some time, since I had returned one day from a journey to Coventry to find her in Will Shakespeare’s arms. She suffered my tossing about, but did not venture a word. When I finally surrendered to the sleepless night, I rose and sat by the hearth, staring blankly at the fire, sipping from a tankard of small beer, trying to find some drowsiness, some relief.