Shakespeare No More Read online

  The tears dampening Jane’s eyes kept her from speaking as well. I could nearly see the catch in her throat. But finally, she willed it out of the way and spoke. “Even the gentle and kind can raise the ire of madmen,” she answered her husband.

  John Davenant swallowed hard. “Did he have any idea of who it might be?”

  I shook my head. “By the time he called for me, he was barely in his right mind. Aye, he drifted off into wild rantings more than once. But he did not seem to have a particular culprit in mind, or if he did, he did not share the name with me.”

  “But you believed him,” Jane pressed.

  “His words had a ring of truth. And I believed his son-in-law, John Hall, more certainly.”

  “The physician?” Davenant asked.

  “Aye. He found obvious signs of arsenic poisoning in Will’s body.”

  “Verily?”

  “Aye,” I answered with a sigh. “It was John’s findings that convinced me.” I paused. Will had been circumspect with others about our schism. His general response had been, I had learned, that some business dealings had soured our friendship. I felt certain that he had not shared the truth with the Davenants. “Will and I have not been close in recent years,” I admitted to them. “We fell out over some unwise investments.”

  “Money is an evil thing,” Jane clucked, shaking her head. “How horrible. And the two of you were as thick as thieves.”

  “Thicker,” I recalled. “Still, I think we reached an understanding at the end.”

  “Well, that is something to be thankful for. Simon,” Jane continued, “our boy will be distraught. You know how he and Will adored each other.”

  I did. Sometimes, I believed that Will had transferred all of the pent-up love left over from his dead son, Hamnet, to little Will Davenant. I remembered well when the boy was born, and how delighted Will had been to be named the child’s godfather. Even the mention of Hamnet Shakespeare’s name was enough to thrust Will into a dark place, a darker place than man should have to see. Perhaps that was why the gossipmongers saw Will as the Davenant boy’s father. He certainly sparkled when young Will was at hand. They did not know the melancholy that our Will suffered from his son’s death.

  “I will not mention it then,” I said after a moment.

  The Davenants nodded as one. “Good. We will tell him after you have gone tomorrow,” Jane said. “ ’Twill be a blow to him.”

  “So, you will pursue Will’s killer in London?” John asked.

  “Aye, Sir Walter, high sheriff in Warwickshire, approved my enquiry. He is most anxious that I find the truth of it.”

  “As are we all,” John agreed. “Poor little Will, he will be crushed.”

  “Only the first of many disappointments that life will give him,” Jane agreed. “More ale, Simon?”

  And we left the talk of death, sad little boys, and great poets for lighter, happier things. But our boisterous talk belied the sorrow in our hearts.

  ———

  Late in the night, as the three of us sat around a table, our tongues too tired to talk, John stood and went to his bar. I paid little attention to what he was doing, the long day’s journey weighing heavily on me.

  “Here,” I heard John say, setting a tankard on the table. “It will help you sleep.”

  I took a sip and smiled. A caudle. Hot wine thickened with an egg, an old concoction that Will and I had both shared a passion for in our younger days. But John was right, and I stumbled up to my chamber, nearly falling asleep as I walked.

  ———

  “Simon?”

  “Yes?”

  Jane came in, bearing a pair of blankets. “The nights still get a bit chilly,” she said.

  After spreading the blankets out, she sat on the edge of the bed. “I have been arguing with myself about telling you this.”

  I shook my head to clear it. “Tell me what?”

  “I cannot be certain, but several weeks ago, John sent a package to someone in Stratford.”

  “So? He has many friends there; you both do.”

  “It contained poison. Or, at least, that’s what John said. I asked him what it was, and he looked at me darkly. ‘Poison,’ he said. ‘Poison for a rat.’ ”

  “Perhaps that’s all it was, Jane.” I found it difficult to believe that the jovial John Davenant would conspire to kill anyone, especially Will.

  “Simon, he has never believed that young Will was truly his son.” She dropped her head, those red locks falling about her shoulders. “Oh, he has put up a fine show, telling everyone, including Will, that he did not listen to such trash. But nothing has been the same between us for these ten years past.”

  “I see.” In truth, I knew not what to say. “Thanks for telling me of the poison. I pray it is nothing but coincidence.”

  Turning to collapse back on the bed, I felt her hand on my shoulder.

  “You have never asked me if the rumours are true.”

  “I am not your husband, Jane. Nor am I a constable in Oxford. What you and Will did or did not do is not my concern. For what it is worth to you, Will denied the story.”

  “Perhaps you should have made it your concern.” Her voice was at my ear, and her breath smelled of freshly chewed mint.

  I turned to see her lips moving toward me. It took but a second for our tongues to be entwined; the soft smoothness awakened many feelings long dormant in me. She took my hand and placed it on her breast, and I could not help but gently caress it. But this was not the time for such. I broke off the kiss and snatched my hand away.

  “Jane, this is not a rejection. But you should not have plied me with so much drink.” ’Twas a weak argument, weakened further by the growing bulge in my breeches. But doing to John what Will had done to me sapped the lust from my heart.

  She smiled, seeming to know what I was thinking. “Perhaps next time I won’t.” And then she was gone.

  A full minute passed before I could calm my heart. Strangely I felt no guilt or remorse at the sudden kiss. Indeed, for some reason, I felt satisfaction at it. And that bothered me, deep into the night.

  Chapter Four

  London appeared on the southern horizon like a smudge on a white cloth or a gathering storm. But the clouds never seemed to move, just grew larger as I approached. The closer you got, the more it looked like a giant dust cloud, hovering over the city. But that was London, blanketed by the smoke of ten thousand chimneys. It was a rare day when the citizens actually saw the sun shine.

  The only town of any consequence on my second day’s journey was Chepping Wycombe, a mill town about halfway between Oxford and the city. Fortunately, I had been troubled by few beggars or cutpurses on the road. I kept a strong sword on my hip and a dagger at my waist, but no one had attempted to molest me.

  And now that I was come to London at last, I remembered why I had never sought my fortune there. Noise! Everywhere! You could not shut it out. Between people yammering, merchants hawking their wares, and workmen hammering on everything from tin to wooden barrels, you could scarce hear your own voice, even if you shouted. The air was filled with the stench of human waste and spoiled food. A passerby needed a helmet to safeguard his head from the barrage of wash water and garbage tossed from the tightly packed houses along the streets. Water carriers dashed through the lanes at breakneck speed. And dark, hulking shapes seemed to lurk down every byway.

  Though I had entered the city’s walls, I still had a good distance to travel. My path led me across the city, past great St. Paul’s, on to London Bridge, down the narrow lane, between the crowded buildings, with the screeching of their housewives ringing in my ears, through the gatehouse and past the hideous skulls of those executed on pikes, and off the other side of the bridge at St. ­Saviour’s in Southwark.

  Someday, I thought, they will make this one of the largest parishes in England. It was yet a small parish then, if a large church, but situated there, at the foot of London Bridge, it was ideally situated to grow into a true minster.r />
  I turned my horse through the churchyard. Some ten years before, I had come to St. Saviour’s, at Will’s request. His brother, Ned, had died. He sent a rider with instructions not to stop until he reached me in Stratford. We returned without waiting, on fresh horses. We rode around the clock; it nearly ruined our mounts and drove me to exhaustion.

  ———

  Will was sitting on a bench, outside the church. It was night. He did not look up as I approached, but he knew that it was me. “I did not want him to come to London, you know,” he had said.

  “I know,” I answered, sitting beside him. “But he would not listen to you. He would not listen to anyone. Ned saw only that you had escaped Stratford and found success here, in London. He saw your fame and wanted his own taste of it.”

  Will laughed, a sad little laugh. “He was quite good, you know. He would never have been an Alleyn or a Burbage, but he was a solid player. He had an uncanny ability to remember lines. Ned never had to be prompted. Ever. I was proud of him.”

  “How did it happen?”

  My old friend stood and walked a few paces, staring across the grave markers in the churchyard. “Remember the girl he got with child a few years ago?”

  I nodded. It had not been long after Ned came to London. Players were little prized by the nobility, more commodities to be bought. The Puritans scorned them. Ned did not understand how things stood. He began an affair with the younger, rebellious daughter of some royal cousin, perhaps trying to prove that he was his brother’s equal. He got her with child, but the child died. It almost cost Ned dearly at the time, but Southampton, Will’s patron, handled matters.

  “She died in childbirth last week,” Will said.

  I remembered then that her father had married her off properly a pair of years after the event.

  “The physician said that her death was caused by that earlier confinement. Her father set a pack of rogues on Ned; they caught him behind the Rose and beat him to death.”

  I put my arm about his shoulders and he cried, giant tears. It took no great insight to know that Will blamed himself for his brother’s death. I stayed with him for a week, coaxing him to eat, entertaining him with tall tales. By the time I left, he looked and acted more like the Will Shakespeare that I knew.

  ———

  That was then. On this journey, I passed through the churchyard and headed for the Globe.

  It was a newer, more impressive Globe. Some years before, a cannon shot had set the thatch on fire, horribly damaging Will’s theatre. I remember how upset he was, on returning from London where he had viewed the destruction. He was yet a shareholder in the company then, and I suspected his dismay had more to do with lost income than melancholy about the building itself.

  Morning was not yet done, and I found Richard Burbage just where I expected him to be—inside the Globe, directing the morning’s rehearsals.

  A great deal of grey had crept into his hair and finely manicured beard since I had last seen him. He sat up in the gallery, watching the players go through their paces.

  “Master Burbage!”

  Richard looked up and squinted. “Simon? Simon Saddler?” He stood slowly and approached me the same. I was shocked. Richard was so frail! A stiff breeze could blow him about at will. His hand grasped my arm so lightly that I barely felt its touch. And he was a year younger than Will, I remembered. He had long been one of my favourites among Will’s friends in the players’ company. When I had been younger, I would often come to the city and the three of us would drink and carouse.

  “Oh, it’s good to see you here, Simon. I’ve only just heard of Will’s death. Here, pray sit.”

  I joined him in the gallery.

  “Cuthbert!” he called to his brother. “Show them their marks once again!”

  He turned back to me and smiled. “These young players, Simon, they take so long to learn things. Tell me, has Will been properly buried? Did he suffer much at the end?”

  “Yes, Richard. He was buried two days past. In the last week or so, he was unconscious most of the time, so he realized little that was going on about him. But, how are you? You look as if you had been ill.”

  He waved me off with a hand. “I am fine, just a cough. I probably need to be bled, but I hate surgeons with a passion. Aye, a passion I used to reserve only for Henslowe, but he is no longer available for my hatred.”

  Philip Henslowe had been the business manager of the Rose, the theatre most often in competition with the Globe and the Blackfriars. But Henslowe had died a few months before. The faces of Will’s London world were disappearing.

  “Well,” Richard continued, “enough of that. What brings you to the city, Simon? It has been years since I have seen you.”

  Burbage knows all, Will had told me. So I resolved to speak frankly.

  “Will thought he was being murdered, Richard. He thought he was poisoned.”

  The blood drained from Burbage’s face. “No, it is not possible. Everyone loved Will.”

  He spoke the words, but no certainty lay behind them.

  “Richard. I need to know. I am constable of Stratford and this is an official enquiry. One of the last things that Will said to me was that ‘Burbage knows all.’ ”

  At that Richard chuckled weakly. “Would that I did. And that I say to you honestly. Will Shakespeare had many secrets, Simon. Yes, I was privy to some, but certainly not all.”

  “Like what, Richard? Please, for Will’s sake, give me something other than generalities.”

  Burbage pursed his lips, apparently thinking of what he could say and could not. “You know, of course, of his friendship with Southampton?”

  “Of course.”

  “Lord Southampton did not simply give his patronage away. Will was required to serve at his lordship’s bidding. Nothing comes without a price, Simon. Not even an earl’s patronage.”

  “And that price?”

  “Tasks. Chores. Errands.”

  “Of what sort?”

  “I do not know, and Will did not say. The nobility involve themselves in things that we commoners are not privy to, nor should we want to be. A discreet messenger is often worth his weight in gold. I suspect that it was in that role that Southampton employed Will most often. But I have no certain knowledge of that.” He paused. “You remember that Southampton was imprisoned, aye even sentenced to death, for his part in the Essex Affair. I do not doubt that Southampton involved Will in that. You know that we nearly lost our players’ license over that affair. Master Tilney was under great pressure to close us down.”

  The earl of Essex, the queen’s favourite and some said her lover, had attempted to overthrow the queen fifteen years before. The Globe company had been induced to resurrect Will’s play Richard II, which included a scene where the king stepped down from the throne. How much Will had to do with all of that, I had never known. Essex was beheaded, and Southampton was imprisoned in the Tower for some three years.

  Master Tilney, of whom Richard spoke, was Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels. It was his job to oversee many things, but his biggest headache was most assuredly watching over the players and their theatres. Some claimed that he was more Puritan than not, but I had heard Will speak well of him enough to know that he was a friend of the player.

  “So,” I speculated, “it might be that Will knew things of that affair that could still harm Southampton.”

  Burbage shook his head. “That is not for me to say, Simon. But you asked, and it was worthy of note. Will had many friends, from every corner of London. When James came to the throne, and Southampton returned to court, the king’s patronage also came with a price. In all truth, though, such chores amounted to nothing more sinister than being ready to perform whenever and wherever the king said. Other whisperings marked the city though.

  “Will often absented himself with little or no notice. Whether this was at His Majesty’s request, or Southampton’s, or some business of his own, I do not know.” Now that Richard was speaking,
it seemed he had much to say. From the pulsing of his veins beneath the wrinkled skin in his throat, I could see that these answers resurrected unwelcome memories.

  “You did not like this.”

  Richard smiled at me sadly. “You can see that in my face? ’Tis no wonder that you are good at your task. After the Essex Affair, we were frightened, all of us. Augustine was called before the commission to explain our actions.”

  I nodded. Augustine Phillips was one of the shareholders in the Globe, and, when necessary, served as the theatre troupe’s spokesman. “I never asked Will, but I always assumed it was his doing, at the behest of Southampton.”

  Burbage shook his head. “No, it was Southampton himself who met with the six of us, including Will and Cuthbert. He reminded us of favours done in the past, and he called his request to put on Richard II simply ‘a small thing.’ Of course, Essex was not mentioned. We saw no harm in it, and agreed. But Will seemed uneasy, and we all suspected that he knew more of it than he admitted. At any rate, we kept him as far away from the commission as we could. Augustine answered their questions, without mentioning that Southampton had been involved.”

  Some might think it oddly indiscreet for Richard to speak so openly of these things, but they had happened some fifteen years before. The climate was much different under James, especially for players.

  “Who else will you speak with?”

  I thought for a moment. “Southampton, if I can. Jonson. Drayton must wait until I return to Warwickshire.”

  “Go and see George Wilkins, if you can find him. He sometimes wrote plays for us. Will collaborated on one or two.” Richard paused. “Well, in truth Will took plays that were barely worthy of the name and made something of them. Wilkins has harboured a grudge against Will for many years. And he is of the lowest sort, consort of thieves and murderers. He might not have killed Will, but he spends his days in that sort of company.”

  That Burbage, a player, spoke so of one like Wilkins would have been laughable in Stratford. The town was much inclined towards the Puritans, and I long suspected that Puritans would find more need for murderers than players. Puritans had no need for anything that gave one pleasure.