Muse of fire, p.23
Muse of Fire, page 23
Beatrice took this to mean their business was concluded. ‘Go then, if you must,’ she told him airily. ‘But return to me again if you wish to sharpen your wits.’
‘Perhaps I will,’ he told her.
‘But know that I will never fall in love with a Benedick,’ she warned him.
She truly was very like the Beatrice he had written, but was he really turning into a Benedick? Was his heart beginning to soften the more time he spent with a woman who professed no interest in him. Beatrice might not be quite as beautiful as Avisa but she was undoubtedly fair. Her mind increased that beauty somehow and it became more visible each time he duelled with her, so he told himself he would likely come back for more of this.
God, would he never learn?
Chapter Thirty-Five
‘He lives in fame that died in virtue’s cause.’
—Titus Andronicus
William Wade was the man to ask the whereabouts of the Lady Anne’s possessions. Cecil once told him Wade had searched her belongings but found no letters, cyphers or forbidden books among them. But Wade had not been looking for a silk handkerchief and might easily have overlooked such an innocent item if it was among other clothes. Will went to see Wade and Cecil’s man greeted the request with his usual suspicion.
‘Her clothes and such like were in a wooden chest by her bed. I had it brought here.’ He gestured to it. ‘But first tell me why you need to examine the personal items of a dead girl?’
Will knew he had to give Wade an answer, but there was something quite menacing about the man who had risen to become Sir Robert Cecil’s most powerful retainer. Cecil had more confidence in him than even the ruthless Poley, but Will could sense Wade was as pitiless as his master, so did not fully trust him with knowledge of the handkerchief’s significance. He wanted to find it first, then consider his next move, which would be dependent upon the identity of its original owner.
‘In truth, I do not have a reason, though I was hoping to find some clue in her belongings.’ He hoped to sound vague. ‘A letter, jewellery from an admirer, something written in code perhaps?’
Wade scoffed. ‘You think I did not already search for just such an item?’
‘Something else then?’ Will offered, then he feigned helplessness. ‘Apologies, but Sir Robert ordered me to revisit everything related to the Lady Anne. Now I cannot rest until I have completed that task for him.’
Wade did not bother to disguise his irritation, but the mention of Sir Robert was good enough. He retrieved the chest and brought it to the table, lifted the lid and showed Will its contents. ‘See for yourself.’ Wade seemed keen to prove he had not overlooked anything significant, and Will knew he would have to tread carefully here.
‘I will, since I am here,’ he offered and made a show of conducting a slightly perplexed examination of the chest’s contents.
There were some fine gowns here, befitting of a lady-in-waiting to the queen, and some rigid skirts as well as kirtles, bodices and petticoats. It felt wrong to be delving into a chest full of a dead girl’s clothes, but Will had to do it if he was going to find what he was looking for. But how to hide this from Wade? He was just contemplating that when a man appeared at Wade’s door in some agitation.
‘The Jesuit has been found, Master Wade.’
This was important enough news for Wade to turn his back on Will and go to the door. ‘Where was he?’ he demanded.
Will used his preoccupation with the latest captured priest to make his search swifter and more urgent, pushing dresses, hairbrushes and items of jewellery to one side as he probed deeper into the chest.
The man at Wade’s door was offering a detailed explanation of the priest’s whereabouts when he was found in a secret room on the property of some unfortunate recusant noble. Will was glad of this distraction, but he couldn’t find a silk handkerchief with gold edging.
‘Bring him to me,’ ordered Wade. ‘I will notify Sir Robert. He will be most pleased with our work this day.’
It sounded to Will as if their business was about to be concluded, so he decided to risk everything by speeding up his search, pulling out the remaining clothes, draping them across his forearm and enabling himself to see into the very bottom of the chest. Just as he was doing this, he spotted what he was looking for: a silk handkerchief folded so that only the outside of it could be seen, with no markings or lettering visible, but the gold edging gave it away.
‘Go now and make haste,’ Wade ordered the man, and Will knew he had to move fast but dare he? He reached for the handkerchief, grabbed it with his right hand and flipped the dresses from his other arm over it, while he pretended to stare into the chest, just as Wade turned back to him.
‘Are you not done yet, Master Shakespeare?’ He was clearly annoyed by Will’s presence when he had more important things to consider, like the torturing of Jesuits.
‘I am. You were right, there was nothing here.’
Wade looked at him as if he was wondering why Will was still holding the dresses. Will used that moment of slight confusion to scrunch the handkerchief tightly into his hand, then he gently returned the dresses to the chest. He turned as he did this and carefully slid the handkerchief into his hose on Wade’s blind side, hoping he wouldn’t spot that movement.
‘I knew you were wasting your time.’ Wade jerked his head towards the door to indicate Will should leave.
Will gave a slight bow and made for the door. He was almost through it when Wade called after him.
‘Shakespeare?’
Will wondered if he should just keep going, while feigning that he hadn’t heard the man, but the command was too loud for him to get away with it. He turned back to face Wade, fully expecting to be challenged about the theft of a valuable handkerchief. Instead, he told Will, ‘You do know you must catch this killer for Sir Robert?’ He said this as if Will had not already fully understood it and was somehow unaware of the jeopardy he was in. ‘If you don’t, this will not end well for you. Not end well at all.’
* * *
As soon as he was free from Wade, Will went to a quiet corridor of the palace and examined the silk handkerchief closely. He unfolded it to reveal the design at its centre. This depicted a lion rampant, standing on its hind legs against a blood-red background, between three crosslets fitchee – crosses with downward extensions upon each arm. It seemed familiar, but whose livery was this?
Was it the Earl of Southampton’s? No, he had seen his patron’s coat of arms often enough. That was a yellow cross dividing a blue background with four hawks as its escutcheons, one in each quarter. Henry Wriothesley did not give her this, nor did Raleigh, thought Will. His coat of arms was five white fusils, conjoined in bend argent on a red background. It wasn’t Mountjoy’s either. That was an elaborate, almost vulgar construction, featuring two wolves, a tower and some other designs.
Will had only really thought on the coat of arms of those other men to delay the inevitable. In truth, he had already recognised the arms depicted here and was merely hoping he was mistaken. It was often seen at court on banners or the livery of the man’s servants. The rampant lion was such a fitting depiction for the Earl of Essex. This was his handkerchief. He had given it to the Lady Anne. Once she had accepted it, he had likely arranged an assignation with her on the night she had died, then quite possibly killed the girl or ordered her murder.
Why did it have to be Essex? Could it not have been a lowlier man than the queen’s firmest favourite? Now Will would make an enemy of the most powerful lord in the country, who was already known to be unmerciful. He’d had the queen’s own physician hanged, drawn and quartered for simply gossiping about him. What then would he do to Will if his evidence pointed to Essex as the murderer of one of the queen’s ladies?
But how could he withhold that evidence from Sir Robert Cecil, when he had been ordered by the Secretary of State himself to find the killer? Wade had just reminded him what would happen if he failed to do that for Cecil, a man almost equal to Essex in power and influence over the queen. One day Cecil might even surpass the earl, if her favourite continued to fail in Ireland.
I am trapped between the two most powerful men in the kingdom and can see no way out of this. I can neither produce nor hide this evidence when either act will likely lead to my doom.
Will recognised the dilemma he faced and, as he held that silk handkerchief in his hand now, he knew it was finally time to decide. He would have to pick one of these men, then pray that whoever he chose proved to be the strongest.
Chapter Thirty-Six
‘Art made tongue-tied by authority.’
—‘Sonnet 66’
‘What is this quarrel about?’ Robert Cecil had broken away from the cluster of powerful men at court to interrupt the argument between Will and the Master of the Revels, who was refusing to accept Will’s new work.
‘Shakespeare here has written heresy.’
‘I have not! I merely portray a king as a man, for he is a king and a man both.’
‘And that is to question the divinity of kings and by implication her divine majesty. If a monarch is portrayed in the same way as any man or woman, then what majesty remains? I shall not allow this.’
‘Then there is no play,’ argued Will, ‘for the entire purpose of Henry V is to show his true greatness by overcoming his manly doubts before Agincourt. Rid the play of this and you rob it of meaning.’
‘Show me the offending passage,’ Cecil ordered and the Master of the Revels drew his attention to it.
They fell silent for long enough to give Cecil the time to examine it.
‘So, King Henry has doubts on the eve of a battle?’ Sir Robert told the Master of the Revels. ‘Who would not? I will allow it, and so shall you.’
The chastened Master of the Revels gave a brief bow to Sir Robert.
‘It is sometimes a good thing for a monarch to be reminded they are mortal.’ And with that Cecil strode away. Will noticed that he had deliberately used the word ‘mortal’, not ‘human’, which was surely a hint that the queen should be looking to the future and her successor. That had, of course, not been Will’s intention, but he immediately began to worry that Her Majesty might take it to be so. Christ, what had he done?
* * *
‘What happened with the Master of the Revels?’ asked Richard, who had witnessed proceedings from a distance.
‘He tried to silence me.’
‘And?’
‘Was overruled by Sir Robert.’
Richard frowned. ‘Cecil permitted words the Master of the Revels sought to remove?’
‘He did.’
‘Oh,’ said Richard, sounding troubled, for he too must have been wondering why Cecil would seek to do that.
‘Exactly,’ said Will and they shared their unease.
‘Is that all?’ asked Richard, who must have sensed his friend was worried about more than those few lines in dispute.
Will drew in his breath then and explained, ‘I have watched our company go through the words of the play on stage and rehearse the tiny scuffles that represent the battle of Agincourt and I tell thee, I am shamed.’
‘Why shamed?’
‘Because we cannot confine such a vast and bloody battle to a mere wooden platform. We should have thousands of men, hundreds of horse, a sky full of arrows to blot out the sun, and yet what have we really got to put in front of a mighty and unforgiving queen? Nothing.’
‘Not nothing,’ Richard consoled him. ‘Your words are poetry. For the rest, well, they will draw upon their imaginary forces, so they can see the battle in their mind’s eye. You are right that we cannot place the Battle of Agincourt on a stage, but since everyone knows that, we do not have to apologise for it.’
Will stared at Richard then as if he had just said something shocking or outrageous.
‘What?’ demanded Richard.
‘That’s it!’ Will declared.
‘What’s it?’ Richard was clearly confused.
‘What you just said. You are right… Actually you are wrong.’
‘What say you? How can I be both? What are you talking about?’
‘An apology. You said we don’t have to apologise for it, but we do. That’s what we should do! It’s what I must do. Let us get the uncomfortable matter out there. Don’t try to hide behind a curtain or pretend that one man can fill the form of a thousand. Admit that it cannot be done, so let us not even pretend.’
‘Pretend is what we do, Will! What else is there?’
But Will was already heading back to his rooms so he could write more.
‘I hope you know what you are doing, Will. Don’t make us look foolish out there. I can’t afford to look foolish!’ But Richard was speaking to himself now, for Will was already gone.
* * *
Courtiers were starting to assemble and take up their seats in front of the stage, according to their rank and a hierarchy, which dictated where you were allowed to sit, but at this point, Will was still missing. Richard Burbage paced up and down a corridor to one side of the room in which they would be performing, while he fretted about his friend’s lengthy absence and what he might have been using it for. An apology? Was he serious about that?
When Will finally appeared, Richard looked worried. ‘Are you really going out there, Will? Before the play? To apologise for our limitations? Is that wise, do you think? Are we not supposed to excite an audience? Won’t they all just quit the room for some other entertainment?’
‘So many questions, Richard. I am going out there, but not before the play. This will be part of the play. I have written something that I think will help you today.’
‘You have written me fine words already, illustrious enough to have fallen from Henry V’s own mouth on the eve of Agincourt. Isn’t that sufficient? Why diminish them now by apologising for the lack of horse or men on a stage?’
But Will was deep in his own thoughts. He only muttered, ‘Trust in me, Richard,’ just as a herald announced the arrival of the queen and her court.
Once they were all seated, Will stepped out, with no introduction or musical accompaniment. Alone on that bare stage, he waited for them to settle. When they were all silent, including the queen, he took in a deep breath and began.
‘O, for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention!’ he pleaded. Then added, ‘A kingdom for a stage, princes to act and monarchs to behold the swelling scene!’
That got their attention, for they knew that, aside from the actual monarch who was watching him now, his play would lack all of this.
Will continued the fantasy, as if they really did have all of that to offer the audience. ‘Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, assume the port of Mars, and at his heels, leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire crouch for employment.’
Then came the apology Richard was fearing. Will addressed them directly, looking as many of them in the eye as possible as his gaze swept over them.
‘But pardon, and gentles all, the flat unraised spirits that hath dared on this unworthy scaffold to bring forth so great an object.’ He waved his arm towards the stage he stood upon. ‘Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France? Or may we cram within this wooden O the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt?’ It was an absurd idea, and they all knew it, but better to confess it now than wait for their inevitable disappointment. ‘O pardon, since a crooked figure may attest in little place a million, and let us, ciphers to this great account, on your imaginary forces work.’ He was pleading for them to use their imagination while the play was on. ‘Suppose within the girdle of these walls are now confined two mighty monarchies, whose high upreared and abutting fronts the perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.
‘Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts. Into a thousand parts divide one man, and make imaginary puissance. Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them printing their proud hoofs in the receiving earth, for ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings. Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times, turning the accomplishment of many years into an hourglass. For the which supply, admit me chorus to this history, who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray, gently to hear, kindly to judge our play!’
And with that final roar, Will leapt from the stage. He was immediately replaced by actors from his company, who had just been rid of the responsibility of assuming the mantle of an entire nation at war with the French, only to be found wanting.
Will stood off to one side and watched his audience intently. No one had given up and left. They were relaxed in their postures but listening intently to the lines he had given his actors. He had them, he felt sure of it. There were no soldiers, horses or arrows to be loosed into the air, but each of them would hear the words he had conjured to describe the terror and thrill of England’s finest battle, and their imaginations would do the rest. He almost dared not to think on it, but this might just work.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
‘Oh God of battles steel my soldiers’ hearts,
possess them not with fear,
not today, oh Lord, oh not today.’
—Henry V
‘By God, Master Shakespeare, but that did stir my blood and rise me from my torpor!’ the queen told him afterwards. ‘I have not felt as inspired since I took horse in armour at Tilbury to rouse my own troops against the Armada. That was a good play! That was a damned good play!’
‘Thank you, your most gracious Majesty.’ Will was kneeling before her now, taking her congratulations in front of the courtiers who had proved such an appreciative audience for his Henry V.
‘Agincourt on a stage?’ She marvelled. ‘Raleigh wagered you couldn’t do it, didn’t you, Water?’
Raleigh was dismissive to the point of impertinence. ‘I simply said he might not be able to do it, ’twas all.’
