Death of Kings (15 page)

I was getting too old for these late nights, serving the state. I made my way back to the Coven. Now, I am not usually troubled about crossing my home patch, by day or night. It is true that
Southwark is commonly regarded by those superior folk who live on the other bank as a lawless waste (though I’ve observed that that doesn’t stop them coming across in boatloads to take
their pleasure). But if you’re native to an area, even if you’re a recent native like me, you discount their well-bred fears and fables, at the same time as taking a bit of pride in
them. A finely jewelled lady, a gentleman decked out in valuables, yes, such people would be fools if they strolled our streets after dark. But indigence is its own protection. Why attack a poor
player? He’s left the most valuable item he’s ever worn – his costume – behind him at the playhouse. The most precious thing about his person is likely to be the scroll from
the Book-man containing his part for the next day’s performance, and unless I’m much mistaken the renegades of Southwark do not assail a man for a pennyworth of verse or a cupful of
prose.

So I considered myself safe.

Tonight, however, walking away from Nemo’s strange river-craft and stranger words, I felt myself the object of a thousand eyes and half as many dagger- or club-wielding hands.
Lurking behind every bush or tree or wall, tucked into every hole and corner, creviced in the night, were shadows who were waiting for me. And there were many, many shadows on that star-riddled
night. There was something in the air. I remembered Nemo’s talk about plots. Well, the razor-sharp air was certainly infected tonight. With suspicion and unease and plain mischief.

There! What was the shape shifting stealthily out from behind the bole of that tree? Something rubbed its hands in the bottom of the ditch I’d just leapt over. A cough scraped the night. A
portion of wall detached itself from its surroundings, dusted itself down and set off into the dark. My breath plumed out in front of me. I started to run. The cold air had already seized on the
muddy ruts and puddles in the path so that they were slippery and brittle underfoot. Over the sound of my own panting I heard behind me a wheezing that could have been exhaled breath. In fact, I
was near certain I could hear a twin pumping of breath – so there were at least two of them! I glanced over my shoulder – a double mistake, because I could see nothing anyway and
because I skidded and almost fell. My home the Coven – ha! home – was a couple of hundred yards away. Despite the cold, beads of sweat were running down my forehead and into my eyes.
The straggle of buildings on either side jumped and blurred to my sight.

As my feet thudded and slithered over the ground, my mind ran too. Ran not rationally, but frantically, as I considered the possible identity and purpose of my pursuers. Was it Captain Nemo and
his invisible minions, come to catch me and haul me back to the boat? Perhaps it was my own fellows from the Chamberlain’s who thought that I was betraying them to Sir Robert Cecil, and who
were running after me to tell me that they no longer wished me in their Company?

There was something dream-like, or rather nighmarish, in this jumble of thoughts – and nightmarish too in my panicky, skidding progress along the hard, muddy road that lead to the Coven.
Finally I reached my ramshackle house, fell against the door, fumbled for the key, scrabbled for the hole, pushed the key home and twisted it violently. The door fell open under my weight and I
tumbled through and slammed it shut with myself safe on the other side. After a moment, I peeped through one of the many cracks in the door. The road outside lay quiet. The frost and fresh ice
glittered under the half-moon and the starlight. I waited. And waited. But no shape or shadow passed along the way. After a time my breathing calmed and my heart stopped banging.

Someone coughed behind me and I near shed my skin in fright. But it was only one of the sisters, curled up in a corner. I couldn’t tell whether she was awake or not but I bade her
goodnight anyway and tottered up the rickety stairs to bed.

The morning after my midnight encounter with Captain Nemo was as shadowed as my mind. Dirty clouds were draped low across the town. Everything felt enclosed, as if the streets,
even the wide river, were roofed over. Here we stood at that moment in winter when you think warm days will never come again; it was the very antipodes of summer, not winter’s midpoint by the
calendar, perhaps, but by that inward almanac which men keep in their minds.

It was the Strand which I was making my way along. Now this is the thoroughfare which has some claim to be the grandest and most important in our capital for it links Whitehall to Temple Bar,
and might be said to be the axis on which the metropolis turns. Lining this route are some of the finest houses – or at least their roofs and chimneys – you could ever hope to glimpse
over high garden walls. Yet the road here was full of water-filled holes and pitfalls, in urgent need of repair, while rubbish lay piled amply against walls and in corners. It was hardly surprising
that discerning or hurried travellers preferred the river to the streets.

Yet neither the weather nor the parlous state of the London highways occupied my mind. I was on my way to one of the greatest of the Strand mansions at the request of one of the greatest –
no, the very greatest – authors of our age. For Master William Shakespeare, no less, had entrusted me with a message, which, to be truthful, I did not completely understand (did not in fact
understand at all), to be delivered to a certain gentleman who was temporarily residing there. Usually I would be pleased enough to run an errand for our playwright for, quite apart from my natural
regard for him, I considered that I owed my position with the Chamberlain’s Men to his and Burbage’s influence. Nevertheless this was no common errand, such as visiting a printer or
passing a word to a lady. There was an element of danger in it.

‘I have many enemies in Orsino’s court.’ Ever alert to the similitudes between art and life, I could not but think of the part I played in Master WS’s
Twelfth
Night
, that of Sebastian’s loving saviour, Antonio. When Sebastian Qack Horner) sets off for the capital of Illyria, he bids farewell to the sea-captain (Nick Revill) who has rescued him
from the ocean, thinking that he will never encounter him again. Antonio would like to accompany his friend but Sebastian prefers solitude, claiming that he doesn’t want his bad luck to
affect Antonio too. Nevertheless, Antonio is so drawn by love that he resolves to tread in his departing friend’s footsteps. I could not say that I was drawn by
love,
exactly, to do
WS’s bidding. Respect, yes; gratitude, yes; and that hope of standing well in the eyes of men whom we like. Still, whatever urged me on, here I was, walking into a nest of malcontents. Little
wonder that Antonio’s words circled round in my head – ‘I have many enemies in Orsino’s court’. Despite that danger, despite the enemies, Antonio goes there to protect
a friend. Was this what I was doing? Or was I helping to damn him?

And who was I working for?

I had hardly entered into this affair, yet already I felt myself to be in a labyrinth. Still thinking of the two scenes of the previous night, the rehearsal in the Revels Office and then the
boat-bound encounter with Nemo, I was wrapped up in uncertainty, so wrapped up that I almost fell headlong into an extensive water-filled cavity in the middle of the Strand. I was only saved from a
soaking and, no doubt, stinking arrival at my destination by the shout of a carter whose plodding nag was about to butt me in the back. Nimbly sidestepping the stem-and-stern hazards of pond and
cart – to the evident disappointment of a clutch of loiterers and loungers who seemed gathered at this spot in the hope of seeing their betters take a tumble – I looked around with more
attention and realised that I had indeed reached my goal.

The mansion of the Earl of Essex is grand enough to be styled, simply, Essex House. It draws back from the street some way behind its high walls, and its ample upper storey looks down on us
common folk in the common thoroughfare. The main gates were tight shut but there was a postern to one side. About this little entrance clustered another knot of loiterers and I realised that the
presence of so many idlers in this part of the Strand was not solely in the hope of seeing passengers fall down into holes. Rather, they were drawn like flies to decaying meat, or carrion to a
battlefield. No one knew what was going to happen; but
something
was surely going to happen, some stir and disturbance perhaps involving more than the few cracked heads and snapped limbs of
your usual street broil. No one knew when it was going to happen either; but there was in the air the same charged anticipation that presages a thunderstorm. It was, if I may compare great things
with small, like the ripple of expectation that traverses our audience just before we begin proceedings at the Globe. Except that here was no innocent playing of the pulling down of old kings and
the elevation of new ones. Here was, perhaps, the thing itself. The idea was enough to make my heart beat painfully loud in my ears.

Dry-mouthed and short-breathed, I moved towards the little gateway. I have to say that I was tempted to turn about and make again for my lodgings. But a combination of the trust which WS had
reposed in me and the veiled threats and persuasion applied by Nemo, and his master Sir Robert Cecil, were just adequate to propel my unwilling limbs towards my lord of Essex’s domain.

The little band of men near the door parted slowly and in an aggrieved fashion, reluctant to let by a newcomer who, from his costume, could not be anybody of great significance. One roused
himself to spit near my feet. Far from being mere idlers, they plainly regarded themselves as custodians of the doorway. Nevertheless I reached and crossed the threshold, beyond which was a large
court. To one side was the doorkeeper’s hutch. Now, these fellows are often surly, and as reluctant to admit anyone as St Peter. They are bred for the purpose, thick-set and short-tempered.
They look for reasons to turn visitors away.

But the Essex House doorkeeper was different.

He was finely dressed, by contrast with the majority of those occupying this post, who affect a costume that suggests they are newly returned from the wars. But my friend here, lounging against
the door-jamb of his lodging, was a picture.

His dark hair was worn in love-locks, hanging down like curtains on either side of his face and coming to rest in a curl on each shoulder. It is a fashion I have briefly considered (and
rejected) for myself, my hair not being fine or abundant enough for the task. He had a little pencil beard but a luxuriant moustache which stuck out cockily. His eyes were hard and his nose exact.
His doublet was richly embroidered, with a lace-edged ruffle peeping out; and all the rest of him was cut from the same fine cloth. I would have set him down as harmless enough and only describe
him at a little length here to show how one may be misled by appearances.

He looked a query at me but did not deign to open his small mouth.

“My name is Revill. I come with a message for a gentleman who, I believe, is staying here.”

He said nothing.

“I have to convey the message in person,” I said. “I cannot give it to any third party.”

He still said nothing, but continued to regard me through his sceptical optics.

“Come, sir, will you admit me?”

No response, but a slight pout of the lips showed what he thought of me and my message.

I made to go past him, in search of some more receptive individual. But before I had moved a couple of paces I was seized by the upper left arm while a hand darted over my right shoulder. I felt
a sharp jab under the chin.

“Do not move. Or I push zis
daga sotto vostra lingua.
Tongee –
capisce
?”

His voice, I noted in my distraction, was surprisingly deep. As he threatened, I could feel it resonate against my backbone. And I wondered why he was using a foreign tongue. His hot breath
puffed at my ear and his moustache tickled the back of my head. He smelled foreign and garlicky.

“Be easy,” I said. He surely would not do me damage here, in broad daylight, in the open court of Essex House. Why, the yard was crowded with gallants and others wandering about,
though they did not seem much troubled by the to-do at the gate. Perhaps it was customary to greet unrecognised visitors in this way.

For answer he jabbed harder under my chin, and I felt myself rising involuntarily on tiptoe to accommodate his point.

“I am not, ‘ow you say, eezy,” he said. “You are not eezy neither until you tell me your buzz – your bizz –
gli affari.
”

“I – tell you – I—”

It was hard to get the words out through an overstretched throat. Fear was drying me up too. I had a sudden vision of my gorge, naked to his naked steel. He must have realised that I was hardly
able to speak because his grip on my upper arm relaxed slightly while the pressure of the dagger point was eased.

“I am only a messenger,” I swallowed. “I have a message.”

“
La parola.
Give me
la parola.
”

“I – I do not know—”

“
Parola.
You say watchword, be a good boy,” he hissed hotly to my ear. “I give you ‘ow it start, and you have to finish. It start: ‘God save –
‘.”

Utter those words to any Englishman and by instinct he will add ‘the Queen’. I just stopped myself from adding them, aware that I was in a place where men did not hold the Queen in
high regard.

“—the King. God save the King, I say,” I said.

I had no doubt that, if this foreigner was representative of the strange band gathered together in Essex House, then they intended to displace our divinely appointed sovereign with one of their
own creation, viz, the Scottish James, or even my lord of Essex himself. So much had Secretary Cecil hinted to me. So much, indeed, was the whispered gossip of the town. Therefore I considered that
saying ‘the King’ was the least dangerous thing in a perilous situation. It might be enough to indicate that I was of
their
party. Pray God it might be. Pray God he understood
me.