Rotten at the Heart Read online

  “I find dreams a useful device in a story, my lord.”

  Carey turned to face me. “In a story only?”

  I paused to consider his question, sensing a growing risk in our conversation that seemed deeper on either side of any answer. “I think we know sometimes in sleeping truths we cannot yet know or bear in waking, my lord. That I do believe.”

  His face shifted again, now to the resolute stone that could mean either an uncertain man who would pretend certainty, or a certain man who wished he were not. “The truth I know in sleeping is that my father was murdered. Last night he came thrice to me in dreams, once each hour from that late moment in which I finally slept until dawn, and each dream the same. It is night and he is in the garden, which is curious, because he paid no concern to the garden – that was my mother’s province and in later years they were not frequent in each other’s company. He stands before me in the unfamiliar garden and tells me he cannot enjoy that peace that he has earned until stand punished those hands that stilled his heart, hands that had sworn they did love him. And he then holds out to me his right hand – a hand already red and poxed with corruption beyond what could be achieved in the short hours of his death.”

  Carey held my eyes for a long moment. “Then he charges me to his death avenge.”

  Carey paused, but I did not feel it was yet my place to speak.

  “I will have those hands that stilled his heart found, Will. And I will have them punished.”

  Again, I waited to speak, beginning to divine his purpose and hoping he would say something further to prove my understanding false.

  Carey stalked about the room, both tired and restless.

  “My father wished I watch your plays for instruction, and what I have learned is this: we reveal ourselves through our words, our movements, in every passing moment. Both with intent and in secret we reveal ourselves, sometimes even to our detriment. This is one of your lessons.”

  He looked at me as if for confirmation.

  “What plays I write are entertainments only and I have secreted in them no lessons. I do not pretend to scholarship.”

  By his clouded features, I could see this answer did not please him.

  “Humility when true doth credit a man, but when false doth make him false,” Carey said. “I find too much art in your efforts to believe you think them only as bangles for clowns. If I have learned lessons from your plays, then you have taught them. And thus you are at least part scholar, part teacher. Igitur ex fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos. And to have made this lesson so plain, to have authored such words and scenes by which such revelations are made so clear, and for these scenes to so close mimic life, you must be well able to see revealed in others those things that they would hold secret.”

  The danger to either side of his words was almost full plain now and my path across it exceedingly narrow.

  “Any writer must observe the world close, my lord, and then steal from it such metal that can be wrought into that which he imagines. I claim no special gift beyond that.”

  Carey turned to face me direct, a new face now, a soldier’s face, his most true face. His voice was sharp.

  “I do believe you discern my purpose, and now attempt to withhold from me the only gift for which I have current need. Claim it or not, I ascribe it to you. So, lest you are prepared to call your patron a fool in his own house, you will admit to it.”

  I merely nodded. Carey turned away again, looking out the window into the nearly full dark.

  “I believe my father murdered, but our law has no method by which to ferret out the killer. If I make the accusation, those in the household will be considered – more or less vigorously depending on their station – and those in my father’s familiar subject to some uninformed scrutiny. I have faith that, in short order, the charge having been made, some poor soul will be made to suffer for it, at Tyburn or at the Tower, according to his birth. But I have no faith that the truth will be served. If some man of standing should be chosen for the axe, it will be to fit some agenda that will be forwarded by his death. More likely, a servant will fall suspect, be subject to those gentle persuasions by which confessions are gained, and then be taken to the tree and hanged. And thus the charge will be answered, but the truth of my father’s murder will be buried as deeply as his body.”

  Carey turned back to me. “I think you a man who knows truth when he sees it, and a man by long habit accustomed to observing those guiles by which we conceal it. So, you will learn the truth of my father’s death. That is the service I require.”

  Now the danger was plain and my path across it gone. By what station did Carey imagine I would have standing to so much as speak to the Lord Chamberlain’s family, his household, his circle at court? And should there truly be a murderer amongst that assemblage, how could I hope to protect myself from such machinations as they would have at their disposal to thwart my efforts and ensure my own bad end? And yet to decline Carey’s request would mean the loss of his patronage, and, Carey’s ill favour toward us being plain, we would likely not secure any new patron of standing, which would make our failure certain. Not only as a company, but we members too. Having been marked with noble disfavour, we would sink first in the ship of company, and then drown in the troubled seas of our individual ruin.

  “My lord, I am true saddened at your father’s passing and at the pain it must cause you, and doubly so for you to know it murder. Had I such powers by which I could unmask the assassin, I would do so, even without the promise of your patronage, as your father was a friend to me and to our company and is by us well loved. But I fear you see in me gifts I do not recognise in myself. Nor can I conceive of any ploy by which I could gain sufficient confidence or commerce with the Lord Chamberlain’s circles by which to make even the most subtle inquiries.”

  Carey waved a dismissive hand, as though my objections were but a vapour and easily dissipated. “For ploys, I do not require your art, sir. I was born at court. Though I prefer a soldier’s life, I have spent such time here as to speak ploy as a second tongue. My father’s household and the court will be informed that I have commissioned the celebrated playwright William Shakespeare to draft a work in his memory, and that I request their forbearance in entertaining your questions as you gain insight into my father’s celebrated history and character. Any that will not answer to you will answer to me. You have, already in this room, shown sufficient guile to use that pretended mission to serve my true one.”

  Carey turned away before I could answer, striding to a table at the far end of the room and returning with a scroll tied with a ribbon and sealed with wax.

  “Of course, such conversations would be easier were you a gentleman. The small rank of gentleman is held in only low value by most at court, but it will at least separate you from the vast sea of common on which we of higher station float. The College of Heralds has too long considered the matter of your father’s claim to arms, and a gentleman he now is, which makes you a gentleman born. The College’s fee has been paid, and you may consider that payment my real commission for your fictional play.”

  To have such knowledge of my family and to have discerned so easy that favour with which he could most likely move me, it was clear that Carey’s mind was as sharp as his sword was reputed to be. Knowing he had looked so hard into me and into my family offered no comfort in these circumstances, but instead added to my dread.

  He passed to me the scroll, the seal of the College facing up. I paused for only a moment before taking it, understanding that in its taking I accepted not only the station to which I had so long aspired but also whatever fresh hell I had by the lever of my own appetites given Carey the power to admit me.

  “I thank you humbly, my lord. My father will be greatly pleased.”

  Carey nodded. “As to the matter of your company, it will take some days to have drafted the necessary licence and charters. And as I am currently distracted with my father’s funeral and other matters of his estate, I imagine tha
t we can conclude the business of the theatre at such time when we also conclude this other business now at hand. As for your father, Shakespeare, I have heard rumours that he is a man of questionable allegiance, at least in matters of faith. As no proof of these whisperings has yet been offered, I am happy to consider these charges falsely made by those who would exploit him with the legal blackmail made by whispering the name of God. A foul practice, and one with which too many entertain themselves, using the mask of faith to cover the sin of avarice. But as I have now through my own offices assisted in his status as gentleman, I would, for my own honour, have to act – and harshly – should I find I have aided a Papist in his seditions against the Queen.”

  He paused for a moment, still in his soldier’s face, his eyes now a message that asked no question, required no answer and brooked no dispute.

  He turned and strode from the room much like a soldier. His message was clear. Whether in thanks to his father, in the interests of the company, in service of my own greed, or in fear for those travails to which he could at his whim make me and my family subject, I was to be his good servant.

  CHAPTER 3

  I left Somerset House in the full dark. That morning, I’d had first to wash, as the previous night’s excesses had come at dear expense to my hygiene, and then to cross from my rooms in Bishopsgate to the theatre in Shoreditch in order to be properly attired for my meeting with Carey. I had made way to the bridge and taken a boat to Somerset House so as to arrive at my appointment unlathered and still scented of such poor perfumes as I had at my employ. But the cost of a boat was beyond my usual custom and the uncertainties that I now considered gave rise to an impulse to husband what resources I could. I chose to walk the mile back to my rooms. It being night, I was glad I also had secured from our costume’s store of arms a rapier, as being armed allowed me to feign such status as those common to Somerset House would hold. In the dark of the city, I valued that blade for its true purpose.

  London was a balm to me and an excitement both. Many from my more pastoral roots found the city’s tumult, chaos, and odour discomfiting and could not be soon enough away. While I would ready admit that the smells of the city far exceeded in both variety and offence any I had encountered in Stratford, the thrumming constant of its unbounded human agency found in my soul a sympathetic chord so that I too did thrum as though in harmony with the city’s own heart.

  Stratford in the years since my birth had changed scarce at all, so that even now when I would return after long absence it was each time the same. But London constantly leafed in every direction, both out and up – new streets ivying across former fields, old buildings suddenly sprouting added floors as though their roots had gained new sustenance from the energy emanating from the crush that ever more crowded every lane and alley.

  In Stratford, every face was known. And not the face only, but also the facts and habits of each person, so that you walked fettered by your own history and that of your father and his and his, fenced from birth within a pasture of expectations from whence you might escape only at the cost of reputation and livelihood. As my father was a glover, then I was a glover’s son and destined a glover to be.

  But the tens and hundreds of thousands that peopled the streets of London offered in their excess a jungle of anonymity in which any man could invent of himself a creature akin to his own longings. And the soil of that jungle seemed enriched with a kind of humus grown from the constant droppings of ideas and the random interchange of the new and the old, the proven with the previously unimagined, so that daily some advance in science or art or even just whimsy sprang forth in odd and wondrous flower. And then each flower drew some curious bee that would carry its essence to some other and some other and some other until the riotous blooming of ideas enchanted me, and gave hope that our lives and their ends might be other than links in a chain of bondage forged in the dull fires of custom, but might instead be fashioned by our own hands in the manner of our own dreaming.

  London made me think that man had supplanted God as the prime agency of our human fortunes, not in the stink of pride, but with his blessing.

  It was in such reverie that I made my way east along the river, deciding it too late to return my borrowed finery to the theatre. Instead I wanted only a meal and an ale from one of the taverns near my rooms, and then to write, the tensions of my meeting with Carey giving rise to that mental tumescence I could relieve only through the outflow of words. The ghost of a man’s father, beseeching him in dream to avenge his murder – it was a perfect opening for a work that, on this dark walk, began gestating in my mind. I would set it in Danish lands, I think, their northern gloom more suited to this tragic tale’s needs than the sunny and happier lands of the Italian states that often offered the brighter set for my comedies.

  London was not just the cradle of the wondrous, however, but also the Stygian nursery of evils, both those familiar and their infinite and vile siblings. From across the river, I could hear the roar from one of the bear-baiting circles, where a noble beast would stand tethered as dogs were loosed to tear its flesh while it swatted and snapped at its tormentors, both bear and dog making unwilling wager of their lives while the crowd, in drunken bloodlust, wagered only their coins.

  The infected horror of the crowd’s roar offered full reminder that London’s jungle offered its anonymous disguise to every appetite, wholesome or no, and that not just playwrights were drawn hence from our pastoral homes. Brigands, too, were drawn by the gravity of the city’s multitudes, knowing its lanes offered more purses for their hands and throats for their blades. I took care with the passing of each alley and doorway. A man alone in the London night took chance with his purse and life, and a woman alone held her virtue cheap. So, I kept my guard, relaxing only upon reaching Bishopsgate and turning north the short way left to my door.

  Relaxed too soon. From the dark maw of a court behind me and to my left, I heard the sudden scrape of feet moving with instant and urgent purpose. Alarmed, I turned quickly – my hand already reaching for the hilt of the rapier on my left side. I could see death’s avaricious smile in the curved arc of a blade shining faint in the dim lamplight as it slashed at me. I have done much playing at fencing, the clash of swords being an aphrodisiac to any audience. On the stage, though, the steps of that dance are predetermined. Now, for the first time, I would step to its tune for mortal stakes.

  It was the rush and savagery of my attacker’s initial attempt that saved me, as I was able to duck under his blade so that his own impetus threw him past me. To my fortune, he caught his foot on an uneven cobble and staggered a few steps more before he could turn. I thought for a moment to seize on this happy accident and lunge after him, but that impulse owed to the same hot blood and recklessness that had cost my attacker his advantage. I chose instead deliberation and cunning, and so set my feet as I had been taught and levelled my blade.

  My balance was sure, my mind marvellously emptied by the drug of this violent practice. I knew in that instant a rare moment of pure animal peace, the unsullied certainty of a creature wholly engaged in vital action. It was as if that moment had been dipped whole from the river of time and frozen to immortal ice so that the man I was within it was neither the man I had been before nor the one I would be hence. A moment in which the present was distilled so pure and my senses so open to it that even this street that had been my common path each morning and night was now seen new, the rough feel of the cobbles beneath my feet, the uneven orange dance of light from the tavern rippling the wall to my left into a kind of water, the sound of a dog barking near and the lower answer of a larger dog answering distant, a hint of black eternity poxed with stars in veiled teasing glimpses behind a scud of clouds. A moment invested with its own sacredness, a religion requiring a faith so entire that it admitted no doubt, no memory of past woe or old sin, no anticipation of future care or unborn worry, no contemplation of current want or need, but instead only the tip of my own blade, held steady before me and the tip
of my opponent’s blade and its glittering want some few feet distant. Those alone were this moment’s gospel, its philosophy entire, and I was their devoted apostle. And I felt lithe and free and possible, unburdened for the first time since my distant-remembered youth from that chain of consciousness in which we bind ourselves with every new-learned fear and need.

  My opponent had turned. The light was behind him and his face hidden in both shadow and a cowl. His weapon, too, levelled in stony certainty and naked malice. But then the door of the tavern opened to my right, spilling both light and two men into the church of our private sacrament. My opponent ran north, gone at once like a spectre into the bowels of night.

  The men from the tavern paused on its lighted verge, seeing the fleeing man and my bared weapon.

  “Shall we summon the bailiff?” asked one.

  I shook my head. “A thief only, I’m sure,” I said, “I am grateful for your timing, as I fear he had such business as he wished done in private and not performed in your audience.”

  “Then we wish you well, sir, and are glad to have offered our accidental service,” said the second man, and they left toward the river.

  And I stood alone on the filth-slicked cobbles, the sudden grace of combat dissolved, my breath coming in rushes, and my heart in that moment beating a tune so fierce and out of tune with the rhythm of the city it loved that I feared I would never feel London’s embrace again.

  With the familiar cloak of thought and memory again my burden and with care returned to me, I thought this: what thief chose an armed man as victim? Why choose a wolf in a city so filled with sheep? And was it only happenstance that he had lain in wait so close to my own door?