King Arthur's Bones

London, 1606

I had never seen the royal animals in the Tower of London before. Perhaps I was not curious enough to want to watch the lions and lionesses or the single tiger and the porcupine or the wolf and the eagle. Or maybe it was that I was reluctant to pay the entrance fee of three pennies, which was three times what it would cost to buy a standing place at our very own Globe theatre. Or else it was simply that, like many inhabitants of our great city, I could not stir myself to go out of my way to see its great sights. Leave that to the visitors.

Now that I was here, against my will, I could not see the beasts, but I could hear and smell them. I was in one of the compartments of the Lion Tower meant for animal use. More of a cave or a cell than a chamber, it smelled rank. In the next-door cell was a body, not animal but human and supposedly murdered. The body I had recognized. Likewise the man who was slumped in a corner, his head in his hands. On either side of him stood a keeper whose more usual job would be to guard the lions and the tiger but who now found himself watching over a murderer, cudgel in hand. But it did not appear that the slumped man was going to attempt an escape. Instead he looked up at me and said: ‘I did not do this thing, Nick. I am innocent, I swear.’

I

It was the first time I’d caught William Shakespeare in the act of writing. Why I say ‘caught’ I don’t know, since it makes WS sound like a felon. But he was always secretive about his work and most reluctant to discuss it. Which was the reason his request that I should call on him in his lodgings in Silver Street came as a surprise. This was his lair, his private place.

Shakespeare was sitting at a desk by an open window. Once he’d glanced around in a distracted way to see who was standing in his doorway and given the slightest of nods, he said: ‘Ah, Nick, I’ll only be a… make yourself…’

I never discovered what I was supposed to make myself since, instead of telling me, WS performed a vague flourish with his quill and then reapplied himself to the sheet in front of him. There were no sounds apart from the birdsong in the garden below – the casement was open; it was a sunny morning in May – and the small scraping noises as his pen moved across the paper.

I was interested to see William Shakespeare at work, I’ll admit that. Privileged too, maybe, for by this time WS was reckoned to be the finest playwright in London, and not just by us players at the Globe theatre. I’d heard that he wrote with great fluency, rarely pausing to blot his work or cross through a line, and from what I now saw it was true. His pen moved with the regularity of a tailor’s needle. Not wanting to pry or hang over his shoulder, I picked up a book from a pile on a table and flicked through the pages. It was a translation from the Latin of Plutarch’s Lives, and my eye fell on a description of Julius Caesar being murdered in the Senate. Some years before, WS had written his play of Caesar’s death at the hands of Brutus and the rest.

I became absorbed enough in what I was reading to be unaware that WS had laid down his pen and turned around to look at me. ‘What do you read?’ he said. ‘Plutarch, is it?’

‘The death of Caesar. How Julius falls at the foot of Pompey’s statue with his three-and-twenty stab wounds. Do you suppose they counted them?’

‘Someone might have done.’

‘Or the figure was plucked at random out of the air,’ I said.

‘Twenty-three knife wounds is a plausible number,’ said Shakespeare. ‘And it spreads the guilt of the killing, spreads it so thin that no one could say for sure who struck the fatal blow.’

‘What are you working on, William?’ I said. Since it was he who had asked me to visit him on this fine May morning, I reckoned I was entitled to a query or two, for all his secrecy. ‘You are writing more about the Romans?’

‘No, my subject now is the matter of Britain.’

I must have looked bemused, for WS said: ‘Arthur, King of Britain.’

‘Oh, him.’

‘Yes, him. As well as Merlin and Queen Guinevere and Mordred, and the Knights of the Round Table. The stories about them are known as the matter of Britain. You can read the account in Thomas Malory. It is a good subject because the king – our King James, I mean – has an interest in Arthur.’

This was true. On his accession, James had wanted himself styled King of Great Britain and to be seen, like Arthur perhaps, as a monarch embracing the whole circle of our island. So it was typically shrewd of WS to choose a subject which would appeal to our new ruler.

Now Shakespeare reached for an object on the far side of his desk, and I thought he was going to hand me another book. But when he gestured for me to take it, I was surprised, uneasy even, to see that it was a bone. A long bone, a human bone I presumed, part of a limb. I turned it over in my hands as if the owner’s identity might have been inscribed somewhere on it.

‘Do you know whose it is?’ I said, returning the object. A stupid question maybe, but it was for want of anything else to say. I noticed that WS handled the bone with more care than I had done, almost cradling it in his arms before returning it to its position on the desk.

‘I know whose it might be. But I am forgetting my manners, Nick. Make yourself easy in that chair and I will get us both some refreshment.’

He gave me a generous glass of sack before pouring one for himself and returning to the desk to sit down. His own chair looked less comfortable than the one I was on, but there was nowhere else to sit in the room. A silence followed. WS’s rented chamber was at the back of the house and so shut away from the noises of Silver Street. I wondered whether he’d asked his landlord for a quiet room for the sake of his work. I glanced around. Against the wall opposite the window was a canopied four-poster bed with the curtains drawn shut. A fireplace with ornate figures carved on the chimney-piece occupied the side of the room between bed and window. It was a better place than my own lodgings south of the river, but not so much better.

‘My brother discovered that bone,’ said Shakespeare suddenly. ‘Edmund gave it to me.’

‘You’ve never mentioned Edmund before,’ I said. In fact I don’t think WS had referred to any siblings in my hearing. I did not know much more than that he was married to a wife called Anne, who remained in Stratford-upon-Avon, and that he had fathered a few grown children, who might be anywhere. Shakespeare was a private man.

‘Edmund is my youngest brother. He is younger than you, Nick. He was a late bloom in my parents’ lives.’

WS looked away for a moment towards the open casement. I couldn’t tell what was running through his head but the ironic way in which he’d mentioned the ‘late bloom’ suggested he didn’t have any very high opinion of this brother. So it proved.

‘I do not know Edmund… not well. Soon after he was born, I married and then I… moved away from my birthplace and so came eventually to London,’ said WS. Unusually for him, he was picking a path through his words as if uncertain how much to reveal. ‘But I know that Edmund was a trial to my mother and my late father, God rest his soul, even if he was never a trouble to me. In Stratford he had the reputation of a scapegrace. Now he has followed my own course of more than twenty years ago and arrived in this town.’

‘To be a player?’

‘Yes.’

‘A player with us? With the King’s Men?’

‘I fear so.’

‘Is that so bad, William? Wanting to be a player with the King’s Men?’

‘It is bad for Edmund. He does not have the, ah, discipline to be a player anywhere.’

Considering the way in which most players behaved, at least during their younger days, I thought this was an odd comment. Yes, you needed discipline to learn your lines and, unless you were treated indulgently, you needed discipline not to overact or play the fool on stage (less because the audience wouldn’t like it and more because of the reaction from your fellows). But outside the playhouse one could go around drinking and swearing and whoring, within the customary limits.

‘I can see what you’re thinking, Nick,’ said WS. ‘What need has a young player of discipline except in the matter of his lines and so on?’

I nodded. He’d read my mind. Not very difficult perhaps.

‘You kicked a ball around when you were a boy, Nick? A ball that was made of a pig’s bladder, inflated?’

I nodded again.

‘They can endure plenty of knocks, those bladders; they are strong, yet they are hollow inside. Any man wishing to become a player should have something of the pig’s bladder in him. He should contain plenty of wind in order to mouth his lines but be tough enough on the exterior to withstand the kicks of fortune. I mean those kicks that are particular to our craft, a jeering audience, a playhouse closed on account of the plague, an ankle broken during a sword fight on stage.’

‘Players are hollow too,’ I said, falling in with the spirit of WS’s analogy, ‘because they can be filled with others’ words and natures.’

‘Yes, we are everyman – and no man too.’

And then William Shakespeare laughed, as if to rebuke himself for such a high-flown sentiment. ‘My brother Edmund doesn’t have that pig’s bladder quality. If he’s disappointed or frustrated, he will lash out with his fists or go and drown his sorrows in the nearest tavern. If one of the groundlings insulted him, he’d probably jump down and clout him. That’s bad for business. To say nothing of being bad for Edmund. He’ll end up in the Clink.’

None of this sounded sufficient to prevent Edmund from trying to make his name on the stage. There have been undisciplined, impulsive players before now. Some of them have even served a turn in gaol.

‘Can you discourage your brother from becoming a player?’

‘Whatever I say will only make him more determined.’

‘Then surely one of the other Globe shareholders could turn him down? You need have no part in it.’

‘Edmund would see through that. He’d know the decision was mine. It would be cowardly and, besides, there are obligations within a family which have to be acknowledged. No, the only course is to get Edmund to see for himself that the stage is not meant for him. It will take time. We shall have to accommodate him by giving him small parts like any fledgling player.’

‘I began as an ambassador in Hamlet,’ I said. ‘I was an ambassador from England, arriving at the end of the action.’

‘I remember your ambassador well,’ said WS, which was what I’d been hoping he would say. But he was softening me up, for his next words were: ‘I’d like you to keep a gentle watch on my brother, Nick. Have an eye on him backstage, accompany him to the tavern and… other places if necessary.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because I trust you and because I cannot think of who else to turn to in our company. You are older than Edmund and have a shrewd head on your shoulders.’

I don’t think I’d been called shrewd before, certainly not by William Shakespeare, so this was pleasing. But I must have looked doutbful, for he continued: ‘You were once fresh up from the country and you learned the hard way about this city and its snares. Edmund is as ready to be taken in as most newcomers but he might accept advice or a warning from you which he’d reject from me. I don’t mean that you should be responsible if things, ah, go badly. If Edmund chooses to ignore you, so be it. But at least you can whisper in his ear that that friendly group of card players in the corner of the Goat and Monkey are coney-catchers…’

‘… or that the new French girl at the Mitre will give you a dose of the pox,’ I said.

‘You’ve got the idea,’ said WS, suddenly finding something of great interest in the glass of sack he was holding.

‘And how is King Arthur involved in all of this? You said your brother found that bone for you.’

‘Edmund tells me that he is a reformed man, no longer the scapegrace of Stratford. He wants to stand well with me and, knowing that I am writing about the matter of Britain, he brought me this relic of Arthur. Like a dog acting against nature and wanting to please its master, he gave up a bone, you might say.’

Since Shakespeare disliked dogs, feared them even, this was far from being a flattering remark.

‘Where did your brother get it?’ I said. ‘Is it really Arthur’s?’

‘From one of the bookshops near St Paul’s. Edmund says he was searching for books that might help me in my labours and no doubt telling the seller how he was kin to a well-known playwright whose latest piece is about Arthur of Britain. The shopkeeper had no texts on the subject but offered him this bone instead. He claimed on his mother’s grave that it was a true bone. Edmund said he almost emptied his purse to purchase it for me. I think he meant well, but anyone who was not kin to him might call him gullible.’

‘But you don’t call him gullible,’ I said, ‘not on this occasion.’

‘Why, no,’ said WS. He put down his glass and picked up the arm- or leg-bone once more. I noticed that he handled it with the same care as before. ‘Tell me, Nick, when you touched this, did you… feel anything?’

‘Just a bone. It made me feel uneasy, no more. But then I didn’t know whose it is, whose it is supposed to be, rather.’

‘Perhaps that’s it. Edmund informed me of the nature of his find before giving me this relic. When I put my fingers on it, I experienced a queer kind of blankness, as though I had walked out of doors and into a mist. It was neither pleasant nor especially unpleasant. But was the sensation produced by Edmund’s words or was it some property of the bone itself? For nothing is either good or bad, you know, but thinking makes it so.’

He might have gone on in this vein – an abstracted look had entered his large brown eyes – but he was interrupted by a knock outside. WS barely had time to say ‘Come in’ when the door opened. I turned around in my seat and saw a figure standing there. Without being told, I knew who it must be. Edmund Shakespeare, WS’s scapegrace younger brother.

II

A couple of days later I was sitting with Edmund Shakespeare in the Mermaid tavern on Bread Street near St Paul’s. Although it attracted poets and other scribblers, the Mermaid was a well-run house with a reputation for good fish and wine. It was the place where William Shakespeare’s envious rival Ben Jonson, sometimes held court. Jonson haunted the tavern partly because of its food and drink – he reckoned himself a man of refined taste – but mostly because it was half a world away from the common drinking dens like the Goat and Monkey south of the river.

Ben Jonson wasn’t in session at the Mermaid today, but Edmund and I were awaiting the arrival of another playwright, Martin Barton, who was eager to meet Shakespeare’s brother. Barton was no friend of mine but, encountering him earlier that day, he’d badgered me for an introduction when I let slip that I was meeting Edmund once our playhouse business was done. It was characteristic of the man that he should now keep us waiting. The wait wasn’t too onerous, however, since Edmund and I were sitting side by side on a bench and occupying ourselves with a pile of oysters and a flask of wine.

During the past two days I’d been doing as William requested, keeping a ‘gentle watch’ over his brother. Because of WS’s position and authority as a senior member of the Globe shareholders, he had easily procured a role for Edmund at the theatre. Not yet as a minor player but as a general dogsbody, running errands for the book-man or assisting Sam, our little limping doorkeeper. Maybe WS hoped to convince Edmund that the playhouse was really a dreary place in which to work and that he’d be better off back home in Stratford-upon-Avon. If so, it was a forlorn hope, for Edmund was wide-eyed about being in London. He’d have been happy sweeping up the draff from a tavern floor. And he wasn’t sweeping up in an alehouse but helping behind the scenes in a playhouse where there is always a touch of magic, even among the wooden swords and the paste jewellery.

The quick picture that WS had painted of his brother – a gullible individual who was too impulsive, too undisciplined for the stage – didn’t fit with my first or second impressions of the man. Edmund had some physical similarities to his much older sibling. He was slight but tall and wiry, and his eyes had the same large gaze beneath a tall brow. He did not possess the same easy manners as WS, the almost courtly style that enabled the playwright to be comfortable anywhere. But then Edmund was fresh up from the provinces, as WS had once been and as I had been too. We’ve all got to start somewhere. Certainly I had not yet seen any indication of the rapid temper I’d been warned about. Nor had Edmund shown signs of falling prey to any card-playing coney-catchers. But there was a woman in the picture. At least there was one in the Mermaid, a pretty piece who was hanging about his ears when I arrived and whom Edmund daffed away, explaining that he wanted male company. I knew no more about her than that she was called Polly or Dolly and had dark ringlets of hair under a pretty hat and large breasts partly concealed by her dress. Obediently she withdrew, and Edmund and I started gabbing.

I’d go so far as to say that I was enjoying his company more than expected. Or, to be absolutely honest, I was enjoying playing the experienced citizen of London and the senior player.

‘You’ll come with me to visit this fellow Davy Owen, then, Nick?’ said Edmund Shakespeare. He reached forward to help himself to an opened oyster from the pile on a platter in front of us. He tilted his head and I watched his Adam’s apple bob as it slid down his gullet.

‘Yes, I’ll come with you. I’m curious.’

I was curious too. Davy Owen was the bookseller from whom Edmund had bought the bone – King Arthur’s limb – to present to his brother as some sort of peace offering. Now it appeared as though the St Paul’s vendor possessed other items relating to that legendary ruler which he might wish to dispose of. Or so he had told Edmund. Usually I would have dismissed the whole thing as a confidence trick. But William Shakespeare’s odd belief in the Arthurian relic that lay on his desk – the queer sensation he had experienced when first touching it – was enough to make me want to see any further items for myself. And if it was a confidence trick, then it would be as well for me to accompany Edmund to St Paul’s yard and discourage him from wasting the cash that he’d received as an advance for his menial work at the Globe playhouse.

‘You are a curious man altogether, Nick,’ said Edmund.

‘I am?’

‘Curious about my brother William, I mean. All those questions you’ve been asking about him growing up in Stratford.’

Questions? I suppose so. Had I been asking too many questions? To cover my discomfort, I reached for an oyster myself and gulped it down. I’ll admit I was interested in WS’s life. But there was such a gap of years between William and Edmund that the latter did not have much direct knowledge of his famous brother. However, he did possess a stock of stories which had been preserved in the family and was happy to pass them on, perhaps because several of them showed WS in a less-than-respectable light. Even so, Edmund had a high regard for his brother. That was shown by his coming to London to emulate WS. And he carried a copy of WS’s early poem Venus and Adonis, which he showed me with a touch of pride. Indeed, on the title page of Venus and Adonis Edmund had inscribed his name as if he were the author as well as the owner of the book (WS’s own name did not appear).

Yet now he said: ‘Did I tell you about the time he was caught poaching deer? Yes, the great playwright was a schoolboy poacher on Sir Thomas Lucy’s estate.’

I was keen to hear more but we were interrupted by the arrival of Martin Barton. It would have been hard to imagine Barton as a poacher or indeed as a person engaged in any kind of outdoor activity. He was a gangly, redheaded individual who wrote rather bitter satirical pieces. One of his plays, The Melancholy Man, had gone down well with the Globe audiences but Barton had recently fallen out with the shareholders and he was now a regular writer for our rivals, the Blackfriars Children. Plays that were acted out by boys in all the parts (and not just playing the females) were fashionable in London and had been for some years. Barton was no doubt happier there since a principal reason for his quitting the King’s Men was a fondness for our own boy players.

Now he inclined his head towards us in his usual manner – that is, a mildly mocking one – and said: ‘Mr Shakespeare, I presume. Mr Edmund Shakespeare.’

I made the introductions and Martin Barton seated himself on the other side of the table, helping himself to one oyster, then another and yet one more for luck. He got the attention of a passing pot-boy and, in an insinuating rather than a mocking manner, requested more drink. Then he said to Edmund: ‘You are better looking than your brother, a little better.’

This was typical of Martin, a compliment with a large measure of insult added. A flush rose in Edmund’s cheeks, and I wondered whether we were going to see a display of the temper he was supposed to possess. Since Martin Barton also had a mercurial nature, which some attributed to his Italian mother, I could see a dispute in prospect. So while the pot-boy delivered a second flask of white wine to our table and Martin was distracted in gazing at him (he was a strapping lad), I quickly put in: ‘How is business at the Blackfriars, Martin?’

It was an innocuous enough question, so I was surprised to see him pull a face. ‘Toothache,’ he said.

‘They say the toothache is caused by unbalanced humours,’ said Edmund. ‘Or worms.’

Barton ignored him and said: ‘Oh, business is very good, Nicholas. We thrive. A more select audience, you know. You should visit us, Edmund Shakespeare. Our boys are more, ah, delicate players than your hulking fellows south of the river.’

‘I like it well enough where I am,’ said Edmund.

‘Protected under your brother’s wing?’ said Martin. ‘It must be a warm and downy place to nestle.’

I sensed Edmund growing tense on the bench beside me. The sooner this session was brought to an end, the better. Barton was being his usual needling self, probably aggravated by his teeth, and it appeared that he wanted to meet Shakespeare’s younger brother only out of curiosity. Not benign curiosity like mine, but malevolent.

‘William is doing his brother no special favours, Martin,’ I said. ‘Edmund here is making himself useful at the Globe like any apprentice.’

It was the wrong remark, putting Edmund on his dignity and wanting to show he was more than an apprentice, for he now said: ‘I can tell you that I am helping my brother with his work, Mr Barton.’

‘Do you write too? Another poet emerges from the wilds of Stratford!’

‘I am providing him with material for his next piece. He is writing about King Arthur.’

For the first time Martin Barton looked properly interested. He placed his glass of wine carefully on the table and leaned forward, cupping his face gingerly between his hands. I kept my own face impassive but groaned inwardly. As I’ve said, WS did not usually talk about the work he was engaged on. Whether out of superstition or because he feared his ideas being stolen, he would not wish for a member of another acting company to know what he was doing and certainly not Martin Barton. But the words had been spoken.

‘Is he? I have sometimes thought of dealing with Arthur myself. A comparison of those golden days with our present corrupt age of iron. A legendary king set beside our diminished rulers. Satirical of course.’

Satirical wouldn’t do, if Barton wanted to gain favour. King Arthur was taken very seriously by the present royal court, as WS well knew. But let Barton find that out for himself. I was about to say to Edmund that it was time to go, that we should leave Martin to finish his drink (and make friends with the strapping pot-boy). But Edmund was nettled. Before I could stop him he’d launched into a garbled account of how we were going to call on a seller in St Paul’s yard, a seller who had some relics to dispose of, relics connected to King Arthur.

In other circumstances Martin Barton might have laughed or made some slighting reply. But the red-headed playwright was all seriousness and, learning that we were intending to make our call on Davy Owen that very afternoon, quickly added himself to our company, remarking that it would be a distraction from his face-ache. It was no good my making any objection. Barton could be pleasant enough when he chose, and his manner now switched from mockery to compliment, saying to Edmund that his brother William must be truly glad to have a member of his family with him in the city.

We made more small talk, rapidly finished our drinks and the last of the oysters and set off towards St Paul’s yard. It was a fine late afternoon. The sky was high and dotted with small clouds that flicked across the sun, while the streets were full of people finishing their activities for the day. I half-hoped we might arrive at St Paul’s yard to find the stalls and shops closing up, but this is one of the busiest parts of town, a place where there are always visitors wanting to gawp and buy and therefore sellers willing to serve them. Edmund told us that Owen had a shop on the booksellers’ side of the yard and that, although he dealt mostly in books and pamphlets, he also traded in other things.

‘Like King Arthur’s bones,’ said Martin.

‘So he says,’ said Edmund, and I was pleased that he was able to show a touch of scepticism.

‘He must be Welsh, this Owen? From his name.’

‘He is Welsh. You can hear it in his voice.’

‘The old stories link King Arthur with Wales.’

Barton sounded caught up in the subject. Maybe he really was considering a play about Arthur. By now, after threading our way past several stalls and browsers, we’d reached the shop. A group was emerging from the door, talking and pushing their way through the narrow entrance. Once outside they halted as if their business was not concluded. There were three men, one short and sharp-featured, one tall and very thin, the third also tall yet broad. There was a woman, almost the men’s height and more attractive than any of them.

‘That is Davy Owen,’ said Edmund, indicating the little man. The group was so deep in conversation that our presence went unnoticed. I couldn’t hear what they were saying since the largest man had his head bent down towards the short bookseller, but their postures suggested that this was not a friendly exchange. Although the woman was silent, her expression showed displeasure as far as I could see it under the shadow of a great hat. The second man, the one as thin as a rail, was gazing not at them but at her.

Davy Owen caught sight of us over the other’s shoulder and, with a nod and the touch of a finger on the large man’s sleeve, indicated that they were not alone. The man turned around and looked at us as if we were intruders, although we were all standing in the public space outside the shop. He was an imposing figure, with a wide countenance matching his broad frame and a luxuriant fair beard which spilled out over his ruff.

He turned back to Davy Owen and uttered a few words before he strode off in the opposite direction. The woman nodded at Owen, not in a friendly way, then took after the man with a gait almost as decisive as her companion’s. In her wake went the thin man. I noticed Martin Barton looking after the woman in particular. The bookseller gazed questioningly at us before recognizing Edmund Shakespeare. Most shopkeepers would be glad to see a returning customer, but Owen was not. In fact he made to scuttle back through the shopdoor, which was still ajar, muttering something about it being time to close.

‘Wait a moment,’ said Edmund. ‘I have brought some friends to see you, Mr Owen.’

‘Business is over. It is late in the day, Mr… Mr…?’

I’m pretty certain that Owen knew Edmund’s identity, but for some reason it suited him to pretend otherwise. I heard the Welsh lilt in his voice.

‘I am Edmund Shakespeare. You surely remember me, Mr Owen? I bought a bone from you the other day and paid handsomely for it.’

‘A bone?’

‘The relic of… of a famous person.’

There was a pause while Edmund glared at Davy Owen. Eventually the bookseller said, reluctantly: ‘You may have done.’

‘Not only that, but you told me that you had similar items in your possession.’

‘Then you must have misunderstood me. I have no more such things under my roof. I’m a bookseller.’

Davy Owen moved once again to retreat through his door. But Edmund wasn’t so easily put off. He placed a restraining hand on the bookseller’s shoulder.

‘I have not come here today, and with my friends too, to be daffed away.’

‘I can choose my own hours and my own customers,’ said Owen. The lilt had changed to a whine. He shrugged off Edmund’s hand. Now it was our companion’s turn to intervene.

‘I am Martin Barton, the playwright and satirist, you know.’

He sucked in his cheeks, and I saw Owen look curiously at him before saying: ‘I believe I may have seen some of your work, Martin Barton. Seen it while I was using it as spills to light a fire. You insulted the Welsh in one of your pieces.’

‘Did I now?’ said Barton. ‘Well, look you, if everyone who’d ever insulted the Welsh was gathered here today they’d need to build a new London.’

Shakespeare’s brother, evidently growing tired of these verbal blows, started towards Owen as if to resort to something more direct.

‘Come on,’ I said quickly. ‘Don’t let us trouble this gentleman when he has no wish to relieve us of our money. You cannot force a shopman to sell his goods, especially if he does not have them.’

‘Good advice, sir. I wish your friends were as sensible.’

‘Nicholas Revill, at your service,’ I said.

‘But he does have what we want,’ said Edmund. Seizing the bookseller by the front of his jerkin, he hoiked Owen towards him. The bookseller’s hat fell off to reveal a close-cropped head of hair, coming to an arrow-like point on his forehead. ‘He’s as good as admitted it.’

So this was the quick temper that William had warned me about. I was about to step forward and physically unfasten Edmund’s hands from Owen’s jerkin when Martin Barton suddenly spoke up again.

‘If Leonard Leman and his good lady Alice can be your customers, I do not see why we shouldn’t be.’

Martin must be referring to the couple who’d just walked away. How he knew them while they appeared not to recognize him, I’ve no idea. But his words had an indirect effect on Owen, who said calmly: ‘I may be able to help you after all, Mr Shakespeare. But you will have to let me go first.’

Edmund allowed the bookseller to work himself free of his grasp. He ducked down and picked up his hat. I expected the man to invite us inside his shop, but he said: ‘I do not have what you are looking for on these premises, but I can direct you towards some more, ah, items which you may inspect later tonight. And your friends too if they please.’

‘Where?’ said Edmund. ‘You had better not be sending us on a fool’s errand, Owen.’

‘You should go to a house on the corner of Seething Lane and Tower Street, near the Black Swan. A house with narrow windows. Ask there for a gentleman who calls himself Bernardo Scoto. He is Italian, as you may guess. From Mantua, I believe. Do not call on him before ten, however. He works by night.’

‘And what the devil has he got to do with this?’ said Edmund.

‘I have heard of this Scoto,’ said Martin Barton, wincing as he spoke. ‘He has a mountebank’s reputation.’

‘Be that as it may, he may be able to help you with the toothache which seems to be afflicting you,’ said Owen. ‘Signor Scoto also has a collection of relics in his possession which he is willing to part with, for the right fee. Now, if you will forgive me, I must attend to my stock and shut up for the day.’

Before Edmund could detain him again, Davy Owen slipped inside his shop and we heard the sound of bolts sliding and keys turning.

I assumed that was it, that our little expedition had come to an end. No point, surely, in trailing off to some dwelling in Tower Street in search of an Italian mountebank. But I reckoned without Edmund’s determination and, more surprisingly, Martin Barton’s wish to see the thing through. I asked him why.

‘I am curious to vist this Scoto.’

‘For your toothache?’

‘I collect types, you know, Nicholas. A quacksalver or mountebank might be just the character for one of my satires on human folly.’

‘But it is not very likely that he will have any relics of King Arthur.’

‘It is not very likely that anyone will have them. So what harm is done by calling on the man from Mantua?’

‘Why do we have to call on him late at night?’

‘No doubt because it heightens the effect. He is a man of mystery. Come on, Nicholas, we are men of the theatre. We understand all about mysteries.’

I couldn’t think of a response, but I still didn’t like any of it. I had another question for Barton, which was how he knew the identity of the striking couple who’d been deep in talk with Owen outside his shop. That answer was easy enough. Leonard and Alice Leman were good patrons of the Blackfriars playhouse, and in fact Martin Barton had some hopes that they might become patrons of him. They didn’t seem to know you, I said. They weren’t looking in our direction, said Barton. And so who was the third man, the one as thin as a rail? Oh, that was their steward, said Barton. A fellow called Jack Corner. Like many stewards, a man of ambition. I wasn’t surprised that Martin Barton knew the names of these well-to-do folk, nor that he talked dismissively of the steward but warmly of the Lemans. The satirist was one of those people who affect to despise wealth and influence but who are covertly respectful of them. He made it his business to be familiar with the important faces in the audience.

The three of us agreed to meet in a few hours at the junction of Tower Street and Seething Lane. For the first time I regretted having agreed to watch over Edmund Shakespeare.

III

Seething Lane is a street of large but unobtrusive houses. Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster Francis Walsingham had lived (and died) here, and plenty of merchants occupy these solid dwellings. Tower Street is more of a mixture, but it grows dignified towards the eastern end, on the Seething Lane corner of which Edmund Shakespeare, Martin Barton and I were now standing as a nearby bell rang ten o’clock. The darkness was relieved by gleams of light coming from a few windows, and there was a crescent moon slipping up the sky.

By day you would have seen the slope of Tower Hill further east and, even though the Tower itself was out of sight, you might have been conscious of that great palace or castle over your shoulder. If I chose, I could see it more easily from the other side of the river, since I had lodgings in Tooley Street and had only to turn down a lane leading to the river to catch a glimpse of the mighty walls on the opposite shore. It was comforting, somehow, that the Tower was separated from me by a wide stretch of water. I don’t know whether it was the fearsome reputation of the place – at this very moment Sir Walter Raleigh was captive within its walls – or because noble people were executed nearby, but like many Londoners I generally felt uneasy when in the Tower’s shadow. And I felt uneasy anyway because of the strange mission on which the three of us were engaged.

We identified the narrow-windowed house on the corner. No light came through the crevices in its shutters, and I hoped we might find it unoccupied or get no answer to the rap that Edmund Shakespeare gave on the door. No such luck. Almost straight away, it was opened by a stocky child.

‘You wish to see Master Scoto?’

The voice was no child’s but deep, a man’s. The little figure was a dwarf. It was impossible to make out his features since the only illumination came from candles in a sconce further down the hall.

‘You’ve guessed it,’ said Edmund.

‘He is expecting you.’

This was not a question but a statement and did not increase my comfort. Ushering us inside, the dwarfish shape told us to go to a door at the end of the hallway and knock three times.

‘Three times. Why not once? What did I tell you, Nicholas?’ whispered Martin Barton as we passed the flickering light of the sconce. ‘Like the little doorman, it is all to heighten the effect.’

But we did as we were instructed. Edmund knocked thrice on the oaken door. Did I detect a slight hesitation in Shakespeare’s brother, as if he too was regretting we’d reached this point? A soft voice said ‘Enter’ and Edmund lifted the latch.

There used to be a shop off St Paul’s Walk owned by an apothecary who styled himself Old Nick, and what I saw now of Scoto’s room reminded me of that place. This one was an extensive den, smoky from the few scattered, guttering candles and with a sweet but disagreeable scent. There were shelves crowded with wooden boxes and earthenware pots, and from the beams over our heads dangled withered roots and bladders and large whitish objects. A table in a corner was encumbered with wide books and greasy glass tubes and alembics. Against the left-hand wall hung a tapestry or arras depicting strange, garbed figures and symbols. The figures seemed half-alive as a draught stirred the arras. On the far side of the room was a desk and behind the desk was a hunched figure, presumably Master Bernardo Scoto. A single candle wavered next to a hand that was scrawling something across a sheet of paper. The hand seemed disembodied from its owner, who was in darkness.

‘Benvenuto, signori.’

The voice out of the shadows was soft, insinuating. It made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. We stood there, three awkward supplicants.

‘Your toothache, Signor Barton, ’ow is it?’

How the Italian was aware of the playwright’s bad teeth, I don’t know. Martin was not wincing or cupping his hand to his face, and besides it was dim in the chamber, as I’ve said. But the remark had the effect, no doubt intended, of giving the hunched figure some unusual powers of penetration.

‘You should try chewin’ ’ore’ound,’ said Scoto. ‘I can make you up a preparation if you desire.’

‘I’ll attend to my own teeth, with or without the horehound,’ said Barton. ‘We have come about other business.’

‘You are in search of some bones?’

‘We have been told you have them,’ said Edmund.

‘Fai attenzione,’ said Scoto. ‘There are bones above your ’eads.’

Among the vegetable matter hanging from the ceiling there were indeed some bone-like shapes. Despite the sweet-scented fug of the room, I shivered. It was like being in a charnel house.

‘Signor Revill stands beneath the ’orn of a unicorn. Reach up and touch it, sir. It will bring you no ’arm but blessings, i doni della natura. It is a protection against the plague. And beside it there are the ribs of a – ’ow do you say it? – una sirena. Ah, si, a mermaid.’

Wondering how he knew my name, as he had known Martin Barton’s, I restrained myself from reaching up to touch either the mermaid’s ribs or the horn. This latter bone, long and tapering to a point, might have belonged to a unicorn, although there are those who say that no such creature exists.

‘We are not interested in animal remains,’ said Edmund. ‘It is King Arthur’s bones we seek.’

‘I ’ave many oddments here. Una miscellanea.’

‘Oddments? These are relics of England’s greatness.’

‘Ha parlato l’oracolo!’

The words were plainly meant as a snide comment, and Edmund took them in that spirit. Stepping forward, he said in a quavering voice: ‘They should not be in foreign hands. If you possess such things, Master Scoto, you ought to surrender them to the authorities. The bones of a great king must not moulder in neglect. You will suffer the consequences otherwise.’

Scoto laughed. The sound was as soft and unsettling as his speech. He moved from his perch behind the desk and came towards us. He was wearing a snug cap and some kind of cloak with geometric figures on it, cabbalistic designs probably. By daylight and in the open, I would have dismissed him as I would any mountebank who sells the elixir of life at a country fair. It wasn’t so easy to do in this dim and smoky place. But of course the man from Mantua did not have Arthur’s bones. This was a fool’s errand. We should quit this darkened house now.

But now was already too late. Instead of seizing Scoto as he had with Davy Owen that afternoon, Edmund Shakespeare produced a little dagger from within the recesses of his jerkin and held it underneath Scoto’s bare chin. ‘Enough of your double talk, signor,’ he said. ‘Give us a straight answer or I shall give you a straight jab with this blade.’

‘If you are so foolish, young man, you will not leave this ’ouse alive. Non sono solo. Not alone, you understand.’

‘Oh, that small person who let us in.’

‘Nano, ’e is worth three of you.’

I had to admire the man’s self-possession as well as his confidence in the little doorkeeper. He didn’t retreat in the face of Edmund’s threats but held up his arms in a gesture that spread his patterned cloak like a bird’s dark wings. I glanced first at the rippling arras, as if Scoto might have attendants hidden behind it, and then at Martin Barton. Without a word we took hold of Edmund Shakespeare, one on each side. I was on his right and so it fell to me to grasp his knife-hand, which I did with both my hands around his wrist as tight as a vice. Meanwhile, Scoto watched us with, I could have sworn, an air of amusement.

Edmund was too surprised to struggle, though he turned a burning look on me. Then he seemed to slacken and allowed Martin and me to half-lead, half-drag him back to the entrance of Scoto’s den. All this while he still clutched the knife and, even if I did not think he would have struck at me, I feared a slip. We straggled down the hallway and opened the front door, to let in a gust of cold spring air. There was no sign of the dwarfish porter Nano. We emerged into the street and drew Edmund away from the house on the corner. When we judged that he’d calmed down, we released him. He put away the knife without being told to, but he was still angry.

‘Why did you stop me? That charlatan in there would sooner have responded to a threat than a polite query.’

‘You might not have been content with a threat,’ said Martin Barton, and I was glad not only that the redheaded satirist had kept us company but that he was displaying such good sense. For myself, I’d been shaken by the whole encounter.

‘I suppose you are going to go and tell tales to my brother,’ said Edmund to me.

‘Not a word,’ I said, ‘if you return to your lodgings now and forget this silly quest for Arthur’s bones.’

‘You go back to your lodgings if you please,’ said Edmund. ‘I will go where I like.’

He turned on his heel and stalked off up Seething Lane, leaving us in the dark. No point in pursuing Shakespeare’s younger brother. Perhaps the cool night air would bring him to his senses.

‘How are your teeth?’ I said to Martin. ‘Are you going to try horehound?’

‘I would not take remedies from that charlatan, Nicholas. And another thing. He is not from Mantua.’

‘How do you know?’

‘My mother was from those parts, and his accent is quite different.’

IV

As it happened, I did talk to William Shakespeare the next day on the subject of King Arthur and his bones. But it was WS who raised the subject while I tried my best to keep his brother Edmund out of the conversation. We were at the Globe playhouse and our morning rehearsal was done.

I passed WS in the passage outside the tiring room. He asked in his usual courteous style whether I had a minute to spare. That he wanted a private chat was indicated by the way in which he ushered me into a small office reserved for the shareholders.

‘Nick, you remember when you called on me the other day in Silver Street and I showed you that, ah, relic of King Arthur?’

‘The one Edmund gave you?’

‘Yes. But it has disappeared from my room.’

‘Stolen?’

‘I would not think so were it not for another strange circumstance. As you know, I was working on a piece about the great king. I had not got very far for, in truth, the ink seemed to be flowing very reluctantly from my pen. But the manuscript sheets are missing also.’

I thought straight away of Edmund, wondered whether he had slipped into his brother’s lodgings and for some perverse reason filched the bone and the sheets. But I said nothing. Perhaps the same idea was running through WS’s head, for he seemed troubled.

‘I hope you will not take offence if I ask you whether you told anyone of what I was writing.’

‘Martin Barton may have got to hear of it,’ I said, unwilling to say that it was Edmund who had mentioned the King Arthur play in the Mermaid tavern. ‘But no one else as far as I know.’

‘Barton can be a silly fellow,’ said WS, ‘but he would not stoop to thieving another man’s ideas. He has too high a regard for his own.’

‘No, he’s honest,’ I said, still grateful for Barton’s action at Scoto’s house the previous night.

‘I might even believe my brother Edmund capable of it, but he would hardly steal back something that he’d given me in the first place. Or take a sheaf of my papers.’

I was glad that it was William who had raised the subject. I shook my head with almost as much conviction as I felt. Thieving on the quiet wasn’t Edmund’s style either. Besides, WS’s brother was working as usual at the Globe this very morning, doing the bidding of the tire-man and the bookkeeper. We’d exchanged glances but no words. No longer cheerful, Edmund looked red-eyed and dishevelled as though he’d found somewhere to drink away his anger after quitting us last night.

‘How does my brother do?’ said WS.

‘Well enough.’

‘I can tell it from your tone that something has happened.’

‘Nothing important.’

‘No? Well, one day you might tell me. At least he is not in the Clink.’

He might have been, I thought.

‘And I am grateful to you for keeping him company outside the playhouse.’

‘I’m sorry for the loss of your royal bone and your royal play, William,’ I said, wanting to change the subject since I didn’t think I’d be keeping Edmund company much longer.

‘A play can be written again and written better,’ said WS. ‘And if the bone really belongs to the great king, it cannot be lost. They say that Arthur is sleeping, ready to wake again in the hour of England’s need, even if his bones have to be gathered from the four corners of the country.’

‘Arthur may wake again on the stage,’ I said.

‘Yes, we can resurrect him,’ said WS.

It was characteristic of the man that he should take such a relaxed view of his losses or thefts, although they troubled me slightly on account of the events of the previous day.

But that was as nothing to the trouble that came along the next day.

As I was coming out of my lodgings in Tooley Street in the morning, I was accosted by an individual with a narrow, pustular face who asked bluntly if I was Revill.

‘Who wants to know?’

‘That means you are Revill.’

He handed me a crumpled note. It was from Edmund Shakespeare. Scrawled as if written in haste or a poor light, it said: ‘Ask no questions but come with the man who presents this, I beg you, Nicholas.’

It was signed ‘Edmund’. I recognized the same hand I’d seen on the title page of Venus and Adonis where Edmund had inked his own name. But it wasn’t the signature or the message which bothered me the most. It was the bloody fingermarks on the crumpled sheet. Edmund’s blood? Or another’s?

Despite Edmund’s injunction, I did ask a couple of questions – basic ones like ‘What’s happened?’ and ‘Where are we going?’ – but received no reply from this unhelpful individual. I rejected my first idea, which was that Edmund had indeed ended up in one of the several Southwark prisons. This spotty pinch-face was no gaoler. Gaolers are generally worse dressed than those they incarcerate and any approach to a friend of a prisoner always involves a demand for money, straight away. Nor did I fear some kind of trap for the fellow’s garments had an official look to them. Indeed there was a badge on his jerkin which I hadn’t had the chance to inspect.

I followed him down Mill Lane. There’s no wharf here but a plain flight of steps and some mooring-posts. A boatman was waiting, and I realized that my guide had already been ferried across the river once this morning. I wondered where the trouble was. I had a nasty feeling that it might be found at Scoto’s house on the corner of Tower Street.

In other circumstances I might have enjoyed being rowed across the Thames on a fine morning in May. The sun dazzled off the windows of the houses on the Bridge, the wind was invigorating and the boat rocked in a manner that wasn’t too puke-making. But I was thinking about my best course: see what mischief Edmund Shakespeare had tumbled into, reassure him that we would do our best and then race back to the Globe to leave the matter in WS’s hands. After all, he really was his brother’s keeper.

I was sitting in the stern of the boat beside the individual who’d brought me Edmund’s note. The boatman facing us was too breathless – it is a harder task rowing downriver below the Bridge – to make conversation or, more likely, to relieve himself with a stream of oaths. My companion still didn’t say anything, and I was able to observe the little insignia on his jerkin. Then I looked up beyond the boatman’s flexing shoulders and, squinting against the sun, saw that we were headed for a particular spot on the northern bank.

My heart and guts did a little dance. Or rather they both got up at once and ran into each other as if trying to flee from my mortal frame.

Even if I had never seen its precise equivalent before, the badge on my fellow passenger’s jerkin was a royal one without a doubt. It showed a lion rampant, and everyone knows that the lion and the king are one. This and the direction of the boat confirmed our destination.

We were soon to put in at the wharf under the southwest corner of the Tower. There are plenty of stairs and berths along here, together with cranes and winches for unloading supplies. But nobody lands in this place for pleasure. Only for business. Or worse. Further along is that dreadful watergate through which traitors are conveyed into the bowels of the Tower. We were not headed there, thank God! – and a moment’s sane reflection would have convinced me that there could be no reason why a humble player would have that honour – but it was bad enough to be conveyed to any point of the wharf fronting the Tower palace. Especially when summoned by a blood-marked note which was still screwed up in my gloved fist.

No longer much bothered about the fate of Edmund Shakespeare, I am hardly ashamed to say that I was more concerned with the immediate future of Nicholas Revill.

But even that was driven out of my head by the sight that now lay before me. The tide was out and a stretch of foreshore, muddy and pebbled, was exposed. Sitting in the sun by the water’s edge was a bear. Almost every citizen of London from the age of six to sixty has seen captive bears dancing at fairs or fighting for their lives in the bear-pits by the Southwark theatres. But those bears are brown while the one sitting on the banks of the Thames was white. I had never seen this creature but had heard people talk of it. It was a gift from the King of Norway and its whiteness was a reflection of the desolate and ice-bound stretches of that distant land. In truth, the bear was more of a yellowy-white than snow-coloured.

I wondered why it did not swim away, then saw that it was tethered by a chain to a great stake sunk deep into the foreshore. Shackled like a prisoner, it was also muzzled. Despite this, it looked contented enough, dashing a paw through the water in a playful way. Then it occurred to me that the white bear was being more than playful; it was trying to scoop up fish. There was no sign of any keeper.

Our boat squelched into the mud of the shore and the boatman hopped out with the skill of long practice to secure us to one of several posts driven into the mud. The bear paid us no attention but continued to strike its paws into the water. Nearby was a set of stairs. Pinch-face indicated that I should go first while he was settling with the boatman. I thought about taking to my heels. But I wasn’t confident I could outrun him when all around was the territory of the Tower, unfamiliar to me. And given that he had found me once near my lodgings, he would find me again. And furthermore I had done nothing wrong. (Not that that’s any defence.)

So, in a docile fashion, I slithered across the foreshore, giving the dirty white bear a very wide berth, and climbed the stairs and waited for my escort at the top. The air was not so fresh here on account of the tubs of rotting meat which, recently unloaded from the offal-boat, were sitting on the wharf. Lettering on the tubs indicated they were supplied by the Butchers’ Company – no doubt for the other Tower animals which I could hear even now. A mixture of barks, brays, screeches and growls was coming out of the mouths of God-knows-what creatures over the wall on the other side of the moat. This south-west corner was dominated by the Lion Tower, which, to judge by the unfinished castellations and the scaffolding still clinging to the bright new stonework, was being enlarged.

It was widely known that King James had a special interest in the beasts of the Tower, not because he wished to study them but because he liked watching them kill each other. He enjoyed seeing his lions baited by dogs, bulls, boars and so on. Of course the lions tended to prevail, but I’d heard that any animal, such as a fighting mastiff, which acquitted itself honourably might be allowed to live out the rest of its days in peace. The grand animal contests were restricted to the king and his circle, but on other days any citizen might gaze at the Tower beasts either by paying three pennies or by bringing his own domestic animal – dogs, chickens, sheep – to be devoured by the larger ones. I had never seen the Tower beasts myself, though whether it was out of lack of curiosity or reluctance to open my purse I’m not sure.

By now the pustular pinch-face had joined me at the top of the stairs. He beckoned me to follow him, and we walked around the moat and the bulging western flank of the area that housed the animals. The moat had been almost drained, presumably for ease of work on the buildings in this quarter. Or perhaps it was that London no longer feared an attack on its greatest citadel. Beyond this was a drawbridge and a great gate. There were two soldiers sitting in a little sentry-house, but they were eating and drinking and hardly glanced up as we approached. We had come through more than half a circle so that ahead of us was the causeway leading back to the Lion Tower. My heart thudded louder in my ears than my feet sounded on the drawbridge. I felt as helpless as one of those domestic dogs being delivered over to the lions’ pleasure.

We went through a second gate at the end of the causeway, where my guide nodded at a single soldier who didn’t return the greeting, and into the cluster of buildings grouped under the Lion Tower. Still I saw no beasts, but I could smell their rank odours as well as hear them. Then it was up a flight of spiral stairs to an oak door on which pinch-face knocked, almost with delicacy. Receiving some reply, he unlatched the door and, putting a hand in the small of my back, as good as pushed me into the chamber.

‘Here he is, sir,’ he said, before shutting the door and leaving me alone with the room’s occupant.

Like Scoto the Mantuan in Tower Street, this individual was sitting behind a desk, working on some papers. But there the resemblance ended. The room was neat and clean, with a view of the river through a glazed window. The desk-man was a kindly faced gent, with spectacles. I could have sworn he looked relieved to see me once he had taken off his spectacles. And for the first time in what was only a half-hour but seemed like half a lifetime, my terror started to subside. Perhaps I would escape incarceration in the Tower after all.

‘You are Nicholas Revill of the King’s Men?’

‘I am – but I don’t understand what I am doing here.’

‘Be patient, Mr Revill, and I will explain our difficult position. I am Ralph Gill…’

There was a second’s hesitation as if to give me the chance to recognize the name. I nodded but had no idea who he was. Luckily he supplied the answer.

‘… Keeper of the King’s Lions. Naturally there are other animals under my charge, but it is only the lions which matter. My father, Thomas Gill, also bore the same title, and I hope that my son will inherit it in due course. It is an honour, you know.’

I nodded again, although with no notion of where we were heading.

‘This morning we made an unfortunate discovery. It involves a friend of yours.’

‘Edmund Shakespeare?’

‘Just so. Edmund Shakespeare. It was the name which gave me pause and made me agree to his sending you a note asking for your presence here. You are able to confirm, Mr Revill, that this individual is indeed the brother of William Shakespeare?’

‘He is.’

‘He was adamant that he did not want his brother to know of his… predicament.’

‘Yes, that sounds like Edmund.’

‘I must tread carefully where William Shakespeare and the King’s Men are concerned. The king is patron to us all, you know. Plays are not so near the heart of James as are his lions, but I believe his queen is fond of the drama?’

‘She is.’

‘I thought so,’ said Ralph Gill, almost mournfully.

‘Sir,’ I said, ‘can you tell me what Edmund has done?’

‘Oh, he has done murder,’ said the spectacled gent. ‘It may well be murder. Come with me.’

He came around from behind the desk and we left the room, going down the spiral stairs, across a lobby and down a further flight. Now that my personal fears were fading, anxiety over Edmund returned. Murder? Was it possible? Yes, I thought, remembering WS’s brother threatening Davy Owen or brandishing a knife at Scoto’s throat, it was possible.

As we descended through the building with its many twists and turns, I realized that this was not one edifice but several which had grown up and into each over the centuries. Meanwhile, the animal stench became stronger. Eventually we emerged from a tunnel-like passage into a yard via a barred gate that Mr Gill unlocked. The yard was in the shape of a great D, turned the wrong way about, and with the straight side formed by the buildings from which Ralph Gill and I had just come.

The surrounding walls were so high and the spring sky with its fast-moving clouds, seemed so distant that it was like being at the bottom of a well. A curved viewing platform with a canopy projected from the southern side, supported by scarred wooden struts. That would be where the king and his retinue surveyed the lions as they went about their work of dispatching the lesser beasts. And down here in the yard was where the killing took place, as evidenced by dark stains among the mixture of mud and shit and roughly levelled stone composing the floor. There was a large water trough and a platform-like area scattered with straw on the northern side for the animals to disport themselves.

Fortunately there were no beasts wandering free but in their place a couple of fellows garbed like the one who had collected me in Tooley Street. They nodded deferentially at Master Gill. I was glad of all the human company available because of the proximity of the beasts. They were at our backs in cages and behind doors set in the walls of the buildings nestling around the Lion Tower. I smelled and heard them. I felt their eyes on me and when I turned fearfully for a better look I caught glimpses of tawny fur, of yellow eyes, dark stripes, bedraggled tails. What I took for a wrinkled human hand thrusting out like a prisoner’s from a panel in a low door belonged, said Ralph Gill, to an ape. There was a brown bear huddling miserably in the corner of its little chamber, and another creature which I mistook for a dog but which Gill informed me was a wolf, the very last in England. It was a lean, ugly thing, maybe on account of pondering its melancholy uniqueness.

In his pride at his collection, the lion keeper had for a moment forgotten why we had come to this level. But he soon led me off into yet another passage and past more cages and caverns set within the very foundations of the place. It was dark and noisome down here, with the only light provided by torches in iron wall-brackets. Feeble gusts of air indicated that there were hidden holes venting the place; otherwise every living thing would soon have been choked. The low noises, which might almost have been human, the bars and locks everywhere, could not but remind me of a gaol.

In this honeycomb or warren were little chambers set aside for provisions or the use of the keepers, but Ralph Gill led me to a pair of adjoining cells cut into the rock and meant for beasts. They were presently occupied by men. Candles had been brought in to help them see. In one cell a body lay face up, arms and legs splayed among the dirt. His fair beard and white ruff, his fine doublet and hose, all were dyed with blood. I feared very much that I knew his identity. It was the luxuriant beard that gave the clue.

In the other pen were three individuals, each of them alive. One was slumped, head in hands, in a corner, while on either side stood two of the fellows that I now recognized by their garb and royal insignia to be assistant keepers. They were holding cudgels, normally used, I supposed, to ward off the wild animals. We stood by the open gate since the interior was too small for five men.

Edmund Shakespeare looked up. His forehead was bloody and swollen.

‘I did not do this thing, Nick. I am innocent, I swear.’

Not sure whether to believe his denial, I nodded at Shakespeare’s brother and spoke instead to Ralph Gill. ‘What happened here?’

‘My men discovered early this morning that the lions were roaming in the yard, something never known before. They had a deal of trouble to drive them back to their cages with burning torches. It was only after they had done so that they heard human cries coming from this underground quarter. Here they discovered the sight before you, Mr Revill. A man dead by violence and another man cowering and shouting in this enclosure next door. I was summoned straight away and established this… gentleman’s name. I was for calling out the Justice but he begged instead to be allowed to scrawl a note to you. I was minded to refuse, but when I heard his name and that he was a member of the King’s Men I decided to give him that, ah, benefit.’

I could see how Mr Gill had risen to his present eminence. He had quickly taken stock of what had occurred and, not knowing whether Edmund was really an important person or not, he responded with prudence. Clear-headed and diplomatic, Gill must have been a valuable servant of the Crown. I let it pass that Edmund was not a King’s Man (or not properly so). It was more likely the Shakespeare name which had done the trick.

‘Who is the dead man?’ I said, though I was almost certain I already knew. Nevertheless Gill’s answer gave me a jolt. ‘He is called Leonard Leman. He and his wife are frequent visitors to the animals, not as ordinary Londoners but as members of the court parties who grace us with their presence.’

Leman was one of the group we’d seen arguing with the bookseller in St Paul’s yard.

‘How did he die?’

‘He has many wounds on his body, Mr Revill, which could have been produced by a knife. And your fellow here was discovered clutching a knife this morning.’

‘What happened, Edmund?’ I said.

‘I… I was tricked into entering this place,’ said Edmund. ‘I received a note telling me to come to the Lion Tower last evening.’

‘A note? Who from? Where is it?’

‘I don’t know. It is gone. But once here, I was surprised by men I could not see and beaten about the head. My hat was lost. See…’

He leaned forward, the better to display the swelling on the front of his head. Hanks of hair which hung down were matted with dried blood. He touched the egg-shaped lump cautiously and then looked at his hands.

‘I did not know where I was for a time, but when I came to myself it was here in this filthy sty surrounded by animal noises. I dimly saw the body of that man in the neighbouring cell. I made to leave but there were large beasts out in the yard, slinking through the dark. I was reluctant to move further, so I groped my way back to this place and did my best to secure the door with my belt. See… ‘

It was true. A girdle hung limp from the door. I did not think it would have kept a curious animal away for long.

‘I must have slept, for the next I knew was shouting and growling from outside-’

‘That was us returning the lions to their quarters,’ said one of Edmund’s guards, speaking for the first time. ‘They didn’t want to go in until we showed ’em fire.’

‘-hearing the noise, I set up my own shouting from in here and was found. True, I was clutching a knife, but it was to defend myself against men, against wild animals, against God knows what. They’ll tell you that I willingly surrendered the knife and that the blade was clean.’

The other guard nodded but said nothing.

‘So, Nick, now you see me…’

‘Now I see you, Edmund.’

I didn’t know what else to say. Or, rather, I scarcely knew where to begin. The whole tale sounded like a pack of lies. Had WS’s brother really been summoned by note to the Lion Tower, overcome by unknown assailants and dragged down to the animal level, there to wake with a dead man for company, and – too fearful to make his escape through an arena of lions – had he huddled for safety in a cage overnight? The only bit which was absolutely believable was the last.

I was reluctant to question Edmund in front of Ralph Gill in case I exposed too many holes in his story. In fact it was more holes than story. Yet whatever he was making up or leaving out of his account, it was hard to regard him as a murderer at the moment. Edmund looked hapless, not guilty. His face was smeared with dirt, but there was no blood detectable on him apart from the front of his head and his fingertips (I thought of the stained note, which I still carried).

Fortunately the Keeper of the King’s Lions seemed to have come to the same conclusion and, having talked of murder, he was now anxious to discharge Edmund into my custody. I wondered whether he had played up the whole thing so as to get rid of Edmund. The dead man’s body was an embarrassment to an official who had charge of the whole area. Strangers had penetrated what should be a secure place, wild beasts had not been shut away and had got loose. I had a sudden thought.

‘Mr Gill, is it possible that the wounds on Mr Leman were caused by your animals? The lions? You say they were wandering free last night. It might be that the unfortunate gentleman was attacked in the yard and, mortally wounded, managed to crawl into the adjoining cell.’

‘It might be, it might well be.’

‘There is blood along the floor of the passage as if he might have dragged himself so far.’

Ralph Gill examined the floor and considered this idea. He said: ‘But with such an important individual as Mr Leman, the Justice or the coroner will have to decide, and Mr Shakespeare here will have to give evidence if it comes to it.’

I helped WS’s brother to his feet and he reclaimed his girdle and even his knife, handed over by one of the guards. The blade and haft were, indeed, spotless (but they could have been cleaned after use). Then, accompanied by the head keeper, we passed the little chamber containing the unfortunate Leonard Leman before making our way into the yard, where the air, though heavy with animal odours, was a relief after the stenchy warren. Then up through the labyrinthine passages of the Lion Tower and along the causeway to the outer gate, the one with the sentry-house and the drawbridge. Here Ralph Gill put a hand on my arm to detain me. Edmund, meanwhile, was looking somewhat unsteady on his feet and taking down great draughts of air.

‘Mr Revill, I will speak in confidence. You must see that I am in a delicate position. This is a royal palace and I would not like the king to learn of any, ah, irregularities concerning his lions. Nor would his majesty be happy to hear that the brother of his principal playwright has been caught up in any mischief. Or perhaps it is the queen who would not be happy. You would know better than I do. But a man is dead and must be accounted for, even if it was no more than a misfortune… yes, a terrible misfortune.’

He paused, and I nodded. Taking his cue from me, Gill was evidently working himself into the belief that Leman’s death was an accident.

‘Your friend there has given a partial account of what happened. It would be to all our advantages if he gave to you a more precise account, perhaps leaving aside any talk of assailants and so on. No doubt he drank a little too deeply last night?’

‘I will see what I can do, Mr Gill. But can you answer me one question? Whatever happened here last night, there seems to have been a great deal of coming and going. I thought this place was a castle, a guarded, secure castle.’

Ralph Gill looked uncomfortable. His hands flew to his head to keep his hat in place on his white head, even though there wasn’t much of a breeze where we were standing.

‘Sir William Ward is the aptly named Constable of the Tower and he has responsibility for our security. The inner wards where prisoners are held are truly fast, but an outer gate such as this is rarely closed. I cannot remember when the drawbridge was last raised. We have building work going on at the moment. There is always a deal of coming and going. Every day the public resort to this area to see the beasts.’

All of this seemed a roundabout way of saying that the south-west corner of the Tower was a common thoroughfare. The two soldiers in the sentry-house to our back had not noted our exit any more than they’d done with my earlier arrival under escort. Still, it was none of my business if the place was crawling with night-time assailants or if London was shaken by rebels who took it into their heads to storm the Tower. Instead I assured Ralph Gill once again that I’d do my best to get the full story out of Edmund Shakespeare.

‘Good, good, Mr Revill. I can see you have a shrewd look to you.’

We shook hands. WS had recently called me shrewd before putting his brother in my charge. I would have preferred less of a reputation for shrewdness and less of my share of trouble.

Edmund and I quit the precincts of the Tower. We walked rapidly westwards as if to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and the animal den. Neither of us spoke a word until I suggested he clean himself up. By this time we were near a public trough at the Poultry end of Cheapside. Edmund dabbed cautiously at his face and washed his bloody hands in the running water which is supplied by the Great Conduit. The blow on his forehead was turning a shade of blue. It looked as though he had had an encounter with a doorpost.

Only when he looked halfway respectable did we enter a tavern. And only when we had finished a rabbit stew in near silence and started on our bread and cheese, washed down with second helpings of small beer, did I say to William Shakespeare’s brother: ‘Isn’t it time for the truth, Edmund?’

V

‘First I must thank you, Nick. You have treated me better than I deserve, especially after the other night. I cannot tell you the roasting I would have got from William if he had come in your place. He might have let me rot in the animals’ den.’

‘Believe me, I was tempted. Enough, Edmund. The truth.’

But the story Edmund had to tell wasn’t so different from the account I’d already heard. He had, he insisted, been attacked and overcome soon after entering the precincts of the Lion Tower. He had woken to find himself next to the cell containing the mortal remains of Leonard Leman. Too frightened to go through the yard with its wandering lions, he retreated for safety to the empty cell where he was found, knife in hand, by the morning keepers.

But there was one significant difference. Rather than being summoned to the Tower by some mysterious note – that was a fiction to explain his presence to Ralph Gill, he openly admitted it – Edmund had been in pursuit of someone. Of three people in fact. The bookseller Davy Owen and the dead man, Leonard Leman, together with the dead man’s wife, Alice.

‘And this is no fiction, I suppose?’

‘God’s truth, Nick.’

WS’s obstinate brother had been unwilling to give up his quest for those supposed Arthurian bones and was returning once more to Owen’s shop. Again he arrived as the Welshman was about to close up and depart for the day. This time, though, instead of accosting him he had been more discreet. Had followed him at a distance to Bernardo Scoto’s house in Tower Street and waited for him to emerge. Which he did after a time, accompanied by the large gentleman with the fine beard and the tall handsome woman. Edmund recognized them as Mr and Mrs Leman.

Detecting a plot and keeping in the shadows, for it was growing dark by now, he tailed these three up Tower Hill and so into the Tower itself. They passed unimpeded through the main gate, as did Edmund himself, and spoke briefly with the soldier on duty in the Lion Tower. Edmund wasn’t certain but he thought money might have changed hands, and the soldier vanished. While he was engaged in watching, he was oblivious to his back for he was suddenly seized from behind and shoved violently against a stone pillar. He was sick and dizzy and the blood ran into his eyes. He heard voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. He was hit again and again, this time around the back of the head. Hands grabbed at him – three, four people, he couldn’t be sure – and half-carried, half-dragged him down stairs and along passages. There was the stink and noise of animals. He was thrown into some cell and, for a time, lost all awareness of his surroundings. And after that he would have escaped but was driven back by fear of the loose lions, back into his own cage, where he did his best to secure himself until he was rescued.

‘These attackers?’ I said. ‘Who were they? Davy Owen, the Lemans?’

‘Possibly, but there was at least one other involved, the man who struck at me from behind.’

‘Who was that? Scoto the Mantuan?’

‘I have no idea. I was taken by surprise.’

‘Ralph Gill would prefer it if you remembered no assailants.’

‘Ralph who? Oh, the reverend-looking man who has charge of the animals. What story does he want me to tell?’

‘That you were so flustered with drink you somehow wandered into the animal yard. Were you drunk?’

‘No, Nick, I was not drunk,’ said Edmund, taking a large swallow of his small beer.

‘Did you kill Leonard Leman? Not deliberately kill him, but is it possible that while you were struggling you struck out at him with your little knife?’

‘I was overcome, outnumbered. I did not even have time to find my little knife, let alone wield it. The little knife is clean. Truth to tell, although I may be too ready to wave it around, it has never been used in anger.’

‘So you are one of those roaring boys.’

‘Call me what names you please, Nick. I deserve it and you’ve earned the right. I confess I acquired a bit of a reputation in Stratford for bad behaviour, but I swear to you it was always more noise than substance. And I swear I had nothing to do with that man’s death. Am I going to be called to give evidence?’

‘I do not know. I think Gill wants to pass it off as some terrible misfortune, and that may cause him to avoid mentioning your name if possible. It depends how it is presented to the Justice or coroner. Then it depends how important Leonard Leman is – or was. How much trouble his family will raise over his death.’

‘But they were there. At least his wife was.’

‘Which suggests that she too might have an interest in covering things up,’ I said. ‘We need to discover more about them.’

‘Martin Barton claims to know them,’ said Edmund.

It turned out that Martin Barton was more than willing to tell us about the Lemans, and Leonard Leman in particular. Edmund and I called on Barton in his lodgings not far from the Blackfriars playhouse. He was scarcely out of bed, and his red hair was all awry, but he made us welcome enough. Barton was less regretful to hear the news of Leman’s death than he was curious about the circumstances, which we presented as an ‘accident in the house of lions’. Curious and a little suspicious.

‘Would this accident have anything to do with that great egg on your forehead, Edmund Shakespeare?’

‘Possibly,’ said Edmund, automatically dabbing a finger to his wounded brow. ‘But we will tell you more, Martin, if you provide us with a little information about the Lemans.’

‘Where to begin? Leonard Leman used to be a fine figure of a man in his younger days. Nimble and lithe, although you wouldn’t think it to see him now. Now he is a great bear of a man – or a great lion, given where he has apparently died. For certain, he is dead?’

‘He is dead,’ I said. ‘How do you know what he was like in his young days, Martin? You’d have been at school.’

‘I make it my business to find out about our patrons. Do you want to hear what I’ve got to say or not, Nicholas? You as good as woke me up just now with your thundering at my door.’

‘I apologize. Please proceed.’

‘As I was saying, Leonard Leman once cut a fine figure. He even caught the eye of Queen Elizabeth with his dancing, and for a time he basked in the sun of her favour. Not in the hottest, brightest spot. He dwelled in the more temperate zones. Lucky for him, considering what happened to her closest favourites. Then young Leman grew older and larger and more bear-like, and long before the queen died he fell from whatever favour he enjoyed. But there’s been talk recently that he is trying to worm his way into the favour of the present king.’

‘Not much chance of that once he lost his looks,’ said Edmund.

‘Shush, we will have no talk of the king’s tastes here,’ said Martin Barton, waggling a finger. He looked almost offended, but it was probably on his own account rather than King James’s.

‘I apologize,’ said Edmund.

‘There is more than one way of acquiring favour with a monarch, you know,’ continued Barton after a pause. ‘It is said that Leman was devising some scheme for pleasing the king. And it was specially needful for him to gain favour.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, Nicholas, some unflattering remarks that he made about the Scots nation got back to the king’s ears.’

Ever since James had come by the throne, two topics provided London’s gossip: his preference for handsome courtiers (in this he was not so unlike the old queen) and his favouritism towards his fellow countrymen, or at least the nobility among them. They’d been flocking south to join him. So much so that it sometimes seemed as if half of Scotland had tumbled down the map into the bottom of England.

‘So what is this scheme for regaining the king’s favour?’ I said. The idea flashed through my mind that it might be connected to the mysterious Scoto.

‘I do not know everything, Nicholas.’

‘You are much better informed than we are,’ I said. This was flattery, but it was also the truth. ‘What can you tell us about Alice Leman?’

‘Not much more than you saw for yourself outside that bookseller’s. She is younger than her husband by a good few years. She is large-boned and striking.’

‘That she is,’ said Edmund.

‘The story goes that each married the other in the expectation of coming by a great fortune, and that both have been disappointed. Which I believe often occurs in a marriage.’

‘And which made it even more necessary for Leonard Leman to regain the king’s favour, if money was in question’ I said. ‘I wonder how his wife is taking the news of his death.’

‘I could find out,’ said Martin. ‘I could call on her to present my condolences. I might even offer to compose a piece or two in memory of Mr Leman. She might welcome an elegy or a eulogy. She knows me, slightly.’

I refrained from saying that she hadn’t even noticed him outside Owen’s shop the other day and instead remarked: ‘You don’t write elegies but satires.’

‘Like Edmund’s brother, the great William, I can turn my hand to anything,’ said Martin Barton. ‘Besides, the widow’s patronage would be useful.’

Martin grew more animated. I don’t know whether he had suggested the visit out of simple curiosity or whether he was really on the watch for a patron. I was more convinced than ever that all of Barton’s satirical bile was a cover for a fawning attitude towards those more powerful and wealthy than he – which, in the case of a writer (or a player), comprises nearly everybody. Nevertheless, and almost against my will, I felt myself warming towards the redhead. There was something artless about his guile.

‘I will come with you,’ I said. ‘I too will condole with the widow Leman.’

‘What about me?’ said Edmund.

‘You? You will keep out of mischief,’ I said. ‘You’d be recognized – particularly if Alice Leman was one of those who attacked you.’

‘What’s all this?’ said Martin. ‘So you were attacked, Edmund Shakespeare, and by a woman too. Now you must keep your side of the bargain and tell all.’

It didn’t take long for Edmund to recount his time in the animal house in the Tower or for me to throw in my ha’p’orth. Edmund was voluble enough now that his immediate fear of being accused and incarcerated seemed to be receding. In fact his chief anxiety was that his brother might get to hear of his adventures. For myself, I thought that he remained in great danger from the law and that an interrogation by WS would be as nothing to what he’d get from a Justice. He was still open to blame.

We left him nursing his wound in Martin Barton’s lodgings and likely to fall asleep after such a testing night. The Lemans lived near the Strand and so the playwright and I set off westwards. Despite everything that had happened, it was not yet midday. The sun burned with holiday warmth, and the air, softened by a pleasant breeze, was clearer than usual. Naturally Martin had taken the trouble to find out about the Lemans’ dwelling, which was called Pride House. ‘Not on account of the aspirations of the owner, Nicholas,’ he said, ‘but because a religious foundation once stood on the site. The name is probably a corruption of “prayer” or “priory”.’ Martin was unusually cheerful and chattered away about widows and wealth and the corruption of all earthly things.

Leonard and Alice Leman did not have one of the great dwellings by the Strand, but Pride House was ample enough, with a main entrance in a high wall fronting a courtyard. There was a porter to whom Martin spoke in a lofty fashion, saying that we’d come to pay our respects to Mrs Leman. The porter said not a word but waved us through with a supercilious smile, as if he knew we were the mere sweepings of the public stage. Either that or he felt an obligation to live up to the name of the house. I might have thought it odd that the gatekeeper did not look particularly sad even though the master of the house was dead, but the idea never occurred to me.

What did occur was regret that I had offered to accompany Martin. I had no business being here, no part to play. Weren’t we just prying? Prying in Pride House? But another, inner voice said that, if we could somehow discover the truth about what had happened in the animal arena the previous night, it would help to exonerate Edmund Shakespeare from blame. I had time to think these thoughts because the paved courtyard was empty and the house presented a blank face to us. There were no servants scurrying about, no open windows, no sounds. Perhaps this really was a place in mourning.

The silence was abruptly broken by a woman’s cry. It sounded almost like grief and came not from within the house but from a wide walk that led down one flank of the building. Martin and I glanced at each other and together we moved towards the source. Flowering trees and shrubs clustered next to the pebbled path, and flakes of blossom floated through the air. The walk opened into a garden at the rear of the house, and at the point where it did there was an arbour so that the owner might sit in peace, shaded and secure, to survey his property. One side of the arbour was the outer wall of the garden, while along and over the wooden lattice which shielded it from our eyes there grew rosemary and roses which were not yet in full bloom.

But despite the foliage we were aware of figures, unidentified figures, on the other side of the lattice. There was the sound of rustling fabric, there were subdued sighs and groans. Grief? I did not think so.

We crept closer. Fortunately there was grass under our feet now. But I do not think we would have been heard anyway. The persons in the arbour were too occupied with their own concerns. Getting as close as we dared, Martin and I squinted between the interstices of the wooden frame, with the scent of rosemary tickling at our nostrils.

There was a long stone seat immediately below us. It must have been quite hard – the notion drifted across the back of my mind – quite hard to lie on, especially when you were bearing the weight of another individual. But Alice Leman did not seem to be aware of the stoniness of her couch. Rather, her eyes were tight shut and her arms firmly fastened around the back of the man who was lying on top of her, shoving away. I could have reached through and grasped one of the lady’s shod feet since it and the corresponding leg were awkwardly propped on the back of the stone bench, while the other was out of sight, no doubt planted on the ground as a kind of buttress. The man’s posture looked nearly as uncomfortable as hers, but he too was oblivious to his surroundings. I wasn’t sure of the man’s identity. It certainly wasn’t Alice Leman’s husband. Not only was he dead, but he had fair hair which was quite unlike the dark locks on the fellow assailing the widow.

We watched the scene for a while. Once we’d had enough, we crept backwards like villains in a play. When we were at a safe distance, we did an about-face and I said to Martin Barton: ‘That puts paid to your idea of writing an elegy. Alice Leman has better things to do with her time than lament a dead husband.’

‘Not at all, Nick,’ said Martin. ‘She’ll feel guilty as sin after a while and welcome a lament.’

‘Who was that man with her?’

‘I believe it was the household steward, Jack Corner.’

I remembered the individual, thin as a rail, who’d been keeping company with Mr and Mrs Leman outside Davy Owen’s bookshop. I remembered the way he’d been gazing at her. It is not unknown for stewards to enjoy a liaison with the lady of the house and, for every one who succeeds, there may be a dozen who aspire to it. The only surprising thing was the speed with which the affair was being consummated.

Then two or three things happened at once. We were about halfway down the path beside the house and, believing that the couple in the arbour were fully occupied, did not trouble to keep our voices down as much as we should. But the silence from that quarter might have told us that they were finished and more at leisure to pay attention to their surroundings. Then I was seized with a fit of sneezing. Something spring-like and itchy – the memory of the rosemary on the arbour lattice or a different plant beside the path – got up my nose, and I was convulsed with atishoos. At the same instant a person appeared at the point where the path met the courtyard at the front of the house. He halted when he saw us. There were shouts from our rear, a man and a woman. It was the steward and the widow.

Martin Barton and I took to our heels. As we neared the individual standing at the corner of the house, we swerved to avoid him, one on either side. But in all the confusion Martin and I managed to strike him a blow on each shoulder so that he tumbled backwards to the ground and almost took us with him. Though my eyes were still blurry from the sneezing fit, I recognized Davy Owen. He was carrying a rectangular box that flew out of his hands and up over his head, landing with a crack on the paving of the courtyard. Without thinking, I stooped to pick it up. I don’t know why. Perhaps I was intending to return it to the St Paul’s yard bookseller out of some sense of guilt. But there came more cries from behind us and Martin tugged at my sleeve to urge me on. We made for the entrance.

Alerted by the noise, the porter was too quick for us and, stepping out of his lodge, he slammed shut the door and stood there, arms folded and a grin on his face. Meantime, more figures had emerged from the house and were approaching Martin and me at a diagonal. We slowed, then halted, uncertain where to go next.

I glanced down at the box cradled in my arms. Made of wood but reinforced with metal at the corners, the box had been damaged by the force with which it had struck the ground. A panel on the top was cracked. The case was large enough to contain, say, a pair of pistols. But it was not pistols that I could glimpse through the splintered wood.

By now we were surrounded by the occupants of Pride House: Mistress Leman, her steward Jack Corner, the gatekeeper and several servants dressed in yellow livery. I noticed that Alice Leman and Corner looked flustered, with their clothes in slight disarray, but I suppose that could have been accounted for by their haste to raise the alarm. I also noticed Alice looking curiously at Martin Barton, as though she half-recognized him. Even so, it’s possible we might have bluffed our way out of the place if it hadn’t been for Davy Owen. He remembered us very well and, with the indignity of being tumbled on his back all too apparent on his face, he drew near.

‘It is you,’ he said. ‘I thought it was you. A pair of rogues, you are. Give me back my property.’

He made to grab the case but I turned away and clutched it tighter. It was a pointless gesture. Martin and I could easily have been overpowered, and the box seized from my hands, but we had not yet reached the moment of physical force. We weren’t exactly intruders – we’d been freely admitted by the gatekeeper – but neither were we welcome guests. Martin did a little bow and said: ‘My condolences, madam, on the death of your husband.’

Alice Leman looked surprised as if she’d already forgotten about her husband. Then she recovered herself and said: ‘Thank you, Mr…?’

‘Martin Barton. Of the Blackfriars Children.’

‘That is where I have seen you.’

‘And I you,’ said Martin, all self-possession now. ‘You and your husband.’

To give the widow credit, she did not indulge in any false tears or long faces. ‘Well, my husband is gone. But I am here. Who are you?’

‘Nicholas Revill, a player with the King’s Men. I too am sorry to hear of your loss. In the Tower, wasn’t it?’

I said this to prompt her to some expression of regret, although all she said was: ‘A sad misfortune but an accident. Those animals!’

For an instant I thought she was referring to men behaving like beasts but, of course, she meant the lions that might have killed Leonard Leman. This was the story that would now be put about. She never asked how we had come by the news, and that in itself was odd. As was the arrival at Pride House of Davy Owen with his box. Or my box at the moment.

Jack Corner the steward coughed to draw attention to himself. He said: ‘My Lady, we do not need to stand here listening to a couple of players.’

‘I am no player but a playwright and poet,’ said Martin, at which Corner wafted his hand as if the distinction was meaningless, while Davy Owen put in: ‘Calls himself a playwright – oh, and a satirist too. He does not like the Welsh.’

‘We know something of the death of your husband,’ I said to Mrs Leman.

She glanced about at the servants standing at a respectful distance before saying: ‘It is hot out here and tempers are getting frayed. We should all go indoors.’

So we did.

VI

We assembled in a large chamber on the upper floor of Pride House. It was a tense, uneasy gathering even after the servants had been dismissed. I was still clutching the wooden box. Davy Owen kept his eyes on it rather than on anything or anyone else, but he did not attempt to wrest it from me. Jack Corner, whose height was made more apparent by a small head, regarded Martin and me with hostility. Alice Leman, meanwhile, seemed divided between curiosity and suspicion.

‘What do you know of my husband’s death, Mr Revill?’

‘Nothing directly, madam. But an associate of ours was present when it happened, and he says that others were there too. He doubts that it was an accident.’

‘Then let him come forward and speak out,’ said the widow. ‘We have nothing to fear.’

We? Presumably she was referring to herself and her steward. Was it known in the household that they were lying together? Certainly there’d been nothing very secret about the cut and thrust in the arbour despite the fact that it was taking place within hours of Leman’s death.

‘Nothing to fear? Not even a charge of murder?’ I said.

Jack Corner took a step forward at that. An angry red spot burned high in each cheek. Mrs Leman put out a hand to restrain him and he halted. In that gesture and response were everything we needed to know: their closeness, her influence over him, his deference to her.

‘Why do you say murder, Mr Revill?’

‘Because I am holding here a box of bones and for some reason it makes me think of violence and sudden death. What are you doing bearing a box of bones, Davy Owen?’

I shook it, and inside the box the bones I’d glimpsed through the splintered panel rattled away. Having made this display, there seemed little point in holding on to the container any longer. It was heavy and, besides, an unpleasant odour was rising from it. I held it out to Owen.

‘This is none of your business,’ said the Welshman, snatching it from me.

‘We came to you in quest of bones, I remember,’ said Martin Barton.

‘You got a dusty answer.’

‘You sent us to Bernardo Scoto.’

I noticed the look that passed between Alice Leman and her steward at that. They obviously knew the man from Mantua. But then of course Edmund Shakespeare had seen Mr and Mrs Leman, together with Owen, going to Scoto’s house before they went on to the Tower animals. What was going on here? I was baffled.

‘To be round with you, Mrs Leman,’ I said, ‘it was you who were seen close to the scene of your husband’s death in the Tower.’

‘I was there, I admit it. My husband was drawn towards the Tower animals. They were a magnet to him. Like our king, he enjoyed watching the strange beasts. I sometimes accompanied him and our steward too. We were there yesterday evening. I grew tired, however, and found the air close and nauseous. So I left my husband to admire the animals by himself and returned home with Master Corner for company. I do not know exactly what happened after I left, but, with Leonard, valour or curiosity must have got the better part of discretion and he wandered too close to the beasts. He was savaged by the lions, was he not?’

This was remarkable. If she was telling the truth and had not been there at the moment of her husband’s death, she could have heard the news only this morning. Yet she spoke in such even tones that she might have been talking about a stranger who had carelessly fallen victim to the lions. But then perhaps she was not very fond of her husband. Perhaps her attentions had long ago shifted in the direction of Jack Corner, who now so far forgot discretion as to put a soothing hand on her arm. Even if Martin and I hadn’t witnessed them at it, we would have known them for lovers. Yet surely lovers, if they had carried out a murder, would put on a show of grief to allay suspicion? That they were not doing so could be construed as proof of innocence. Or indifference. Or brazenness.

‘Is a little sorrow in order, madam?’ I said. ‘I ask only because, not being married myself, I am not sure how these things are carried on between husband and wife.’

‘They are carried on as they are carried on, Mr Revill. Be sure that you will be the first to know when I want to advertise my sorrow.’

Almost despite myself I was impressed by her cold dignity. There was nothing more we would be allowed to discover here. I said farewell to Mrs Leman, and Martin Barton made a more elaborate goodbye to her. We nodded to the steward called Corner and ignored Davy Owen, who was still keeping watch over his bone-box. No one tried to stop us leaving.

Martin and I said nothing until we’d made our exit from Pride House, crossed the courtyard and passed under the gaze of the supercilious gatekeeper.

‘We shall get no further with them,’ said Martin when we were back in the Strand. He was echoing my thoughts. ‘Maybe it is as Mistress Leman says: her husband walked too close to the lions and paid for it with his life.’

‘It’s a story that would suit everyone. But there was mischief going on in the Tower. Edmund Shakespeare did not beat himself up.’

‘And then there is that Welsh bookseller and his box of bones. You saw them, Nicholas?’

‘Indistinctly – but they were bones, yes.’

‘Human bones?’

‘I suppose so. How could I tell?’

How could I tell? They might have been not human but animal. It was rumoured that what passed for the relics of saints in their crystal or metal settings were often no more than bones of sheep. I thought of the bone that Edmund Shakespeare had given to William and which had been supplied by Davy Owen, the large bone I’d assumed came from a human limb, even one of King Arthur’s. I remembered the unicorn horn hanging from the ceiling in Scoto’s den. That was nothing human. So where would one go for large, queerly shaped items of bone?

‘What?’ I said. Martin Barton had made some comment.

‘I said, I would like to cause trouble for Mr Owen.’

‘Because he is Welsh? Because he referred in a less-than-respectful way to your trade of writing?’

‘I do not rise above malice,’ said Barton as if claiming some special virtue.

There was certainly something unsettled, as well as unsettling, about the situation. We returned to Barton’s lodgings and found Edmund recovered from his bad night and ready for action.

A notion was taking shape in my head, and I outlined to the others what we might do.

A few hours later we were sitting in the Black Swan, the tavern close to the narrow-windowed house at the corner of Tower Street. From our position in the front room of the Swan we could keep watch on Scoto’s place. We were not rewarded until late in the afternoon, when we saw our old friend Davy Owen approaching the house. I half-expected him to be bearing books or bones, but he was carrying nothing.

Owen must have been a very welcome visitor for instead of knocking he was about to let himself in with a key which he retrieved from his jerkin. He would have done so had not I, closely followed by Martin and Edmund, raced out of the tavern to intercept the bookseller at the front door.

Davy Owen looked alarmed and, rather than fumble with the key, he banged on the door to be let in. That was a mistake, because it was opened almost straight away by Nano, the dwarfish attendant. Together with Owen, we jostled ourselves inside and stood in the hallway. There was an awkward silence. I had impressed on the others that we must not resort to force. Now I said, not to the little servant but to the bookseller: ‘Forgive this intrusion, but we must speak to Scoto of Mantua. Tell him that we know the truth, about the bones and the king and the Lemans. Tell him that we have uncovered a plot and that we must see him now, even if he does claim to be a creature of the night.’

Owen nodded and scuttled off down the passage, disappearing into its far shadows. Meantime, Nano planted himself across our path and folded his arms. The three of us could have bowled him over, but it would have felt like attacking a child. Besides, he looked as though he might have put up a good fight.

After a time, and as if he were obeying some hidden signal, Nano stood to one side and with mock ceremony bowed us through. Once again, Edmund, Martin and I approached Scoto’s den at the end of the passage. We knocked and were bidden to enter. Inside, there was no way of guessing the time of day from the smoky, ill-lit interior.

The Italian was sitting at his desk as before, his head covered with a cap and his shape largely concealed by the mantle with its cabbalistic symbols.

‘You ’ave something to tell me,’ he said. ‘Il segreto.’

‘It is to do with King Arthur’s bones,’ I said, appointing myself as speaker. ‘As you know, this gentleman here purchased one from a bookseller friend of yours – where is Davy Owen, by the way?’

‘Signor Owen?’ said Scoto, as if he’d never come across the name before. ‘’e is about the ’ouse.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I think he is sitting right in front of us.’

I took a couple of steps forward and, greatly daring, snatched the cap off Scoto’s head. He clapped his hand over his scalp but not before the distinctive arrow-shaped pattern of hair was revealed.

It was Davy Owen. He stood up. His eyes flicked from one to another of us. Seeing that denial was useless, he said in an accent that substituted a Welsh lilt for the Italian cadence: ‘My congratulations, Mr Revill. How did you guess?’

‘The fact that the two of you were never seen together, the fact that Martin Barton here said that your voice was wrong for a citizen of Mantua, the fact that I’m a player and can usually tell when someone’s acting a part. Your speech was seeded with Italian phrases, Mr Owen, like flowers in a garden, all carefully set out for the sake of ornament.’

‘Well, well,’ said Owen. ‘I am uncovered in both senses. You may give me back my cap now.’

I did so. Martin and Edmund were looking at Owen (or Scoto) in surprise. Whatever turn of events they’d expected, it wasn’t this. I was surprised too, for I had only been half-convinced by my own reasoning.

Owen resumed his cap and became Scoto once more. He went back to his place behind the desk while we three stood before him, half-suppliants, half-accusers.

‘What is the point of this deception?’ said Martin.

‘Deception? Can a man not have two lives, can he not pursue two trades? Due mestieri. As a bookseller I have something of a line in herbals, while as a practitioner of the art I prepare and administer them. Under one name I stand with my own race and am proud to be Welsh. In the other part I assume the guise of an Italian. It’s better for trade, you see.’

‘Trade must be pretty good, judging by this house and your premises in St Paul’s yard,’ I said. ‘But you don’t just deal in herbs and remedies, Signor Davy; you also handle stolen goods.’

‘Nothing stolen. Only what is rightfully acquired.’

‘Then, if not stolen, you are attempting to pass off one thing as another. It’s a type of forgery. You get bones from the dead animals in the Tower and you claim that they are the remnants of fabulous creatures – the unicorn up there, for example, or the mermaid’s ribs.’

I gestured overhead, where the bones were suspended. The man in the cap and cloak raised his arms.

‘Where is the harm in that? It is no great imposture. Have you never visited a fair where the monsters are exhibited, Mr Revill? Do you think that woman behind the curtain really has two heads or that the fish-man is covered with genuine scales?’

‘The harm comes when you try to pass off some animal bones not as a unicorn’s or a mermaid’s but as a great king’s. When you are selling them to Leonard Leman because he wishes to curry favour with King James and knows that one sure way of doing that would be to present the monarch with Arthur’s remains.’

‘I had those bones from a different source,’ said Owen. ‘I know that they are real. For I am Welsh, you know, and Arthur was of our tribe.’

‘Perhaps some of the bones are real, but I think that you grew greedy and were prepared to use any old bones you came across. You sold one to my friend Edmund here and he in turn gave it to someone else. The Lemans found out you’d disposed of one and were angry with you. We saw you arguing the other day outside your shop. The argument continued last night at the Tower. Perhaps it turned violent. At any rate, Leonard Leman is dead.’

‘Not by my hand.’

‘Then whose?’

Davy Owen, who was also Bernardo Scoto of Mantua, hesitated for a moment. He looked wildly about the chamber. He was no longer the mysterious Italian mountebank or the canny Welsh bookseller. He was simply desperate to save his skin.

‘It was the good lady, Alice Leman! She and that steward of hers. You must have seen the way they were acting towards each other this morning. They could not wait until the husband was cold in his grave. They had no interest in Arthur’s bones or anyone else’s bones. No one’s bones except their own, which they want to grind against each other without let or hindrance.’

‘You are lying!’

The tapestry, which stood against the left-hand wall, stirred and for a moment I thought one of the strange, demonic figures on it had spoken. My hair prickled. But there must have been another, secret entrance into the room that way. And a recess behind the tapestry to allow for eavesdroppers. From behind the arras there entered Alice Leman. She strode across to Owen.

‘I have been listening to every lying word, Davy. Nano let me in, thinking I had come on business. I have always been a friend to Nano and so he is a friend to me. I heard voices coming from here and thought I would see who your visitors were. And hear what tales you were spinning. Just like the tales you spun to my husband. The king’s bones, indeed! It is a fable.’

‘No fable,’ protested Owen. ‘The bones – some of the bones – are real.’

‘As real as your accusation of murder. Gentlemen-’ she turned towards us ‘-what I told you this morning is the truth, if not quite all of it. We went to the Tower yesterday evening. I won’t conceal from you that my late husband had business there, business that I did not approve of.’

‘I was there too,’ said Edmund Shakespeare. It was the first time he’d spoken. ‘I was attacked. I bear the marks.’

Mrs Leman nodded. ‘I regret that. My husband was fearful of some trap and my… steward… believed he had caught a spy, who was set on rather ferociously.’

‘It was I,’ said Edmund. ‘I was dragged down to the animal yard.’

‘That was none of my doing. I and Mr Corner left soon afterwards. As I said, I was nauseous. Not so much because of the air in that place as because I wanted nothing more to do with what was happening. It is not I or Mr Corner who should be accused of murder but this gentleman here, this bookseller, this mountebank. I want nothing more to do with him. We are returning the fresh bones that he brought to Pride House this morning.’

She raised her voice slightly and, on cue, a second figure stepped out from behind the arras. Really, this was as good as a play for its disguises, surprises and improbable entrances. This time it was Jack Corner. He was carrying the battered wooden box. He walked across to Owen and tipped the contents into his lap.

‘I didn’t do it! It was the lions!’ said Davy. ‘They savaged Leman to death. We quarrelled, true, but it was the lions did for your husband!’

‘They may have done their own work,’ said the widow, ‘but be sure you led the way with your knife. I may not be in a great state of grief for my husband, but I would not stoop to murder.’

Davy Owen’s nerve broke. The presence of five accusers was too much. He leaped up, scattering fragments of bone, and bolted past us to the door. It was some moments before we gathered our wits and set off in pursuit. There was no sign of Nano, but the open front door gave clear sign of where his master had gone.

The sun was beginning to go down, but we saw the still-cloaked-and-capped figure running up Tower Hill and then swerving to the left down Petty Wales. I wondered why he was doing this, then realized that it was probably the most direct route to the river. He would have to run down the flank of the Tower, the same path I’d taken that very morning.

We – Edmund, Jack Corner and I – were a couple of hundred yards behind Owen, with Martin Barton and Alice Leman bringing up the rear. He could not escape us, unless he managed to get a ferry across the river and lose himself in the meadows on the far side.

In blind panic Davy Owen ran alongside the Tower wall and across the quay where I had been standing earlier that day. He disappeared over the edge, down the steps. We reached the brink and halted. The tide was going out again.

We saw Davy Owen blundering and squelching across the mud and stone, head down, scarcely conscious of where he was going but doubtless hoping to reach the river and a ferryman.

There were no ferrymen in sight, but the bear was there, sitting by the water’s edge, its yellowy-white coat distinct on the grey foreshore. For all I know it had been sitting there the whole day long, trying to catch fish. There was still no sign of any keeper.

We gazed, horrified, as Davy Owen blundered bear-wards. When he was almost on top of the creature he realized where he was and slid to a stop. Too late! He toppled back in the mud and slime and the animal reared up. Perhaps it was aggrieved that it had spent a day in the sun without a catch. Perhaps it craved human company. Perhaps it wanted vengeance for years of captivity or had been maddened by them. Whatever the reason, it started towards Davy Owen as if to pursue the unfortunate Welshman. It swung one of its mighty paws against his head and I swear we heard the dull clout from where we stood on top of the quay.

Davy Owen swayed and then fell face down in the mud and lay still. If the blow had not killed him, then he would surely be stifled in the mud. The bear dropped back on all fours and, as far as the chain securing it to the stake would permit, snuffed around the body. I could imagine its breath, hot and stinky. Davy Owen did not move. After a time the bear resumed its sitting position by the water, although it no longer splashed its paws in the water. For some reason I felt sorry, not for the (surely) dead man but for the bear.

We stayed where we were, now joined by Martin and Mrs Leman, not certain what to do next.

VII

But there was nothing for us to do and, when a few passersby gathered to look at the dead man and the white bear, we walked away.

You may be interested to hear what happened to the few characters in this story. The death of Leonard Leman was accounted an accident. Maybe Davy Owen had killed him, maybe it was the lions. Rather like the famous Roman, Julius Caesar, the one-time favourite of Queen Elizabeth had been struck and gouged many times, and it was not possible to say who had done what, whether animal or human. All things considered, it was better to blame the lions. Nothing would happen to them; the king was too fond of his creatures. So the (more or less) blameless Alice Leman duly married her steward, Jack Corner, and they are established at Pride House. She took the dwarfish Nano into her employment.

Martin Barton continues to write his satires and grows more carping as he grows more successful. Edmund Shakespeare began to plough a kind of furrow as a player with his brother’s company, with us, with the King’s Men, and he was not doing too badly before things were brought to a premature close. Edmund had already been ploughing another kind of furrow. The woman I’d seen hanging about his ears at the Mermaid tavern bore him a child in the summer of the following year. You remember the one who was called Dolly or Polly, the one with dark curling hair and the big tits? Edmund was ready enough to acknowledge the child as his – which, in itself, marked him out as a decent enough fellow for a player – but the little thing lasted no longer than a few weeks. And the father followed a few months later, dying in the December of 1607. William Shakespeare paid to have the great bell at St Saviour’s in Southwark rung in his memory. I am not sure how far WS lamented his brother’s passing, and if Edmund hadn’t been a Shakespeare I don’t suppose anyone else apart from Dolly or Polly would have given him more than a passing thought or tear either.

Before any of this, we gave a selective account of what had happened to William Shakespeare, Edmund and I. We included the bear. We could hardly have left the bear out, for the fatal attack on an innocent bookseller was briefly the talk of London. We also mentioned some of the other mischief but not the whole story. WS probably guessed there was more to it, but he didn’t press us. He did not even ask how Edmund had acquired the great bump on his forehead. We were sitting in his Silver Street lodgings, drinking, chatting. I was curious about WS’s plan to write a play on the matter of Britain and King Arthur. I recalled that both the bone and some pages of his manuscript had gone missing. Stolen? It seemed not.

‘My landlady took the bone. She thought it was an unhealthy thing to have in her house, and perhaps she was right. I am sorry, Edmund, since you presented it to me, but I fear it has ended up in some midden.’

WS did not seem unduly concerned by the fate of the relic, while Edmund too was unbothered. He seemed more pleased to be in WS’s good books.

‘And the sheets of manuscript?’ I persisted.

‘Nothing sinister, Nick. They must have blown out of the window. I found a few in the garden below. The ink had run and the snails had left silver tracks across them. I think I shall take it as a sign.’

‘A sign?’

‘That I should not pursue the subject of King Arthur. It is a doomed idea, or at least it is not one for me.’

‘I have an idea for a play, William,’ said Edmund. ‘Or for an incident in a play. It would be exciting. A man chased by a bear.’

WS gazed at his brother in disbelief. ‘Chased by a bear? And caught? And eaten? Like that unfortunate bookseller on the Thames.’

‘He wasn’t eaten,’ I said.

‘Good,’ said WS. ‘As I get older I find I am less inclined to put violence and horror on stage. Leave that to the rising generation.’

‘You could have the bear chase the man offstage,’ said Edmund. ‘Then you wouldn’t have to witness anything unpleasant. Sounds only. Cries. Crunching.’

‘Exit pursued by a bear?’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ll think on it,’ said WS.