Prince

Chapter 40

‘ Where are you taking me, brother?’

‘To a place of agreeable entertainment and good beer.’

‘The playhouses are all closed while the plague persists, Will.’

‘Well then we cannot go to the playhouse. Patience, John.’

They were mounted, walking their horses slowly through the evening streets northwards along Bishop’s Gate Street. Arriving at the gate, Will halted and looked about. ‘Are we being followed? You have better eyes.’

Shakespeare hesitated. Were they safe? Normally he had an instinct for such things; the shadow that lingered too long against the wall, the man who moved against the flow and stopped too frequently. But in this teeming throng, nothing was clear. And his thoughts had not entirely been occupied with the ride. ‘I have no reason to believe so,’ was all he could say.

‘Then let us rein in across the road at yonder inn, have water brought to our parched horses and share a jug of beer together.’

‘Very well.’

They trotted into the stable-yard adjoining the Dolphin Inn, just north of the Bishop’s Gate. From the outside, it seemed a poor sort of place, with daub breaking away from the walls. The sign of an arched dolphin was in sad repair and needed repainting. Shakespeare wondered why his brother should have brought him to such a hostelry, for it would not have been his first choice of tavern or inn for a pleasant summer’s evening drink.

The two watchers nodded to each other. One turned his horse’s head, then peeled away and rode south. The other dismounted and found a tethering post for his mare.

The taproom was gloomy and almost full of drinkers. Will signalled to a serving girl to bring them beer.

As Shakespeare’s eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, he spotted a somewhat soulful face that he knew: Richard Burbage, the acclaimed player who had been with Will in Deptford at the time of the Marlowe inquest. He nudged his brother to point him out. Will simply nodded in acknowledgement. And then Shakespeare noticed that Burbage was talking with the poet and playmaker George Peele, who had also been there at Deptford. Suddenly, he realised that everyone in this room was a player or manager or somehow involved in the playhouses of London and beyond. Ambitious young Thomas Dekker, Philip Henslowe the money man, good Edward Alleyn, Marlowe’s old friend and collaborator George Chapman. Even Will Kempe was there, smiling again, jesting with his friends and fellows. Most surprising of all was the presence of Thomas Walsingham, nephew of the late Sir Francis, patron of Marlowe and sometime acquaintance of the three men in the room with him when he died.

‘Will, what is this? Some sort of convention or council of players and playmakers?’

‘Each and every one, John. All here knew and admired Kit Marlowe’s work, though it would be false to suggest that all liked him. You will find men of all the great players’ companies here — the Admiral’s Men, Pembroke’s Men, Lord Strange’s Men and others. Some have come away from their tours for this evening’s entertainment.’

In the corner, Shakespeare spotted Thomas Kyd, hunched forward on a straight-backed chair.

Will caught his brother’s eye. ‘He cannot walk. His body is broken by the tortures, but he demanded to be here. His friends carried him here in a cart, most painfully.’

Shakespeare was unnerved by his brother’s talk. Whatever their motive for being here, this was a secret convocation, a meeting that Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels, would be happy to break up with sword, hagbut and mace. And he would doubtless have the full backing of the city aldermen and some of the more Puritan-minded men on the Privy Council. ‘I say again, Will, what is this?’

‘You fret, John. Come and talk with Kyd. Discover what has been done to him.’

‘No. I will not talk with him. He has lately been in Bridewell, hard-questioned over certain seditious papers. I cannot say hale fellow to him.’

‘Very well. But I must say to you that I have made a pledge to every one of these men here gathered that you will not tell a soul who you have seen here this day. You may tell the world what you see and we will thank you for it, but not the names. If you cannot abide by such a pledge, then leave now. If, however, you wish to understand why Kit Marlowe was killed, then stay.

Shakespeare breathed deeply. His mouth was set. What in God’s name had his brother got into? Whatever it was, he could not leave him here to take the consequences alone. ‘Very well, I will stay. But do not try me too hard, Will.’

Will smiled. ‘Come with me, and I shall show you to your seat in the yard. The performance will be starting very soon.’

The backyard of the hostelry was bounded by a high wall, along which a low stage had been erected with screens to either side. Before it, there was one stool.

‘There, John, is your seat. You are about to watch a play called The White Dog. It was the last thing ever written by Christopher Marlowe. It may never be seen again after this evening, but all gathered here believe it must be performed, if only this once. Please, John, take your seat.’

‘This performance is all for my benefit?’

‘No. It benefits all. The whole world of playmaking. All who believe in virtue and civility.’

‘And will we all lose our heads?’

‘All the men here know the risks they run. They merely have to gaze on the fractured body of Tom Kyd and consider the fate of Kit himself to know what ills may befall them. But I think we will not lose our heads. Not if we stand together. For without us, who would entertain the royal court?’

Shakespeare laughed. It was true enough. The Queen would not allow anything to come between her and the pleasure she took from plays and masques, however indignant such things might make the Puritans. ‘And if I am sitting here, alone, where will you be, Will?’

‘I am the chorus, I will provide the prologue. Sit. Drink your beer. And allow us a few errors, for we have had no rehearsal.’

Shakespeare sat down. Despite the obvious peril, he felt light in the head, as though he had not slept enough or had had too much strong liquor. What could worry him? It was a pleasant summer’s evening and he was here to watch a play by the estimable Christopher Marlowe. Accompanied by Catherine, he had in the past taken pleasure in Mr Marlowe’s Tamburlaine. What care could he have now, on such a balmy evening, with such a good company of men and the scent of summer flowers in the evening air? What fear should he have for his own life, with Catherine gone?

For five minutes he sat and drank his beer, aware of the bustle and hum of players about the screens. He found himself thinking of Baines’s betrayal of Marlowe. It seemed probable to him now that Baines, alias Laveroke, had used Marlowe to divert attention away from himself. In writing his vile note of all Marlowe’s alleged blasphemies and seditions, he was shifting suspicion to another. He could not afford to be brought in for questioning when he had a conspiracy to organise, and when the plot was at such a critical stage. He had gone to great lengths to implicate Marlowe, signing the Dutch church posters Tamburlaine and writing in The London Informer as Tamburlaine’s Apostle. The ploy had worked for Baines. But why had it cost Marlowe’s life? That was still not clear. Perhaps this play would shed light into the dark crevice that was Ellie Bull’s room of pleasures.

At last there was a hush and Will appeared, alone, in centre stage. He bowed to his brother, then spoke in a firm voice with no book of lines or paper to aid him.

‘The White Dog,’ he announced, ‘a play in two acts, by Christopher Marlowe.’ He stared at his brother gravely, but with a lightness of tone in his voice as though addressing a packed audience in the Rose.

‘Two realms within one border, one stained by blood and savage brutishness, the other exulting life, beauty and nature. Two realms, intertwined like a briar, full of bloody thorns, yet perfumed by the wild rose. Two realms, one of dark, one of light, and ruled by one sovereign.

‘In this land a feral dog runs free. Its maw drips pain, its teeth are as poisonous as any adder’s. When it is near, slavering through the streets, honest householders cower behind locked doors, for this dread cur has the mark of death all about its chill white fur.

‘Rabid, lethal, cruel, unspeakable, it is fit for nothing but the slaughter knife. Yet none dare destroy it, for this selfsame monarch of the twin realms claims ownership of the baleful mastiff, loves it like a child, and will hear no ill of it.

‘The dog has manlike appearance, metamorphosed as Apuleius’s golden ass reversed. It stands on two legs not four, nor has it tail. But be not deceived, for this beast is not a man. Though it take human form on this our humble stage, yet it is a dog, as you shall determine from its fangs as sharp as any wolf, its bark as wretched as any plague animal. This is our scene, this roundel the realm entire. Forgive us our poor bowl, but travel in your fancy, if you will, to a dungeon in the city of Nodnol. Enter, the white dog…’

As Will bowed low and retreated towards one of the screens, a squat man dressed all in black, yet with a shock of white hair, appeared from the side, dragging chains. He had a pipe in his mouth that belched forth tobacco fumes, and at his side, hunched and unctuous was a boy with slimed hair, rubbing his hands.

‘Where is this cat, Nick? Has it yet purred?’

‘It is racked, master, racked. It will not purr, though I stretch it into a leopard.’

From the other side of the stage, two men carried a young man, prostrate upon a wooden door, his arms above him with ties bound to nails, his feet likewise bound to the other end of the door.

The white-haired man looked at it closely. ‘You are certain it is a cat, Nick?’

‘Aye, master, for it has whiskers.’

‘Yet it will not admit it is a cat? Then tighten the rollers, stretch it yet more.’

‘I fear it may be dead, master.’

‘Then beat it!’

Shakespeare understood. This was about Topcliffe. The white dog dragging his chains was the torturer himself. The boy Nick at his side was his vicious young assistant Nicholas Jones. The cat on the rack was every poor Popish priest or playmaker such as Thomas Kyd or any other innocent who had ever crossed his path and ended up in his stinking chamber of torment. It was a play written as a comedy, but the humour to anyone who knew of Topcliffe was as black as a moonless night. Shakespeare sat, immovable, as if clamped in a pillory.

And then the dark humour vanished and only brutality remained. The story told was so grotesque as to make Tamburlaine and his conquests seem a light, sugared confection by comparison.

The White Dog was a tale of a brute so grown in pride and arrogance that he took sovereign powers unto himself. As Tamburlaine had been a tale of conquest after conquest, so this was a story of horror after horror. It was, too, a damning indictment of all who let the white dog go about his blood-lusting business unchecked.

Here in the cast, all too recognisable, was Heneage, there Cecil and his father Burghley. And Essex and Effingham and Ralegh and Francis Walsingham and Buckhurst and Whitgift and long-dead Leicester. No one in power escaped Marlowe’s savage satire. For these men stood aside and watched, muttering at the side of the stage, as the white dog disembowelled a tailor for making a doublet for a priest. They covered their eyes and ears and mouths with their hands as the white dog — Topcliffe — accepted payment to torture a family to death so that their kin might inherit their estates. They giggled and jested among themselves as the slavering beast raped a poor girl and demanded lands from her family. They washed their hands in water as he washed his in blood.

Yet the most bitter denunciation of all was saved for the monarch of these twin realms of good and evil. Though the sovereign was not named, nor even made clear whether it was king or queen, yet all who had eyes to see and ears to hear would know that it was Elizabeth, and that it was she that allowed the white dog its freedom, revelling in the tales of all its sordid doings.

Shakespeare sat and watched it all. He was bathed in sweat, not from the warmth of the evening but from the sheer sickening horror and force of the drama. He felt physically ill. His throat was parched, though he had drunk three pints, and his eyes were sore from not blinking.

And then, as the drama drew to its heart-stopping conclusion, with the crucifixion of the priest Robert Southwell — a notorious poet and Jesuit languishing in the Tower — the white dog himself arrived.