The Sacred stone

Act Five

London, 1606

This was the worst hangover ever, no question. It was not only the sour taste in my mouth or the pulse throbbing in my head or the cast-iron sensation in my limbs. It was the way the bed kept swaying. I was lying on my back, and I feared that if I opened my eyes — something I wasn’t planning to do for a year or two — then I would see the dingy ceiling of my bedchamber in Tooley Street swooping and plunging above my head like a giant, demented bird.

Fortunately, I had no reason to open my eyes. No reason at all since it was night-time. There was a deep blackness beyond the glow-worms flitting across my inner eyelids. I felt justified in sinking back into a fume-filled slumber with the hope that when I awoke again, after a millennium or two, I might feel more like myself, more like Nick Revill.

Nick Revill of the King’s Men… a company of players whose home is the Globe Theatre… which is an edifice in Southwark… which is a borough on the South Bank of the Thames. The South Bank? The unrespectable side, I hear you say. All those brothels and bear-pits and taverns and prisons. But what I say back to you is this: despite our brothels and bear-pits, we have some famous people for friends. Take the King, for example. Yes, King James — the first of that name to rule over England (but the sixth of that name in his native Scotland) — he is our patron. And William Shakespeare, he’s one of our shareholders as well as our chief writer. He is famous, our Mr Shakespeare. You have heard of him, haven’t you…?

Rambling on like this to myself, I must have slipped back into an alcoholic stupor. I could even hear the sound of my own snoring, an odd effect. When I came to myself once more, the throbbing in my head had eased, and my limbs felt less like pieces of cast-iron. It was still the middle of the night, though. Blackness pressed against my eyelids, while the bed I lay on continued to sway gently as if I was afloat on a sea of ale.

And at that moment a doubt started to burrow into my clotted brain. I pinched at the material beneath my splayed hand. The fustian bedding supplied by my landlady, Mrs Ellis, might not be of the highest quality, but it was less coarse than what I now felt at my fingers’ ends. Mrs Ellis’s mattress would probably not have been good enough for the King of England (and Scotland) but it was a nest of luxury compared with what I was currently lying on.

I sniffed the air. I was used to the smell of my bedchamber, the mouldy odour of the plaster, the faint taint of soot in the air. I could smell damp here, too, but it was a different and more bracing style of damp. There was no sootiness in the air, either. Alert now, I strained my ears but heard nothing familiar. No ringing church bells, no neighbourly cries, no sound of cartwheels rising up from my street, Tooley Street. Instead, there were ominous creaking noises and what sounded like rain gurgling down the street-kennels. A lot of rain.

Only now did I dare to open my eyes, but slowly, as if afraid of what I was about to see. It was so dim that I sensed rather than saw a low wooden ceiling with cracks and empty knot-holes that admitted a little daylight. Only a little light but sufficient to reveal that, wherever I was, it was not my top-floor bedchamber in Tooley Street. And the explanation, which I had been holding at bay for many minutes, now flooded in on me.

The continuous rocking motion was explained. So, too, were those creaks and gurgles. My God, how had I woken up on a boat? How, in the name of Christ, had I come to board a boat in the first place? And not one of those ferries that plies the Thames under the command of a foul-mouthed boatman, but a proper vessel equipped for the open seas! How did I know all this? I struggled to put together the fragments of the previous evening but the effort was too great.

I shut my eyes more quickly than I’d opened them. Maybe if I kept them closed for long enough, then the whole scene would disappear. Maybe when I looked again I would be restored, body and soul, to Tooley Street. But the brain, which had been befuddled, now began to bring back the circumstances that had landed me on a seagoing vessel. A vessel called…? Let me see. Yes, the Argo. That was it. I could hear the man saying it. What was his name? Case, yes, Jonathan Case. I could hear Case saying, ‘My craft is the Argo. You’re an educated man, Mr Revill. You recognize the name, don’t you? The Argo. The vessel that Jason commanded in his quest for the golden fleece of antiquity.’

That was what Case had said, or as near as I can recall. After that, everything went a bit hazy — although in truth it had been hazy enough before.

With eyes still closed, I tried to put events in order, to make some sense of how I’d come to be on board the Argo. Because that was surely where I was, lying awkwardly in a swaying berth, listening to the groans of the ship’s timbers and the gurgling waters as they rushed past inches from where I lay. Was I already at sea? The thought was almost too terrifying to contemplate. Instead, I clung to the notion of land, dry land.

The previous evening I had definitely been on dry land. Very dry land indeed. Legal land, since we of the King’s Men were performing William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in that den of lawyers, the Middle Temple. It was springtime, and although Twelfth Night may seem unseasonal it is a play for all times and every audience.

We’ve performed in the Middle Temple on previous occasions, and I have to say that the fledgling lawmen make for a coarser and more noisy audience than the groundlings at the Globe. Since they were well-off and educated, that’s what you would expect. Unlike the groundlings, the young lawyers did not stand on their hind legs but rather perched on bum-numbing benches in the well of the dining hall while their seniors — benchers and serjeants-at-law and the like — were enthroned on a dais at the opposite end to our makeshift stage. Many of these were in the company of lady guests, whose incessant chatter did not signify much interest in anything we poor players were up to. Don’t get me wrong. We were pleased enough with the audience. They paid well, and the men among them were (or soon would be) people of influence. More than other trades, players need friends in high places.

We had an especially elevated guest this evening. It was the French legate, the ambassador to England, a gentleman by the name of Antoine le Fevre de la Broderie. He and his entourage had pride of place in the middle of the dais. I don’t know why he was gracing us with his presence. Perhaps he was on friendly terms with the legal greybeards of the Temple. Perhaps he was a devotee of William Shakespeare. Certainly, a visit to this place was a simple enough matter for him, since the little patch of France-in-London which he inhabited was close by, in Salisbury Court off Fleet Street. However, my knowledge of Monsewer de la Broderie did not extend much further.

Where was I…? Ah, yes.

It is a grand place, this Middle Temple, regardless of the quality of its occupants. Above the dais are banks of varnished portraits which glimmer in the light of countless candles. The mighty roof, with its tiers of beams, dissolves into mysterious shadows. On everything is the lustre of power and wealth. And solemnity, if you ignore the braying young lawyers.

They particularly brayed at me, for I was playing that foolish knight, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who blusters and threatens but whose sword turns to a piece of limp string when it comes to fighting a duel. Even though I never came to proper blows against my opponent, Viola (attired as the masculine Cesario), I received a painful injury which caused plenty of amusement in the pit of the Temple hall. He — or rather she — made an unexpected thrust at me with the foil and, when I twisted clumsily away to avoid it, I fell with a resounding clunk on the boards of our makeshift stage. As I scrambled to my feet with the guffaws of the lawyers ringing in my ears, I felt a stabbing sensation in my side which made me fear I might have cracked a rib.

Once we were offstage, Michael Donegrace, who was playing Viola-Cesario, was all concern until I reassured him that no damage had been done. He shouldn’t have lashed out at me unexpectedly, but, equally, I should have known how to avoid his foil or at least to have fallen without injuring myself. But I’ve noticed that accidents are more likely if you’re playing on strange territory.

By the time that Feste the clown had finished the play of Twelfth Night with his bitter-sweet song and we players had done a little jig — a cautious little jig for me — to round off the action, and once we had bowed to the applause, made our final exits, changed out of costume and quit the Temple, night had fallen. It was cold outside with a draught coming off the river. We wrapped ourselves tighter in our street clothes and looked towards the rest of the evening. Some were going home to wives and families, some to idle away their time in an alehouse, some to do the second thing before the first if they were willing to face their wives afterwards. I, lacking wife and child, could visit the alehouse without a qualm.

There was a place called the Devil’s Tavern not far from the Inns of Court which was convenient as well as a couple of cuts above the dives in Southwark. I’d already arranged with one of my fellows, Jack Wilson, to stop off at the Devil on the way to our respective lodgings. With my side still aching from the clumsy fall onstage, I thought that a draught or three would numb the pain before I sought the shelter of my bed.

I spotted Jack in conversation with a man and a woman near the entrance into Middle Temple Lane. Not players but members of the audience. They were fitfully lit by the flare outside the porter’s lodge. Noticing me, Jack beckoned. I was going in that direction anyway.

‘Nick,’ he said, ‘you will help me out here, I am sure. I have a question, or rather this gentleman has a question. He wants to know whether William Shakespeare has ever been to sea. I thought you might know, since you are closer to William than I.’

This was such an odd thing to ask that I wasn’t sure what to answer, not that I knew the answer in any case. Instead, I glanced at the couple in the flickering torchlight by the lodge. The man was thickset, with firm features and a square-cut beard. He was wearing a long gown and holding an ornate but serviceable stick with one hand while the other grasped a bag. It was hard to see much of the woman, on account of her broad-brimmed hat, but I had an impression of a slight figure swathed in expensive clothes.

‘I know no more than you, sir,’ I said. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Your Shakespeare writes of the sea and seamen and shipwrecks with real feeling,’ said the man. ‘The struggle of the brother and sister to reach the shore, their poignant separation, the quiet courage of the captain and Antonio here.’

He gestured at Jack Wilson, who had taken the part of Antonio in Twelfth Night. I wanted to say that WS had created these figures and their emotions from his imagination, or perhaps that he had copied them out of old books, but somehow it would have seemed like giving away a trade secret, so I just replied, ‘Perhaps you’d better ask the author.’

I knew that they would be most unlikely to find Shakespeare, let alone ask him anything. The playwright was elusive, almost anonymous, unless he wanted you to know that he was there. But the large gentleman responded to my cursory answer with a warmth that made me feel slightly guilty.

‘Perhaps I will ask him! Thank you. I know Richard Burbage.’

He knew Burbage. That was different. The Burbage brothers, Dick and Cuthbert, were the most senior figures among the Globe shareholders. Dick was also a player.

‘We much enjoyed the play,’ added the man. ‘I believe that the French legate did, too. We were sitting near his party. A handsome fellow.’

‘ Il est un favori du roi.’ This comment came from Jack who, after sensing rather than seeing our baffled expressions, said, ‘Well, it’s no secret, is it? Queen Anne favours the Spanish ambassador while the King is… partial to the French legate.’

Jokes and ribald comments about King James’s tastes were everywhere in London, but those who voiced them tended to know and trust their audience. I was a bit surprised that Jack was speaking like this in front of a couple of strangers. Perhaps the man was, too, for he changed the subject by addressing me.

‘Have you recovered from your fall this evening, sir?’

‘Oh, that. It was just a piece of stage business.’

‘Surely not,’ said the man. ‘I could tell from the way you tumbled down and, more important, from the way you got up afterwards that you were hurt. Some damage to your ribs, perhaps?’

Since this was not too far from what I was already thinking and feeling, I gave the feeble reply: ‘It was nothing.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ he said. ‘In recompense for the enjoyment of the play, however, can I offer you both some hospitality? I am staying fairly close by.’

I glanced at Jack. We sometimes got such invitations from people who want to consort with players, for various reasons. Was this gentleman someone important? Or could he be thanked for his kindness and then ignored? A few companionable drinks in the Devil and then my solitary bed seemed preferable, to be honest. But if he knew the Burbages, who were our employers…

‘I am a doctor,’ the man said conclusively.

‘Of law?’ said Jack Wilson.

‘No, a doctor of physic,’ he said, raising his bag as if it contained the tools of his trade. ‘Dr Jonathan Case. This lady is my young cousin, Thomasina.’

The lady dipped her head, or rather her hat, in acknowledgement but said not a word. Sensing reluctance to his offer on our part, Dr Case said to me in an oddly pressing way, ‘If you accompany me, I can give you something to soothe the pain in your side, Mr…?’

So both Jack and I were compelled to introduce ourselves. It would have been churlish to refuse the invitation now, particularly after Thomasina laid a gloved hand on my arm as if to reinforce the other’s words.

Jack and I followed the couple from the lodge. I observed that they stopped on the threshold and that Jonathan Case looked in each direction as if he was about to cross a busy street. But the lane was empty as far as I could see. To the right was a glow of light from the top of the stairs leading to the river. The trees in Temple Gardens, newly in leaf, rustled unseen in the breeze.

As they walked up Middle Temple Lane and into Fleet Street, Dr Case put his stick and bag in one hand and offered the other arm to his female companion. But she seemed unwilling to move closer to him. When we reached the broader thoroughfare, the physician once more looked carefully around. This time there were a few passers-by, but none of them paid us any attention. Case rapped his stick sharply on the ground before waving it in the air. A covered coach drawn by a pair of horses materialized from the shadows of Temple Bar and lumbered in our direction.

The driver reined in his team and leaned down from his perch to listen to the physician’s instructions, which I did not catch except for the name at the end. When Dr Case addressed the driver as Andrew, I realized that Jack Wilson and I were in the presence of an important gentleman, or at any rate one who was wealthy enough to own or to hire his own equipage. We clambered aboard, and the carriage pulled away up the gentle incline towards Ludgate.

‘How did you enjoy the play, madam?’ said Jack. Like all players, he wanted to talk about the most recent performance. It is what we would have discussed had we gone to the Devil’s Tavern.

‘She felt sorry for Malvolio,’ said Dr Case, answering for his companion. ‘The steward was most notoriously abused, but then he deserved to be.’

The cousins, young and middle-aged, were sitting opposite Jack and me. The seats were low, and the space between us was all knees. I had hoped to get a better look at them, but scarcely a glimmer penetrated the carriage from outside, since there was little enough illumination in the street and the window curtains were almost drawn. When we halted at Ludgate, instead of looking out as would have been natural, the physician pressed himself back into his seat, clutching his bag and his stick to himself. We heard the coachman exchange some words with one of the watchmen at the gates, which were not yet shut up for the night, and then we trundled on.

I wondered how far we were going. Where was Case’s house? Already I regretted accepting this invitation. Could Jack and I contrive an excuse to stop the carriage and get off?

‘Were you a guest of someone at Middle Temple, Dr Case?’ I said. ‘It was not Mr Burbage?’

‘No,’ he said curtly out of the gloom. Then, as if he owed us more of an explanation: ‘I am acquainted with a gentleman in the French legation. He suggested that Thomasina and I might be diverted by the play.’

‘Which you were.’

‘Indeed,’ said Case, as if he had forgotten his earlier compliments. ‘Your Shakespeare writes most feelingly of… of… the sea. As I said.’

I couldn’t help contrasting his manner now with his eagerness for our company while we were talking by the lodge. Something about the man or his manner obviously made Jack uneasy, too, for he said, ‘I hope your dwelling is not too far off, Dr Case. Both Nick and I must return to our lodgings in good time. We have a rehearsal to attend tomorrow. We are fined a shilling if we are late.’

The physician gave a mild snort of derision, whether at the small size of the fine — although a shilling was a whole day’s pay to us — or at the notion that a young man should be concerned about getting to bed on time.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I shall see you safe home.’ We lapsed into silence as the carriage clattered along. It was not a comfortable ride. Quite apart from the hardness of the seats, we received frequent jars when the driver failed to see or was unable to avoid one of the many holes that pitted the road. I was glad I was not wealthy enough to have to employ any other means of transport than my legs. And now we seemed to be on a downward slope with the smell of the river wafting through the unglazed windows. After a few more minutes we drew up.

‘Here we are,’ said Case. ‘After you, dear sir.’

I got down quickly enough, followed by Jack. A spasm from my side reminded me that the physician was supposed to be providing something to dull the discomfort. If he really was a physician… if he really lived here.

My doubts were on account of where the coach had stopped. We were by a wharf on the river, and the neighbouring buildings had the look of storehouses. This place was either Botolph’s Wharf or the Lyon Key, I wasn’t sure which in the darkness. To our right as we faced across the river was the great bulk of London Bridge. Against the night sky it stood like a mighty wall but one interrupted by pinpricks of light from the windows of the houses that line it. From below came the rumble of water as the tidal surge forced its way through the piers of the bridge. Was this our destination? It must be, for the next thing we heard was the doctor’s carriage pulling away.

The sight of the bridge and the sound of the Thames were strangely reassuring. I had only to cross the river to be at my lodgings at Mrs Ellis’s in Tooley Street within a few minutes. Jack Wilson also lived on the far side of the river, the unrespectable side. I was about to say to Jack that we should quit the scene now when I became aware that Jonathan Case and cousin Thomasina were behind us. I must have been jumpy, because I suspected some trick, even an ambush, and whirled around, causing me to groan involuntarily from the hurt in my side. But Case put his hand gently on my shoulder and used his stick to point ahead.

‘We are down there,’ he said. ‘On the river.’

‘You live on the river?’ I said, incredulous.

‘No, no. I am about to board a boat, because like you players I need to make an early start tomorrow morning, with the tide. Come on board and I shall explain. Oh, and I will find a remedy for that injury you gave yourself, Mr Revill.’

He went to the head of the stairs leading to a landing stage and, as he had done in Fleet Street, rapped with his stick on the cobbled ground. Within a few instants a figure puffed up the stairs, bearing a smoky torch. He stood as still as a statue to illuminate our descent down the greasy flight. In the diffused glow cast by the torch, I could see little of the boat which we boarded except that it was substantial enough to be a merchant vessel, with treelike masts bearing furled sails. The low murmur of voices, together with the smell of pipe smoke and the embers of a brazier near the bow showed that the craft was manned.

Picking their way among various unidentifiable marine items on deck, Case and his cousin paused by a massy construction in the aft portion of the vessel. Do I have these terms right — aft and bow? I’m neither knowledgeable about boats nor happy away from dry land, to be truthful. I have never seen the open sea and have no great desire to catch sight of it. Even taking the ferry to cross the Thames, especially when on the broader stretches below the bridge and if there’s a hint of bad weather, has me glancing nervously at the shore.

‘Welcome to our quarters, gentlemen,’ said Case, as he opened a door and ushered us through. We negotiated some steep wooden steps and emerged into a surprisingly spacious area below the deck. It was illuminated by candles and oil lamps and, on this chill spring evening, warmed by a metal tripod heaped with charcoal. The ceiling was low, scarcely above head height, but the other dimensions were generous enough. A table and benches occupied the centre. There were curtained-off spaces in the side walls but no windows or ports. At the far end were a pair of doors. A black cat was curled on the floor near the charcoal tripod, but it quickly roused itself and bolted up the steps we had just descended.

Jonathan Case and Thomasina stood in the centre of the cabin, watching as we took in the surroundings. The lady was still overshadowed by her hat, and the better light revealed no more than I’d seen already: a slim, almost lanky figure. Under a mantle, she was wearing a bodice and kirtle of fine scarlet taffeta. As for Case, the gentleman’s cap and coif marked him out as a physician almost as clearly as if he’d been carrying a urine flask, but somehow this just deepened the mystery. I think Jack was as baffled as I. What business had caused this doctor of physic to board a vessel on the Thames? Furthermore, what business meant that he had to sail with the tide tomorrow morning?

Before anyone could speak, there was a clatter on the steps and a man entered the cabin. He was well dressed in a maroon doublet and elaborate ruffs. The only unexpected note was a whistle hanging on a cord around his neck.

‘I did not expect-’

He was addressing the physician but, catching sight of Jack and me, he broke off.

‘-expect us to return with company?’ said Dr Case smoothly, as if in continuation of what the other man was about to say. ‘These gentlemen are players from the King’s Men. They were taking part in the piece at Middle Temple. The play we have recently attended. They have been gracious enough to accept my offer of hospitality on board.’

All this was said slowly and with care. The other man stroked his beard, square-cut like the doctor’s, while his watchful gaze flicked between the two of us. ‘Well, I suppose you are welcome on board the Argo,’ he said, ‘but know that we cast off at first light tomorrow.’

The last part of the remark seemed to be directed at Dr Case rather than us. I realized the two men were brothers. There was the same stocky build and the same firm expression, and that more elusive sense of being two individuals cut from the same length of cloth. Therefore, Thomasina must be cousin to this gentleman also, although neither had so much as looked at the other.

‘You will join us in a glass, Colin?’ said Case.

‘No. The only glass I am concerned with is the half-hour glass. As I said, we leave early and there is much to be done.’

He nodded at us and clumped back up the stairs. Moments later, we heard him barking an order on deck. It sounded as if he was taking out his irritation on one of the mariners.

‘As you probably guessed, that is my brother,’ said Dr Case. ‘He is the captain of this vessel, the Argo. Forgive his terseness, but his mind is obviously full of tide-times and half-hour glasses and caulking and… things nautical.’

‘This is his cabin?’ I said, wondering if that was the reason for the other’s gruff manner.

‘This is the great cabin,’ said the physician. ‘It is where sailors of rank and any travelling gentlemen sleep and eat.’

We must have looked baffled at the absence of beds, for Dr Case proceeded to show us some hidden lodgings. Set into the walls on either side behind the curtains were alcove-like recesses containing mattresses. Once inside, the sleeper might make himself secure by drawing the curtain. Each space was provided with a shuttered port through which one could see a flicker or two of light from the world outside. The shipmaster had more elaborate quarters, a squared-off space behind one of the doors at the end of the great cabin. This was provided with a full-size bed which one did not have to contort oneself unduly to enter.

Case explained that a trading vessel like the Argo carried paying travellers from time to time, and that they required better sleeping arrangements than were available to the common mariners, who ate, slept and took their ease in the stench of the fo’c’s’le under the bowsprit. The two things most to be valued at sea, he said, were a little area to oneself and a little bit of light. And, yes, he was presently occupying the bed belonging to his brother, the shipmaster.

‘I am paying him well. The least I can require is to be accommodated in comfort on the journey.’

‘Where are you travelling to, Dr Case?’ said Jack.

‘St-Malo.’

I had not thought he would answer so directly. I rather thought St-Malo was in France but did not like to ask for fear of appearing ignorant.

‘To reply to your next question, Mr Wilson, I am going to meet a man in St-Malo about… a private matter. My brother, he is to pick up a cargo of French wine. He sails with empty tuns and substitutes them for full ones. He tells me that I am fortunate to be sailing on a wine trader. They smell sweeter and their seams are tighter than other vessels’. Talking of which, Thomasina, would you pour us some wine?’

The woman busied herself with a jug and glasses and brought the drinks across to us one by one. She kept her eyes averted and that, coupled with the shadowy hat brim, meant that we had yet to get a clear look at her. Oddest of all, she had not spoken a single word so far, but she performed the task of serving drinks gracefully enough. I noticed a mole on the back of her hand and, queerly, it seemed the only personal note about her.

We sipped appreciatively as the physician described the wine, which was an Osney — a fine specimen of its type — from Alsace (wherever that is). Then Jonathan Case said, ‘Now, Mr Revill, if you wouldn’t mind unfastening your doublet… so that I may examine you.’

I had forgotten the injury to my side, but the discomfort returned the moment it was mentioned. I put down my glass and unbuttoned my doublet. The doctor felt my ribs beneath my shirt and nodded when I drew a sharp breath or winced.

‘No great damage done, although you may have cracked a rib,’ he said. ‘You will have to avoid exertion. No sudden movements. No leaping about or fighting duels, even mock ones.’

‘Duels and leaping about are part and parcel of a player’s lot,’ said Jack. ‘You’ll have to play old men for a week or two, Nick.’

Case moved to open the bag, which had been resting by his feet all this time. There was some sort of complicated clasp to it, and he turned his back on us, as if to keep its precise operation a secret. When he turned to face us again, he was holding an object swathed in satin. He carefully unfolded it to reveal a lump of darkish rock about the size of his hand. He passed it to me. ‘Hold it. It should bring a benefit.’

Not understanding, I nevertheless grasped the rock, which was so smooth and deliberately shaped that I assumed it had been carved and polished by hand. It was difficult to say exactly what the shape represented, however. Looked at one way, it was a bird with curved wings. Looked at in another, it might be a simple boat with a keel and a stubby mast. Or it was no such thing but a mere piece of rock, although curiously weighty. By the light of the candles in the cabin, I could make out a series of small grooves on one side. Accidental scratches or deliberate markings?

I observed Dr Case watching me intently. How was I meant to respond? What ‘benefit’ was the rock supposed to confer? But all at once I did experience a sort of access of energy even as the pain in my side dulled.

‘What is it? Is it stone?’

‘It has several properties,’ said Case, putting out his hand for the rock. ‘Look at this.’

He directed us towards the far end of the cabin by the pair of doors. A box with a glazed cover was set into the floor. Inside was an arrangement of metal hoops supporting a disc seemingly inscribed with the image of a sunburst surmounted by a pointer. An oil lamp was hanging overhead.

‘That’s a gimbal,’ said Jack, indicating the arrangement of metal rings.

‘Very good, my friend. However rough the seas and however violent the pitching of the boat that… item in the centre… will stay level.’

I had the idea that quick-witted Jack knew what we were looking at. As for me, I was confused and, in my mind’s eye, could see the rough seas and the pitching boat.

‘Watch,’ said Dr Case.

He brought the black stone near to the glass cover of the box and moved it from side to side. At once, the pointer became agitated and swung about as if it was dancing in response to the stone. Dr Case looked at Jack for an explanation.

‘The stone you are holding is acting as a magnet to the compass.’

So this object was a compass. I knew the word, of course, but had never seen the thing. But then I’ve never been to sea.

‘This is no stone but a piece of iron,’ said our physician.

‘Where is it from?’ said Jack.

‘Not from this earth,’ said the physician, pausing after this remark in a style that would have done him credit onstage. ‘It fell from the heavens to a land of ice and who knows how many centuries ago. This is a sky-stone.’

As with the compass, I had heard of such things but never seen one, let alone held it in my hands. Fallen from the sky, eh? This idea was even stranger than the fact that the stone came from ‘a land of ice’, something which sounded as remote as the moon. I looked at the stone again and seemed to feel a strange vitality flowing from the thing. I passed it to Jack. Then, to show the refinement of my feelings, I said, ‘Is it valuable?’

‘Yes,’ said Case, without enlarging on the subject.

I wondered whether his trip to St-Malo was connected to the stone. As if to reinforce his remark about its being a valuable item, he took the stone back from Jack and made a show of storing it inside a cabinet. This turned out to be another curious item. Not the cabinet itself, which was an ordinary if handsome piece of furniture made of cedar. No, it was the lock securing the cabinet which Case decided to demonstrate to us, his appreciative audience. He’d been about to open it, then paused.

‘Look at this, gentlemen,’ said Case.

We crouched down to join him as he played the light from a candle across the brass plate of a lock, which was about the size of an extended hand. There was the figure of a woman on it in relief, with frisky legs visible beneath a skirt and an arm extended as if she were about to dance. Her head was surmounted by a large hat rather like cousin Thomasina’s. I glanced around to see where that lady was now, but we three men were alone in the cabin. She must have left while we were examining the compass.

Case pressed down on the figure’s hat, which tilted back at a jaunty angle and which presumably operated a catch mechanism, for he was then able to swing open the door. Wrapping the sky-stone in the satin cloth once again, he deposited it with exaggerated care in the cabinet, closed the door and refastened the catch by nudging the woman’s hat back to a level position. This didn’t seem so very secure, since anyone familiar with the hat trick would have been able to unfasten the cabinet. But there was more to come.

Case flicked with a forefinger at one of the miniature legs, and it kicked up to reveal a keyhole whose widest point was in a position which combined suggestiveness with practicality. Jack and I looked at each other in amusement. The physician produced a key from the folds of his gown and gave it a couple of twists in the keyhole. I heard the soft click as a bolt slid home inside the device.

Case stood up with a satisfied look once he’d restored the female figure’s leg to its former position and back to respectability as well. ‘Made by Johannes Wilken of Dordrecht — in the Low Countries, you know. It has an additional feature which guarantees security. Look again.’

I noticed that the lock-plate held more puzzles. The woman’s arm was extended not so much in preparation for the dance but so as to point at a clock-like dial, above which some words had been inscribed, although the light was not good enough for me to make them out. Jack took his turn to look.

‘I have heard of this, I think,’ he said.

‘It is a detector lock, my friends,’ said Case quickly, unwilling to find himself trumped. ‘Every time the key is turned to lock up the cabinet, the dial moves around a notch so that the lady’s hand indicates a higher number. Note that it presently stands at thirty-nine. So if, when I next open the door, I find my lady fingering the number forty I will know that some villain has been playing fast and loose with my key. And the inscription now, you must want to know what that says…’

He peered at the cabinet lock as if to familiarize himself with the words again and then recited: ‘None but my master shall open me,

Respect my virtue if you be not he.’

Having delivered himself of all this news and the rhyme, Jonathan Case urged us to make ourselves comfortable on one of the benches at the table while he refilled our glasses.

The good doctor proceeded to talk to Jack and me about our work. He was full of praise for our abilities as players. He complimented us on our nimbleness, the injury to my side nothwithstanding. He said that we must have remarkable memories to hold our parts in our heads for one day, only to have to discard them on the next in preparation for a fresh drama. He remarked that the common belief about players — that we were little better than uneducated vagabonds — was obviously untrue, for here (looking at Jack) was a fellow who knew about gimbals and spoke French. I gazed in surprise at Jack and then remembered that he’d said something about the French legate being un favori du roi, a favourite of King James. For his part, Jack mumbled some words about having had an aunt who came from Paris. For some reason this struck us as enormously funny — an aunt from Paris! — and we hooted with laughter.

By this time, as you’ll probably have gathered, we were fairly pissed. Jonathan Case kept filling our glasses with the Osney and we kept on downing it. All thoughts of next day’s rehearsals were forgotten. After all, it was only a short walk back across the river, and the gatehouses at each end of the bridge closed later than the city ones so as to accommodate the pleasure-seeking folk who frequented Southwark in the evening. We had time for another drink. Always time for another one.

We were well settled in when a man descended the short flight of steps to the cabin. None of us heard him enter. Case started up in surprise. He did not look pleased to see the newcomer.

‘Mr Tallman,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I do not know that it is your business, Dr Case, but your brother wanted to consult me about the voyage.’

‘Well, it is I who have chartered the ship,’ said the physician. ‘He should have told me first.’

The other shrugged. He fitted his name, if I’d heard it right (by this point my senses were none too sharp). Tallman was a tall man, and a dry, austere-looking one. His black garb might have enabled him to pass for a puritan in a poor light, except that his fingers glittered with rings and the shoes on his feet were ornamented with fine silver buckles. He had not acknowledged Jack or me, by the by.

‘You can see that Colin is not here. You must go and find him elsewhere.’

The stranger turned about without a word and went up the steps as silently as he’d come. Jack said, ‘He is a navigator, a pilot?’

‘No, no, Henry Tallman is…’

But whatever Tallman was exactly we were not to find out. Instead, Case let the sentence drift away and launched into a disquisition on sailors and their strange beliefs.

At one point I got up to go outside. Unsteady on my feet, I had to cling on to the edge of the table. I stumbled up the steps, across the deck and, since the bulwarks which prevented the mariners falling off the boat were quite low, urinated with ease over the side of the boat, managing the considerable feat of not tumbling into the river. The night was still and cold. Down the front end of the craft the embers in the brazier had almost died out and there was no sound of voices. My unease at being on board a boat had gone. But then rather than going anywhere we were moored tight against the bank. I wondered what had happened to Case’s brother and his cousin, the silent Thomasina. Then I returned to the cabin and accepted Dr Case’s offer of another glass. And another. He was a generous host, dispensing several glasses for every one he consumed himself.

I’m not sure how the rest of the evening went. Knowing that the bridge gatehouses would by now be shut, Jack and I must have accepted Case’s offer of accommodation for the night, or perhaps we simply slipped into a deep, fume-filled sleep without any offer being made. Either way, we did not leave the Argo that night.

I’ve got only a couple of other memories. One was of being half hoisted, half propped up, before being escorted down into a place that was dark and dank. The other memory was earlier, even though I was still far gone, with eyelids drooping while the candles in the great cabin guttered. The physician’s cousin Thomasina finally returned — where had she been all this time? — and the middle-aged man and the young woman embraced in a close manner that, if I’d been in my right mind, I would have said was very un-cousin-like.

All of this, the extended story of the previous evening beginning in Middle Temple with Twelfth Night and ending in a stupefied state on board the Argo, unfolded behind my tightly closed eyes in much less time than it takes to tell it here. Nevertheless, even in my mind I stretched the story out longer for fear of opening those eyes a second time and discovering what I already knew.

I had to open them eventually. To glimpse a dark, cluttered space rather than the relatively comfortable cabin where Jack and I had drunk ourselves stupid. To realize that the fumy odours I was smelling emanated not just from my brain but from stacked and roped barrels. To understand that I was lying on a heap of sails or tarpaulins. To recall, when I made a slight movement, the injury I’d foolishly incurred on the Middle Temple stage. To realize that the snoring I’d heard was not my own but that of my friend and fellow, Jack Wilson.

It was some consolation not to be alone. And to hear his voice.

‘Nick? You are awake?’

‘Yes. In God’s name, what’s happening?’

‘What’s happened, more like. We drank deep last night on the Argo. So deep I fear we never left the vessel.’

‘But the vessel has left… with us on board.’

With one accord, both of us staggered off our makeshift beds. There was a conveniently placed ladder and a hatch, which yielded to our urgent shoving. In seconds Jack and I were out on deck, swaying on our feet, dazzled by the sunlight off the water, almost overwhelmed by the buffeting air.

I suppose I’d imagined that, although we’d slipped our mooring by London Bridge, we couldn’t have gone very far. That I’d look about and see the smoke of the city chimneys and the Tower of London standing proud above a huddle of dwellings. But none of this was visible. Instead, the river stretched out on either side, broader than I’ve ever seen it. Where there was land, it had the look of marsh, although in the hazy distance I discerned low hills.

Jack seized my arm. ‘Have we been captured by pirates?’

‘If we have, they’ll get no ransom for a couple of players. In fact, I can think of one or two people who might pay for us not to be returned.’

I tried to speak lightly but, in truth, I was hardly able to grasp the reality of where we were. It was the first time I’d seen the boat, the Argo, by daylight.

It might have looked large in the dark and when attached to dry land but, out in the open water, its dimensions seemed to have shrunk. Jack Wilson and I were standing on a relatively uncluttered area of deck. To our backs was the entrance to the great cabin where we’d got so disgracefully drunk last night. The cabin was part of a larger structure at the back end — or rather to the aft — of the boat. This was balanced by another structure at the front end. Overhead, the sails clattered and banged in the tearing breeze, while the three masts supporting them groaned in their housing. The boat progressed through the water, not smoothly but as if it were hammering out its path like a smith beating out a piece of iron. From the position of the sun in the sky it was still quite early in the day.

A lad passed us and I grabbed him by the elbow and demanded to know where we were. He looked about in confusion as if the question was meaningless.

‘On the river,’ he said eventually.

‘Where are we going?’

‘France.’

He shook himself free of my grip and went off about his business.

There were a couple of older sailors only a few yards away, half hanging over the side while they fiddled with some ropes attached to the largest of the sails on the centre mast. They took no notice of us, may not even have been aware that we were there, but their posture put an idea into my head, unfortunately. I rushed to the opposite side and, clutching on to the bulwark, cast the contents of my stomach on to the waters. Angled into the wind, I only narrowly avoided receiving them back in my face. I hung there, chest heaving, eyes streaming, clinging on for dear life, terrified of the racing waters down below.

When I turned back, it was to see a half-familiar face. There was a hint of pleasure on it, pleasure at my discomfort, that is. I recognized Colin Case, brother to the doctor and captain of the Argo.

‘Even the most lubberly fellows can usually hold off until the open sea,’ he said.

‘You must put in to land at once,’ I said, aware that I was not cutting a dignified figure.

‘Why?’

‘To let us off,’ said Jack Wilson. ‘We are from the King’s Men and have work to do in London.’

‘And who will pay me for the lost time? We have a favouring wind and we are running with the tide. No, we are not going to “put in” for the King’s Men or anyone else’s men.’

‘I shall speak to your brother,’ I said. ‘He has chartered this boat.’

‘Please yourself,’ said the shipmaster, jerking his thumb in the direction of the aft cabin before tugging his hat over his ears and turning his attention to the sailors still struggling with the rope.

‘Wait a moment, Nick,’ said Jack. ‘Don’t go storming in there. Think a moment. There is something very odd about where we find ourselves.’

‘How so? I’m going to give Dr Case a piece of my mind. He is responsible for… for luring us on board and plying us with drink until we were incapable of movement.’

‘Luring us? We had no responsibility at all for our plight, I suppose. But you are right even so, Nick. It is as if Dr Case deliberately set out to get us to accompany him back to this boat and then to cause us to stay on board after hours.’

I remembered that Case had seemed watchful yesterday evening while we were leaving the Middle Temple precincts, but I could not see how this would make him want our company. Unless…

My thoughts were interrupted by Jack’s tugging at my sleeve. He cast his eyes upward. We were standing in the shelter of what I later learned was called the aftercastle. There was a figure half protected by some housing at the far end who I assumed was the helmsman. But there was another figure by the railing at the near end, and he was staring at Jack and me, very intently, as if wondering what we were doing on the boat. He was dressed not like a mariner in a jerkin and slop-hose but well wrapped up in a cloak while his head was enveloped by a hood. Nevertheless, I sensed his eyes boring into us. After a moment, he turned away towards the stern of the boat.

‘Who was that?’

‘No idea,’ I said. ‘We must confront this doctor.’

Jack and I clattered down the steps and burst into the great cabin. There was no sign of Dr Case, but the door to the little inner cabin was ajar and, spurred by our anger and the sound of someone clearing his throat from within, we crowded to the door, which opened outward. The physician was half sitting, half lying on the bed, knees drawn up, a large book balanced on them. He looked up as if annoyed to be disturbed. The cabin was compact but the items in it — a bed, a stool, a chest that could double as a table — were neatly arranged. There was a casement window a couple of feet from the end of the bed. Perhaps the captain enjoyed waking up in the morning and seeing from the comfort of his bed the waters the boat had just crossed over. More than the furniture, it was the casement that gave an odd domestic note to this chamber, as though it was inside a cottage and not aboard a seagoing vessel.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Jonathan Case. ‘I am glad to see you have recovered from last night’s potations. It was impossible to make you stand up, let alone walk, indeed almost impossible to rouse you both. I thought players had harder heads. We might have, ah, deposited you on Botolph’s Wharf before we left but, considering the state you were in, I’m not sure you would have still been alive by daybreak. And even if you had been allowed to go on living, you would have been deprived of any items of value you were carrying, any items at all, in fact.’

This was all true enough. There are human rats on the wharfs as well as animal ones. But it didn’t satisfy me. I felt my anger sparking afresh, as Case delivered this meandering speech from the comfort of his bed. He was showing no ill effects from the previous evening, and the suspicion grew that he had plied us with drink while being abstemious himself.

‘So we had to take you down to the hold to sleep it off,’ he added. ‘No room in here. Yet you were better off in the hold than you would have been in the mariners’ quarters in the fo’c’s’le. Very squalid across there.’

I wondered about all those little sleeping nooks in the cabin which Case had demonstrated to us the previous evening, but there were other, more urgent protests to make.

‘Dr Case, you must tell the captain, tell your brother, to put into shore straight away so that we can disembark.’

‘Speak direct to my brother yourself,’ said the physician. ‘He is the captain, as you say. But I can imagine what his answer will be. Time and tide wait for no man…’

By now I felt almost murderous towards Case. Jack must have sensed this, for he put out a hand as if to restrain me.

‘Dr Case,’ said my friend, ‘I realize that we have brought this on ourselves, Nick and I, by being stupid enough to get blind drunk on board last night. But our company was sought by you, very pressingly, and we are your guests. Yet we are reluctant guests. Indeed, we have a livelihood to earn on land at this very instant-’

‘And you will be fined a shilling if you are late for rehearsals. Gentlemen, I will do what I can. We will likely have to put in for fresh water before we reach France and you may be put ashore then. Since I am partly responsible for where you find yourselves, I will write a letter to old Dick Burbage explaining the circumstances and pleading for you. I cannot say fairer than that.’

I wasn’t mollified, not at all. I did not like the idea of slinking back to London, bearing a letter which must make us look like a couple of greenhorns carried off to sea by mistake. I visualized myself tearing up the letter to ‘old Dick Burbage’ and scattering the pieces to the winds. Jack Wilson and I weren’t likely to lose our posts and nor would the King’s Men be seriously inconvenienced by our brief absence, since they were adept at filling holes. And even members of the leading company in the land are not obliged to behave well at all times; a few have found themselves in clink or disgrace for worse reasons than ours. Nevertheless, Jack and I would be the butt of plenty of jokes. Oddly, this was almost a more dire prospect than being ferried willy-nilly across to France. Better to pretend that we were voluntary absentees from our work.

Gravesend

In the event we never got to France. We never got further than Gravesend, which turned out to be appropriate, since one of our party was to meet his death there. The day, which had begun bright and sunny, turned foul. Black clouds massed overhead and rain swirled everywhere, obscuring the view of both banks. A vicious east wind snaked down the river. Far from going forward, we seemed at times to be going backward or not moving at all. Water was everywhere, above, around, below, and — most alarming of all — spurting freely through the decks and topsides (which I gathered was the name for the parts of the vessel that were above the waterline). At any moment I feared we might be overturned, although the sailors on the Argo seemed to regard the storm as little more than a spring shower.

Piercing through the noise of the wind and rain was the sound of the shipmaster’s whistle whenever Colin Case summoned the mariners to a particular part of the boat. He left it to a heavily bearded boatswain, whose name was Bennett, to issue most of the orders. This gentleman bellowed out instructions concerning topmasts and main courses. Every command was pushed home with the demand that the men do it yarely. It was all Greek to me — apart from the ‘yarely’, which is sailor-speak for ‘quick’ — but the men went at it like monkeys, tugging at ropes, climbing up masts, lowering the sails and cursing their heads off… cursing most of all.

Jack and I spent the day clinging to ropes or any fixed object on the deck, receiving our ration of oaths if we were in anyone’s way and sometimes when we weren’t. Some of the sailors not only sounded but looked threatening, carrying poles with hooks for some obscure nautical purpose. I observed that Henry Tallman, the black-garbed man, was still on the boat. We might have gone back to the great cabin, which is where Tallman and the shipmaster Colin Case spent some of their time, but neither Jack nor I had much desire to keep company with our fellow travellers, especially Dr Jonathan, whom I held responsible for our plight. Besides, the rocking of the boat stirred me up to fresh bouts of sickness — even though I could’ve sworn that not a particle of anything solid remained in my guts — and I preferred to suffer without unnecessary witnesses.

We tried taking shelter in the hold, where the wine barrels were stored and where we’d been deposited the previous night, but there was something about being shaken about in the dark that was worse than remaining out in the open. I also believed we weren’t alone down there. There were rats in the hold, scuttering and scurrying, but also a human presence. A dark shape in a corner. A mariner, perhaps, or another unfortunate individual being carried away from his homeland. I thought of the hooded figure I’d seen on the afterdeck, and I shivered from more than the cold and wet alone. Jack saw — or sensed — this individual, too, so to the deck we returned. To face the wind and the rain, a combination which reminded me of Feste’s song at the end of Twelfth Night — ‘the rain it raineth every day’ and all that — and caused me to wonder whether I’d ever again see my companions in the King’s Men, so low did I feel.

In the late afternoon we put in at Gravesend, where the river grows less wide and looks out to Tilbury on the northern side. Now I decided that, however unpleasant the bad weather, I preferred it a thousand times over to blue skies, since it had compelled us to put in at a port whereas, otherwise, we might have anchored offshore or by some desolate marshy stretch.

It took us some time and trouble to moor. The rough waters meant that we slammed into another boat as we were docking, or rather the other boat slammed into us. The jar threw Jack and me to the deck. It was a herring buss, I was told, also coming in to moor. The boat was smaller than ours, but with a great bowsprit. Canvas was stretched on hoops arching above the main deck presumably to protect the fish catch.

If I thought I’d heard enough of sailors’ curses before, I realized that it was as nothing to the torrent that swept between the Argo and the fishing boat as the men on each vessel struggled to push away from the other with staves and those vicious-looking hooked implements. Finally, we got ourselves clear of the herring buss and securely tied up to some mighty stakes that stood near the Gravesend wharf. A couple of precarious planks were stretched across the void between the bulwarks of the boat and the dock-side. Below was the turbulent river.

Speaking as if he had done us a favour, Dr Case said we would be able to return to London on the morrow. Of course, it was too late to travel now. He advised us to go by river on the so-called ‘long ferry’, since the route overland was dangerous on account of robbers, particularly in the area around Blackheath. He talked as if he had our best interests at heart. Yet I no longer trusted him, especially when he tried to press Jack Wilson to stay on board because it would be useful to have a French speaker to help him with his business in St-Malo. I recalled our laughter on the previous evening over Jack’s French aunt. Had we been tricked into remaining on the Argo solely in order that Jonathan Case might have a translator to accompany him?

We stayed on board that night and shared a supper with Case and others. He insisted we join him, as a small recompense for the trouble we had been put to. Even so, Jack and I drank very sparingly and we extracted a promise from Colin Case — despite his rough exterior, the captain seemed a more reasonable man than his brother — that they would not depart next morning without leaving us behind. He reassured us that high tide was not due until a couple of hours after sunrise.

I must describe the supper, since it has a bearing on what happened afterwards. Food and drink were brought across the precarious planks from a Gravesend ordinary, and we ate in the great cabin, sitting on the benches and resting our elbows on the table. The food and drink were served by the lad I’d stopped on deck. Looking at him more closely, I realized that he was closer to man than lad, despite his smooth and downy features. Attending at supper apart from Jack and me there were the Case brothers and Henry Tallman, the fellow with the appearance of a puritan and the shoe buckles of a man of fashion. I’d seen no sign of cousin Thomasina and assumed she’d quit the boat at London Bridge. Nor had I glimpsed again the hooded figure seen on the aftercastle and, perhaps, below deck.

The mood of the meal was argumentative from the start. Colin Case and Henry Tallman came in from enjoying a smoke on deck and, their pipes scarcely stowed away, were met with a comment from Jonathan Case that smoking was a filthy habit. Furthermore, it was a habit that had incurred the displeasure of their sovereign. Did they not know that King James was the author of an anonymous pamphlet that had recently been circulating in London, called A Counterblast to Tobacco? Tallman yawningly indicated that he was aware of it, while Colin laughed either at his brother or at the King’s opinion or both. Dr Case took even more offence and made some pompous remark about James being well within his rights to pronounce on the bad habits of his subjects as he was the ‘physician of the body politic’.

Then there was some bad-tempered discussion between the brothers over how long the weather would detain them. Jonathan wanted to proceed as soon and as fast as possible, while Colin pointed out that they were at the mercy of wind and tide.

‘I have heard that there is a sure way to raise a favourable wind,’ said Jonathan Case. ‘You must drown a cat.’

‘Then you will have to catch one in Gravesend,’ said Colin Case. ‘Lay a hand on Gog and Magog and I will lay both hands on you.’

Gog and Magog? I was baffled by this reference to the two giant figures carried in London processions until Colin made a comment on their ratting skills and I realized he was talking about the ship’s cats.

‘Well, maybe I will go catch a cat in Gravesend,’ said Dr Jonathan before adding, with a relish that caused me to shudder inwardly, ‘and drown it in a bucket.’

‘Rather than kill a cat, maybe my brother could use the influence of his magic stone to get favourable weather,’ said Captain Case to the rest of us.

‘Oh, I have heard of this magic stone,’ said Henry Tallman. ‘It originated in the polar regions, did it not?’

It was plain that Jonathan Case was unwilling to answer. This was most likely the reason Tallman pressed him further, saying, ‘Won’t you show it to us, Dr Case? I understand it is in this very chamber.’

Jonathan glanced automatically at the cabinet and its weird detector lock before looking daggers at his brother for raising the subject. Even so, I could see that he was half tempted by the chance of showing off what he’d called ‘the sky-stone’ once more. He sighed but nevertheless reached for his keys and went across to the cabinet. Stooping, he was about to insert the key into the lock when he suddenly straightened and whirled around. The expression on his face was somewhere between fury and panic.

‘Someone has been tampering with this. The lady’s finger points at forty. Someone has opened the cabinet.’

He looked at our four faces as if one of us might have been responsible. I could vouch for Jack and me, although I didn’t know about Captain Case or Henry Tallman. While Dr Case jabbed at the keyhole with the key — failing several times on account of his angry state — I recalled that the extended arm of the dancing lady had indicated the number thirty-nine on the dial. If it was now reading forty, then the cabinet must have been opened. Unless Jonathan Case had done it himself and somehow forgotten.

By now the physician had succeeded in turning the key in the lock. He scrabbled blindly inside until his hand closed on something. He brought out the satin-swathed item he’d deposited there the previous evening. He unwrapped it and brought the contents close to his eyes. He pored over its surface. To me it looked very like the sky-stone. Case’s shoulders slumped in relief. An involuntary ‘Thank God’ escaped his lips. It was the sky-stone.

He carried the dark stone back to where we were sitting. He was reluctant to let it out of his hands but allowed Mr Tallman to hold it for a few instants. This black-clad individual weighed it in his palm before holding it up so that he could study its outline. I was still unable to decide whether it most resembled a bird or a boat. I noticed Colin Case looking curiously at it. Tallman sniffed at the sky-stone. He, too, scanned its surface.

‘Why, there appear to be characters inscribed here,’ he said. ‘Strange markings. Letters, perhaps, although not English ones.’

‘Perhaps so, perhaps so,’ said the doctor.

‘It has curative properties?’

‘It may do.’

‘My friend Dr John Dee of Mortlake would be interested in this,’ said Tallman.

‘No doubt,’ said Dr Jonathan Case.

I picked up the reference to a much more famous doctor, the aforesaid Dee, the aged occultist and astrologer who was an occasional counsellor to kings and queens. Tallman probably mentioned him to show the reach of his acquaintance. If so, Case was determined not to be impressed, as his terse answer showed.

Trying again, Tallman said, ‘I am sometimes troubled by the head-ache. I could sleep with the stone under my bolster to test its curative powers.’

Case was having none of it. He held out his hand but Tallman wasn’t quite done.

‘I was under the impression that this was the property of an important foreigner, one residing in London.’

‘It may have been,’ said Jonathan Case, now practically seizing the sky-stone from Tallman. The physician replaced the black stone in the cabinet, once more making a show of turning the key in the lock and examining the dial.

I had a sense of strong animosity between the three men, or at least between Jonathan Case on the one side and his brother Colin Case and Henry Tallman on the other. I was not sure what Tallman did but, from his mention of Dr Dee and other not-so-casual comments, I rather thought he, too, was one of those individuals who claim to be able to unpick the mysteries of heaven and earth, and most likely of hell as well. That would explain his interest in the sky-stone. Each man had his specialism, whether it was seamanship or physic or occultism, and each man looked down on the others’. With Colin Case there was the additional irritation of having to defer to his brother, who had chartered the Argo. I hoped the ship’s captain was getting well rewarded for it.

Jack and I kept fairly quiet and tucked into the mutton stew provided by the Gravesend ordinary. We were glad enough to be at the end of our voyage, as we thought. I hadn’t eaten all day and my appetite had returned. We listened to the bickering of these individuals with mild interest, no more. There was a revealing comment made by Dr Case later in the meal. Tallman brought up the subject of the sky-stone once more, remarking that many people would like get their hands on it by fair means or foul. As Tallman said this, Jonathan Case glanced at Jack Wilson and me. Not in suspicion, as if we wanted to steal the thing, but with a momentary unease, as if he were touched by guilt.

‘Is that why you requested our company from Middle Temple to the riverside yesterday?’ said Jack. ‘Were we to act as protection against any attempt to seize the stone?’

‘I was delighted to have you with me,’ said Case. ‘Strength in numbers.’

‘But why did you take the stone to the Temple in the first place?’ persisted Jack.

‘Tell them, Jonathan,’ said Colin Case. ‘It is the least you owe these players for having imposed on them. Tell them, or I shall.’

‘I went to the Middle Temple with a dual purpose,’ said Case with great reluctance. ‘To see you players in the King’s Men and to, ah, collect an object that another member of the audience wished to entrust into my hands…’

‘Nonsense!’ said Captain Case, a very mild reaction for a sailor. ‘As usual, my brother can’t help making himself out to be much more important than he really is, as when he conveys to us the King’s opinion on smoking. Brother Jonathan is merely acting on commission, carrying that precious sky-stone from London to St-Malo. He is being paid for his pains, and I in turn am being paid for the pain of enduring his company and his chatter.’

‘You collected the sky-stone from someone in the French ambassador’s party,’ I said. This was not much of a stab in the dark, since Tallman had already referred to ‘an important foreigner in London’, but I could see from the expression on Case’s face that it had gone home. ‘That was really why you were at the Middle Temple. You and your cousin.’

‘Ha!’ snorted Colin in derision, so that another of my suspicions seemed to be confirmed. Thomasina was no cousin to the physician. As if to prevent any further outburst, Jonathan rapidly agreed that, yes, it was so, he had been in conversation with an individual from the ambassador’s entourage — whom he was not at liberty to name — and that he was now responsible for delivering the sky-stone to another unnameable individual in St-Malo.

Henry Tallman had been staring hard at the doctor all this time. He tapped his long, beringed fingers on the table.

‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘It is Maitre Renard you are taking it to, no? He is the only man in St-Malo who would be concerned with such things.’

‘It may be Renard.’

‘The only one who would have the resources to pay for it, too. He must trust you, Dr Case.’

‘I have a certain reputation,’ said Jonathan.

‘That is what I mean,’ said Tallman. ‘And I would wager that the individual you obtained the sky-stone from was acting — how shall I put it? — sub rosa? That he perhaps does not have full title to the thing since he is not the “important foreigner” I referred to but one of his underlings.’

Having relieved himself with these insults and imputations, he settled back, satisfied, and fiddled with a pipe. Lighting it from the charcoal brazier, he was soon filling the low cabin with layers of aromatic smoke as a way of further irritating the good doctor.

Jonathan Case said nothing in response to Tallman’s comments. Instead, he changed the subject by announcing that Jack and I might sleep in the great cabin tonight. It would be preferable, he said, to going down to the hold, where the wine barrels were stored, and much preferable to sleeping with the mariners in the fo’c’s’le. He indicated the little curtained alcoves where we might rest our heads. All of this was performed with the air of bestowing a great favour on us. I gathered that Tallman was also sleeping in the cabin, so it may have been that Jonathan wanted protection from his persecutor. Colin Case, however, planned to lay his head elsewhere. Probably he could not bear bedding down near his brother, particularly if Jonathan was occupying the space that would normally be his.

Jack said he wanted to take a turn on deck before putting his head down. He spoke for both of us. In truth, we wanted to escape the stifling air of the cabin, stifling not so much on account of the pipe smoke as for the bad feeling between the other diners.

Outside, the air was bracingly chill. The bad weather had blown itself out for the time being, and, not far above the horizon, a waxing moon bobbed like a boat among the clouds. It was quiet on deck and I wondered whether the mariners were happily asleep in the squalor of the fo’c’s’le or out and about among the delights of Gravesend.

‘Do you know what was going on in there?’ said Jack.

‘It’s fairly obvious, isn’t it? The sky-stone doesn’t belong to Dr Jonathan and probably not the person he acquired it from either. According to Tallman, it is the property of an important foreigner. Probably the legate, de la Broderie. I reckon that someone in de la Broderie’s entourage has passed it to Case for disposal in France. He’s no more than an agent for stolen goods.’

‘We don’t know that,’ said Jack.

‘No, but I do know I don’t like him. And it would explain why he wanted us with him last night. He felt more confident in company. Perhaps he was fearful that someone would attempt to take back the sky-stone.’

Jack was about to answer but suddenly paused. I sensed rather than saw him hold up his hand. From somewhere close by came a muttering sound. Jack moved towards it, stumbled and swore.

A human shape started up from where it had been lying or crouching on deck and made to dart off. But we were too quick for him. Jack had him by one side and I by the other. Although I could see little, I was fairly sure it was the individual we’d glimpsed on the afterdeck and perhaps down in the hold. His hood fell back to reveal a round face, whitened by the moon. He wriggled but he was smaller than us and after a moment he gave up the struggle. I was glad, because the tussle gave me twinges from my injury the previous evening in Middle Temple.

‘I did not know anyone was there,’ he said, as if to explain his reaction. Even though it was high-pitched in fear, his voice sounded educated.

‘You were talking to yourself,’ said Jack.

‘Was I?’ said the other. ‘Yes, that’s it. I must have been talking to myself.’

‘Who are you, sir?’ I said. ‘You are not a mariner, for sure. You’ve been spying on us.’

‘My name is Nicholas,’ said this person, and I started slightly at meeting in the dark someone who shared my name. Then he said in a more controlled tone, ‘I am no spy but a traveller like you.’

‘Well, we are the most unwilling travellers on earth,’ said Jack. ‘We leave this boat tomorrow.’

‘While I am hoping to sail on,’ said the other meekly.

By this time we had altogether slackened our hold on Nicholas’s person. Whatever he was doing on board was none of our business. Once he was free he immediately bent down and began scrabbling on the wooden boards.

‘Lost something?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

Perhaps we felt slightly guilty for having accosted this harmless gent, for Jack and I also stooped, cautiously in my case, and began to fumble about on deck with splayed hands. I found the dropped object first. It had the feel of a beaded necklace. Before handing it back I said, ‘We share a name, you and I, although people usually call me Nick. Is this what you are looking for, Nicholas?’ As he snatched it from me, I added, half in curiosity, half in mischief, ‘Deo Gratias.’

He repeated ‘Deo gratias,’ then stiffened as if he’d given himself away. Which he had, since his unthinking quickness in responding to the phrase and the discovery of the necklace — or rosary — were signs of his religion. He had not been talking to himself but kneeling in prayer, and so absorbed in his devotions that he was unaware of our presence.

‘You are taking a risk coming out on deck,’ I said.

‘I need some fresh air after a few hours in the hold,’ he said.

‘Some persons of your sort might spend days and nights inside a priest-hole,’ said Jack, showing by his words that he had also realized who — or what — this man was.

‘They have more endurance than I,’ Nicholas said. ‘I cannot bear being cooped up for long. Not that I have ever been in a priest-hole.’

‘You have a… warrant to be aboard the Argo? You are here by arrangement?’

‘My presence is known,’ said the other, choosing his words with care. ‘I do not want to say who knows.’

‘Well, my friend and I mean you no harm, I am sure,’ said Jack. ‘In fact, I am not certain that we have ever met. So goodnight to you.’

Nicholas muttered some indistinct words, presumably of gratitude, and scuttled away. Moments later we heard the sound of the hatch being opened. Jack and I remained out in the dark, as if giving Nicholas a decent interval to hide himself away once more. Neither of us said anything even if the same thoughts were probably running in both our heads. Thoughts to do with treason and conspiracy.

Ever since the Powder-treason and the attempt to blow up the Parliament in the November of ’05 the authorities had shown a new determination to root out the plotters in the Catholic families as well as to hunt down their priests. Rather than face the Pursuivants, more than a few were making their escape to safety overseas. I’d no idea whether Nicholas was a member of a Catholic family or a fugitive priest, though something in his garb and manner suggested the latter. Nor did I know whether Captain Case was a sympathizer with the old religion or was merely being bribed to ferry this individual to St-Malo. It also occurred to me that perhaps Nicholas was on the Argo without the shipmaster’s knowledge. Possibly it was another of Jonathan Case’s enterprises. Or even Henry Tallman’s.

Whatever the answer, it was best that Jack or I stayed ignorant, not so much out of fellow feeling as to avoid trouble. Why, as Jack said, we’d never even met the man. We returned to the great cabin, passing on our way the lad who’d served at table. He was carrying some leftovers of food and a jug of wine, awkwardly cradled in his arms. Perhaps he was taking them forward to share with his fellows. Crumbs from the rich man’s table…

The aura of pipe smoke still hung in the air together with the odours of food and drink, but of our fellow diners there was no sign. I assumed that everyone was tucked up in their beds, Jonathan Case in his privileged quarters at the far end of the great cabin, and Tallman in one of the alcoves, with Colin Case having disappeared elsewhere, although I had heard no steps behind us on deck. A little oil light still burned near the compass, but the candles had been snuffed out. There was nothing for it but to turn in, though I did cast a curious eye at the cabinet containing the sacred stone or, more precisely, I ran my hand over its intricate lock. As I did so, something snagged against my fingers. It was a piece of thread. I rolled it into a little coil and tucked it into a pocket.

Jack and I squeezed into the tiny, neighbouring alcoves and drew the curtains. I could almost stretch out at full length. The wind was getting up again, and the ship groaned and creaked around me as if it were alive. I was aware of the river water just below my berth. Above it was a tiny port that was closed with a kind of shutter. I did not open it. What was there to look at? The Argo was swaying gently but this was not reassuring, not like being rocked in a cradle. The straw mattress was less uncomfortable than our lodgings in the hold on the night before, but the pinched sides of the berth were reminiscent of a coffin and I thought of my bed at Mrs Ellis’s in Tooley Street. Then I wondered how we were going to account for our absence to the Globe shareholders. We’d be fined, for certain. I was reluctant to go to sleep for fear of waking up and finding that we’d set sail once more.

But I did sleep in a fitful fashion. Once I awoke with a start, imagining we were under way. There was a grinding sound and distant, raised voices. But although the Argo seemed to be, as it were, shivering with cold, we were not actually moving. I slept again. The next I knew I was tearing aside the curtain and stumbling away from my little recess and up the steps and out of the great cabin into the open. The sun was just lightening the sky with glaring streaks of red. There was not a living thing on deck apart from a cat slinking along. Gog or Magog? The cats were free to come and go. I recalled Colin Case declaring that the Argo would not be leaving until the day was well begun. I breathed in clammy draughts of morning air and saw isolated threads of chimney smoke rising from the dwellings that marked Gravesend.

The day looked to be a fair one even if the sky’s red message was hardly a good omen. For shepherds or sailors, that is. Not that I cared much about shepherds — and even less about sailors. I’d go back and rouse Jack Wilson and we’d make our exit from the Argo without bothering to say any goodbyes. Then we would either wait in Gravesend for the long ferry or, perhaps, hire horses to return to London. We had enough money for that, Jack and I. Jonathan Case had not mentioned again the letter to ‘old Dick Burbage’, but by this stage I did not trust him or believe anything he said. Would rather never see him again.

But see him again I did, and in the worst of circumstances.

I went through the entrance to the great cabin. Reaching the bottom of the steps, I paused. Coming from the outside, I could not see clearly at first, but the door to the inner cabin appeared to be open. This was where Dr Jonathan Case was sleeping, usurping the captain’s place. But no, the physician was up and about. There was a figure stooping over the bed that took up most of the space of the little chamber. The figure was outlined against the red light of dawn. As I’ve already mentioned, the occupant of this room was fortunate enough to have a window that offered a fine view from the stern of the boat, that and a bigger bed to sleep in.

The figure remained where it was, stooping slightly. Something about the pose made me uneasy. I coughed and shuffled my feet, and the figure raised its head. It wasn’t Jonathan Case but Jack Wilson.

‘Nick?’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Come here.’

I crossed the few paces to the doorway of the tiny cabin and saw a terrible sight. Dr Case lay sprawled on his front on the bed, his feet by the tiny window and his head nearest the door. His prone body was washed by the red light of dawn as it poured through the casement window. Oddly, the casement was open.

However red the sun, its light was pale enough in comparison to the blood which had issued from a great rent in the centre of Case’s back and which covered his nightshirt. Case’s hands were clasping at the bedcovers, while his head was jerked back so that he seemed to be resting on his chin. His eyes were cast up in his head, and his mouth was gaping as if he were about to scream or laugh. But he would never make another sound in this world. I noticed a great egg-like swelling on his forehead. The skin had split and there was dried blood on his forehead. I glanced up in the direction of the doctor’s dead gaze and saw what appeared to be more blood on the beams of the low ceiling.

‘In God’s name-’

‘I found him like this, Nick. I got up and the door was partly open and I was curious to have another peek inside the captain’s quarters. I found him like this.’

Jack sounded calm but somehow weary, too, while I heard a slight tremble in my own voice. A tremble of frustration as much as fear. I foresaw hours and hours of complications before we would be permitted to quit the Argo. I glanced at Jack’s hands. They were clenched tight, like the dead doctor’s. My friend was grasping not bedclothes but, in his right hand, something more solid. I touched the back of his hand. In surprise, he dropped whatever he was holding. It landed on the bed by the dead man. I picked it up and felt the surface of the sacred stone, the sky-stone, polished smooth apart from those queer little incisions which might be letters.

‘That was on the floor,’ said Jack.

‘How did the doctor die?’

‘That is obvious, Nick. There is a great hole in his back and there is also a knife on the floor. Look. Someone was probably attempting to steal the stone.’

‘Then why is the stone still here?’

‘I don’t know. What I do know is that Dr Case has been attacked with great force. With fury.’

Rather than examine the gaping wound, I peered more closely at the knife where it lay on the floor. On the blade were markings that could be dried blood. I did not want to pick up the knife; it seemed inadvisable, and I was already holding the sky-stone. Instead, I averted my eyes from the body and went to examine the open window. Why was it open? Did Jonathan Case have a taste for the night air? That was unlikely. Of all people, physicians are the ones who know that the night is full of unwholesome vapours.

‘Could someone have come through there?’ I said. ‘The base of the frame has been damaged. The wood is cracked and splintered, as if someone had attempted to force his way in.’

Jack didn’t bother to look. He shrugged and said, ‘Anyone who succeeded in that would have to be very small, almost a child.’

It was true. The window aperture was about a foot and a half square. I’d observed that most of the mariners on the Argo, even the slighter fellows, had well-developed arms and shoulders, the result, no doubt, of years of hauling and carrying and climbing. Nevertheless, I tried the window space for myself. I could get my head through but reckoned I would have got stuck had I attempted to go further. Besides, how could anyone reach the window? Below, perhaps fifteen feet or more below, swirled the dirty river water. No way up from there. Above my head was the overhang of the after-end of the poop deck. A nimble man — a sailor, say, particularly if he was secured with a rope — might have been able to descend to this level if he had a mind to spy on Dr Case as he was preparing for bed. But it would have been almost impossible for an intruder to have made an entry through the casement window even if the damage to the frame suggested that someone might have tried. Moored directly behind us was the herring buss which had collided with the Argo yesterday. I wondered if anyone on board had witnessed anything, but there was no sign of life on that deck either.

Without more words, Jack and I moved out of the tiny cabin. One of us, I’m not sure which, instinctively pushed the door to so that we no longer had to gaze at the outstretched corpse.

‘We must raise the alarm,’ said Jack.

‘Yes. Is Tallman here?’

I gestured towards the third of the curtained alcoves. But the gesture wasn’t necessary. The curtain wasn’t fully drawn and it was apparent that no occultist was sleeping there.

‘Must raise the alarm,’ repeated Jack.

But neither of us moved.

In the half-light of the great cabin I examined the sky-stone, which I still held. I could not decide whether it was a bird shape or a ship shape or something else altogether.

It wasn’t until this point that it occurred to Jack and me to look towards the cabinet that had kept the sky-stone secure. The door to the cabinet was shut, but it must have been opened during the night. If you examined the dial, the lady’s finger would be indicating the number. Which number now — forty-one? But what did the figure on the dial matter? The cabinet must have been opened. The simplest evidence of that lay in my hand. Had the doctor unlocked it so as to take out and gloat over the stone which was promised to Maitre Renard of St-Malo? Or had someone else got hold of the key and unlocked the thing, intending to filch the stone?

‘We don’t have to raise the alarm,’ said Jack.

‘We could simply leave the ship,’ I said, the image of a slinking cat passing through my mind.

‘This is nothing to do with us.’

‘We know that, but others don’t. A man has been murdered, violently murdered. If we run away, we become fugitives.’

‘We’d probably get no further than Gravesend. A hue and cry would be raised.’

‘Yes.’

It was almost a relief when Captain Case and Henry Tallman entered the cabin. They took in the scene in an instant. So quickly, in fact — as I realized within another couple of instants — that there was no need to raise the alarm or even to say anything. They must have had some inkling of what they were going to find. Colin Case paced across to the inner cabin and opened the door. He grunted, gave a cursory glance at his brother’s body and reached out a hand to touch the swelling on the forehead. Meanwhile, Tallman remained by the bottom of the steps, keeping a wary eye on both of us. The captain rejoined Tallman. Both men looked at us. If Captain Case was distressed by the violent death of his brother Jonathan, he was doing a good job of hiding it.

‘A murder has been done,’ I said.

‘I am sorry for it,’ said Jack.

‘If that is so, Colin,’ said Tallman, ‘it looks as though you have found your murderer, or should I say murderers?’

‘Not so fast, Henry. Jonathan has been dead a little time. He is scarcely warm to the touch. If these two gentlemen had a hand in it, wouldn’t they have run away? Look elsewhere before suspecting them.’

My thoughts exactly. My respect for the captain went up a couple of notches.

‘You do not suspect me, I hope,’ said Tallman, raising his hands in a defensive gesture. I noticed that his right hand was wrapped around with a makeshift bandage, a handkerchief. ‘After all, I came to inform you of what had occurred.’

I gave a sigh of relief. This meant that Jack had not been the first to discover Dr Case’s body. Tallman must have also peered through the open door and gone off to rouse the captain. That is, if he was not the one responsible for the physician’s death. Whatever happened must have happened before Jack or I was awake.

Colin Case ignored Tallman’s remark and instead said, ‘Anyway, what reason would a pair of players have for… disposing of my brother?’

The good captain rose another notch or two in my estimation. He was doing an excellent job in our defence.

‘I rather think Mr Revill might be holding the reason in his hand,’ said Tallman.

I became aware that I had not relinquished the sky-stone. Rather than drop it as Jack had done, I handed it to Captain Case. I was reluctant to give it to Tallman. Case examined it, as did everyone who picked up the sky-stone. Instead of commenting on the markings, he said, ‘This might be blood. It is hard to see in here, though.’

‘Perhaps an outsider has done this deed,’ I said. ‘I have examined the casement window in the little cabin, and although I do not think anyone could have entered that way-’

‘You are right, Mr Revill. No one could possibly have entered through the window. No one but a child or a…’ said the shipmaster, his voice tailing away. There was an unreadable expression on his face. I might have believed he was toying with us, if I could have come up with any explanation why he should be doing so. Grasping at straws, I said, ‘Maybe a thief sneaked on to the boat in the night and was taken by surprise by your brother.’

‘There I think you are wrong,’ said Colin Case, pocketing the sky-stone, which might have been stained with his brother’s blood. ‘Come with me.’

We trooped on to the deck, the four of us. The sun had risen higher, and the red bands in the sky were thinning out. There were a few mariners about, including the bearded Bennett. Colin Case summoned his boatswain, had a conversation and gave some instructions. The only bit I heard concerned the departure of the Argo. We would not be sailing with the tide. He gave no reason for his order, which is the shipmaster’s privilege. Case returned to where we were standing and indicated a place in the bulwarks which was marked by ropes rather than wooden panels. This was the point where people and goods boarded the Argo. There was an equivalent gap on the other side of the boat. When we’d arrived at Gravesend, a couple of planks had been extended to connect us to the wharfside.

Case explained that a boat the size of the Argo could not moor right up against the ancient wharf because of the shallowness of the river at this point. The wharf had been constructed when boats were smaller. The planks that served as a makeshift bridge between ship and shore now lay stowed against the bulwark. The captain said that, on his orders, the planks were drawn inboard at night to prevent the very thievery or intrusion which I had mentioned. We could see that the boarding planks were tucked away on the ship. Therefore, no one had come aboard the Argo since the previous evening.

‘I have confirmed that with Bennett,’ added Case. ‘A few of the men went into Gravesend, but they were back well before midnight when the planks were drawn inboard.’

‘No one came on board after hours but a particular type of person might have left the ship,’ said Jack Wilson, leaning over the bulwark and estimating the gap that separated us from the muddy wharfside, which lay a couple of feet below the level of the deck and several yards away. The gap between was filled with the dark waters of the Thames, now scarcely stirring. ‘A reckless or desperate individual might leap this distance.’

‘Possibly,’ said Case. ‘But you are forgetting that the Argo has risen with the tide over the last couple of hours. If an outsider was making his escape in the middle of the night, not only would he have to contend with the darkness and a jump of twelve or more feet, but he would also be jumping upwards. The deck of the Argo would have been below the level of the wharf. Besides, there are few sailors who’d risk falling into water, even shallow water. Mostly they cannot swim, you see.’

‘Why’s that?’ said Jack.

‘It would show a lack of faith if they were able to swim.’

I wasn’t sure whether he meant a lack of faith in the ship or the shipmaster or even in God. More questions seemed beside the point.

‘Perhaps we must look beyond the merely mortal for this murder,’ said Tallman.

‘A spirit, you mean,’ said Case. ‘An imp or demon.’

‘Your words, Colin.’

‘More likely, isn’t it, Henry, that the action against my brother was undertaken by someone who is still on board the boat? Isn’t that what you’re all thinking?’

The logic of this seemed strong enough. The shipmaster had a word with another mariner, then the four of us went back to the great cabin. Colin Case suggested we sit at the table. He commanded rather than suggested. He had taken charge. Now that the physician was dead, he was the sole authority on the Argo. Case opened the door to the inner cabin, as if to ascertain that his brother’s body was still there. He spent some time inside, doing what I had done as far as I could see. Poking his head through the still-open casement window, examining the low ceiling.

After that the shipmaster locked the door, using a key from a ring containing several, and joined us at the table. Jack and I were sitting on a bench on one side, Tallman and Case on the other. The shipmaster looked thoughtful. He stroked his beard with one hand. The other held the knife that had been lying on the floor of the little cabin. He handed it to Tallman, handle first.

‘Yours, I think. It was in there.’

Tallman took the knife in his left hand. The right was bandaged, a handkerchief wound around the palm. It was fortunate, perhaps, that the linen of the handkerchief was dyed red; otherwise the blood on Tallman’s hand might have shown through. If there was blood to show in the first place. Confronted with the knife, Tallman seemed uncertain how to respond.

There was a silence before he said, ‘I must have dropped it when I was in there last night. I asked Jonathan to show me the sky-stone again. I let him think I might make a counter-offer for the sky-stone. An offer which he could report to his French principal at the London legation rather than deliver the object to Maitre Renard of St-Malo. In truth, I had — and have — no desire to possess the stone, which I believe that Jonathan came by illicitly. But I wanted to make a copy of the markings on it to show to my friend Dr Dee. It was while you two players were out on deck. You weren’t here either, Colin.’

‘Well… what happened?’ asked the shipmaster.

‘When I persisted, Jonathan obliged. He opened that cabinet and produced the stone, although not very willingly. He insisted we retreat to his cabin on account of the stinking pipe smoke in the great cabin. His words, the stinking pipe smoke. He opened the window to let the air in, even though night had fallen.’

I caught Jack’s eye. So much for the notion that someone had tried to enter the little cabin by forcing open the casement window.

‘I asked to look at the sky-stone, and all the while I did so Jonathan was watching me like a hawk. I didn’t get the chance to copy the markings because when I produced a knife — this knife — to scrape at the surface of the stone, to test the substance it is made of, Jonathan became very anxious. He snatched it back. He was anxious and angry. As he seized the stone out of my grasp he caused me to cut myself with my own knife.’

Tallman held up his bandaged hand.

‘So it is your blood on the stone,’ said Colin.

‘Very likely. And on my knife, too, now that I look at it properly. Anyway, the good doctor was so out of temper that he ordered me to quit his cabin. Realizing that I was not going to get any further, I did so-’

‘Leaving him with the sky-stone. He didn’t put it back in the cabinet?’

‘I don’t think so. I staunched the cut on my hand with this kerchief and withdrew to my little nook.’

In the ensuing pause, Colin Case said that when we were out on deck he had ordered some breakfast — bread and ale — brought in for us. We must be hungry. He was certainly hungry, he said. The shipmaster seemed not only dispassionate about Jonathan’s death but unaffected by it.

I was curious about something and thought the shipmaster could enlighten me. The answer might even have a bearing on the death of Jonathan Case.

‘Where does the other door lead to?’

Case glanced over his shoulder at the second door alongside the one giving on to the small cabin.

‘It leads to a platform and a ladder that descends to the bowels of the ship and ascends to the poop deck. The whipstaff passes through there.’

Seeing our bafflement, he explained that the helmsman on the afterdeck controlled the direction of the boat by means of the whipstaff, a stout piece of timber which passed through a hole in the deck and shifted the tiller through a narrow arc by means of a pivot. Once out in the open sea, the shipmaster would consult the compass and then issue instructions to the helmsman by opening the second door and climbing the ladder or, more likely, ordering someone else to do it.

‘We have grown soft and easy of late, we mariners,’ said Case. ‘In the old days the sole compass would have been housed on the poop alongside the helmsman so that the shipmaster had to brave the elements to give direction. But now I may do it from the comfort of the great cabin. Nevertheless, the helmsman still steers most of the time by using his own compass and the log. The method is called dead reckoning.’

Henry Tallman looked increasingly impatient with all this maritime chat. In the meantime he had been lighting his pipe. Now he felt confident enough to make a joke. ‘Well, that is why we are here. A dead reckoning. Or a reckoning with the dead.’

‘Yes,’ sighed Colin Case. The absorbed expression which had settled on his face as he outlined the function of the whipstaff was replaced by a more dogged look. ‘Gentlemen, we should alert the watch or the headborough in Gravesend to what we have discovered. But I do not expect great things from the constable in such a place. It is true that I am on good terms with one of the justices in north Kent but, even so, we might be detained for days. Meanwhile, I have a ship to take across the British Sea to France, where there is a cargo of wine to collect-’

‘-as well as a sky-stone to deliver to Maitre Renard of St-Malo?’ said Tallman.

‘Perhaps,’ said Case. For the first time he seemed slightly unsure of himself.

‘What do you intend to do?’ said Jack. ‘Sail on and ignore your brother’s murder?’

‘Murder, eh?’

‘What would you call it?’

‘Let’s say murder, then. You think the best course would be if we handed over the responsible person to the local justice, his guilt signed and sealed.’

‘To do that, one of us has to confess or be detected in his guilt,’ said Tallman.

‘It would be as well if we were clear about our movements last night,’ said the shipmaster. ‘Once they are established we can turn our attention elsewhere.’

‘That is easily answered for Nick and me,’ said Jack. ‘After we’d eaten last night we went to get some fresh air on deck. There we… took a turn or two before coming back here.’

I noticed the way Jack had glided over our meeting with Nicholas the priest (or whatever he was) in the dark. My namesake was presumably lurking in the hold at this very moment. Fearing persecution and fleeing to France, he would not be likely to disembark at Gravesend. Did the shipmaster know of his presence? Surely he must do. Was it Nicholas who had disposed of Dr Case? He could have had access to the great cabin by climbing up from the hold and entering through the second door. Possibly that’s what had happened. But, if so, why?

‘There was no one here when we got back from our walk on deck,’ I said. ‘You two had gone. The three of you had gone if you include Dr Case.’

‘I was tucked up in there, as I said,’ said Henry Tallman, indicating the curtained alcove with his pipe-stem. ‘Jonathan had already retreated to his cabin after the business with the sky-stone, as I also said.’

‘I left the cabin by that other door,’ said the shipmaster. ‘I went up to the afterdeck to take a final look around before turning in. It is my custom even when we are moored up.’

‘You didn’t sleep in here?’ I said, even though I already knew the answer.

‘My brother had rented this space just as he had chartered this boat. I preferred to leave him to it. I slept up in the fo’c’s’le. I had no wish to be near him.’

‘You did not like your brother?’ said Jack.

‘I never troubled to hide that when he was alive, and I see no reason to hide it even if he has just been the victim of — what should I call it? — a fatal attack. He was an arrogant, self-important fellow. Dishonest, too, for all his airs.’

‘So are plenty of others,’ I said.

‘You do not know the half of it. Ask Henry Tallman here.’

‘I am a doctor of physic, too, although my interest spreads to many other areas. Because of old rivalries and his jealous nature, Dr Case made many aspersions about me. He spoiled my business and damaged my reputation. He put it abroad that I was not qualified to practise astrological physic.’

I was amazed that Tallman would speak this frankly before strangers and within a few yards of the dead man. It was as if he wanted to talk himself into a noose. Unless he believed that, by making a play of being so blunt, he was diverting suspicion from himself. We were interrupted for a moment as our breakfast was brought in by the same lad who had served us at supper last night. He was carrying tankards of ale and had a loaf tucked under one arm, yet he managed to place it all on the table without dropping or spilling anything.

He glanced towards the closed door of the small cabin behind which lay the dead body. Something about his manner showed that he knew who — or what — was in there. This impression was confirmed by a nod from Colin Case in the direction of the potboy. It was hardly surprising that news of Dr Jonathan’s death should be spreading around the ship. If so, the lad seemed to be taking the information with the same equanimity as everyone else. More than equanimity, if one considered that no one had yet attempted to arrange the body more decently or reverently. I wondered what would be the reaction to the death on the part of Thomasina, the brothers’ cousin — except that she was more likely the mistress of one than cousin to both.

As I had this thought, the potboy placed a tankard at my elbow. Something about this individual’s manner and, more specifically, about his hand nudged my memory.

‘Thank you, Thomas,’ said Colin Case.

After he had gone I took a long draught of ale to fortify myself for what I was about to say. I jerked my head in the direction of the steps.

‘I wondered what had happened to Dr Case’s young cousin. She never left the boat, did she? Or he never left the boat, I should say.’

‘Cards on the table, eh?’ said the shipmaster.

‘Yes, cards on the table,’ I said. ‘We must be near the end of the game.’

‘It is not so difficult to guess, I suppose,’ said Colin Case, not even attempting a denial. ‘There is the coincidence of names, Thomas and Thomasina, which is not a coincidence at all, of course. Then there is the fact that both have the same height and build.’

‘And a mole just here,’ I said, indicating a point at the base of the thumb on my right hand.

‘I feel as though I have wandered into a real-life play,’ said Jack Wilson. ‘Young men dressing up as women, identification by means of a mole. What in God’s name is going on?’

‘My late brother had a preference for young men,’ said Colin Case. ‘There is no great shame in that, or at least it did not perturb me greatly. It is common enough among seagoing folk and, I dare say, in the stage-play world. Jonathan has — had — always been that way inclined.’

‘He followed the example of the King in two ways at least,’ said Henry Tallman, speaking with a mixture of amusement and disdain. ‘In his inclination towards youth and in his aversion to smoking.’

‘But Jonathan went further,’ said his brother. ‘He enjoyed sporting with others.’

‘Like encouraging Thomas to dress up as a young woman and taking him — her — to a play at the Middle Temple, a play in which a male plays a girl who disguises herself as a man.’

‘Yes. I thought it was an absurd thing to do. But Thomas agreed or was persuaded to agree, even though it seemed a kind of humiliation to me. And Jonathan actually went to collect the sky-stone rather than to watch a play. I am not sure whether he took Thomas along for colour, to make his presence at the Middle Temple more plausible, or whether he simply enjoyed the danger, the risk…’

‘The risk of pretending to be accompanied by his female cousin.’

‘That part at least was no pretence, Mr Revill. Thomas really is his cousin — and therefore he is mine, too. But a very distant one. There is no additional impropriety involved. Or not much impropriety. I believe, though, that Thomas was becoming tired of Jonathan. Not a tear has yet been shed for his death.’

‘Tired enough to put an end to him?’

‘You are very eager to find a murderer, Mr Revill.’

I do not know that I was very eager but suddenly I grew very irritated. Or simply tired. Tired of the whole thing. Tired of having been inveigled with Jack Wilson on to the Argo and carried away, if not out to sea then at least as far as Gravesend. Tired of having been taken from our fellows and our livelihoods at the Globe. Tired of being confined aboard a boat for what seemed like weeks rather than a couple of nights, and in company I wouldn’t have chosen. Tired, above all, of involvement in the violent murder of a physician who had a taste for dressed-up young men and who was about to trade a mysterious sky-stone, an object he had possibly acquired illegally and which might (or might not) be linked to his abrupt death. It was this irritation that caused me to say, ‘What about your other passenger, your hidden passenger, the person down in the hold? Couldn’t he have had a part in all this?’

Colin Case glanced at Henry Tallman. It was the occultist who answered me with the same phrase as the shipmaster. ‘Cards on the table?’

I nodded. So did Jack.

‘The person you are talking about is also called Nicholas — Nicholas Tallman. My brother, but dearer to me than Jonathan is or was to Colin here. For reasons that you can probably guess at, gentlemen, Nicholas needs to leave our country for a while, and perhaps leave for ever. I can assure you that he is not part of any plot or treason, but these are dark days for everyone who adheres to the old religion, the innocent as well as the guilty.’

‘You are such an adherent?’ said Jack.

‘No longer. I tell you I am interested in more arcane matters,’ said the occultist, swathing himself in a cloud of tobacco smoke. ‘But a brother is a brother. I arranged with Colin here that he should transport Nicholas to France. Nicholas was instructed to keep quiet in the hold until we were well clear of land, but he is a restless spirit and told me that he had encountered you. He also said that you had listened to him with, ah, deaf ears. For which I thank you.’

‘Was your brother aware that you were ferrying a priest to France?’ said Jack to Colin Case, nodding his head in the direction of the corpse behind the door.

‘Oh, no. He would not have been so understanding, not at all. In fact, knowing Jonathan, he might well have told the authorities, not so much to prove that he is a loyal citizen but out of malice.’

‘So neither one of you had a reason to love Jonathan Case,’ I said. ‘Not you, the ship’s master, nor you, Mr Tallman.’

‘And cousin Thomas and Nicholas the priest can be added to the roll,’ said Jack.

‘Let us fetch them in here,’ said Colin. ‘You can confront them and us with your suspicions. Perhaps one of us will confess. Isn’t that how things should be done at the end of the game?’

While the shipmaster was out gathering up the other suspects, Henry Tallman turned his attention to the loaf brought in by Thomas. He sawed the bread into sections using the knife that Colin Case had given back to him. True, he dabbed a little ale on the blade before wiping it on his sleeve to remove the marks of blood. His own blood, if we were to believe him. But I rejected the proffered chunk of bread, as did Jack. We sat in silence waiting for the captain’s return.

I would have welcomed the chance to discuss this peculiar situation with Jack, but it seemed somehow out of place in front of one of the individuals who might have killed Dr Case. There were at least four of them: the priest Nicholas Tallman, who feared exposure, the young man Thomas, who was said to be weary or even humiliated by his link with the physician, the occultist Henry Tallman, who bore a grudge (and might have wanted the sky-stone for himself — although, if so, why hadn’t he simply taken it after disposing of Case?), and the shipmaster Colin, whose distaste for his brother was not far from hatred.

Colin Case returned with Thomas and Nicholas. The young man was blushing, although that could have been the result of the fresh morning air. Nicholas was no longer wrapped up in his cloak and hood but dressed in a sailor’s jacket and slops. Wisely, he was adopting a disguise. His skin was pallid, as if he had spent his whole life shut up in small spaces. The Tallman brothers nodded at each other. There was no likeness between them. Henry was tall and gaunt, Nicholas was short and round in the face. Everyone sat down on the benches. The shipmaster opened proceedings without ceremony.

‘As you know, my brother is dead. The circumstances suggest that it might be murder, and our two player friends are keen to see that justice is done. Accordingly, the four of us are gathered here as the most likely suspects. Have you any question you wish to put to us, Mr Revill, Mr Wilson?’

There was more than a tinge of mockery in his voice. What was going on here? Why was there not more concern in Colin Case’s manner? He might not be sorry, might even be glad, that his brother was dead, but, surely, he should be showing a little concern for himself as a suspect? I could have said this but instead kept silent. Fortunately, Jack spoke up.

‘There was a disturbance last night. I heard voices raised overhead. This was long after everyone had gone to bed.’

‘I heard it, too,’ I said.

‘Don’t look at me,’ said Henry Tallman. ‘I was tucked up snug. Slept well after my altercation with Jonathan.’

‘I was down in the hold among the rats and the wine casks,’ said Nicholas Tallman. ‘I am not certain I heard anything, although the ship did give a jar at one point.’

‘I was in the fo’c’s’le,’ said Thomas. ‘I have nothing to do with any of this. I’ve done nothing.’

These were the first words I’d heard him speak, apart from the brief exchange on deck the day before. I retrieved from a pocket the length of thread I had found snagged around the complex lock of the cabinet.

‘I do not know where you were last night,’ I said, finding my voice, ‘but you have done one thing at least. While you were playing the woman’s part during that first night when Jack and I first boarded the Argo, you went to the cabinet and opened it, or tried to. Dr Jonathan realized the dial had moved around by a single number at supper last night, but he must have overlooked this little piece of evidence, this coil of taffeta. No one else is wearing or has worn anything of this bright scarlet material. No one except Thomasina on the night of the play.’

Thomas hung his head. His face went a brighter red, almost the colour of the thread I now held up. I felt my own face heating up. I did not like the exposure of this young man but, by now, I was a fierce hound for truth and justice. What did it matter that no one cared for Dr Jonathan Case, in fact that everyone positively disliked if not hated him? He had been murdered and someone had to be held accountable.

‘Yes,’ he said, keeping his head down and speaking scarcely above a whisper. ‘I admit I got the key from… from cousin Jonathan.. when he was sleeping and that I opened that cabinet there. I meant to take the sky-stone. I knew it was important, valuable. It was the reason we went to the Middle Temple, to collect it. Cousin Jonathan was full of talk about how he was going to sell it in France and make a handsome profit.’

‘You meant to steal it?’ said Colin Case. He looked stern, but his voice was surprisingly gentle.

‘I… I don’t know. Perhaps. I thought if I had the sky-stone I could use it against cousin Jonathan. He said it was powerful, that it had magic properties. I wanted to escape from him. I had become afraid of him, and the more afraid I was the more he liked toying with me. He was kind in the beginning but not later…’

‘Anyway, you did not take the stone,’ said Henry Tallman. ‘You couldn’t have done, because it was still there last night at supper.’

‘I took it out and looked at it in the candlelight and thought that it was a strange object, almost beautiful,’ said Thomas, his tone getting firmer. ‘I could not take it. I wrapped it up again and put it back in the cabinet and turned the lock and replaced the keys. I had nothing to do with what happened afterwards. I cannot say how cousin Jonathan died or who did it. I was sleeping in the fo’c’s’le, as I said. I did no murder.’

I believed him, not because he looked abject but because I found it hard to associate this willowy, blushing youth with the furious assault on Jonathan Case. I wondered how he managed among the rough mariners in the fo’c’s’le and remembered that the shipmaster had also been lodging there. Cousin Colin would have kept an eye on him. If he needed an eye kept. I thought of one or two of the boy players in the London acting companies and how, even though younger than Thomas, they had the power to wind some susceptible older players around their fingers.

There was a pause before we looked to the shipmaster for his account of last night. He was the last to speak.

‘Yes, there was a disturbance,’ said Colin Case. ‘I was called to the poop deck in the early hours of the morning. The boat moored next to us was drifting with the incoming tide. It was poorly manned and worse secured. Fortunately, a direct collision was averted. Our watch shouted loud enough to alert the mariners on the other vessel, and they fended themselves off with their staves. In fact, the two vessels touched only fleetingly.’

I was baffled. What had all this to do with the death of Jonathan Case? Had someone from the other boat leaped on to the Argo and disposed of the physician? The shipmaster seemed to be relishing this particular story, just as he’d enjoyed instructing us in the mysteries of the whipstaff.

He now instructed us to follow him outside once more. So Jack and I, together with the Tallman brothers and Thomas, went back on deck. We climbed the ladder to the poop — by now I was growing quite familiar with these marine terms — and made our way to the overhang of the stern. Above us was a furled aftersail and to one side the housing that offered a little shelter for the helmsman and also gave access to the ladder down to the great cabin and, beneath that, the hold. There was no helmsman on the poop deck since the boat was not under way.

We went to the bulwark at the far end. We were right above the spot where Dr Jonathan Case still lay. Beyond was the eastward stretch of the river, with a cluster of boats either moored tight against the wharf or standing slightly out from it if, like the Argo, their draughts were not shallow enough. The closest boat was the herring buss, which had put in rather clumsily on the previous day. I recalled the curses that had flown to and fro like musket balls.

If one forgot the dead body downstairs, the day looked to be set fair despite that red-streaked sunrise. Men were carrying cargo on and off the boats. There was a general bustle as preparations were made to sail with the tide. On the Argo, though, business was suspended. I noticed the mariners looking curiously at the captain and his little party up on the poop. No one questioned what he was doing (or not doing). It struck me that a shipmaster was an absolute monarch in his little kingdom.

Colin Case indicated the herring buss, one of the vessels readying to depart. In fact, about to cast off.

‘I am acquainted with the master of that boat,’ he said. ‘He has a bad name on the river. He drinks like one of the fish in his catch. He runs a sloppy vessel. It isn’t surprising that we have twice had to fend off the Draco.’

‘The Draco?’ said Henry Tallman.

‘A foolish name for a fishing boat. And her master is a foolish man. If you want to catch a murderer, Mr Revill, then you had better hurry to lay hold of him before the Draco departs. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that you should apprehend the vessel herself.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Nor did I until I had a closer look at the cabin where my brother lies dead. I examined his corpse also. The wound in his back was a large one, wasn’t it?’

Thomas turned away at this point as if he was about to be sick. Perhaps the realization of the death of his erstwhile friend, his protector, was only just sinking in. Colin put a steadying hand on the young man’s shoulder.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A great tear in the flesh.’

‘It would have taken a deal more than my little knife to cause that,’ said Henry Tallman.

‘The instrument that killed him was much larger than a mere knife. But its… appearance in the shipmaster’s cabin was the merest chance. A thousand-to-one chance. No, ten-thousand-to-one. If only my brother had not opened the casement to get rid of the smell of pipe smoke… Yes, he might have survived if the window had remained shut. But he left it open as he prepared for bed.’

‘What in God’s name happened?’ I said.

‘It would have been like threading a needle. A fine operation, requiring a sharp eye and a steady hand. Except that this needle was being threaded on the waters of the Thames and there was no eye or hand involved.’

‘Are you losing your mind, Colin?’ said Henry Tallman. ‘Why all this talk of needles and eyes and hands?’

‘There is your murder weapon,’ said the shipmaster. ‘Behold.’

As one we turned to watch the herring buss, the Draco, swing away from the Gravesend wharf, eased off by the staves of the herring fishers and turning with the tide. The boat sat much lower in the water than the Argo so that we peered down on to her deck with its canvas-covered hoops. A couple of the mariners glanced up and raised their fists at us, half salute, half insult. The end of the bowsprit was itself surmounted with an extension that glinted in the sun. The bowsprit was made of stout wood, but its tip was sheathed in metal.

And then I realized what Colin Case was talking about. Or thought I did.

‘Your brother had the ill luck to be standing with his back to the open casement,’ I said.

‘He should not have been up so late,’ said Colin. ‘I expect he could not sleep in his greedy excitement. He was examining his precious sky-stone, cradling it in his hands, working out his profit, oblivious to what was happening behind his back beyond the still-open casement…’

‘That boat there, the herring buss, floated straight towards the Argo in the night-’

Colin Case nodded. I could have sworn that he was smiling, but he was standing against the sun and it was hard to be sure. I went on.

‘-and the tip of the bowsprit entered through the aperture provided by the window like… like the point of a giant foil-’

‘-a closed window would have shattered, even provided some defence,’ added Tallman.

‘I understand the talk about needles now,’ said Jack.

‘Jonathan was struck by the tip of the bowsprit. The jib boom, if we want to be precise. It delivered a great blow with the whole mass of the vessel behind it. The tip ripped into his back and flung him up so his head hit the roof. Almost at once the other vessel was fended off from doing further damage. No one on board was aware of more than a violent jarring or jolting while all this was going on. The Draco slipped back and the bowsprit — or the very end of the thing — withdrew from the cabin as neatly as it had entered while its tip withdrew from my brother’s body, yes, like a sword’s point. It did some slight damage to the frame of the cabin window, but not one of us was aware that it left a dead man in its wake.’

Nicholas Tallman performed a priestly act at this point. He lowered his head and crossed himself. The rest of us stood silent, dumfounded by Colin Case’s explanation. Yet it was surely correct.

I watched as the herring buss manoeuvred itself nearer the centre of the stream. Then, with sails hoist so as to catch the gentle wind, it set off with the outgoing tide to find fish.

Jack and I left the boat at Gravesend. We sailed on the long ferry back to London, and that journey took us another day, so we missed two days’ work and were fined and berated accordingly. We preferred to pretend that we had been playing truant — the kind of misbehaviour which is not unknown among players — rather than recount the strange tale of the travellers on the Argo and death by bowsprit.

Colin Case must have managed to square things with his friendly local justice, for the boat soon sailed on for France. The death of Dr Jonathan was presented as the peculiar accident which it was, and it has to be said that nobody much mourned the passing of this unpleasant individual. Nicholas Tallman, I assume, reached the safety of a friendlier country, while Thomas served under the tutelage of his kindlier cousin, Colin Case.

As for what happened to the sky-stone I remain ignorant. Ignorant whether it found its way to Maitre Renard in St-Malo or whether Henry Tallman returned it to London to the ‘important foreigner’. Or perhaps kept it for himself. After all, he had been eager to show it to his friend Dr Dee. I don’t know, though. Some things are destined to remain mysteries.

And there is another mystery, too. It was only when Jack and I discussed it later that we realized how willingly both of us had accepted Colin Case’s story of the death of his brother. That it was an accident disguised as a murder. It was hardly surprising we’d leaped to the conclusion of murder. The unlamented physician was the victim of a violent, bloody assault, and there were several individuals on board with the motive and opportunity to kill him. We were just as quick to seize hold of the comforting notion that Jonathan Case’s death was a freakish chance. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was not the bowsprit of the Draco which had done the damage after all but — say — one of those vicious, hooked implements the mariners made so free with on deck?

Perhaps it had been the other way about, a murder disguised as an accident. If so, Colin Case’s story was a brilliant piece of improvisation to cover himself… or to cover someone else… just a story.