A Dead Man in Deptford (26 page)

- Not in Tamburlaine, no.

- I think much on Jesus Christ.

- As you once said. Where do you stay in London?

- I will lodge where I can. I will lodge with you.

- You cannot.

- You lodged with me in Flushing.

- That was different.

- You are not friendly.

- Mr Secretary or one of his secretaries will see to you.
I am friendly enough.

- I do not wish to go at once to prison. I need a little
time to see London that I have not seen for long years.

- To prison? What wrong have you done?

- No, to prison to smell out papish conspirators. There
is still a plenty of those. Robert Poley in Flushing told me of
his work in prison, he came out after the Armada. Now Poley
is everywhere in Europe pretending to be a Catholic again. He
is even in Denmark.

- I thought I was rid of Poley.

- Rid of? He is not one to be rid of. He is a marvellous
operator of the Service. He spoke much of you. He said the
time will come to use you again. So I may not lodge with you?

- Alas.

- That is not friendly.

AT the Rose that autumn there was rehearsal for a revival of
Tamburlaine, and I was no longer the divine Zenocrate but the
cringing younger son of the tyrant. Ned Alleyn, very hoarse,
awaited a quart of ale sent for at the Dansker’s while he listened
in irritation to all Kit said. Kit waved his play about: it was full
of scratchings and carets and his hand was vile. For him foul
copy might well have been especially devised. Kit cried:

- Your objections of last year are not now in order, Ned.
What is here is the truth and truth red hot and fire new.
The French king murdered by a Dominican friar and Henry
of Navarre as king. It is the triumph of the protestant faith in
France and what can any here have against it?

Henslowe was there, fat of belly but gaunt of face, with his
account book and a worry that the French pox had stricken one
of his gentlemen clients. He said:

- You must not urge this on Ned or myself. It is not for us
to say aye or nay. All must now go through the Archbishop.

- That is matter of a formality, man. Yet what Henslowe
said was true. The Archbishop of Canterbury had been shocked
by the excesses of the plays against Martin, many of them very
filthy, and regretful that he had not merely approved but
instigated, and now all plays must be handed to a triumvirate,
most censorious, of one of the Archbishop’s appointment, one
of the Lord Mayor’s, and the Master of the Revels himself.
Yet this, surely, would go through, it was good protestant
meat.

- There are twelve murders and seventeen victims, Kit
said. It will cost a fortune in pig’s blood.

- You give that fortune as a recommendation? Henslowe said.

- I do not see the arithmetic of the murders, Ned said,
though tempted.

- Will you or will you not?

- Let us have instead of this the usurious Jew you spoke of.

- That is not ready. Will you or not?

- Alas no, Ned said. Not now. Perhaps not ever. Take it to
the Burbages at the crumbling Theatre and you will receive no
different answer. Ah, thank God, here is my tankard. And Ned
drank near all off in one breath, he had much of that. If we cannot
have the Jew, he said, emerging panting, we must make do with
this thing of Tom Kyd’s. And there is Robin Greene coming up
with the two friars and the comedy of devil-raising.

- Another theft from Greene? I will have Greene.

- Greene is not well.

- He will be less so when I have done with him. And
Kit gripped his sword pommel so that his knuckles showed
white.

- Well, then, there it is, we must continue the rehearsal.

- The usurious Jew, Henslowe said.

- Aye, and you shall play him. And Kit was off to the
riverside where the boatmen cried Eastward Ho and Westward
Ho, and he took a boat whose Charon had a roofless mouth and
said hn hn.

Tom Watson was at work in Kit’s own house, away from a
wife’s scolding and the drumming of Latin into an inattentive
boy that nonetheless smelt sweet of cinnamon. He had taken
time off to add comedy to The Massacre at Paris and, as Kit
entered, at once said:

- I have this Murgeroun cutting off the ear of the cutpurse
for cutting off Murgeroun’s golden buttons, and the cutpurse
cries 0 Lord, mine ear, and Murgeroun responds with Come
sir, give me my buttons and here’s your ear. That has the right
laughter of cruelty.

Good. We need money, Tom, and Henslowe and Alleyn
will not take it.

- Try the Burbages. They are playing this afternoon. You
can at least try. It is but a step. Take three sheets of it only,
they will taste its quality.

- I will.

And he left, and there was William Bradley waiting for him, very drunk, unbuttoned (no gold there) and waving a
sword about. He cried:

- I will have the bitch’s bastard Tom Watson. Where is he?

- Whatever you call him, scum, he is not about.

- Scum yourself, atheist. Draw, I will have you first, swiver
of boys’ arses, and then I will have that hogsdrop Watson. Come
on, thou.

- I am not thou, pig. Now.

And Kit drew and lunged. He was onstage, he had onlookers,
they were gathering at Hog Lane corner. Kit panted and Bradley
panted, drunk and on unsteady legs but eyes steady and right
arm skilled only in pot-lifting, swiping, this craft. Kit had been
offered practice in the foils by Tom Walsingham but had said
no, reserving arm for pen. Bradley parried with overmuch ease,
going haw. Real blood thou shalt have, not from bladders, and
it shall be thine own, thou pickest at the air like a lady at a child’s
nits.

Kit, seeing blood, drew it. Bradley’s wrist. Bradley dripped,
went haw, and took two hands to steady him for the piercing of
Kit’s breast. Kit leapt, that he could do, and to relief saw Tom
Watson appear in his shirt, sword drawn. Bradley cried:

- Art thou now come, then I will have a bout with thee.
Out of it, frigger, I will have thee after like cheese after meat.

Bradley had now sword in right and dagger in left. He caught
Tom Watson most bitterly in the brow with dagger, there was a
wound like a mouth that spoke blood. Tom ran to the ditch which
was a border to the field where the windmills turned lazy and
indifferent, and there too were some gathering to watch; Tom saw
a drunken canvas-climber cry Codardo. Turn on him, caramba,
madre de Dios. Tom would leap the ditch. Bradley staggered on
its edge, recovered, Tom struck him on his beard so that blood
enlivened the thistlefield of it, then drew back and thrust once
forward into Bradley’s chest that was bare being unbuttoned and
gauged by the thrust that he had pierced six inches. Bradley was
very surprised, took a palmful of his own blood to squint at, then
struck unhandily, then fell. Muerto, the drunken canvas-climber
cried. Kit came up to see. The blood issued in waves. He said:

- That is from the arteries. It circulates.

- Christ, panted Tom, I’ve killed him.

- Self-defence, all here saw it. See it pumping out.

Stephen Wyld, a decent small man that was constable of
the precinct, had come with his two men with their bare bills
for the quelling of riot. This was no riot. Murder, Wyld’s lips
framed silently as he looked up from the blood tide.

- Self-defence.

- A man dead. That is murder. Which of you?

- I hit first, Kit said. He came for me as I left the house,
bravo-ing and with his sword drawn. Then Mr Watson.

- Arrested, both. My duty, no pleasure to me. You both
I know. Him I know, knew. The blood still galloped.

- Where do we go?

- Sir Owen, Hopton that is, Lieutenant of the Tower. Our
justice of the peace here. Norton Folgate, a brief walk.

- No resistance, Tom said. We come. There are witnesses
enough of the self-defence. What do you do with the body?

- Sir Owen will see it. None will remove it. Leave it for
the flies. The flies are quick, buzzing there. They love blood,
it is honey to them.

Sir Owen Hopton was in his garden. It had been a dry summer, and he degged red Tudor roses. He was a stern man with a
beard, apt for a gardener, cut spadewise. He must sign a warrant.
They went into the house with him, and he kindly offered wine.
With water, Tom said. They were both near dead of thirst. His
forehead dripped, he begged pardon, his handkerchief was in the
sleeve of the jerkin still in Mr Marlowe’s house. Sir Owen said:

- Well, here we have it. On Suspicion of Murder. The
coroner will sit tomorrow, you must abide the jury’s finding.
Alas, you must suffer committal to Newgate. Need they be
manacled, Mr Wyld?

- It is what is done. But both are gentlemen.

- Why why? Kit asked Tom while they were walked to
Newgate. Tom was counting what he had in his purse, his
wound in the brow staunched, his jerkin on. Their swords had
been taken from them.

- Something of a long tale. Jack Alleyn leaves the Unicorn
to be with Ned at the Rose, Bradley owes him money he needs,
bribes of protection construed as loans, he will not pay, Jack asks
Hugh Swift who is the brother of my wife to threaten suit in the
Court of Common Pleas, Swift calls on Bradley at the Bishop’s
Head his father’s inn and is attacked by George Orwell who
threatens a killing if the suit continues, Swift goes to the Queen’s
Bench for securities of peace against Orwell, Jack Alleyn and I,
for Hugh drags me into this business as his sister’s husband, we
propose a like assault on Bradley to jolt him into paying what
he owes, Bradley hears and gets securities of the peace against
Jack, Hugh, myself, alleging himself to be in fear of death from
us, you are into it as friend, associate, what you will. The rest
you know.

- Here then ye be, masters. Here ye have the Limboes.

They were pushed, with some courtesy shown in the light
or token nature of the push, through a hatch into unwindowed
darkness where a candle set on a black stone showed walls of
ill-hewn blocks, a floor uneven and slimy, what seemed to be
initials of prisoners long gone carved on a wooden bench which
was all there was for sitting, resting, sleeping.

- There is no air. We are below ground, Kit panted as
he was manacled to Tom by the jailer, then both to the floor
rings.

- Nay, ye be above the gateway. That black stone is the
black dog of Newgate, but he will not bark till ye are in the
way of dashing out your brains against him. Here then ye stay.

- Food, drink?

- We will see of that when your bellies do rumble for a
breakfast. And he shuffled out in his filth and odour of ancient
mutton fat. The thick door slammed, a key ground. Why, this
is hell nor am I out of it. There were scufflings in the dark. Rats.

- We could catch one, Tom said, and eat it raw. Though
rats are as they say inesculent. The learned word bounced hollowly.

- A man should not play with these things. Jails and privation and death. I sit comfortably with my pen penning men into pens of this kind. I did not think I could be so short of
breath.

- Breathe deep. There is air enough. No, not enough.
Husband what we have.

- We will be out tomorrow for the coroner?

- I think not. It is a verdict foreknown, Wyld said. He will
be a witness himself, our proxy. There are witnesses enough, no
question, self-defence. Acquittal without doubt. Then release.

- When?

- Alas, not till next Sessions. December, I believe. That
makes two months.

- In this hole?

- Ah no, I know something of the procedure. This little
hell is to break a man’s spirit for the night. Then comes the
larger purgatory. Though that is now a word banned by the
theologians. What do we do this night, compose a play? No, we
rhyme, it is proper for poets manacled. The beneficent chains
of. Half a couplet each.

- I cannot. See those whiskers twitching, it smells us.

- Try. Country air, washed lambs, lilywhite shepherdesses.
It is all a sham. The pastoral sham that denies the black holes
and the foul stinks of true life, if that it can be called. Here we
are with our precious learning in the anteroom of thieves and
murderers and coiners. There was a time when we would have
been Franciscans or Dominicans. Ah well. Beneath an oak the
pouting Lycidas -

- I cannot. Wait. Saw not his flock that nibbled the green
grass.

- Not good. His inner eye fair Phyllida beguiled.

- You cannot say that. Nominative Phyllis. In fancy not
reality she smiled. I cannot. Let us cry to be let out.

- In the darkmans couch a hogshead. We must learn the
cant. The inner world alone exists. The soul floats free.

At dawn, after fits of sleep from which Kit started yelping
and while Tom awake and worried said Calm, calm, another
jailer came to them, grinding the key and letting a cockcrow
in, chewing bread most visibly, an unwashed Newgate veteran, in frayed leather and gaping boots through which black-nailed
hooves peered. He said:

- The garnish.

- A tester? Tom knew the term, Kit not.

- You be gentry coves. A silver bit. Receiving the coin
he bit it, stowed it, then set himself to loosing their shackles
with a key that made rat-squeals. Now it is to be the Master’s
side, you be not common enough for the common. Middle
Ward is crammed that you do use your chum’s famble for
scratching of a pock boil, Stone Hold is right aswim with the
fever.

They followed him to a region where was grudging light and
air, a sorry mockery of the true world without, with space and
open cells with bedboards and men free of limb and shambling
though groaning.

- And that is the boozing ken where a man may booze
an he have the tink. You may pay the Master there.

The Master appeared masterly in a manner proper to a
prison, in hose, doublet, ruff even much creased and greased
and reechy, with face and hands proudly unwashed, with beard
lousy and uncombed. He took from Kit what was almost his final
shilling, biting it more in custom than suspicion, and lordlily
showing that there was the boozing ken. It was a mere foul
tavern under a groined vault. The cove of the ken was brother
to the Master, and he served hard bread and pies, stewed
prunes as this were a brothel, ale watered as he would, since
none could go elsewhere. There were benches but most stood
about. Here were upright men, rufflers, abram-men, high-pads,
buff-knappers, rattling-mumpers, tat-mongers, wiper-drawers,
kidlays and moon-cursers (I thank Greene and Nashe for the
trade-names), as also gentlemen, like Kit and Tom, rendered
unfortunate. Here strangely was a freedom not to be found in
the free city without, since a man could curse Church and State
without fear of arrest since he was already arrested. Kit cursed
by the anus of Chrysostom and the pocked nose of St Anselm.
Dick Baines heard him. He was ordering a lamb’s wool to the
tapster’s grumbles and said: