Death of Kings (16 page)

(Yet even in this extremity I had given a Jesuitical, tergiversating answer – one which might not satisfy any inquisitors if I were put to the question but which nevertheless satisfied me
in the depths of my conscience. I had heard that our Elizabeth often referred to herself as ‘King’, perhaps in tribute to her long-dead father, perhaps in the desire to arrogate
masculine qualities to herself. Therefore, to avoid the sacrilege of wishing another set up in her place, I brought her image to my mind’s eye even as I uttered the words, ‘God save the
King’.)

This answer, whether it was the watchword or no, appeared partly to satisfy my assailant too. His grip relaxed further and the steel point was altogether withdrawn from under my chin. I sensed
it still hovering however. At the edge of my vision I discerned a little nose-gay of gallants making their indolent progress towards us.

“Ze King, yes. Now you be good boy again and say why you ’ere.”

But, though I might have saved myself by complying with his command, I was more afraid that the simple phrases which Master WS had requested me to transmit would serve as further provocation to
this violent man.

“I have a message – words – but they are for Mr HW alone, the words that I have.”

Reluctant to name the individual, I took refuge in the flimsy shelter of his initials.

“HW? Who izz HW? I do not know HW. Give me ze words.”

“They are for one man alone. I have been strictly instructed.”

This, by the by, was true. Master WS had been most insistent that his words were intended for one pair of ears only.

But it was my own ears that now received the hot, smelly, ticklish and breathy attention of the well-dressed door-keeper, as he once more tightened his hold on my upper arm and brought his
dagger into play around the throat region.

“Your words or I kill you.”

His voice resonated down my spine.

“Only to Mr HW.”

I was perhaps encouraged to refuse him by the arrival of the group of gentlemen whose bright costumes now flared in the corner of my eye. The presence of these others would surely deter my
assailant from further violence. But I was deluded, for the man at my back jabbed at the underside of my chin hard enough – as I discovered an instant later – to draw blood. He would
certainly have gone on to do worse if one of the bystanders had not spoken out, quietly but authoritatively.

“What has this person done?”

“ ’E as words, words to say.”

“Do you mean to cut them out of him?”

There was a ripple of laughter from the knot of gents.

“ ’E
far la spia
,” said my assailant. “ ’E spy.” I could feel wetness trickling down my upturned throat and soaking into my ruff (for I had dressed up
to enter such a grand house, even a house so full of knaves).

“What is your name?” said the man who appeared to be the leader of the gallants. To be asked one’s name is a step on the road of civility, even if the other’s voice
betrayed no great friendliness towards me.

“Nicholas Revill.”

“Are you a spy, Master Revill?”

Well, the uncomfortable truth was that I was, in some manner, a spy. In addition to the blood running down my throat, I felt my armpits and sides spouting sweat.

“I am a player, sir.”

“Spies may be players too, I suppose.”

There was another little ripple of laughter from his group at this sally. Nevertheless, he signalled with his eyes to the man holding me and I was released. Instinctively, my hand sprang to the
cut in my throat.

“With the Chamberlain’s, I am with the Chamberlain’s Company,” I said, following up this advantage.

I sensed an alteration, a more attentive spirit, in the group when I thus placed myself.

“And I have a message for a gentleman who is staying here.”

“I will take you to him,” said the speaker in the group. “But first Signor Noti there will give you something so that you may staunch the wound he has inflicted – which,
by the by, does not appear to be very grave. I suggest that you surrender one of your fine handkerchiefs, Signor Noti.
Vostro fazzolo
, Signor Noti,
per favore.
”

There was no question who was in command here. I realised that the speaker was not only exerting his authority but also making some kind of amends for the hostile reception which I had received.
While the well-dressed ‘door-keeper’ pretended to search his person for a handkerchief, I studied my rescuer.

Like the others, he wore his dark hair long but in his case it was arranged in a tress on one side. The rest was brushed back, uncovering a high forehead which gave him a pensive appearance. His
face, regarding me with mild curiosity, seemed too refined for any desperate action. A fine pair of gauntlets dangled languidly in one hand. He waited until the ‘doorkeeper’ Noti
finally pushed into my hand a small square of embroidered silk, fine material which I had pleasure in spoiling with some of the blood from the nick his knife had caused.

“With me, please, Master Revill. You will doubtless need privacy.”

He turned about as if there was no question that I’d follow him. It occurred to me that he had not asked for whom my message was intended. Presumably he’d overheard those cryptic
initials, HW. The other gentlemen, almost as polished as their leader, formed a loose circle about us as we made our way across the flagged courtyard and towards the entrance to the house
itself.

For the first time I had leisure to look about me. And to consider more than ever the pertinency of that line of mine (and Master WS’s), ‘I have many enemies in Orsino’s
court’. This was a great town-house but it had, at the moment, something of the air of an armed camp. Mingled incongruously among the gents and gallants, there were grizzled captains and
superannuated ensigns. My lord of Essex’s campaign in Ireland had concluded over a year earlier but these veterans looked, as it were, fresh in their weariness. As if they had stepped
straight from foreign bog to boat to homeland again, without an interval to change clothes or even to wipe their begrimed faces, let alone lay down their weapons. They moved about the courtyard
purposefully, and not with the resentful expressions with which unemployed soldiers customarily equip themselves on the public streets. They clotted together or strode briskly between groups,
clapping each other on the shoulders, admiring each other’s swords and the girdles and hangers which supported them, all the while laughing or talking loudly. Either these hardened soldiers
did not care who saw and heard them or they presumed that each person here was of like mind. This was indeed a dangerous place for he who was not an Essexite.

If I had earlier thought that the charged air was similar to that in the playhouse before a performance, now it seemed more like the heady, blood-seeking mood of the crowd in the bear-pit.
Everywhere, there was a happy, brawny buzz which betokened action – and action soon. It was plain that they expected trouble. It was equally plain that they were looking forward to
trouble.

The man who had directed me to accompany him kept a little ahead but did not look round or address any more words to me. We entered through the grand central portal of the house. Inside, there
was an even greater press and ferment than outside. In a large, tiled entrance hall men were crowded shoulder to jostled shoulder. After the chill of the February morning it was warm and stuffy
with breath and tobacco smoke. The obscurity was dimly alleviated by the winter morning coming through the mullioned lights in the north wall above the entrance. What I could see suggested that the
crowd was the same mixture of gallants and military veterans as in the open air, but with a sprinkling of more ruffianly types. I was surprised, however, to see one or two individuals in Puritan
garb. I should not have been, I suppose. Malcontents will wear any costume.

Motioning to me, my companion made his way round the edge of the hall. The others with him were absorbed into the crowd. I kept faithfully at his heels. I was, in truth, a little alarmed at the
possibility of losing sight of him. There was small sign here of the privacy which he had promised. Those who saw us cleared a small passage, sometimes urging others to get out of the way, but
frequently we had to tug at sleeves or push shoulders to pass through. Consequently, it took several minutes to travel a matter of yards. We were further delayed because the crowd was distracted.
Moments after we’d started, a hush fell over the hall which, for an instant, I attributed to our arrival. But then a figure seemed to rise up out of the crush, swaying unsteadily at the far
end of the hall. At first I thought he was being hoist aloft by the arms and shoulders of the crowd. But as he found his footing it was evident that he had been placed on some sort of dais. He was
dressed in the black-and-white of the Puritan preacher. He stood there, a thin dark candle of a man topped by a thin white face which was lit up with zeal. His mouth gaped. He was all a-fire to
speak.

My late father was a preacher. I am well disposed towards them as a species. The best of them have few equals . . . and as for the rest, well, they are mostly no worse than our fallen fellows.
But the Puritans or square-toes are different. If we theatre folk are cats, then the Puritans are dogs to us; we instinctively arch our backs and spit, or experience a sudden sharp desire to flee
from their fluting tones and narrow condemnation. They loathe the playhouse and all its works, and many other things as well, with a passion that far exceeds their love for God and His saints. It
is true that my father also hated plays and players but I ascribed this to his ignorance and his innocence, for he had never attended a playhouse in his life. In himself, away from the church, he
was a mild man. Were he alive, he would long ago have forgiven me for my disreputable way of life. Or so I choose to believe.

I wondered again what this being, this Puritan spouter, was doing in such motley company. Among gallants who whored and gambled and captains who drank and swore, as well as, most probably,
ruffians who stole and did worse. Necessity makes strange bedfellows. When the crowd was properly quiet, this individual started to orate in a reedy but powerful voice. I listened, I had no choice
but to listen, even as we pushed and shoved our path through the crush. The gentleman who had intervened to help me by the gate was still leading the way.

“My brothers in Christ,” the speaker began, “oh, dear brothers in Christ, I am moved in spirit to be here this day and to speak before you, to raise my voice in protest against
the foul face of these times. The houses of the unholy – the settlements of Satan – the tents of the wicked – we see that they are pitched not a quarter of a mile from where we
stand. There sits a woman and her crooked councillors—”

There were murmurs at this, not of anger or shock but, as it seemed, of assent. If I could have clapped my hands over my ears without drawing attention to the gesture, I would have done it, so
alarmed was I at the preacher’s words. To hear treason uttered, even against one’s wishes, is to feel contaminated by it. I was conscious too of the dreadful risk this preacher man was
running, and wondered at his impudence and daring. If caught and tried, he might well have lost his ears for abusing those of others by speaking ill of her majesty. Yet this evidently did not weigh
with him for, pleased with the reception of his treasonous words, he repeated them with yet more force.

“—a woman and her crooked councillors, I say. One in particular has a body which is as twisted as his mind and spirit and so all may see that he bears the mark of the beast [
I
supposed it was Sir Robert Cecil, with his hunch-back, whom he meant
]. And what do these profane councillors of corruption – these Satanic suggesters who crawl on their bellies the better
to raise their heads in pride – what is it that they seek? What is their infernal quest? Why, to persuade our sovereign lady [
but the sneering way that he uttered the phrase indicated that
he considered our Queen to be neither sovereign nor a lady
] that the safety of the realm lies across the water. With a foreign bastard wrapped in the robes of Rome. We shall be sold to the
whore of Babylon, I tell you. We shall be strangled in the bands of the Antichrist.”

At this, the murmurs rose to groans and oaths and shrieks of – of outrage, approval, indignation, I could not tell. From the point of view of a player, I could not but admire the skill
with which this preacher was working on his congregation. In fact, I was a little affected by his words myself and with difficulty stopped myself mouthing quiet assent, despite my abhorrence of
treason.

All this time I continued to squeeze my way though the press of men round the perimeter of the hall of Essex House, dogging my protector’s heels, and presuming we should soon arrive at
some place of privacy. So it proved, for a moment later he ducked through a doorway to his left, glancing over his shoulder to ensure that I was still behind him. Before we got safely shut away
from the hall and the ranting, however, I heard the speaker’s voice rising and strengthening as he reached some kind of peroration.

“Brothers in Christ, there comes a time in the affairs of this vale of tears when it is needful for men to follow the dictates of their consciences. This tells us that compulsion is
lawful, yes, compulsion even against the highest in the land.”

Cries of agreement, gestures of assent.

“Oh compulsion, my brothers. Sweet word, compulsion. On such occasions it is God Himself thrusts the arms into our hands and bids us use them.”

Then the door was shut behind us.

We were in a small closet. From beyond the walls came the preacher’s urging, but muffled, together with the sussuration of the crowd, like the wind playing through a stand of tall
trees.

There was a table in the room and a couple of chairs. It was dark-panelled, with only a modicum of light coming through a small high window. The room might have been designed for close
conversation. I attempted to study my companion, who took up his station on the far side of the table, but the gloom made this difficult. Even so, it seemed to me that a slight smile hovered about
his face. His broad brow glimmered. He motioned towards a chair on one side of the table and reclined gracefully in the other. I dabbed at the underside of my chin with the door-keeper’s
silken scrap. The blood no longer trickled. My ruff would require laundering.