Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon (28 page)

“Nay, you know it's not that,” Blount said.

“Aye, it's worse than that. They still think I practice witchcraft.”

“You should not talk to that woman—”

“Why not? I'll talk to anyone I please. Margery's my friend.”

“Then you should not expect the stationers to listen to you. They know that she's a witch, and if you keep company with her they will think the same of you.”

“She's not—” Alice started to say.

“Not a witch? Do you truly believe that?”

Alice said nothing. She could not make that claim, not now.

She set Nashe's book back on its pile, feeling melancholy. If it were not for Edward and Walter, she thought, she would have no one to speak to in the churchyard. She knew that George whispered against her, and she thought that his accusations must be having some effect. Folks listened to George; his business had prospered and he had become one of the most influential members of the company.

Now she looked over at Walter's stall. The city authorities had declared the danger from plague over and had reopened the playhouses at the end of December, and she and Walter had braved the cold and the rain to return to the Theatre and the Curtain in Shoreditch. Their talk was limited to the plays they saw and the business of the company, and she sometimes thought that she could learn to regard him as a friend and not as a man she could love. Then he would smile or say something witty, and she would feel herself catch fire again.

Still, she could not help but wonder why he had stuck by her. Perhaps he had some flaw in his character that made him defy the rest of the stationers, the same flaw she herself must have had in order to have stayed so long with Margery. They were two of a kind, then, outcasts among the rest of the company. How had she come to this?

George had his stall a few yards past Walter's. She glanced at him briefly, saw him scowl. Of late he had seemed more and more unhappy; probably he suspected she had had something to do with Arthur's disappearance from Hogg's house. On some days that thought was the only thing that could cheer her.

She saw George close up his stall and leave the churchyard. Going to his counterfeiting friend, no doubt, she thought. His counterfeit friend. She laughed a little, harshly, and turned back to her books.

Anthony Drury had delivered the summons to meet with Hogg earlier that day. Now, as George entered Hogg's cramped room, he saw Anthony sitting at the large table with Hogg. He felt briefly angry. It was bad enough to be humiliated; to have that humiliation conducted in front of Anthony would be even worse. Then he remembered why Hogg had sent for him, and fear drove out all his other thoughts.

“Did you tell anyone that we found Arthur?” Hogg asked.

How had the man known? Perhaps he didn't know; perhaps he was only guessing. George shook his head.

“Come, George,” Hogg said. “Lying will not help you here. You boasted to your friends, didn't you?”

Anthony Drury watched them both, his eyes burning eagerly. “I—I told a few men from the churchyard,” George said finally. Why had he ever opened his mouth, why had he let his ancient feeling for Alice overcome all his good sense? It didn't pay to be too understanding; it was not good policy. “But they didn't take him—they couldn't—”

“Nay, they couldn't. But someone told Alice, and Alice's friend, that Margery, certainly could. Didn't you think of that?”

“I—”

“You have not been helpful to me at all, George. Nay, you have been worse than that—you have proved to be a hindrance rather than a help. You nearly lost us Arthur in Bedlam, with all your prating about Alice Wood. And now you
have
lost him. What am I to do with you?”

George said nothing. At best, he thought, Hogg would cast him off, would no longer give him money from his supply of gold coins. And he needed those coins to keep his business: he owed too many people money, had spread himself far too thin. Yet he thought he would gladly brave poverty instead of—of those other things, the lubber-fiends or worse.

Anthony grinned. “The pox take you, why are you laughing?” Hogg said, turning to him. George realized that Hogg was genuinely angry now. He had never faced the man's anger, had never seen him lose his careful control, and he felt terrified.

“I'll—I can watch her for you,” George said. “I see her every day at the churchyard.”

“Do you think she hasn't been watched? Do you think I'm that foolish? She's spied on every minute, she and that demon of hers. She doesn't have Arthur.”

“She doesn't—Then where is he?”

“Margery has him. And I don't know where Margery is. She's clever at hiding, I'll give her that.”

“Well, then, I could—”

“You could do nothing. Whatever you do will only make matters worse. Go.”

George stood still for a minute, wondering if he had heard correctly. Was he to be let off so easily?

“Go! Leave me, both of you. I have work to do.”

George left quickly.

After they had gone Paul Hogg stared at the door for a long moment. He had asked that Anthony be present while he questioned George because he had wanted to play the two men off against each other, had wanted to keep them both confused and off balance. Either one might be tempted by the red king's vast power; he knew that he could not let down his guard for a moment in their presence.

Though Anthony, of course, was far more dangerous than George. His desire for knowledge and wealth was too great; he burned with the need for it. He had to be kept on a tight rein, given only so much information and money and no more. Even now, Hogg knew, Anthony sometimes reverted to his former profession of counterfeiter and debased the gold coins Hogg gave him.

George, on the other hand, George might be harmless. Hogg gave him all the gold he desired; his ambitions, so far, had been modest ones. He knew Anthony resented the fact that he favored George, that George prospered while Anthony lived in near-poverty. And Hogg encouraged this resentment, honored George in little ways, so that the two of them would not join forces and study without him.

Not that he truly thought they had the wit to do that. Hogg had met only one other person whose learning he admired, whose talents he envied. Five years ago, when he had first come to London, when he had seen that the Fair Folk were moving and had been moved himself to follow them, he had become acquainted with Margery and had asked to study with her. But she had refused him, saying that she could not accept his methods. He hadn't understood her then and he didn't now: what difference did it make how he achieved his end? She had claimed to be appalled at that.

He should not have lost his temper with George and Anthony, should not have let them see his control slip. And he should not think so much of Margery: she was a woman and suffered from a woman's weaknesses. Her limited thinking would keep her from doing truly great work.

He opened a book on the table in front of him and looked down the page. “It is in the marriage of the red man and the white lady that the Philosopher's Stone is born,” he read. What did that mean? Why did all the authors of antiquity understand it, everyone but him?

17

The plague returned that spring. As Tom Kyd walked through the city in mid-May he heard the sound of a loud bell ringing behind him, and he turned to see a death-cart nearly on him. The driver swore and he hurried out of the way, but he was not quick enough to escape the foul odor of death that trailed behind the cart. As it passed he saw the five or six bodies in winding-sheets piled on top of each other. Other than the driver, still ringing his bell, he was the only living soul on the street.

Once again, Tom thought, he had not managed to find a way to leave London. He knew that Christopher had gone to the country with his patron, Thomas Walsingham, and he couldn't help but resent him for it. Kit had sent Walsingham the parts of his poem he had finished and had received an invitation almost immediately. By that time, though, the two writers were no longer sharing the room. Harsh words had been exchanged, the cause of which Tom could no longer remember. It had all grown too much: the other man's mysterious absences, his blasphemous speech, the diversions that seemed to come just when Tom was sitting down to write. Still, Tom wished he could have read the rest of the poem.

He passed a ballad posted on the wall of an inn and paused to read it:

You, strangers, that inhabit this land,

Note this same writing, do it understand.

Conceive it well, for safeguard of your lives,

Your goods, your children, and your dearest wives.

He could make little of it, only that someone wanted the foreigners out of England. The author of the ballad had even given a date for the strangers to leave: July 9. Tom knew that the large number of people who had come to London had caused a struggle for the jobs that existed, and that some thought the city would be better off without folks coming in from other countries as well. But perhaps the plague would keep the ballad's threat from being fulfilled. Tom hoped so, anyway; he did not like to see men come to blows, except in the controlled spaces of the stage. Once he reached his chamber, though, he put the matter out of his mind and began to work.

A few days later loud knocking interrupted him as he sat at his desk. Before he could get up to open the door two men came in uninvited, one tall and plump, with a heavy blond mustache, the other small and dark, with a face that reminded Tom of a weasel.

“We have orders from the queen's Star Chamber,” the shorter one said.

“Aye?” Tom said, standing. He had done nothing wrong, he knew that, and yet he still felt himself grow cold at the other man's words. Anyone might have misunderstood something he had said, or taken his friends' opinions for his own. But he hadn't been to the taverns in several months; he had stopped going about the same time Christopher left.

The tall man picked up Tom's manuscript and looked through it. “Beautiful handwriting,” he said. “Look here, Dick.”

“Could you—could he put that down?” Tom said.

“Nay,” the shorter man—Dick—said. “We have orders, as I told you, from the Star Chamber.”

What orders? Tom wondered. Why should the queen send men to look through his plays?

“Did you work on a play called—” Dick looked at a piece of paper in his hand. “Here it is. A play called
Sir Thomas More?”

“Nay.”

“Listen,” the tall man said, reading from a paper he had found. “‘And will ye needs bedew my dead-grown joys, And nourish sorrow with eternal tears?'” He looked up at Tom. “‘And nourish sorrow with eternal tears,'” he repeated slowly. Foolishly, Tom found himself wondering if the man liked it.

“Sir Edmund Tillney, the Master of the Revels, had to suppress some of that play,” Dick said, ignoring the other man. “He told us six people had a hand in it.”

“I didn't write it. I told you.”

“The part about dots against foreigners. You've seen the libels posted around the city about the French and Flemish settlers?”

The taller man had finished rooting through his papers and moved to Christopher's old desk. It was hard to listen to Dick and keep an eye on him at the same time. “Aye,” Tom said a little belatedly, glad that he could give Dick the answer he wanted.

“The queen wants her new subjects to be happy here. They've suffered enough persecution from the Catholics already. Wouldn't you say so?”

“Aye.” Where was all this leading?

“We're to find the folks responsible for posting those ballads. Someone suggested it might have been you.”

“Nay, it wasn't—”

“Do you know who it might have been?”

Tom thought. If he could come up with a name, he knew, the men would probably go away. But he could not bring himself to accuse anyone. He shook his head.

“You'll tell us if you hear anything.”

“Oh, aye,” Tom said.

The taller man lifted a page from the desk. “‘And Jesus Christ which was born of Mary is not counted God with me,'” he said, reading slowly.

God's blood, what was that? Something Christopher had written, or had paid to have copied. Whatever it was it was dangerous, very dangerous. Why had he left it here?

Dick turned to the other man quickly. “Let me see that.”

The tall man came over and gave him the manuscript. “What does this mean?” Dick asked. “‘Not counted God with me?'”

Tom's heart beat very fast. He could not seem to gather his thoughts. “I don't know.”

“Where is it from?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know,” Dick repeated flatly. “Who would know, then? This is your room, isn't it?”

“Aye, but—”

“Then it's your manuscript. Isn't it?”

“Nay. I shared this room with another man.”

Dick's eyes narrowed with interest. Tom saw that he had been foolish, very foolish. “Who?” Dick asked.

“Several people, really. I can't remember them all.”

It sounded weak to him. The other man must have thought so too, because he said, “You shared a room with them and can't remember their names?”

“Aye. There were many of us.”

“But who would have had a manuscript like this one? And why didn't he take it with him when he left?”

“I don't know.”

“Look here, John,” Dick said to the taller man. “See how fine the handwriting is. You have a fine hand too, Master—” He looked down at his piece of paper again. “—Master Kyd.”

“I was a scrivener.” Tom said quickly. “No doubt whoever owned this manuscript paid another scrivener to copy it.”

“Aye? It looks like your handwriting to me. What do you think, John?”

“Aye, to me too.”

“Nay, I—”

“Such things are easy enough to check,” Dick said.