The Pale Companion (15 page)

“Look here, Nicholas.”

I crossed over to where he stood.

“This would be the place to climb up from, no? This knot here would allow you a foothold, and you could hoist yourself up using that cluster of twigs, could you not? In fact, from the way they’re bent down it looks as though someone has already taken this course. And then you might take hold of that branch round the corner . . . and so on . . . and so up . . .”

For an instant I thought Fielding was going to follow his own directions (I’ve rarely seen a more vigorous man, given his middle years). Then I was afraid that he might ask me to climb it. I don’t mind climbing trees but part of me revolted slightly at the idea of scaling one which had been employed in a hanging. However the Justice’s mind was already shifting elsewhere.

“Now, Nicholas, you must take me to this strange man’s – what did you call it? – hole.”

This was easier said than done. When I’d followed in the naked footsteps of Robin I had taken little heed of the path through the woods. For some time Adam Fielding and I blundered about in sun and shadow, stooping under branches and skirting dense clumps of undergrowth. The longer we spent in the wood the bigger it seemed to grow. I began to have an inkling of how Robin might regard it as a “kingdom”. On several occasions I thought I’d identified the hollowed-out bank standing next to a line of large trees. But each time I failed to find the entrance to the elusive earth. I started to sweat and grow worried. Some bird which I couldn’t have named began to make noises that sounded mocking, a kind of rippling ha-ha-ha.

I wasn’t so much discomfited by not uncovering Robin’s hole as by the notion that I was wasting Fielding’s time. After all, it was I who had sought him out because I was troubled by the manner of the strange man’s death. I’d offered to show the Justice something which could be material in the case, and it was plain that I didn’t have the least idea what I was about. He was silent, probably because his patience was running thin.

I wiped my eyes. Suddenly across the corner of my vision there flickered that white form which I’d first glimpsed in the woods some miles outside Instede. I turned to catch it – and it was gone. I felt dizzy. I grabbed a branch to support myself. Fielding was behind me. My mouth was open to say, or rather to stammer out, “Did you see . . .?” but it was apparent from his settled expression that he’d seen nothing. Perhaps it was imagination; safer to put it down to imagination.

“Nicholas?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I am not sure where this place is. The wood is bigger than I supposed.”

“Let us abandon the search for now. It’s nearly dinner time, anyway.”

I agreed reluctantly.

“I rather think the way out must lie in this direction,” said Fielding, taking charge. We moved off to the left, like two gents out for a late morning stroll, although from time to time we were forced to go in single file.

“Tell me about your play, Nicholas. I trust the rehearsals are going well and so on.”

“Well enough, your worship. We are unused to having so much time at our disposal. In London we’d already’ve played the
Dream
a couple of times before a congregation and be engaged in something else by now.”

“Congregation?”

“What Dick Burbage calls our audiences. Congregations.”

Fielding laughed. He had a pleasant, unforced laugh.

“Because the playhouse is the temple where they do their devotions? Where they come to worship their idols?”

“I am sure Dick means nothing disrespectful by it.”

“And I am equally sure he does. At least I hope he does.”

Knowing Master Burbage’s combative attitude to most things, I could only agree.

“You miss the press and hurry of your London life?” Fielding asked.

“The country is well enough in its way and I’m glad to be here, but as to missing London, if I’m honest I do. Perhaps we should be staging a city play to relieve this itch of mine.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
is all palaces and woods.”

“Like Instede,” said Fielding. He paused before continuing, “And in this
Dream
you must be one of the lovers.”

“You have seen Master Shakespeare’s play?”

“Yes, in – let me see – ’95, when it was played in . . . I cannot recall the name of the place . . .”

“The Theatre? Near Finsbury Fields.”

“Over there. My sister-in-law lives on the north side of the city,” he added.

I remembered that Kate had mentioned her aunt while I’d been trying to impress her with London wickedness.

“The Chamberlain’s Company are better lodged now in the Globe playhouse,” I said, “though some would say that we’re in a, ah, less respectable district.”

“Respectability again, Nicholas. Anyone would think you were my age. The day a player becomes too respectable is the day he dies, in his craft at least.”

“You are right, sir,” I said, though such sentiments were surprising in the mouth of a magistrate. “And to answer your question, I do play one of the lovers, Lysander by name. While for my co-rival in love I am privileged to be playing alongside Cuthbert, Lord Elcombe’s younger son.”

“So he plays at playing.”

“Oh, he is quite in earnest about it, I think. Wait!”

I stopped, for we were passing the spot where Robin had had his lair. Almost certain of it, I looked about. Yes, there was the tall shoulder of trees rearing up to the right while below was a leaf-strewn bank. I crouched down. Straight in front of me was the dank hole that led to his hide-away.

“It is here.”

Fielding crouched down beside me.

“I found it when I wasn’t looking for it.”

“That happens, sometimes,” he said. Then, “Go on. I’ll wait here. You know what it is you’re searching for.”

Since I’d started this particular hare running, I had no choice but to see it through. So I set off down the earth passage, slightly reassured by the weighty presence of a Justice of the Peace to my rear, but apprehensive nonetheless. Even in my short crawl through the malodorous tunnel I had the notion that Robin would be waiting for me at the other end, raggedly dressed in the pelts of small animals, earth-mouldy. That bony hand which could not clutch. The talk which did not make sense.

Then I emerged into the hollowed-out space where he’d lived. It took some moments for my eyes to get used to the deep gloom. Light broke through the leaf-matting in threads and tiny spoonfuls. A little low creature scuttered behind me. Root tendrils tickled my face. To my overtaxed mind, it seemed that someone sat sighing in the corner. The white form which I’d glimpsed moments before. Or the ghost of Robin perhaps. His true self but incorporeal. Everyone knows that a violent despatch makes for a restless spirit.

Just find it, Revill, and make your escape before the woodwoses get you too and string you up from the nearest tree.

What was I looking for? Ah yes, the little leathern box that I’d been shown. Or rather, not the box so much as the papers which it contained. Papers which Robin – a man near the edge of his wits if not toppled off them altogether – considered important. I moved forward on my knees, sweeping ahead warily with my hands. Almost straightaway, in the near dark, I struck something. Touch and a dim sense of sight gave me an oblong box with some kind of hasp on it. I scooped it up and backed out of that place as fast as my hands and knees would carry me, bringing down clods of earth as I exited.

The sun was most welcome on my face after my immersion in the gloom. Adam Fielding was standing by the entrance. He looked pleased to see me. I held out the box to him.

“No, Nicholas, it’s your find. Complete your search.”

I examined the box. It was less than a foot in length, about half that in width and a couple of inches deep. It felt light but, when shaken, something shifted inside it. Where the leather cladding hadn’t turned black it was green from damp and mould. The hasp was stiff and rusty but not secured by any kind of padlock. Hands slightly trembling, I opened the lid. Inside were several sheets of grimy paper, close-packed and crammed on top of each other. To my horror, as sunlight struck the interior of the box, these sheets of paper started to shift about like living things. They quivered and heaved up and down as if the box was going to vomit out its contents.

“Jesus!”

Repelled, I dropped the box instinctively. The lid snapped off as it hit the ground and the sheets of paper slithered out. From beneath the pile scrabbled and crawled several of the largest beetles I’d ever seen. Their backs, iridescent in the sunlight, showed a glossy green. Speedily the beetles lost themselves amongst the grass and leaves. Feeling foolish, I bent down to retrieve the scattered papers. They were creased and chewed-looking as well as being badly mildewed – to the extent that if anything had been written on them in the first place it was surely now obscured for ever.

I held out the sheaf of filthy papers to Fielding, as if to say: see, something was there inside the cavern after all, that box and these its dirty contents. The Justice took them and, with less delicacy than I’d shown, raised them to his nose before wiping at the smutted, greasy surface of the topmost sheet. His expression showed nothing.

“Is this everything that was in the box?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “He only showed me one or two sheets and even those I couldn’t see clearly.”

“What did you think these would prove to be?”

“I’ve no idea,” I said, rather abjectly. “But I suppose I believed them to have a value – like most items kept in a box.”

“As legal documents, deeds of title, and such?”

“Yes . . . perhaps.” I hesitated. “Robin talked to me of having had great estates once, of lands that it would’ve taken him a day to ride across. I don’t think he’d always lived here.”

I indicated the hole in the ground.

“So you consider this to be some kind of story, Nicholas, in which he’ll turn out to have been a great man.”

“Not necessarily,” I said, though that had perhaps been a notion at the back of my mind. “But it was obvious that what he was now was not what he had been once.”

“No, he was half out of his wits by your account.”

Adam Fielding gestured with the bundle of papers at the earth-hole from which I’d just emerged. When looked at in that way, Robin’s talk seemed to be indeed the fruits of long solitude and privation.

“This is thin cheap paper,” said Fielding. “Not intended to last. No lawyer would commit anything to it. There might have been some ink markings here but they are dirtied over or washed away beyond recall.”

He handed the sheaf back to me. I must have looked disappointed for he added, “You have done well, Nicholas, to recover these. If you would be so good as to take the box and put those back inside, I’ll ensure that it is kept safe.”

“But it’s worthless.”

“Not worthless. Its value is not apparent at the moment, that is all,” said Fielding cryptically.

I squatted down to retrieve the box and its separated lid and then made to return the papers to the beetle-free interior. Something caught my eye. Adam Fielding had already moved a few paces off and was examining the environs of Robin’s dwelling.

“Sir,” I said. “Your worship.”

“Adam, you may call me,” he said abstractedly.

I felt a tiny surge of pleasure at this mark of familiarity.

“Adam, there is something here after all.”

He was by my side in a moment. I jabbed with my finger at a word which was distinguishable near the bottom of an otherwise blackened scrap of paper. It was scrawled in thick, crude letters.

It was a plea.

It read: MERCY.

Demetrius was calling me a coward, for hiding my head in a bush. Then Puck retorted, in my voice:

Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,
Telling the bushes that thou look’st for wars,
And will not come?

Thomas Pope, our “guider”, had the part of Puck. He presented an aged sprite with just a touch of malevolence about him. As I listened to him speaking in “my” voice, I wondered whether I actually sounded like that, whether he had me off pat. We cannot hear ourselves, or only indirectly in the aping of others. It’s like trying to catch a glimpse of the back of your head in a glass.

Finally I, as Lysander, drooped to the ground, overcome with weariness. I was closely followed by Demetrius, Helena and Hermia, all of us led to this spot by Puck, here to be cured of our love-sickness or, rather, of our misdirections in love. The ground was dry and the air warm. We were meant to have got lost in a fog but that would exist only in our – and our audience’s – minds. No fog now, but golden warmth. On this June evening one could happily fall asleep lying on the turf.

We were practising again for the
Dream
and not so distant prospect of the real thing on midsummer’s night. The ample rehearsal time was justified now by the presence in our band of Cuthbert Ascre, who played Demetrius. In fact, Cuthbert had proved quick and adept at learning his part. He was a natural, in the good sense. If he hadn’t had the prospect of an idle life in front of him as a great man’s younger son he would have made a most acceptable addition to any company. True, he found our jokes too amusing and he hung onto our seniors’ words as if his life depended on them, but all of us have been guilty of these faults, and much worse ones, in our ’prentice days. Perhaps I was disposed in his favour because we shared so much time on stage. Because he regarded me as an oracle on the subject of plays and players, he badgered me with questions, something which, though it can be irritating, is also flattering.

As well as Cuthbert, we’d taken on other temporary members for this performance, in the shape of several children who’d lately arrived at Instede with their families for the wedding celebrations. The great house was beginning to fill up with guests, who appeared to my easily-dazzled eyes to fall into three types: grand, grander and grandest. I’ve performed at court in Whitehall Palace but somehow this seemed an even more splendid and lavish concourse. Some of the exalted visitors nevertheless had sufficient share in our common humanity to have brought themselves – once or twice anyway – to perform the act of generation. It was the children of these lords and ladies, knights and their dames, who were to swell our numbers, by appearing at various points in the action, dancing in a ring, bearing lighted tapers, singing in their piping trebles.