Paul Doherty: A Brood of Vipers

The little man rattles his quill on the table. I grow sober as memory taps on my soul. The door swings open, the ghosts beckon me back along the gallery of time, back to London when Henry and Wolsey had the kingdom in the grip of their avaricious fingers. Oh yes, back to subtle ploys and clever plans! To treason, murder and death by a thousand stings! Benjamin waits for me there. I hear the knocking, it grows incessant. I open the door and Murder, evil-faced and bloody-handed, stands waiting to greet me.

In the spring of 1523, the fourteenth year of King Henry VIII's reign, my master and I were resting from our labours at our manor outside Ipswich. Benjamin was involved in his good works whilst I amply proved the dictum 'The devil finds work for idle hands'. I had attempted to open an apothecary's shop in the village. Benjamin stopped this when he realised I was buying supplies from a certain Doctor Quicksilver who lived in the shabby tenements opposite Whitefriars. Benjamin summoned me to his own chamber, his long, dark face showing both hurt and anger.

'Roger, Roger.' He wagged a bony finger at me. 'Since when has crushed frog been an aphrodisiac?' 'I didn't say it was,' I replied. 'You said as much to Hick the Haywain.'

'What can I do, Master? He's head over heels in love with that dairymaid.'

'Wasn't she the one you were tutoring in the long meadow down near the river?' I softly cursed my master's retentive memory. 'I don't think so,' I muttered, refusing to meet his eye. 'What about Vicar Doggerell?' 'What about him, Master?' Benjamin eased himself into his chair behind the table. "That paste you sold him to cure his baldness. I smelt it after Mass on Sunday.' I kept my face straight. 'Very much like cow dung,' Benjamin insisted.

'A secret remedy, Master. Crushed herbs and grass with a special elixir. Vicar Doggerell, if he wears it every night, will have as fine a head of hair as myself.'

Benjamin leaned forward. 'No, he won't, Roger. I want this stopped and whatever profits you have accepted placed in the church poor box.' Benjamin pushed the chair back. 'You have a fine brain, a quick eye and a good hand. How are the fencing lessons going?'

'Signor d'Amoral,' I replied, referring to the Portuguese whom Benjamin hired for both of us, 'says I have acquired great skill.'

Benjamin scratched his head and gazed moodily out of the window. 'Uncle will send for us soon,' he said softly.

My heart skipped a beat and my stomach lurched, but I schooled my features. Whenever old Fat Tom, Cardinal Legate, Archbishop of York, Henry VIII's first and only minister, sent for his 'beloved nephew' and my goodself it only meant one thing. Old Shallot was heading straight for cow dung a thousand times thicker and more dangerous than what old Vicar Doggercll plastered on his silly, bald pate. 'What makes you think that, Master?' I stuttered.

Benjamin went up to stare at the two shields over the fireplace. One depicted the armorial bearings of the Daunbey family, the other those of Shallot. 'Are you sure, Roger?' he asked absentmindedly. 'About what, Master?' 'That the Shallot arms have a red stag rampant?' Benjamin grinned lopsidedly at me. 'This one's very rampant.'

I shrugged. 'The Shallots are an ancient family,' I lied. 'They were once great and noble, until they fell on hard times. But, Master,' I insisted, 'what makes you think "dearest uncle" is sending for us?' 'Just a feeling, just a feeling.'

I quietly groaned and closed my eyes. Last winter "dear uncle' had 'sent for us'. Benjamin and I were despatched to the icy wastes of Somerset to deal with witchcraft, decapitated heads, Hands of Glory and murder at every turn between skating on freezing lakes. 'Roger, why are your eyes closed?'

I opened them and forced a smile. 'Just praying. Master, just praying that "dear uncle" is in the best of health.'

'Well, we can't waste time,' Benjamin declared, 'Do you know that old hill?' 'The one that overlooks the mill?' 'Yes, Roger, I believe it's an ancient hill fort.'

Once again I groaned quietly to myself. Master Benjamin, a true man of the new learning, had a kind heart and an enquiring mind. He had two great passions – alchemy and antiquities. (I should add a third – his mad, witless betrothed, Johanna. Seduced by a nobleman, she lost her mind and was sent to the nuns at Syon in London. Poor girl! She lived into her eighties. To the day she died she still thought the young nobleman was coming back. Of course he never could. Benjamin, a skilled swordsman, had killed him!)

Now, as I said, my master was a great scholar, a true lover of all things classical. And why not? He had even travelled to Wales to attend the Eisteddfod held at Caurawys and became friends with its foremost poet Tudor Aled. He bought John Fitzherbert's book on husbandry and ordered a copy of Hans Sachs' work The Wittenberg Nightingale, a poem about Martin Luther. (The Wittenberg Nightingale! Luther was a constipated old fart! You know that, don't you? That's why many of his writings, including Table Talk, are full of references to bowels, stools and body fluids. There was nothing wrong with Luther a good purge wouldn't have cured. The same applies to his lover, the ex-nun {Catherine. I met both of them once; all I can say is that they were as ugly as sin and richly deserved each other.) Ah, the people I have met. I only wish Benjamin was here now. Will Shakespeare would have fascinated him. Last summer Will came to Burpham and staged his play Twelfth Night. I helped him with some of the lines, especially Malvolio's

Some men are born great, Others achieve greatness, And others have greatness thrust upon them.

I composed those lines myself. Old Will cocked his cheerful face and stared at me.

'And what about you, Roger Shallot?' he asked. 'Which one of these applies to you?' 'All three!' I retorted.

Shakespeare laughed in that pleasant, delicate way he has. I could tell from his clever eyes that he knew the truth, so I laughed with him. And what is the truth? Old Shallot's a liar. (My clerk taps his quill and looks over his shoulder disapprovingly at me. Do you know, his face has more lines than a wrinkled prune. The little tickle-brain. My juicy little mannikin! 'You digress!' he wails. 'You digress!')

Yes, I do, in a fashion. But everything I say has a bearing on my story. I am going to tell about murders to chill the marrow of your bones and send your heart thudding like a drum, about subtle, cruel men! However, we'll soon come to that. To cut a long story short, on that warm spring day my master had set his heart upon digging up the old hill that overlooked the mill. So the next morning, armed with a copy of Tacitus's Life of Agricola, as well as some picks, bows, hoes and shovels, we went out to dig.

At first I really moaned. I wailed that my old wounds sheeted my back in throbbing pain. Benjamin just laughed. I see him now, his hair gathered up in a knot behind him, dressed in black hose pushed into stout boots, his cambric shirt open at the collar, his sleeves rolled up. The sweat coursed down his face, turning his shirt grey with patches of damp. He gazed at me solemnly.

'I think you should dig, Roger. I believe there may be treasure hidden here.'

Believe me, I dug as if there was no tomorrow, until Benjamin had to restrain my enthusiasm. I found no treasure. At last I stopped, rested on my shovel and glared at him furiously.

'Why are we digging? Here, I mean? Why not further along?' Benjamin pointed to the top of the hill.

'I believe a fort once stood there. This would have been the ditch or moat at the bottom of the hill, lying on either side of the entrance. The people who lived here would dump their refuse into the ditch. Moreover, according to Tacitus, when the Romans came, these hill forts were stormed and the dead were always buried here. So, dig on, Roger!'