The Medieval Murderers - King Arthur's Bones

I was sitting in the stern of the boat beside the individual who’d brought me Edmund’s note. The boatman facing us was too breathless – it is a harder task rowing downriver below the Bridge – to make conversation or, more likely, to relieve himself with a stream of oaths. My companion still didn’t say anything, and I was able to observe the little insignia on his jerkin. Then I looked up beyond the boatman’s flexing shoulders and, squinting against the sun, saw that we were headed for a particular spot on the northern bank.

My heart and guts did a little dance. Or rather they both got up at once and ran into each other as if trying to flee from my mortal frame.

Even if I had never seen its precise equivalent before, the badge on my fellow passenger’s jerkin was a royal one without a doubt. It showed a lion rampant, and everyone knows that the lion and the king are one. This and the direction of the boat confirmed our destination.

We were soon to put in at the wharf under the southwest corner of the Tower. There are plenty of stairs and berths along here, together with cranes and winches for unloading supplies. But nobody lands in this place for pleasure. Only for business. Or worse. Further along is that dreadful watergate through which traitors are conveyed into the bowels of the Tower. We were not headed there, thank God! – and a moment’s sane reflection would have convinced me that there could be no reason why a humble player would have that honour – but it was bad enough to be conveyed to any point of the wharf fronting the Tower palace. Especially when summoned by a blood-marked note which was still screwed up in my gloved fist.

No longer much bothered about the fate of Edmund Shakespeare, I am hardly ashamed to say that I was more concerned with the immediate future of Nicholas Revill.

But even that was driven out of my head by the sight that now lay before me. The tide was out and a stretch of foreshore, muddy and pebbled, was exposed. Sitting in the sun by the water’s edge was a bear. Almost every citizen of London from the age of six to sixty has seen captive bears dancing at fairs or fighting for their lives in the bear-pits by the Southwark theatres. But those bears are brown while the one sitting on the banks of the Thames was white. I had never seen this creature but had heard people talk of it. It was a gift from the King of Norway and its whiteness was a reflection of the desolate and ice-bound stretches of that distant land. In truth, the bear was more of a yellowy-white than snow-coloured.

I wondered why it did not swim away, then saw that it was tethered by a chain to a great stake sunk deep into the foreshore. Shackled like a prisoner, it was also muzzled. Despite this, it looked contented enough, dashing a paw through the water in a playful way. Then it occurred to me that the white bear was being more than playful; it was trying to scoop up fish. There was no sign of any keeper.

Our boat squelched into the mud of the shore and the boatman hopped out with the skill of long practice to secure us to one of several posts driven into the mud. The bear paid us no attention but continued to strike its paws into the water. Nearby was a set of stairs. Pinch-face indicated that I should go first while he was settling with the boatman. I thought about taking to my heels. But I wasn’t confident I could outrun him when all around was the territory of the Tower, unfamiliar to me. And given that he had found me once near my lodgings, he would find me again. And furthermore I had done nothing wrong. (Not that that’s any defence.)

So, in a docile fashion, I slithered across the foreshore, giving the dirty white bear a very wide berth, and climbed the stairs and waited for my escort at the top. The air was not so fresh here on account of the tubs of rotting meat which, recently unloaded from the offal-boat, were sitting on the wharf. Lettering on the tubs indicated they were supplied by the Butchers’ Company – no doubt for the other Tower animals which I could hear even now. A mixture of barks, brays, screeches and growls was coming out of the mouths of God-knows-what creatures over the wall on the other side of the moat. This south-west corner was dominated by the Lion Tower, which, to judge by the unfinished castellations and the scaffolding still clinging to the bright new stonework, was being enlarged.

It was widely known that King James had a special interest in the beasts of the Tower, not because he wished to study them but because he liked watching them kill each other. He enjoyed seeing his lions baited by dogs, bulls, boars and so on. Of course the lions tended to prevail, but I’d heard that any animal, such as a fighting mastiff, which acquitted itself honourably might be allowed to live out the rest of its days in peace. The grand animal contests were restricted to the king and his circle, but on other days any citizen might gaze at the Tower beasts either by paying three pennies or by bringing his own domestic animal – dogs, chickens, sheep – to be devoured by the larger ones. I had never seen the Tower beasts myself, though whether it was out of lack of curiosity or reluctance to open my purse I’m not sure.

By now the pustular pinch-face had joined me at the top of the stairs. He beckoned me to follow him, and we walked around the moat and the bulging western flank of the area that housed the animals. The moat had been almost drained, presumably for ease of work on the buildings in this quarter. Or perhaps it was that London no longer feared an attack on its greatest citadel. Beyond this was a drawbridge and a great gate. There were two soldiers sitting in a little sentry-house, but they were eating and drinking and hardly glanced up as we approached. We had come through more than half a circle so that ahead of us was the causeway leading back to the Lion Tower. My heart thudded louder in my ears than my feet sounded on the drawbridge. I felt as helpless as one of those domestic dogs being delivered over to the lions’ pleasure.

We went through a second gate at the end of the causeway, where my guide nodded at a single soldier who didn’t return the greeting, and into the cluster of buildings grouped under the Lion Tower. Still I saw no beasts, but I could smell their rank odours as well as hear them. Then it was up a flight of spiral stairs to an oak door on which pinch-face knocked, almost with delicacy. Receiving some reply, he unlatched the door and, putting a hand in the small of my back, as good as pushed me into the chamber.

‘Here he is, sir,’ he said, before shutting the door and leaving me alone with the room’s occupant.

Like Scoto the Mantuan in Tower Street, this individual was sitting behind a desk, working on some papers. But there the resemblance ended. The room was neat and clean, with a view of the river through a glazed window. The desk-man was a kindly faced gent, with spectacles. I could have sworn he looked relieved to see me once he had taken off his spectacles. And for the first time in what was only a half-hour but seemed like half a lifetime, my terror started to subside. Perhaps I would escape incarceration in the Tower after all.

‘You are Nicholas Revill of the King’s Men?’

‘I am – but I don’t understand what I am doing here.’

‘Be patient, Mr Revill, and I will explain our difficult position. I am Ralph Gill…’

There was a second’s hesitation as if to give me the chance to recognize the name. I nodded but had no idea who he was. Luckily he supplied the answer.

‘… Keeper of the King’s Lions. Naturally there are other animals under my charge, but it is only the lions which matter. My father, Thomas Gill, also bore the same title, and I hope that my son will inherit it in due course. It is an honour, you know.’

I nodded again, although with no notion of where we were heading.