The Medieval Murderers - The First Murder

His last resources would be spent on seeing The English Brothers into the world. He would not be like Master Shakespeare, buying properties in Stratford and playing the part of a gentleman, and dying when his time came, in a four-poster bed with priests and lawyers at his beck and call. No, Christopher Dole would make his exit like those true men of theatre, Robert Greene or Will Kemp. He might be neglected and poor but he still had integrity.

William Shakespeare and Nicholas Revill were talking in a little room behind the stage of the Globe playhouse in Southwark. It was the end of a December afternoon. The play for the day was finished and everyone – players and the paying public – was glad to get back indoors because of the cold. Snow was falling, not steadily but in occasional flurries.

WS and Nick were sitting on stools on either side of a small table whose surface was occupied with neat stacks of documents. This room was set aside for the business of the partners who owned the Globe, of whom Shakespeare was one. The principal shareholders were the Burbage brothers. Cuthbert Burbage attended to the account books and other business matters while Richard Burbage was their chief actor, known for his skill in playing tragedy parts. Nick Revill had been with the King’s Men for a good few years now. Although not a senior in the company, nor one of those whose name alone was sufficient to draw in the public, he had built up a reputation as an adept and reliable player, with a particular skill in the darker parts (lust-maddened dukes, vengeful brothers).

At that moment Nick was about to look at a book that WS passed across to him. It was already dark outside and Nick drew closer one of the pair of candlesticks on the table. He cast his eyes across the pages, crudely sewn together. He read a few fragments and would have read more had he not been interrupted.

‘What do you make of it?’ said WS. He sounded impatient, unusually for him. ‘Start at the beginning.’

‘It is a play entitled The English Brothers . No author is given, of course, but it is printed by George Bruton-’

‘Of Bride Lane near Fleet Bridge.’

‘Yes,’ said Nick. ‘And there’s also a little heraldic image here of a bird on top of a shield.’

‘And the contents?’

‘It’s about some knights, isn’t it, and there seems to be a rivalry between them?

‘The knights are brothers,’ said Shakespeare, ticking off the points on his fingers. ‘They should be fighting together under the king against the hordes from Norway and Denmark. Instead they fall in love at the same instant with the same woman, after glimpsing her in a garden. Then the two of them fall out – quarrelling over who saw her first and so on – and the jest is that she isn’t even aware of their existence.’

‘Sounds like a good subject,’ said Nick.

‘It is a good subject,’ said Shakespeare. ‘Not new, of course. The best subjects never are. The knightly brothers are caught fighting each other by the English king, they’re banished, they go wandering off, they come back together in time to vanquish the horde of Norsemen, they are reconciled, one dies in battle, the other gets the woman.’

‘I might pay to see that.’

‘So might I,’ said WS, ‘but this piece is put together in a very slapdash style. At one point there is a portion of an old play about Cain and Abel, supposedly seen by one of the knights on his travels. The other knight finds himself in Scotland for some reason. It is absurd enough. And there are opportunities that have been missed in telling the story, obvious opportunities.’

Nick wondered why Shakespeare was bothering to ask for his views since he’d obviously examined the drama for himself and come to his own conclusions. He also wondered whether Shakespeare was irritated because he hadn’t come up with the idea for the play himself. But it turned out that WS was concerned because it might be believed that he was the author of The English Brothers .

‘The image at the front is a crude version of my own family’s coat of arms,’ he said. He spoke in a matter-of-fact way but Nick sensed a touch of pride as the playwright continued: ‘Our coat of arms depicts a falcon, his wings displayed argent, supporting a spear of gold… I don’t suppose you want to hear these heraldic details, do you?’

Nick was aware of Shakespeare’s gentlemanly standing. By the candlelight, he took a closer look at the shield on the title page of The English Brothers . He noticed the bird was holding a lance or spear with a drooping tip. Not exactly an image of potent authority. And the bird appeared to be a crow whose tail feathers had been savaged by a cat. He recalled the story that Shakespeare had been described as an ‘upstart crow’ when he began making a name for himself in London. He looked at the balding man on the other side of the table. The angle of the light turned Shakespeare’s eyes into sockets. Their usual benign brown gaze was obscured.

‘Can’t you laugh it off?’ he said.

‘Yes, probably. Even if the word is spreading around town that I wrote this thing, and people are repeating it out of ignorance or malice, I could laugh it off.’

‘Anybody who truly knows you, Will, must know that you would not pen something like this. And this shield on the title page is a plain mockery.’

‘There is more and there is worse,’ said WS, taking back the book and flicking through the pages. He found the passage he wanted and showed it to Nick, who read a couple of the lines aloud.

‘“The Pictish king who rides his car to glories, Will be the theme for many future stories…” And there is more in similar style. I agree it’s poor stuff but-’

‘It’s poor stuff, all right, only good to light a fire. But the Pictish king isn’t some Scottish monarch from olden times. He could easily be construed as our own King James-’

Light was dawning for Nick and he interrupted, ‘While “car” might be a chariot, but could also be a reference to Robert Carr, James’s favourite.’

‘His favourite companion, his pet courtier, yes. “The Pictish king who rides his car to glories…” We can imagine what kind of “riding” is intended here. These lines have been deliberately composed to cause trouble. I hear that the Privy Council is paying attention.’

Nick Revill suddenly felt chill, even though it was stuffy in the little back room of the playhouse. No one wanted to catch the attention of the Council. Nick might have said that William Shakespeare was protected. After all, he was one of the shareholders of the King’s Men, enjoying the patronage of the monarch. Yet Nick was aware, as WS must be, of the various playwrights who’d been hauled before the Council after something unwise had been detected in their writings. The risks were severe. The offender might receive a whipping. He might lose his ears, or worse… It didn’t matter that you had a patron or that you might have been a favourite.

‘You don’t know who wrote this?’ said Nick.

‘I have a notion.’

‘Someone with a grudge against you?’

‘If it’s the person I’m thinking of, yes, he has a grudge against me.’

Nick was surprised. Considering that William Shakespeare was a successful author and – by players’ standards – a prosperous individual, he seemed to be liked as well as admired by almost everyone.

‘This is why I want to speak with you, Nick. In the years since you’ve been with our company I’ve come to trust your good sense and your… enterprise. Your friendship.’

Nick knew WS was referring to the occasional errand or ‘mission’ with which he’d been entrusted. He should have learned caution by now but somehow the gratitude of the man sitting across the table always won him round. As it did now. The mention of friendship gave him a glow.