Michael Gruber - The Book of Air and Shadows

Quoth I, sir, a mightie plan methinkes but agen I ask why chuse Dick Bracegirdle? He says, because thou art an Arden by thy dam as is hym we aim at, you are cozens or may seem to be and you can feign at need the same demi-papistrie he professeth if truth be knowne. Soe if my Lord Rochester wisht to sende a privy messenger to this one who shall he chuse better than one such as you. Recall this is all to be done close, or so you shall give out, for my Lord desireth to surprize the King at his birthday with a new playe. But say now, are you oure man?

To this there was but one answer an I ever wished to see free aire again soe I said yes and he sware me a greate oathe on a Bible and warned it should at my grave perill should I ever betray’t. After-ward I asked pray what is the name of this fellowe and he says William Shaxspure: this the first tyme I ever heard the name.

Soe I wase freed next night and in darknesse passed wee by boat from Tower stayres up-river to a greate house in the Strand belonging to my Lord Dunbarton and was presented to my Lord, a verey grave fat man much burdened by affayres, but uzed me kindley enow & sayde I would doe greate worke for England if wee could but brynge oure devizes to fruite. But wee did not in the end, God willed other wise in His greate wisdom & in later yeares I oft thought mee had wee won all wee had forecaste & hoped mayhap the present broiles that bid fayre to ravage oure sad countrie had therebye been checked. Yet I wase but a smalle peece upon the board & verilie is it sayde His thoughts are greater than oure thoughts Amen.

I stopped some weekes at Dunbarton House, well-tabeled, dressed in cloathes finer than aught I had before but verey sober. Of daies Mr Piggott taught me how to write & reade cypher’d messauges & he wase amazed how well I did in this & I tolde hym my minde had been trayned up in the Mathematick artes long since & your cyphers be somethyng lyke. Soe he was pleazed there-bye. I reade deepe in the Tracktee de Chiffres a French booke late Englished & Sigr. Porta’s De Furtivas verie subtle werkes & too the grilles of Mstr. Cardano & this arte lyked mee so welle that I did labour longe at it in the night-tyme, for there was no lack of candels at Dunbarton House and shewed Mr Piggott my werkynges: and after some wekes wase hee not full amaz’d for I had mayde a new cypher the lyke hee had not seen before & hee sayde e’en the Pope could not mayke it oute.

Afterward he had mee increase my skill at recollection of wordes hym saying many score of them and set mee to recall them in the self-same order & set down in writing. Besides, he shewed me lykenesses of men & women & viewes of townes & countrie-sydes all verey prettilie made with paintes & mee made to describe them after onlie a little scant looke. The same: hee & another feigned a discourse of poperie and treasoun, mee conceeled behind a screen & later I am made to tell him all the plot. Here again he admitteth I doe well. Soe now I aske hym be this all the intelligencers art and he answereth nay, this be but the smaller parte, which answer puzzel’d me much.

Yet later I understood hym, for next cometh a man Henry Wales a leering coxcombe he seemed, in modern pretty cloathes fit for one of higher state, but Mr Piggott spake civillie to him & gave him a purse and spake me Dick, here be your true friend Henry Wales that you have knowne since youth in Warwickshire, now met in London amid greate joie. He is an actor of the Kinges Companie & knoweth Mr Wm. Shaxespur right well. Then Mr Piggott caste on me such a looke as I knew his meaning afresh: that I too wase to be actor but in lyfe not upon stage & this is what it is to be an intelligencer not mere cyphers, listening & recollection & I thought mee then of my first yeare in the foundry when I acted the boorish prentice rough in word and harsh in dede whilst keepyng my true selfe within & thought yea this can I doe & lett the papistes & traitoures feare.

All that befell thereafter you will finde writ in the letteres that I passed to Lord D. viz: my approache to this Shaxspure, what passed between us, the playe he wrought of that wicked queene of Scots, and what became of it, and at laste how wee fayled and so I shalnot repeate here for I feare me I have not more than a few houres & it straineth me to write more. You know well Nan my lyfe thereafter & I am saddened that I can not relate it to hym as I have those yeares before. Say to hym your sire was a gonner in the German warres in the goode Protestant cause: was at White Mountain and vanquished by the papistes & at Breitenfeilde and Luttzen holped vanquishe them: but tyring of warre & sore hurt in the foote by a bullet then returned, my father having since died & your fishmonger dying also (the which I had prayed for & pray you and God forgyve mee for it!) and were married 3rd Aprill 1632 St. Margaret Pattens & yeare after had a son, praise God & maye hee live long and thee.

Some more thinges of import for my time groweth short I can scarce make out the page though it be clare day & I am griped by my mortal agonie you know well my leathern boxe that I keep in my privy closet, in it you shall finde the letteres cypher’d in the fasioun I devized. Doe you keepe them safe and show them to no one. They tell all the tale nearlie of my Lord D. his plot & oure spyeing upon the secret papist Shaxpure. Or so wee thought him although now I am lesse certayne. In that manner & bent of lyfe he wase a Nothinge. But certayne it is hee wrought the playe of Scotch M. I commanded of him in the Kinges name. I find it passing strange that all though I am dead and him also yet the playe lives still, writ in his own hande & lying where onlie I know & there maye it reste for ever.

As to the letteres: if the King should prevail in this present affarye, which God forbid, and his ministers come at you with ill intent, these leaves may holpe to secure your fortune, yours and that of oure son. You know how to worke the cypher and I recollect you the Keye be the Willowe where my mother lieth and if thou’rt able I wish that my bones may lye besyde hers hereafter.

Fare thee well my girl & with Gods grace I hope I shall see you agen in the incorrupt bodie promised us by oure Lord & Saviour Christ Jesus in whose name I sign this yr. husbande

RICHARD BRACEGIRDLE

Crosetti sat in his father’s car, a black 1968 Plymouth Fury, and watched 161 Tower Road, feeling stupid. The house was a two-story frame model in need of a coat of paint, set in a weedy lawn behind a low chain-link fence. A row of brownish junipers bordering the house seemed the limits of H. Olerud’s horticulture. This name was displayed on a battered black maibox nailed to a crooked post. In the driveway sat a rust-flecked green Chevy sedan with the hood up and a scatter of tools on a tarp next to it. In the open shedlike garage that adjoined the house, he could see a red tractor and a tangle of shapes that could have been agricultural implements. The place had a tired look, as if it and the people who lived there had been knocked down and were waiting for breath to return. It was a Saturday. Crosetti had left the city at dawn and driven across the state of Pennsylvania, nearly three hundred miles on I-80 and 79, and reached Braddock a little past three. Braddock was built around a single intersection with two gas stations, a McDonald’s, a pizza joint, a VFW hall, two bars, a 7-Eleven, a coin laundry, and a collection of older brick-built commercial buildings, most of the shops in them Wal-Marted into oblivion and now occupied by junk dealers or storefront services for the distressed. Behind this strip were dozens of large homes that must have been built for the commercial and industrial aristos when the steel mills and mines had been working. Crosetti couldn’t imagine who lived in them now.