Chapter The First
He hoped it had been a clean death.
Hugh Hall placed his feet with exaggerated care on the mud-caked slope
and gripped the shoulder of his young guide as he slid down the embankment.
The thought of dealing with blood or a wound made Hall’s stomach
churn. He preferred his dead to be clean
and laid out in the proper form, ready to pass on to their eternal rest with
dignity and respect, not curled up in a twisted heap or blue and stiff with
their limbs askew and eyes staring. Hall
shivered in the damp spring air. Death
before breakfast was tiresome.
“Where did you say Coburn passed?” Hall asked. The white-haired woodcutter’s death was no
surprise. His hacking cough rasped off
the garden croft’s walls each time he rolled his cart past the old stone building
on his way to the manor.
“Not far now, Father”. Thomas
Clopton tugged his woolen cap lower over greasy blond hair, inwardly cursing
the slow pace of the priest.
A cock crowed, the sound raucous even at a
distance. The
pair passed the laneway that marked the edge of the manor. The estate spread much wider, encompassing
fallow fields and woodland. The manor’s
owner and Hall’s patron was one of the largest landholders in Warwickshire,
holding claim over a significant part of the gentle rolling slopes of the
Midlands, the farms, pastures and the broken patchwork forest that was once the
primeval Forest of Arden. It was under
his protection and influence Hall was able to maintain his secretive profession
as a Catholic priest.
“Thomas, I thought Master
Coburn’s place was east of the road? Are
we astray?”
Thomas glanced back. “He
isn’t at home Father. Not far now, just
ahead,” he said in an encouraging tone.
Hall could see a thin trickle of smoke rising over the copse of trees.
Thomas Clopton was the second son of one of the manor’s tenant farmers. He was a thin and reedy youth with a
consumptive pallor and nervous hands.
Even after two years of attending clandestine services at the manor,
Thomas remained ill-at-ease speaking with the priest.
Hall carried a small leather bag containing the necessities of his
profession. He avoided the traditional
priest’s garb. To be found with
Catholic vestments was tantamount to a death sentence.
Thomas led Hall down the rutted dirt road, deftly avoiding the soft
glutinous mud patches that were all that remained of the previous day’s rain. The verge was covered with a scattering of
thin grass stalks and sedge, mixed with flowering sorrel and stitchwort. The air smelled wet and cool and green in the
morning, redolent with the early blooming plants. A rabbit regarded the two passing men with
wary eyes from the meadow before resuming his breakfast of clover.
Thomas veered off the roadway onto a narrow sloping footpath that
wound precipitously around the edge of a low hill, passing through a thick
tangled hedgerow and into a straggling oak wood. The tumbled stone ruins of a small
Benedictine monastery, abandoned for the last two hundred-odd years, stood hard
on the forest edge. Only a handful of
the larger stones remained marking the broken walls, the rest appropriated by
locals for building materials and fireplaces.
The priest was huffing by the time they reached the oaks and paused to
catch his breath.
Hall straightened and silently cursed what was becoming an
irritating cross-country odyssey. The
next time, he vowed to himself, they could bring the body to the road, where
the man could be shriven with some degree of decency and ease, instead of
making his betters slog through the spring mud.
A late-hunting owl hooted in the distance, returning home from a long
nocturnal stalk of mice. The noise
always made him uneasy. Owls were
notoriously bad luck and although Hall despised the foolishness of the
ignorant, he could not escape the slight shiver of foreboding the sound awoke
in him.
Within a few minutes he could see through the thick trees to a
grassy clearing within which a small fire was visible. Thomas shuffled through the greasy accrual of
leaves littering the copse floor, moving towards the fire. Hall hesitated.
A man sat in front of the fire on a mossy fallen log, his back to
them as they approached, tending the fire with a long branch. Thomas stepped closer and said something in a
low voice. The man straightened, set the
branch aside and stood, brushing his hands fastidiously on his thighs. Hall stopped, glancing about in sudden
suspicion. No wrapped body awaiting its
final journey was in sight. His stomach
tightened.
“Well?” Hall said in a curt voice, “You’ve dragged me from my bed on
what is obviously a fool’s errand. What
do you want?” he snapped, finding some momentary solace in his anger.
The man turned, smiling. One
look at that gravestone smile was enough to silence Hall. The man was young, but tall and whip-lean,
with tight dark hair and a short well-trimmed beard framing a cold mouth. A long rapier hung on his left-hip, topped by
an elaborate silvered decorative guard.
One gloved hand rested easily on the hilt. The man wore a long travelers’ cloak but
underneath a dark and richly embroidered doublet was visible.
“Father Hall.” The man gestured expansively. “How kind of you to join us on this most
auspicious of morns.” The man’s smile
faded like a winter’s sun. “I can see we
are going to be marvelous friends.”
“Marvelous friends call on me
at the manor house. They don’t make me
march all over God’s fine creation. Why
did you have poor Thomas drag me out to meet you, and through a subterfuge no
less.” Hall shot a glance at Thomas, who looked away. “Thomas, we shall be discussing this at
length.”
“Come Father, sit with me by the fire. Share our commons.” the man said. He gestured at a small sausage-laden pan
balanced on the edge of the fire.
Hall regarded the man with a stiff expression on his face. “I think,” he said, “that I had best be
going.” He turned to follow the sodden
path out of the clearing but stopped.
Two men were leaning with casual insolence against the moss-encrusted
oak beside the path. Both men held long
wooden staves.
The man spoke without turning.
“Best sit Father, we have matters to discuss, not the least of which is
your bloody Papist profession.” He pointed at the damp ground by the
fire. “Sit.”
Hall looked at him for a long uncertain moment, and sat on the
fallen log as far as possible from the dark-eyed man.
“I am a gardener, not a priest.”
“Truly?” asked the man sardonically, “And you tend your hedges with
this?” The man plucked the small leather
bag from Hall’s belt. He drew out the
small silver crucifix and rosary and gave them a cursory survey before tossing
them with contempt on the ground. “We
went some considerable trouble to get you here, so don’t treat me like a fool.”
The man began to pace between Hall and the fire. “You know,” he said in a conversational tone,
“they burned Protestants under that bitch Mary not twenty miles from here? Tossed them on the fire like so much
kindling.” The man turned towards the
priest. “You lack a good scorching
Father,” he spat the honorific like an insult.
“Don’t try me or we’ll have you baking like a trussed roast.”
“In God’s name,” Hall asked
in a controlled voice, “what do you want of me?”
“What does any man want of a priest?
Knowledge.”
The priest’s face showed his confusion. “You wish instruction in the True Faith?”
The man burst into laughter.
The comment drew grins from the man’s stave-wielding servants.
“By God, no one can claim you haven’t a wit about you. You may keep your tepid, arse-kissing faith
for that Italian catamite you call the Pope.
Instruction in your faith? No, I want something else.”
The man turned. Hall’s tongue
seemed to catch in his throat at the look on that razor face.
He leaned close to Hall, his breath sour and hot and intense. “I want your Master. I want his correspondence. I want to know who he corresponds with, when
they correspond, I want to know the content of his every letter, I want to know
his codes, his couriers, I want to know every back-alley whore he’s covered in
all England if necessary but most of all I want to know all his Catholic
fellows, and you,” he paused for a moment and dropped his voice so low the
priest had to strain to hear him, “are going to give it to me.”
For a moment Hall felt suspended, the heart fluttering in his chest
his only sensation. He forced himself to
look into the man’s level gaze. There
was something deep and feral and unsettling in the man’s dark eyes; crow’s
eyes, sharp, predatory and hungry. He
shuddered.
“In the name of Christ I will give you nothing. I know nothing!”
The man reached up with his right hand and closed it around the
priest’s throat.
The iron hand
tightened. Hall gagged. He pulled at the man’s wrist and
fingers.
“I could give you that martyrdom you crave Father, all I need do is
close my fist.”
Tears formed in the corners of Hall’s eyes and his peripheral vision
blurred into formless grey and red shadows.
The lack of air was overwhelming, shattering, immersive. He could feel nothing but crushing pain in
his throat and hear nothing but the frantic cacophony of his pulse. Hall tried to pray but found his panic
rising. He felt slow and stupid, buried
in a sluggish fog that seemed to reach for him with hungry malevolence.
An instant later he was kneeling on the damp ground, the tang of
moss and woodsmoke in his nostrils, his body shuddering with each deep racking
breath. The pounding in his chest and
ears subsided. He lifted one muddied
hand from the dirt and gently grasped his own throat. Still alive, praise God.
Two fine leather boots stood in front of Hall’s face. Hall looked up. Expressionless, the man
looked down at him.
“No martyrdom, Father.
Sorry. It would give me immense
pleasure to send you footing it to the bowels of Hell, but not today.”
Thomas watched the events unfold with growing apprehension. He pushed his lank hair out of his eyes and
glanced about, wiping his face with a nervous hand. This was more than he had reckoned with when
he had agreed to bring the priest to the glen.
He took a wary step backwards only to find himself shoved hard back to
his position by the stave-wielding servant who now stood behind him. Thomas shivered and by reflex crossed
himself.
Hall massaged his throat, mumbling a prayer. He knew he was down among the fallen. He glanced
up. He was afraid. Hall tried to remind himself that what Christ
endured on the Cross was far beyond his own suffering.
But he was afraid. Deeply
afraid. He felt it like a chill ember
embedded in his chest.
Hall was no martyr. Living in
a comfortable lodging, with food, wine, clothes and the protection of
patronage, he felt ill-equipped to endure the rigors of any martyrdom. Comfortably ensconced in the heart of the
Catholic supporters of Warwickshire for years and grown comfortable in his
hidden practice, the priest had little to fear of pursuivants. The worst fate he would face, he had thought,
would be an exile to France, where he would join the growing community of
exiled Englishmen in Rheims and live out his remaining years teaching a new
generation of exiled priests.
But not death. Not
martyrdom. Not like this. To die for Christ should be easy for a man of
faith. But Hall did not wish to die.
The man smiled down at him.
“Now that we know where we stand, let’s have breakfast.” He gestured at
the log and the small tin plate of links hissing in grease by the fire’s
edge. Hall levered himself up and sat on
the mossy log, massaging his battered throat, a cold, sick feeling growing
within in him.
“May I have the kindness of borrowing your knife?”
Startled by the polite request, the priest glanced up in
surprise. The man held out his
hand. Without thinking Hall handed over
the short blade he carried on his belt.
The man smiled his thanks and proceeded to spear a sausage.
“Father,” the man said
through a mouthful of sausage. “I am
concerned that you not be too angry with poor Thomas here.” He gestured at the
boy who stood rooted like a tree beside one of the grinning
stave-wielders. Thomas edged forward, a
wary look on his long face. He licked
his lips.
“I know the boy tricked you into coming to our little breakfast but
he did so under the best intentions – mine.”
The man laughed. “He’s a good lad,
honest and attentive. He earned his
money bringing you here.” The man stood
and placed one arm around Thomas’s shoulders.
He handed Thomas two small coins with his free hand. Thomas stared at the silver in his palm and
then grinned, relieved and pleased. “So
Father, I want you to forgive this poor boy his trespasses.”
Hall stared forward with a stoic expression. He was not a man inclined to forgive at the
best of times and the pain and fear of the last hour was fresh in his mind. “Thomas,” he said flatly, “is a betrayer and a
liar. I am not inclined to forgive that
on the word of the man that paid him his thirty silver coins.”
“It was only tuppence, no’ thirty.” Thomas interrupted with a sullen
tone.
The man looked down at the seated priest, a curious expression on
his face. “No forgiveness in your soul?”
he asked mockingly. “I know you think
the boy lied to get you here but he was quite truthful.”
Hall looked up, puzzled. The
man smiled and with no change in his expression, thrust the short knife hard
into Thomas’s throat.
For a second, Hall didn’t believe his eyes. Thomas gagged, both hands clutching at the
small hilt. The blade was rammed up deep
under his chin. Thomas staggered,
grabbing at the hilt with frantic hands.
He pulled the blade out. Red
blood pulsed and sheeted down the front of his smock and he stared in horror at
his bloodied hands. He dropped the
dripping blade in the dirt, turned and took several faltering steps towards the
path from the glen, the vain and fleeting thought of returning home running
through his mind. One of the stave-men
stepped forward and gave Thomas a gentle push back in the direction of the
fire. At the pressure, Thomas spun,
sliding down to one knee. His eyes, wide
and astonished, gazed imploringly at Hall.
One eye rolled slowly back, trembling.
Hall sat unmoving on the log, frozen in shock and horror. Thomas had both hands grasping at his torn
throat. Choking on blood, he slumped
into the mud in a forlorn pile. One leg
twitched spasmodically, still trying to run.
The priest could hear Thomas’s wet and laboured breathing gradually
slow and mute into silence. The stillness
seemed to echo in his ears. The morning
breeze died down and the even the birds seemed to fall quiet. Hall turned and vomited the acrid contents
of his empty belly onto the damp ground.
His stomach twisted. Death before
breakfast.
“Didn’t I tell you he spoke the truth?” the man said. His voice was soft and reasonable. He picked up the blade from the
blood-spattered grass. “Best give him
his rites Father, for what it’s worth.”
Hall looked up at the man as though seeing him for the first
time. The man sat, casually flicked the
blood from Hall’s knife and leaned over to spear another sausage.
Hall shivered and looked away, but all he could see was those bleak,
chill crow’s eyes, harrowing into his own.
“And now Father, I want you to tell me everything you know about
your master, Edward Arden. Everything.”
--------
Chapter
The Second
The nudge in the ribs was short of a kick, but not by much. Christopher Tyburn came awake abruptly, his
right hand reaching for his absent sword even before his gray eyes snapped
open, sweeping his dim surroundings.
Four years of mornings in Flanders had bred that habit into his very
bones.
Tyburn was wrapped in a frayed woolen blanket, secure under the
leafy vault of a large shadowy oak tree that was barely palpable in the
pre-dawn gloom. A heavy wooden wagon
stood hard by the spreading tree. A
horse gave a quiet nicker from the stable in the inn yard. The air smelled damp and thick, heavy with
the scent of the inn’s waste pile. The
inn was dark except for a faint yellow flicker in the kitchen window. Dawn was a slender promise beginning to eclipse
the stars still manifest in the eastern sky.
“Up, you base player…rouse yourself from the muck.” The voice drifted down at Tyburn who sat up,
cocked his head and glanced up at the shadow standing beside him. Tyburn couldn’t see it, but he sensed Alec
was laughing at him in the dark.
“I am up, you poxed bastard.”
Tyburn rubbed his neck. “Not even
dawn yet,” he said, “You know Oldcastle hasn’t even rolled off his whore yet.”
“He wants,” Alec observed with a dry voice, “an early start.”
“God’s bones…” grimaced Tyburn.
He shrugged his shoulders and rolled his neck to loosen the kinks left
by the tree roots. He threw off the
blanket and levered himself to his feet.
Much the Elder was already busying himself shifting the trunks that
weighed down the troupe’s well-traveled wagon while his son, Much the Younger,
was feeding thin strips of bark and twigs into the embers, building the hot
coals he had snatched from the inn’s fire into a steady and welcoming yellow
flame.
“Too early even for the bloody rooster” Tyburn muttered.
The other man grinned, its gleam masked by the gloom. “Don’t fool yourself, that old’un’s rooster
has been risen all night with that mort.”
“It might shock an Oxford man like yourself, but I was speaking of
the actual cock’s crow…” Tyburn commented, his voice sour.
“So was I,” laughed the man.
He turned and gave an abrupt gesture at one of the troupe walking past,
“Robbie!” he called, handing a penny to the boy, “go filch us some breakfast
like a half-decent servant should.”
Robbie took the coin with deft hands and gave the two players a
sardonic grin in reply. “And hen’s eggs
this time, Robbie, none of your goose eggs, you drigger, the bloody things give
me the flux.”
Robbie waved a quick acknowledgement and vanished into the pre-dawn
darkness.
Tyburn sat, pulled on his worn boots, yawned and ran one hand
through his dark hair. “Where away
today?” he asked Alec.
“North-east, along Evesham road, heading up towards Warwick. Just four days from here to London, but I
expect we’ll slip over to Coventry, loop north-east and back down through your
old steading in Cambridge first. Today,
we’re for Stratford, up on the Avon.…”
“So why the early rise?” said Tyburn. The sun was a low lambent glow pinking the
eastern horizon.
Alec grinned. “Oldcastle likes
his luncheon.” Tyburn looked
puzzled. Alec laughed. “He’s a cheap bastard, but likes to eat well,
Kit. He arrives mid-morning in a nice
market-town, befuddles the alderman with his charms and sophistication and
gets…” he paused dramatically, “an invitation to dine.” Alec finished with a
gaudy flourish of gestures, a flawless mimicry of Oldcastle’s flamboyant and
overwrought mannerisms.
Tyburn grinned, unable to prevent himself in the face of Alec’s
cheery demeanor.
A loud bellow rose from the innyard.
Alec winced. “Speaking of
roosters…”
“Up you poxed coxcombs, you coves, we’ve a road ahead of us!” It was
a familiar deep voice, long practiced at projecting to the deepest recesses of
an innyard or manor hall. “By God’s
Mother you are a lazy one Alleyn, roll out of that blanket you worthless
jackanapes, we’ve a road to be on.”
--
The sun was cresting over the eastern horizon before the troupe was
moving down the rutted road, the wagon creaking a weary rhythm behind them,
drawn by a sway-backed mottled dun horse that had seen better days.
Tyburn was chewing on a cold chicken leg as they walked, a breakfast
courtesy of Alec’s largesse and his canny servant Robbie Hobson. “So where did Robbie learn to filch chicken
so well?” he asked distracted, trying and failing to contain a cavernous yawn.
“Robbie?” Alec chuckled, “Our Robbie’s no common draw-latch[1]. He was an angler in London, until he caught
the wrong fish….”
“An angler?”
“You know, a hookman. He
lifts your goods with a hook on a pole.
Sneaky little buggers, every one of them.” Alec shook his head in admiration. “Robbie here got caught lifting some fellow’s
bung[2]
and had the catchpoles[3] on
him right quick. Ducked into the Boar’s
Head yard in the middle of performance and stepped right onto the boards,
pretending to be a player. That tickled
Oldcastle and he sent the bailiffs on their way.”
Alec gestured back at Oldcastle, who had perched his oversized bulk with
delicate care on the narrow bench beside the drover for the long slog between
towns.
“By Jesu, he might be a cheap bastard but if he likes you, he looks
after you.” Alec concluded.
Behind Oldcastle, the livery flag of the troop flapped disconsolately
in the capricious morning breeze, announcing to the world that the Earl of Worcester’s
Men were on the road. Tyburn knew that
the flag and its livery, along with the paper writ and vellum letters in
Oldcastle’s trunk, were the only tangible protection the troupe had against
town bailiffs and Puritan officials.
The Poor Laws had outlawed the chronic vagrancy and poor endemic to
many towns, pushing the indigent into workhouses or prison or more often into
an uncertain wayward lifestyle of begging, haunting the highways and local
parishes until either imprisoned or pushed on to a new locale by the bailiffs
or sheriff. In the eyes of many Puritan
officials, players ranked considerably lower in status then even vagrants,
despite the nominal patronage of the Queen and the nobility. Only a troupe with influence, protection and
patronage could safely tour the countryside and remain free of official
interference.
The Earl of Worcester’s Men were one such troupe. They had been touring since mid-May,
following the great roads that threaded south and west, looping up through
Bristol and Warwick, before swinging back around and heading back into London at
summer’s end. Death and Worcester’s
mercurial personality had been the instigators of this season’s tour. A brief outbreak of plague in London had
provided all the excuse the city officials needed to summarily call a halt to
innyard performances within the city. By
itself, Tyburn thought amused, that would have not been enough to rouse
Oldcastle into considering a tour.
Oldcastle preferred to set up in Southwark, outside of London’s jurisdiction,
and wait out the closure in comfort but a letter from the Earl had “requested,
by their kindness” to perform in Winchester for a friend. Oldcastle had acquiesced and so Worcester’s
Men set forth.
Tyburn was aware he was fortunate just to be accompanying the
troupe. He had been performing with the
troupe for just under a year, since his return from the Low Countries. To Oldcastle, Tyburn was yet another irritant
foisted on him by his unpredictable patron.
Christopher Tyburn, late of Her Majesty’s service in Holland, was a mere
untried performer at a time when apprentice actors were starving in the London
streets. If not for the intervention of
the Earl of Worcester, who had deigned to assist an ex-soldier for his own
particular purposes, Tyburn would be one more ruffian scuffling for an
existence in the London back-alleys.
As a paid performer rather then a “sharer” Tyburn also was under no
illusions – Oldcastle would keep Tyburn in the troupe only so long as Tyburn
could perform to his satisfaction.
Oldcastle was an old hand at balancing his patron’s whimsies with cold,
hard practicalities and “losing” a player foisted on him against his will would
have been an easy task after the first few months passed. Oldcastle’s largesse could end at anytime. Surprisingly thus far, it had not done so and
Tyburn now trudged the dusty roads of Warwickshire enjoying the early morning
sunshine and a well-roasted chicken leg for his breakfast.
The two walking men were a study in contrasts. Alec Masterson was tall, elegant with fine,
aquiline features topped by a shaggy mass of thick blonde hair that bespoke his
Norse ancestry. Well-dressed and cheery,
Alec was the son of a wealthy London guild master, a man whose varied interests
in properties and merchantry had purchased him rich lands in Surrey and
Hampshire, a fine house in London on a fashionable street and a fat sinecure at
Court.
Alec’s chosen profession upon leaving Oxford had earned him his
father’s lasting wrath, tempered only by the recognition that it could well
have been much worse. A steady stream of
Oxford students were abandoning their education in England altogether and
voluntarily taking the road to exile in Rheims and Douai to pursue their
studies at schools established by exiled Catholic priests. For the exiles, returning to England was a
dangerous and difficult undertaking, in particular since the Pope had condemned
the Queen as a heretic only a few years previous. Even a public renunciation of the Catholic
faith couldn’t guarantee protection for recusants and many who had departed on
a whim or in a fit of rebellious student angst, found themselves adrift on the
continent in lonesome exile or imprisoned with alacrity upon their return.
Alec’s father provided his son a generous staple income, hoping for
the day that Alec would come to his senses and abandon his wayward life as a player.
Tyburn was slightly shorter then Alec, but was Alec’s converse in
both dress and appearance. The
dark-haired saturnine Tyburn was tall, lean and well-muscled. His face was traced by a thin scar that edged
along the left jaw line and curled, tapering up onto his lower cheek like an
off-set frown. The scar gave Tyburn’s
face a sinister cast tempered only by his steady grey eyes.
Tyburn, like Alec, had also walked away from his studies. Ensconced at Cambridge, Tyburn had abandoned
his charge five years previous to cast his fate in with Thomas Morgan and Sir
Humphrey Gilbert’s expedition to Holland and Flanders.
Unlike Alec, Tyburn had no family largesse to fall back on, just the
thin credit and the reluctant miser’s wage extended to him by Oldcastle. Tyburn’s clothing was worn, his boots thin-soled
and his doublet threadbare and torn. To
an outside observer the difference between vagabond and player was a narrow one
at best.
The road the players traveled was rutted, uneven and poorly
maintained, following a much older Roman road that had once traced a similar
path through the low, rolling English countryside. The landscape was dotted with small farming
hamlets nestling together in quiet green hollows and crossroads. The patchwork of old stone walls that had
separated the landscape into small mixed plots and parcels had given way to
larger allotments and grazing. Sheep
foraged in placid flocks across a far hillside and the distant lowing of cattle
drifted through the air.
It was mid-summer and the air was redolent with the smell of
fresh-cut hay. A small group of men
were scything away in the early morning sunlight, slicing through the tall
grass and piling it into neat stacks, distance belying the intensity of the
labour.
The road itself was a well-trafficked one. A heavy laden cart was trundling slow ahead
of the troupe, carrying tight bundled tods of wool. The fine dust swirled behind the cart,
drifting back and catching in the throats of the players. The winding path of the River Avon could be
seen intermittently to the south, paralleling the road, bordered by a thick curtain
of woods and revealed by the occasional gleam of cool water that shone through
the distant trees like a promise.
A kite circled slow overhead and then arced away across the
cloudless blue to the east. Tyburn
followed it with his eyes, envying its easy grace. In the far distance, a church spire could be
seen rising above a thin line of trees.
-------
Will gazed wistfully out the narrow shuttered window and shifted his
weight on the hard wooden bench. The
blue sky hung cloudless and beckoning, just beyond the rooftops. The clatter of a passing cart trundling
through Church Street echoing off the stones while the indistinct voices of
people passing floated up from beyond the window. In the distance, a dog barked, barely heard
over the din of the street and the endless cooing of the pigeon nestling under
the wooden eaves.
Will sighed to himself and forced his gaze downwards to his
hornbook. The neatly copied Latin
passage was still there waiting for his attention. He felt a nudge on his foot. His friend Richard sat to his right. Richard grinned and pointed across the room
at the teacher’s assistant, trying in vain to sort through a heavy bound Latin
volume while balancing another and pointing out a passage to a smaller group of
very young boys. The group included
Will’s tow-headed brother Gilbert, who was gazing with vacant boredom into the
empty space of the rafters.
Dust motes danced in the sunshine, spiraling upwards from convection
while a small dog lay sleeping in the far corner. The heavy-beamed room was long and felt murky
and dark, even with the shutters wide and the sunshine flooding in. Lined with a series of long, dark wooden benches
and tables, the room was occupied by some thirty-odd children of various ages
between six and fourteen. Another man
sat at the end of the room laboriously writing on an old piece of vellum with
measured care. The continual sound and
soft bustle of small bodies in constant motion rose throughout the room. Legs kicked, fingers poked and whenever the
occasional muffled giggle or mumbled sound was heard, the man in the long gown
would glance up, his eyes sharp under his brow, glowering at his charges in
unspoken reproach. Moments after his
head would drop back to the page, the soft noises would resume.
“Hsst. Will, how’s this?”
queried Will’s immediate neighbour, shoving a tattered piece of script in front
of him. Will glanced down at it. The paper was tracked with several ink
blotches and thin scratchy, elongated letters.
“God’s bowels, I can’t even read that Edward – is it Latin or a
drawing of a pig?” Will whispered back.
Someone snickered quietly.
Edward had a pained look on his round face when Will glanced up from the
sheet. Will sighed in exasperation.
“First, it’s collis, not coleus.” began Will, speaking in a low
urgent tone. Edward looked puzzled and
reached over to look at the tattered paper.
“Are you sure?” Edward asked, his voice rising with his querulous
tone. Will and the others winced at the
volume of Edward’s reply.
“Shut it you ninny,” one hissed angrily, “You’re going to get us all
in trouble.”
“Collis.” whispered
Will. “Hill, right?”
“So what’s coleus?” asked
Edward puzzled. The other boys
shrugged. Will drew a deep annoyed
breath.
“It’s…well. It’s..um…your sack.” Will mumbled.
“My what?” said Edward, confused.
“Your sack, your stones….you know.” Will pointed down. The other boys tried and failed to stifle a
quiet burst of laughter as Edward nodded, his face blushing furiously.
“Coleus…what’s that?”
whispered Richard in a mocking imitation of Edward. “Will, can you tell me the difference between
culum and cunnus?[4] I really need to know?”
The other boys tittered, even the ones whose Latin was so
indifferent that they didn’t know the meaning of the joke. “Horum,
harum whore![5]”
one chirped.
Richard snickered. Will
grinned and said “Pedagogue, peticatum.[6]” Several boys stifled their laughter by
stuffing the ends of their sleeves in their mouths. Emboldened Will ventured, “Scortum[7]
sup..”
The whip-crack of the long flat wooden paddle against the table
brought the quiet sniggering laughter to an abrupt and startling halt. Ashen, Will looked up and saw the teacher
standing beside their table, looking down on the collection of boys. The long stick was poised like a promise over
the dark scarred wood surface.
“Verbaarum delectus orige est
e lequentrai” the man intoned. He
pointed the stick at Will. “Translate.”
he said.
“Delight in the words and the origin of eloquence.” Will replied,
watching the stick with wary eyes. The
man ventured a thin humorless smile behind his long beard.
The remainder of the class had turned and was watching the scene
soundlessly. The assistant teacher had
set down his tome and started over, halted by an abrupt dismissive wave of the
man’s hand. Even the dozing yellow dog
had deigned to lift its head, yawned and then settled back down in its sunlight
patch.
“The rest of you – begone – it is luncheon.” The teacher gestured to
the door. The boys scrambled off the
bench, Gilbert hesitating for a moment before turning and joining the group as
they tumbled out the door and down the exterior staircase, their voices
fading. “Not you.” The teacher barred Will from moving towards
the door. “Sit.” He commanded, pointing
with the wide, flattened end of the stick.
“Whatever am I to do with you young Will?” The stern look in the eyes faded and a look
of amusement stole across his face. He
stroked his long beard pensively. “I don’t think I want to hear you complete
that Latin you were practicing, do I?”
“No, Master Hunt. I should think
not.” replied Will.
“You are a hell-wean, make no mistake Master Shakespeare. Clever than any student I have ever seen but
a hell-wean nonetheless.” He
paused. “Abeunt studia in mores [8]–
do you agree?”
Will nodded.
“By the love of Christ but you do deserve a beating for abusing the
Latin, but I am impressed with your vocabulary,” the schoolmaster arched a sardonic
brow, “and beating you doesn’t seem to have much effect. I sense I am plowing in the river, trying to
restrain your fancies.” Hunt stood and
smacked the long flattened stick in his hand several times with ominious intent.
“Off you go Master Shakespeare, and try to be back in time for the
afternoon lessons.”
Will slid off the bench and turned towards the door.
“Will?”
“Sir?”
“There is more found here than your word games. We school you for more than just rote
recitation and parroting the Catechism.
Sin is all around us in this quiet land, and God… well God is oftentimes
not seen or manifested in men’s hearts.
The world is a place of avarice and pain. Only in God’s grace can we walk …” he paused,
hesitated, and then continued more assurance, “Knowledge can be a path to
salvation and understanding of God’s great mercies. Remember that, when the time comes.”
Will paused, looking at the schoolmaster for a moment, then turned
and clattered down the outside stairs.
“Well,” Hunt muttered to himself, “you could at least pretend you’d
suffered a whipping for my reputation’s sake.”
Will turned right towards the stony confines of Chapel Street. He hadn’t gone four paces when Richard popped
out of the doorway he’d been leaning in and grasped Will’s upper arm. A full head shorter, Gilbert hovered beside
him, an uncertain grin on his face.
“Did you get another whipping?” Richard asked grinning.
“Not this time,” Will responded, “but I do think I’ve galled him
enough today.”
“God’s Mercy on you Will, but your father won’t spare you the
beating Master Hunt should have laid on you, if he finds out.” Richard laughed.
Will winced inwardly. His
father had little patience for what he termed “foolish flightings” and games
and even less with Will’s continuing intransigence at the restrictions and
rules of the King Edward Grammar School.
Will turned to Gilbert.
“You better keep that trap of yours shut,” Will said to Gilbert “or
anything lands on me, you’ll be the worse for it.”
Richard nodded in sage agreement as Gilbert, affronted, chimed,
“Will! I wouldn’t blow on you.”
“I find you cracking off, I’ll whip you good.” Will gave Gilbert a hard look, one that
failed to make an impression as Gilbert grinned in response.
A squealing cart trundled past, its ungreased wheels squealing. The cart was stacked high with heavy
yellowing tods of wool and followed by a great buzzing mass of flies. Will regarded it with a jaundiced eye,
realizing it was probably bound for Henley Street and his father’s small
barn.
“Hey what’s that?” Richard
paused listening.
A low brassy bellow rose faint from the south-west.
“Will, it’s a troupe!” Richard pulled hard on Will’s arm. Another booming trumpet sounded and the rattle
of a drum drifted down, tatting light and rhythmic in the distance.
“Come on.” Will shouted at his friend and the two, leaving Gilbert
gawping, shot past the heavily-laden carter, dodged a rooting pig and a
heavy-set woman carrying a bundle of clothes and headed up Tinker’s Lane to
where the Evesham Road met Stratford proper.
“Last one there is Jack o’ Lent.[9]” The boy’s excited shout bounced off the
timber-framed buildings, blending with the ragged sound of a trumpet.
Worcester’s Men had arrived.
-----
Chapter
The Third
“By God’s teeth! Much, you
pestilent capon, where’s my ruff?” shouted Oldcastle, flinging open one of the
traveling chests, almost knocking his servant to the ground in the process.
“Sorr, if’n you kindly wait but a …” the older man replied.
“Stop banting about and find my ruff box.” Oldcastle interrupted,
“By Heaven, is too much to ask for a servant who can remember where he left
things? I should have you whipped, no –
scourged, by God…”
Oldcastle’s empty tirade came to an abrupt halt when Much’s son,
standing atop the wagon, pulled out the flat box from one of the chests and
passed it down to his father.
Tyburn ignored Oldcastle’s endless bickering with his servants and
concentrated on poking the loose threads on his embroidered doublet out of
immediate view. The doublet’s stitching
was parting down one side. Tyburn
fingered it, doubting it would last much longer.
It was past mid-morning and the troupe had halted by a clutch of
tall elms short of the town to prepare for their entrance. The sun was high and the skies warm, blue and
cloudless. Several small farmhouses were
scattered about, an easy distance from the road, and to the north a smaller hamlet
was visible in the distance. The Stratford
church spire stood stolid in the south-east, a yellow-gray mass of stone and
wood that stood apart from the main avenues of the market-town, marking where
the domain of heaven touched the realm of the mortal.
The road was steady with foot traffic as carts laden with local
produce passed, plying their wares in the town.
Several mounted riders passed by, including a small band of liveried
retainers who trotted past without even turning their heads to glance at the
troupe. A man herded a lone cow along
the roadway, turning north to the smaller hamlet visible beyond the trees. A small group of children who had been playing
on the hillside had gathered together by a low stone wall, eyeing the troupe
with fascination. As he bustled about
with the troupes various accoutrements, Robbie kept a sharp jaundiced eye on
their small filching hands.
The wagon had made slower than expected progress on the uneven and
heavily rutted road, the jouncing and bumping doing little to mend Oldcastle’s
sour temperament. At one point Oldcastle
had begun calling out lines from the troupe’s play list. It was an old traveling memory game, allowing
the players to work on recalling their character’s lines. The proper response was the next line of the
play however Alec, irritated that Oldcastle was pressing them on a hot day,
refused to cooperate and had insisted on bellowing out bawdy lines from the
many tavern songs in his repertoire in reply.
After Alec worked his way through most of The Three Drunken Maidens,
Oldcastle had given up and concentrated on the remaining players, leaving Alec
free to whistle and contemplate the cheerful green hillsides.
Tyburn sighed and, his doublet problems at least rendered marginally
acceptable, pulled out a long cylindrical object wrapped in some rough cloth
from the bottom of a long chest. He
undid the ties and unrolled the cloth.
Several long swords were revealed.
Tyburn picked up two and turning to Alec, gave a low whistle. Alec turned and Tyburn tossed him one of the
rapiers. Alec nodded his distracted
thanks and turned to reshaping a large lavish hat that had been flattened in
its travels.
Tyburn examined his own long blade.
The pommel was worn with use and the silver damascened guard, although
once ornate, was now nicked and dull to the eye, no longer the showpiece it had
been in the hands of a young Spanish bravo.
The blade however was well-kept, a long, razor-edged piece of elegant
Toledo steel, thirty-four inches of fatal grace.
It was one of the only blades the troupe carried that was kept
sharp. The majority of the troupe’s
weapons were intended for use in performances and were dulled and corked to
prevent accidents. Tyburn insisted on
keeping his own sword and had refused point-blank when Oldcastle suggested he
dull the blade. Tyburn used a troupe
weapon for the staged swordfights, although even Oldcastle acknowledged that
Tyburn’s ability was such that he was the least likely to inflict any
accidental damage on his opponents in their staged fights. One of the few ways that Tyburn had been able
to pad his meager income had been to work with the other troupe members,
chiefly Alleyn and Alec, on their swordplay.
The result was that Worcester’s men were now recognized by even jaded
London audiences as being the best at on-stage mayhem.
Satisfied, Tyburn sheathed the weapon and strapped on the belt,
settling the sword on his left. Alec
grinned and pointed. Tyburn glanced down
to see his colorful doublet split down one side. “Christ…” Tyburn muttered.
Alec laughed and tossed Tyburn an ornate yellow half-cloak, edged
with delicate silvered needlework.
“Here. That’ll help hide it from
Oldcastle until you can get some innkeeper’s wife to mend it for you.”
Tyburn nodded his thanks and slung the half-cloak so it hung over
the side with the split. Tyburn picked
up his wide-brimmed hat, adjusted the feather and straightened. “How’s that?” he asked in a caustic tone.
“The maidens of Stratford are quickening as we speak,” Alec swept
his own arm back and bowed grandly. “Although
with you I fear their expectations will founder…”
The two apprentices were pulling a small set of timbrels out of a
cloth sack and a long brass trumpet while Oldcastle and the three other sharers
in the company arranged their appearances with care. Jacob Willens, the oldest player after Oldcastle,
wore an outlandish selection of clothes, including an enormous oversized
codpiece, a peasecod belly and long trimmed gown with paneled breeches in white
and red. Willen’s topped the outfit with
a small round hat surmounted with a ridiculous oversized feather.
Willen’s role was Folly, the Jester, the Lord of Misrule, a master
of jigs, buffoonery and morris-dancing, activities that many of the younger
players derided as provincial but were popular with audiences nonetheless. Tyburn rather liked the lively acrobatics of
the morris-dances, although he was dragged into them rather infrequently in his
role as Vice. Oldcastle was a firm
believer in using the fundamental stock characters and Tyburn, with his grim
visage, was a perfect foil for Alec’s Virtuous Youth.
“Daniel and Mundy, bring up the rear with the wagon. I lead, Jacob follows me. Then Jack and Motely sounding the march and
Robbie with the banner high. Alec - you,
Alleyn and Tyburn provide some flash as we go, but don’t lag. No banter and no gammoning off with some doxy
making sheep eyes at you.” Oldcastle
instructed.
“Head’s high now, by Christ’s bones, you’re the Earl of Worcester’s
Men, so act it you villains.” With that
Oldcastle signaled the apprentices. Jack
gave the timbrels a rattle and Motely blew hard on the old trumpet, sounding a
discordant brassy note that floated across the summer air, startling a small
flock of birds skyward. The children
watching from the hillside leaped up, calling and waving. Oldcastle stepped grandly out onto the road,
held both arms skyward and shouted “God’s Grace is upon our endeavors!” He turned, bowed to the company and resumed
the march into the town, Worcester’s silver, blue and red blazon held high
behind him, dangling from its cross-bar.
Alec slipped Tyburn a surreptitious wink and a grin as they set out
after Robbie and the apprentices, Alleyn muttering to himself behind them.
The road the troupe marched along was cobblestoned along the verge,
sufficient for the wagon wheels, with the uncobbled centre of the road providing
a soft, muddy trap for the unwary on rainy days. Today, with the mid-summer sun overhead, the
center of the road was dry, hard and dusty, trampled flat by the constant flow
of commerce.
Jack thumped and rattled the timbrels in rhythm to their pace. As
they passed from the line of elms bordering the road, a small flock of crows
burst from the trees shading the road, circled twice at dizzying speed and
vanished from sight.
Stratford-upon-Avon was an unremarkable Warwickshire market-town,
standing hard by the river Avon on the south and the edge of denuded remnants
of the Forest of Arden to the north.
The players could smell the town long before they reached the first set
of buildings. The scent was a heavy
mélange of woodsmoke, manure and slop heaps, urine, the acrid scent of tanning
hides, sawdust, malt, cooking, animals and unwashed humanity.
Tall, timber-framed buildings rose on both sides of the road, interspersed
like a set of uneven mottled white teeth.
Topped with thick brown thatch and the occasional tile, the buildings
varied in size and height, with a handful rising to up three stories. As the troupe moved further along the street,
the buildings cantilevered upper floors hung out over the lower stories like a
deep jutting brow. Most were
plaster-covered, even to the thick timber beams themselves, and their windows
were narrow with heavy shutters open to allow a thin wash of summer daylight to
stream inside. The players kept a wary
eye on the upper windows, watching for household slops and refuse being emptied
onto passerbys.
The road was busy with foot traffic, most of which stopped to gawp
at the vividly dressed marching troupe.
Alec grinned as Oldcastle gestured and bowed grandly to various
bystanders, his practiced eye judging by the cut and style of their clothing
whether they merited a mere passing nod, an expansive wave or a deep bow.
The Evesham Road that the troupe had followed since before dawn gave
way to Rother Street, the street that led to Stratford’s cattle market[10],
the presence of which was apparent both underfoot and through the
nostrils. The players threaded their way
with care through patches of thick
oozing cattle dung that caked the cobbles, with Willen’s exaggeratedly
tiptoeing around a large repulsive deposit and then pretending to slip,
catching himself at the last moment before breaking out in a quick and jaunty
jig that made spectators laugh.
“Let’s wait til we clear the dung street, then we give them a little
taste.” Tyburn murmured in an aside to Alec, who nodded in reply.
Alleyn broke out into a quick and lively song, “Sir Eglamore was a
valiant knight
Fa la lanky down dilly…He
put on his sword and he went to fight, Fa
la lanky down dilly…”
Several women carrying baskets, stopped to listen, whispering to one
another. A cooper scowled at the troupe
as it passed. His pinched face suffused
with distaste as he regarded the players.
He spat once on the cobbles. Alec
rewarded him with a beatific smile that in turn made Tyburn grin.
“And as he rid o’er hill and dale,
All armed in his coat of mail, Fa la la la la la la lanky down dilly…There
starts a huge dragon out of his den, fa
la…Which had kill’d I know not how many men, Fa la…”
Motely blew hard on his trumpet, his round face pink and glowing,
the sound for once blasting out of the instrument rather then the usual muffled
blare. The sound echoed off of the
yellowing walls of the street.
Oldcastle paused in the small crowd and raised his arms
grandly. “God Bless this noble town Stratford-Upon-Avon! We are the Earl of Worcester’s Men, players
of the best and kindest patron, who has commanded us to pay visit to you and
yours. May God’s Mercies be upon
you!” With that, Oldcastle bowed with
exaggerated courtesy to a hawk-nosed woman in a long severe black dress and
starched white cap. She sniffed and
turned away to resume her market duties, her dark eyes harsh as she regarded
the passing troupe. Oldcastle merely
gave his performer’s smile and strode onward.
“Bloody Precisions…[11]” Robbie
mumbled as he passed with the banner.
Tyburn frowned. The Puritans
regularly denounced what they called the bawdy nature of plays and other staged
entertainments, one of the reasons that the London Court of Aldermen systematically
harassed and restricted such entertainments in the city proper. The Puritans didn’t limit their venom to mere
players, but reserved the majority of their spite for English Catholic
recusants and, surprisingly for the Queen herself and her ministers, who they
felt were far too lenient in treating what they termed “popish pomp and rags”.
The low sound of metal scraping on metal pulled Tyburn out of his
pensive state. He turned, stepping rapidly backwards with his left foot, hand
reaching for his rapier. Alec grinned, a
quick flash of gleaming white teeth, as he lunged at Tyburn.
Tyburn’s own blade slid from its sheath and flicked up, deflecting
Alec’s sword neatly to one side. The two
paused, and then Alec began to declaim.
“Foul spawn of Strife and Discord, face the blade of a true
Christian gentleman!”
“Are you a swordsman or an Antic[12]?”
replied Tyburn, twisting his face into a vicious scowl.
“Your doom unless you yield, for mine is the righteous cause.”
“I speak with steel” Alec intoned, his voice heavy with portentous emphasis
and stepping in smooth, lunging the silvered blade towards Tyburn, moving for
the opening Tyburn had left on the inside.
Tyburn turned his blade, parrying Alec’s attack and stepped in with a
slow counter which Alec in turn deflected with a scraping clash that rang off
the buildings.
Alec flung his arm forward again, thrusting the blade at his
opponent, making Tyburn wince inwardly.
Despite much coaching, Alec still had a tendency to throw his arm when
making a thrust, a move that announced his intended line of attack in advance
of the action. It didn’t matter when you
were working the boards[15]
but on the street or in a duel, it was a painful and potentially fatal
mistake. Tyburn took the blow easily on
the forte of his sword and stepped in close, grabbing Alec’s sword arm and
hissing malevolence. The two stood en
tableau for a moment before leaping back with a quick bow to the gaping market
audience.
“I thank you gentlefolk, for your indulgence. If you are intrigued to know if Virtue bests
Vice, please attend on the morrow!” exclaimed Tyburn. Tyburn and Alec sheathed their swords with a
flourish and rejoined Alleyn and a grinning Robbie.
“Did you see that?” breathed Richard, “He handles that stick like a
Dunkirker[16].”
“That’s no veney stick[17],
by Faith.” agreed Will. “Think we can
see the performance?”
“Doubt it. My mother thinks
plays are Devil’s work.” replied Richard in sullen tones, his face tight.
“Will’s seen a play!” piped Gilbert.
“Truly?” asked Richard, intrigued.
“In Coventry, we saw the Cycles, and the Mayor’s Play three years
ago, when Warwick’s Men came through.” admitted Will.
“Well, your father’s an alderman.
I expect you’ll get to spy this ‘un…” Richard observed, his voice
envious.
“I won’t get to spy anything if Gilbert and I don’t get to home
right quick.” Will said shrugging. He felt
bad that Richard’s staunch Protestant parents refused to permit him to see the
troupes that passed through Stratford during the warm summer months. Will’s own father dubbed plays frivolous
nonsense and considered them an unwelcome distraction but, due to his position
on the town council, John Shakespeare was at least obligated to make an
appearance with the other aldermen.
Will himself had vivid memories of the Coventry players marching in
colorful procession along the narrow laneways.
He remembered the elaborate embroidery of their costumes, the feathered
hats and stylized horned masks that hid their faces. He recalled the glorious decorations on the
oversized Pageant wagons and how they gleamed with gold and red decorative
motifs, the jostle of the excited crowds, the raucous cries of the hawkers, and
the choking sulphurous stench of the Hell-mouth specially built in the Coventry
marketplace[18]. More than anything he remembered the players
themselves, drawing in the breathless attention of the audience, grasping it,
building upon it and weaving an evocative tale from words and phrases, giving
life to all the familiar stories that Will had learned by rote over the years
at Stratford’s stony church and on the hard benches and airy recesses of the
King Edward Grammar School.
It had been so utterly different from anything he had experienced
before. The player’s measured oration
tore away the dim pallid façade of recitation and drove the deeper meaning of
the stories home with astonishing clarity.
Will had felt himself swept up, his thoughts caught like a leaf in the
wind, soaring upwards and then eclipsed in turn by shadow as the story plunging
in a new direction.
Gilbert tugged on Will’s arm to clear his head of the
reminiscences. Richard grinned askance
at Will’s distracted look and the three hurried down towards Rother Market to
cut over to Henley Street and home.
The Earl of Worcester’s Men drew up
their procession when they arrived at the Stratford Guild Hall. They had proceeded down dung-strewn Rother
past the stone cross standing in Stratford’s main marketplace, down Wood Street
and back across High Street. It was a
leisurely route but one designed to maximum effect. By the time they had arrived at the Guild
Hall, a small and expectant crowd had gathered and a collection of the
Stratford alderman had congregated on the steps of the building to greet the players.
The Guild Hall was an impressive structure for a small market
town. A large stone chapel dominated one
end, with a lengthy two-floored timber-framed building stretching the length of
the street behind. The building had been
plastered and lime-washed to a gleaming white and was roofed with tile rather
than the usual thatch. A small recessed
stone courtyard led to a second smaller cantilevered structure. A number of laden wagons and carts, with
several oxen stood hard by the doors while men in loose smocks carried bundled
goods into the building.
Two men stood waiting on the stone steps leading into the
chapel. Neither wore any badge of office
but Oldcastle immediately recognized the impatient demeanor of authority. The Earl of Worcester’s Men drew up in a
ragged line behind him as he stepped forward.
One of the men standing by the carts dusted his hands together and
walked over to join the other two men standing on the steps.
“Master Oldcastle? I daresay
you are looking well. It has been, what? Five years?”
The man was tall, dusty from his labors, but under his grime he wore a
deep blue jerkin and an ornate agate ring.
“Milord, I trust in God that you and yours are well?” returned
Oldcastle, bowing deeply, an affable smile on his lips. The man nodded cordially. “Milord Aldermen, gentlefolk of Stratford,
may I present the Earl of Worcester’s Men, a troupe of players who gently
request your kind permission to perform.”
Oldcastle bowed again, then turned and gestured at Motely who stepped
forward with stiff self-consciousness, holding a roll of vellum tied with an
ornate silk ribbon. The tall man
accepted the roll and without deigning to open it, passed it to one of the
other men on the steps. The man unrolled
the document, gave the document with its ornate seals a cursory glance and
passed it to the third man. He glanced
at it, rolled it back up and handed it to Oldcastle.
“As you can see, we are fully licensed to perform and we beg your
kind indulgence to permit our performances within your precincts.” Oldcastle intoned solemnly.
The men glanced at each other.
One shrugged with indifference.
“Very well Master Oldcastle, you may perform but first you must provide
a play with no bar or cost on admission – The Mayor’s Play – on the morrow at
the Guild Hall. You may enjoy the
pleasure of the Guild Hall for an additional two performances, after which you
may use an inn yard if they will have you.”
The man continued, “There will be no undue rowdiness, no Papist nonsense
performed and no wild moriscos[19]
in the streets. I’ll have no woodwoses[20]
on my hands.”
Oldcastle bowed in acquiescence, “Indeed milords, we are at your
service.”
“Anything else needed? No?”
“Your pardon Milord, we have come a long way on the hard hoof with
aught but old cheese and bread, mayhaps…” Oldcastle ventured.
The man glanced at Oldcastle from under his dark brows, and paused
theatrically. “I recommend the Bear –
good ale.” He gave the master player a sardonic grin and turned to the other
aldermen, gesturing, “Gentleman, let us sup…” and they three passed into the
small courtyard and disappeared through the open doors.
“Bastard merchants.” Oldcastle muttered balefully under his
breath. Alec suppressed a grin at
Oldcastle’s acrid disappointment and the troupe turned back down stony High
Street to find the Bear Tavern and some much needed drink.
“Bastards.” Oldcastle
repeated. “Nothing but bloody curst
bastards.”
---
[1] Petty thief
[2] purse
[3] arresting officer
[5] Latin demonstrative pronouns – “his” in the genitive
tense
[6] peticatum = slang for anal intercourse
[7] Scortum = whore
[8] “Studies go to form
character”
[9] fool
figure
[10] Rother is Anglo-Saxon for cattle
[11] Antagonistic term for Puritans
[12] Clown
[13] Measure of dry goods, in this case, not a full
measure….
[14] Cursing
[15] performing
[16] Reference to Dunkirk, a notorious pirate haven
[17] Heavy stick used for practicing sword-play
[18] The Coventry Mystery Cycles generally incorporated at
least one stage location that represented the entrance to Hell, presided over
by an elaborately costumed Devil and his demonic minions.
[19] Morris
dancing
[20] wildmen
No comments:
Post a Comment