by Peter Tonkin
The door opened almost magically and they were out in the corridor, heading towards the window at the end of the passage, the door into his bedroom on their left. She knew she was lost if she went in there with him because Tom had told her so. But she simply couldn’t stop herself.
BANG! BANG! BANG! Three great urgent hammer-blows on the front door below echoed through the house. Forman hesitated. Rosalind stopped as though incapable of movement without his guiding hand on her hindquarters.
A distant voice bellowed, ‘Forman! Forman are you there?’
The astrologer left her standing like Galataea awaiting her Pygmalion whose kiss would turn her from cold ivory to hot flesh. He went to the window at the end of the corridor and opened it. He leaned out. ‘George Chapman!’ he spat. ‘What ails you, man?’
‘Bonetti!’ came the distant reply. ‘Bonetti’s dead.’
‘Dead?’ demanded Forman. ‘How?’
‘He and Musgrave fought. Musgrave killed him.’
Tom’s name ran like iced water through Rosalind’s bewitched consciousness. Her body twitched seeming to come to life. She found herself staring at Forman’s back with an almost shocking intensity, as though her gaze could become lethal and do the work of the dagger she had never touched.
‘Musgrave!’ spat Forman. ‘And how do you know this?’
‘It is common gossip. But I’m told Sir Walter saw it. Sir Walter saw it all!’
iv
‘Take me to see John Gerard,’ Rosalind ordered Tom a couple of hours later after a wherry-ride westward-ho and a brisk walk up Water Lane.
‘Certainly,’ said Tom, looking askance at this harridan who had so unexpectedly and tempestuously arrived in Blackfriars without so much as a word to explain what was going on. It was fortunate that Kate had departed some time ago, he thought, and the next two lessons should have been with Spenser, for Rosalind clearly needed all his attention for the moment. ‘But why?’
‘Forman gave me some sort of drug’ she explained, pacing across the room like a wild beast ill-caged. ‘A love potion. It aroused me and would likely have led me to his bed had George Chapman not broken the spell with news of you and Bonetti.’
‘A drug, you say?’ Tom found that doubly disturbing. Forman’s reputation with the women was such that he hardly needed to use love potions! And yet…
‘Something.’ Rosalind insisted. ‘I cannot be certain. But it robbed me of my will and aroused me in a way I have never experienced before. It is incredibly dangerous. That is why I wish to see Gerard. To get his opinion on the likely source of the stuff and, once we have that clear, what he can do to arm me against it when I return.’
‘You want to go back?’ Tom didn’t know whether to be impressed by her bravery or shocked by her simple madness.
‘Of course!’ she snapped. ‘And as soon as I can tomorrow. Chapman’s news distracted him even as it woke me up. I was able to leave without him realizing I had seen through what he was attempting. He expects me to return tomorrow and again later in the week as he completes the chart. I am keen to do so - I am certain there is more to learn and another visit or two will give me ample opportunity. But I will feel safer if I have a counter to whatever he had put into the wine he gave me.’
Tom thought for a moment, then he said, ‘The problem with the fact that he does not suspect that you have seen through his plan being that he will try it again at the earliest opportunity.’
‘And unless I am armed against it in some way, he might succeed next time. He is very likely to do so in fact, unless I am armed as I say.’
‘Armed with the snaphaunce this time perhaps?’
‘I fear not - he slipped his arm around my waist several times. It was lucky I hid the dagger so well. He would have discovered the pistol for certain and all would have been lost! I dare not risk it. And in any case, I had the dagger and somehow I could not bring myself to use it and I fear it would be the same even with the snaphaunce. It was as though whatever he gave me turned me into his doll… His poppet…’
‘And you will not countenance someone coming with you.’
She shook her head decisively. ‘If I am accompanied the chance of discovering anything new is lost. He must not suspect anything. Only when he is unguarded… Indeed…’ Rosalind stopped talking and pacing. She stood still, her face folding into a thoughtful frown.
‘What?’ demanded Tom.
‘Perhaps once Gerard has determined what Forman gave me and has given me an antidote against it he would be willing to give me something in turn that I might use on Forman. The biter bit so to speak.’
‘He needs no aphrodisiacs, Rosalind! I am surprised he used such a thing on you but he certainly needs no aids to arouse himself.’
‘Not something to arouse his lust, Tom! Something that might overcome his reserve; make it easier to get the truth out of him.
‘Wine will do that! In vino veritas as the ancients say, is that not so?’
‘I would need a butt of Greek Malmsey to break down his reserve were I only using wine! No. I need something swifter that will be efficacious by the drop, not by the barrel!’
*
‘Mandrake root of course,’ said John Gerard later that evening. ‘That has quite a reputation but I must admit I believe it arises principally from the shape. And it is believed to be most efficacious in the case of men, especially old ones.’ The three of them were closeted together in his shop. The rest of the family, including the temperamental Elizabeth, was in the kitchen noisily at supper. ‘Blue thistles have a reputation too,’ he continued. ‘I have no idea why…’
‘But would a potion made from blue thistles not be blue?’ wondered Rosalind. ‘Or green if mixed with yellow wine?’
‘It would,’ nodded Gerard.
‘Was the wine green?’ asked Tom. ‘You didn’t mention green wine to me…’
‘No; it was yellow; quite deep yellow. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t think the colour was important.’
‘Ah! It is important. And I have him because of it!’ exulted Gerard. ‘Deep yellow you say?’
‘Yellow,’ she confirmed. ‘And darker than piss.’
‘Saffron,’ said Gerard. ‘The yellow parts of a crocus flower - which may have given its name to you birthplace Saffron Waldon now I think of it. The yellow parts of the crocus picked and dried then either used as threads or as powder. Concocted into a potion they become almost the same colour as the skins of Spanish noranges. Mixing the potion with wine would lighten its colour but darken the wine’s.’
‘And what do you have that I can take to counter this saffron potion?’
‘Why, more of the same,’ answered Gerard. ‘It is one of those distillations which need to be served in careful measure - too little or too much and the effect is lost.’
‘That sounds like a risky stratagem,’ observed Tom. ‘We already know that Rosalind can be affected by whatever Forman gave her. If she goes into his house already aroused who knows what may come of it?’
‘Forman dead of ravishment?’ wondered Rosalind. ‘But I’ll wager I could make him reveal everything I want to know before he expires.’
‘Entirely possible!’ said Tom. ‘Why I remember on my first visit to The Crown in Saffron Walden, Rosalind, when you…’
‘But we will take your word on it Master Gerard,’ Rosalind interrupted Tom. ‘I will take a good measure of saffron potion. Now, is there anything I can secretly give to Forman that will break down his reserve as Will’s King Henry breaks down the walls at Harfleur in his play?
Gerard looked at Tom. ‘We are straying into dangerous territory here, Tom,’ he said. ‘I have such things but Rosalind would have to be terribly careful. The need would have to be very great…’
‘Master Gerard,’ Tom dropped his voice. ‘Consider. What Mistress Rosalind seeks to find the truth of is - amongst other matters, true - the facts of Hal’s fate. What Hal discovered when he went there. And, perhaps most importantly from your point of vi
ew, what Forman has done to your Elizabeth - who has been visiting him in secret, remember, as part of her campaign to ensnare the poet John Donne by magic if by no other means.’
‘Very well,’ capitulated Gerard. ‘I have a potion made from the dried caps of the toadstool called Fly Agaric. You will have seen it in the woods - all bright red with white spots. Some say if you cook it carefully you can eat it without much harm. But if the red caps are dried and distilled into potion without using too much heat, the result can make a man lose control of his faculties. Too much and he might run mad - or even die - but just the right amount and he will behave as though he has consumed a bottle or so of French brandywine, Scottish usquebaugh or Holland gin.’
Rosalind looked at Tom with the wickedest of grins. ‘As Will’s King Henry says, one more unto the breach, dear friends…’ She pulled the purse from her waist without a second thought and spilled the silver coins onto Gerard’s counter. ‘How much will all that cost, good sir?’ she asked.
Before Gerard could answer, Tom reached across the wooden board between them and lifted the lock of hair Rosalind found in Forman’s bath room and put in her purse without a second thought. It was the kind of talisman that a lover might wear next to the skin to bind them to their heart’s desire.
‘Where did you get this?’ he asked.
‘Beneath a bath at Foreman’s house,’ she answered. ‘Why? Do you know whose it is - or whose hair?’
‘I think so,’ he answered soberly. ‘It looks like mine.’ He brought the curls closer to his eye and studied them for a moment then he said, ‘No. This hair isn’t mine at all, it’s too red.’ He frowned. ‘I wonder whose it is and how it came to be there.’
‘Something else for me to discover when I beard Forman in his den again,’ said Rosalind.
Chapter 13: The Blame Game
i
‘It is a well-known fact,’ said Robert Poley.
‘Well known,’ echoed Parrot.
‘That the best way to escape blame for some action is to blame someone else. Do you agree?’
‘Do you agree?’ echoed Parrot.
‘Of course I agree!’ snapped Will. ‘It is one of the first things a boy learns at school - in spite of the master and his birch rather than because of them! Always assuming that he hasn’t learned it from his brothers and sisters at home. And not just someone else, something else - almost anything else! Why do you think Richard blames his twisted form in my play of Richard III for the evil that he does? or Don John his bastardy in Much Ado? There is no end to it! In the play of Romeo Benvolio blames the heat for the fatal bout between Mercutio and Tybalt then Romeo blames Fortune when he kills Tybalt in turn. In Kit Marlowe’s play of Faustus, Faustus even blames his books - “I’ll burn my books - ah Mephistopheles!”’ Will thundered, in full dramatic mode worthy of the great Alleyn himself. The Pursuivant Marshal’s office in the Marshalsea seemed to echo his agonised cry. Parrot cringed a little and even Poley sat back. There was a rattling of chains from the great cell next door as the other prisoners stirred restlessly.
Will continued, at his most forceful, beginning to run out of patience after several days in prison. It was Saturday, 20th, though he was by no means sure of the date. ‘It’s not the good doctor’s fault, you notice. It’s the books - never the wicked use he made of them! Putting the blame elsewhere is the very coin of the man discovered performing evil acts!’
‘I’m pleased to see you so willing to admit to it,’ purred Poley.
‘Admit to what?’ Will sat up straight, squaring his shoulders to disguise the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Talking with Poley was, indeed, a lot like conversing with the demon Mephistopheles.
‘Why, to shuffling the blame onto Simon Forman when we have…’
‘…had…’ inserted Parrot earning a murderous look from Poley.
‘.. a witness to the fact that you bought the poison from Apothecary Gerard yourself!’
Will sat back, his eyes narrow. ‘I have admitted no such thing,’ he said. ‘I have not even admitted the possibility - in the real world. Note that the examples I gave in general discussion, were from plays. From things of fantasy.’
‘So you say!’ snarled Parrot, recovering from his fright and leaning forward belligerently. A gesture, Will noted, which was somewhat undermined by the louse that scuttled out of his straggling hair and across the balding dome of his forehead. Will’s own scalp clenched and began to itch furiously.
*
‘Yes,’ persisted Will. ‘So I say. So I have said at each of these meetings. I did not buy poison from Gerard’s apprentice. The same apprentice who visited Simon Forman seeking news of Gerard’s daughter whom he fancied that he loved. Tom Musgrave has gone further. Tom says the lying apprentice likely met his end there, and that’s an end to it as far as I can swear. I know nothing more of Forman, the exercise of magic powers, the dead boy, the apothecary’s daughter or anything else to do with Spenser’s death. I have been working on my play of Henry Fifth. That has occupied my mind to the exclusion of all else.’
‘And so we see,’ observed Poley drily, ‘that it isn’t only Faustus who tries to blame his books.’
Parrot looked at his superior, his face blank so Poley deigned to explain. ‘Master Shakespeare here is blaming a book he is writing where Faustus blamed the books he was reading.’
‘Reading!’ spat Parrot. ‘A right waste of time that is!’
Will said nothing as he tried to kick his mind into analytical thinking that might rival Tom’s. It seemed to him that Poley and Parrot were prodding the question of Spenser’s death with more vigour than before. The fact that it was murder seemed to have been almost entirely lost in the great ritual of the funeral Essex had arranged for the poet four days or so ago. The investigation into the death seemed to have fallen out of importance after that - Tom kept looking, of course, and Poley, desultorily - mostly, as now - into the question of who bought what poison from whom, an act in itself illegal both by seller and purchaser, as he had pointed out in Romeo. But now the fact of Spenser’s murder seemed to have gained a renewed grip on proceedings. Whether he himself had purchased the poison, perhaps, was becoming of less immediate importance - unless they could prove that his was also the hand that had poured it into the poet’s ear. He shivered with horror at the thought of the guilt and at the act itself.
‘But,’ said Poley, calling Will out of his dream-like speculation, ‘it does lead us to another interesting avenue of enquiry does it not?’ He leaned forward and stared straight into Will’s eyes. ‘Are you so desperate to complete your play because you are so desperate to be paid for it? Desperate enough to have done something in the mean-time to mend your fortunes?’
‘What?’ asked Will, utterly bemused by this sudden change of tack after so many hours of questioning.
‘Let’s look at your finances for a moment shall we?’ Poley’s gaze held Will’s unflinchingly as the intelligencer proceeded along his disturbing new line of enquiry. ‘Your acting troupe has been forced to steal their own theatre which is in process of erection upon a field owned by Sir Nicholas Brend within a mile of this place, leased at a pretty penny by all accounts. You are getting no income from that in the meantime even as a shareholder, though you may well be looking at an expensive law-suit when Giles Allen, who owned the field your theatre originally stood in, gets his case to the inns of court. Even should Mr Allen prove uncharacteristically laggard in that regard, you shareholders owe Peter Street the carpenter and his men a small fortune for taking The Theatre down and putting it up again as The Globe and in the meantime you also owe Martin Fletcher the carter an almost equal sum for transporting the entire building from one place to another. Sir Nicholas Brend awaits his first rent-payment on the new field that the Globe will stand in when it is finished, and I understand Richard Burbage is wildly seeking a thatcher who will roof the place swiftly and above all cheaply!’
ii
Will drew breath to refute some of
the details in Poley’s grim assessment, but before Will could continue, Poley held up a restraining hand and continued relentlessly.
‘But this is only the beginning. You are also a shareholder in the Blackfriars theatre built on the old Dominican priory land purchased by your company for £600 three years ago. Built and fitted out at great expense as an indoor theatre meant to be available to your troupe during the months of inclement weather and also in the evenings. A fully dressed stage, lit with ruinously expensive candles - none of your tapers or tallow dips! Comfortable seating - no groundlings allowed! Investment with the original purchase of the land running well past a thousand pounds but this fabulous new theatre is still closed to you by petition of the good folk of Blackfriars. Not including your friend Tom Musgrave, I hope. They do not want such scum as common playgoers and the lower levels still that batten onto them - wine-sellers, orange girls, whores and actors - sullying their streets and driving down house prices nearby! Oh no!’ Poley shook his head as though saddened at such folly.
Then he continued, ‘On top of all this you have just left your rooms in St Helens and are seeking to settle with your mistress in larger, more expensive premises on Maiden Lane - all the while supporting wife and family back in Stratford! You must be as desperate for money as the perennially bankrupt George Chapman!’
‘Well?’ snarled Will, stung by the comparison with Chapman as much as by the accuracy of Poley’s summation. ‘What of it?’
‘Well,’ echoed Poley, ‘it is important because it brings us to the other matter does it not?’
‘The other matter,’ echoed Parrot.
‘What other matter?’ demanded Will.
‘Why, the matter of Spenser’s pension, of course,’ said Poley as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘The Queen granted him £50 out of her bounty at Christmastide. The exchequer filled a purse with fifty golden pounds and gave it to Spenser himself as Her Majesty directed.’ Poley paused with a theatricality that easily matched Will’s impersonation of Faustus. ‘But now that purse is nowhere to be found.’
