Shakespeare's Rebel

by C. C. Humphreys

  In the event, he did not wait long after wakening, a few hours at most. Light showed the door frame, there were footsteps, the slam of bolts. John rose, to at least meet murderer or interrogator on his feet. Of only one thing was he certain – he would not die quietly. He had no weapon, save his hands. But he’d killed with them before.

  A man entered, cautiously, flaring torch in one hand, cudgel in the other. It was the officer who’d apprehended him, who’d once brought him ale in another cell. He was flanked by two guards of near equal size. These held manacles.

  ‘Easy or hard, Lawley?’ enquired Thomas Waller.

  ‘That depends. Are you going to murder me?’

  ‘No. Some questions only.’

  The man was not lying. John smiled faintly. ‘Easy or hard?’

  ‘Easy. Someone wants to talk with you alone. Thinks that you are dangerous.’

  ‘Why does everyone always think that?’ Sighing, John held out his hands.

  The guards came, fastened chains to his wrists and to his ankles, attaching these to a hook affixed to a flagstone on the floor. Task completed, Waller leaned out of the door and called. ‘Master Secretary?’

  In walked Sir Robert Cecil. ‘Is he secure?’ he asked.

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Then leave us. But wait close by.’

  Placing his reed torch into a sconce, Waller bowed and left with his guards. Cecil closed the door partway then turned back. He regarded John for a long moment before he spoke. ‘Well, knave, do you know why you are here?’

  ‘I do not even know where here is.’

  ‘The Tower. It is the customary place for traitors.’

  ‘Then I am mishoused. For I am none such.’

  ‘No?’ Cecil stepped a little nearer, though still beyond the tether’s reach. ‘Your recent actions speak against that claim. For you have conspired most treacherously with the Earl of Essex, and accompanied him, all armed, even to the heart of the Queen’s sanctuary.’

  ‘As I was ordered to do by the Queen’s vice-regent. It would have been treason to disobey.’

  ‘You were the Queen’s messenger, sirrah, and should not have obeyed a traitor.’

  ‘Is my lord of Essex condemned as such?’

  Cecil shrugged. ‘Not yet. He is given over to the Lord Keeper and will be held to await a trial of his peers. As a nobleman of England it is his right under Magna Carta.’

  John raised his manacles. ‘Now I am no lawyer, sir, as I know you are. Yet I have acted a few in my time and know this much: under Magna Carta the right of habeas corpus was also created. It states that any free-born Englishman, lord or commoner, cannot be imprisoned without cause, and a warrant sworn before a justice.’ He nodded. ‘Have you brought such an indictment?’

  Cecil laughed. ‘You are not so naïve, sir, not to know that laws can be suspended in times such as these?’

  ‘What times?’

  ‘Times of treason. Of faction. Of conspiracy.’

  John raised arms that clanked to scratch his head. ‘I have been gone from the realm a short while, and back but a day. Yet I am sure I would have heard of a suspension of such a fundamental right. And perhaps joined the riot against it.’

  Again Cecil smiled. Again there was no humour in it. ‘You are naïve, sirrah. For when conspiracy threatens the very person of the sovereign . . .’ He halted John’s interruption with a gesture. ‘Oh yes, I know you were simply obeying orders. But these orders took you far beyond the limits of any viceroy’s power. Took you, indeed, into her majesty’s bedchamber. You violated the temple. You beheld the core of the mystery.’ He glared. ‘Villain, you saw the Queen naked!’

  ‘She was not completely nak—’

  ‘The earl her general,’ Cecil interrupted. ‘You her messenger. Servants. Betrayers. There will be no forgiveness . . . for either of you.’

  John thought then of that look Elizabeth had given him, the hate in it. But that was in a terrible moment. Surely . . . ‘Her majesty will eventually realise that I was simply being loyal. She may also recall, as she so generously has before, my former service in her wars and—’

  ‘The only thing her majesty recalls,’ Cecil cut in, ‘beyond your seeing what no man should see, is this.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘The evil that your family has wrought upon hers.’

  ‘Evil? What do you m . . .’ And then he remembered another look she had given him, at their first meeting at Whitehall on that interminable Shrove Tuesday. Not hate then. Just horror, as she looked at the grandson of the man who’d killed her mother. ‘She cannot hold my birth to account . . .’

  Cecil’s laugh was harsh. ‘Sirrah, do you not know that in England that is almost all that is held to account?’ Then, for the first time, he looked away. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. ‘The Queen . . .’ He considered. ‘Her majesty is not always focused entirely on the day. She lives partly in the past. Her . . . horrible past. You are somehow a part of that, in a way I do not understand. Her heart is hardened against you. Indeed, if I brought her your head on a platter, I think she would be right pleased.’

  John shook his head, while it was still on his neck. The conversation had entered a different world. It was connected to the place where they were; but it went far beyond the Tower too. And it would not help him to get beyond it himself. He didn’t know what would, and he needed to; needed some hope in whatever lay ahead. ‘I am curious then, Master Secretary,’ he said softly, ‘as to why you are here. Your orders would be enough to have me incarcerated, where and in whatever manner you chose. You are not a man who would risk the race under London Bridge simply to gloat.’ He shook his head. ‘Why do you concern yourself so closely with me? Surely I am but a pawn in the great game you play against the Earl of Essex? And if a pawn can be reluctant, I am so. Because I am sure, since you know so much about me, that you also know this – I have ever sought to avoid his service. My sole desire is to return to my life in Southwark.’ He raised the chains. ‘Why do you bother with me? Why, in God’s good name, do you all bother with me?’ He shrugged. ‘Is it only because I am good with swords?’

  Cecil listened, then stared down for a moment, before looking back at John. ‘I will tell you why. Part of the reason why, anyway.’ He inhaled deeply through his nose. ‘My father and I disagreed . . . on many subjects. Especially during the last few years of his life. Yet something I never doubted was the keenness of his eye.’ He looked around the walls. ‘When he interrogated you in this very place, he noted certain things about you. Your weaknesses, of course, of which sottishness is the main. Your foolishness, shown most in your absurd aspiration to be naught but a player. Yet.’ He took another breath, exhaling it slowly. ‘He also noted this: that you have been close to the centre of most of the important acts in our recent history. I think of Drake. Of war in the Netherlands. The Armada. Cadiz. And sometimes, sometimes your foolishness has been overta’en by . . . dare I say this, a certain patriotism. And when it is, it is coupled with an ability to act decisively, rare in most men.’ He shook his head. ‘You are right. You are a mere pawn in the game, John Lawley. But you are an intriguing piece for all that. One does not sacrifice a pawn unless one needs to. I will decide when that time is right. Until then, you will await my move.’

  He moved to the door. John’s voice caught him there. ‘Could you at least give me some idea of the duration, Master Secretary?’

  ‘How, when I do not know it myself?’ Cecil’s dark gaze was on him again. ‘We shall both await th’event. If my lord of Essex is judged to be a traitor by his peers, well then, many around him will also be so condemned . . . and punished. If he is merely reprimanded, he will be exiled to the country, never again allowed to see the Queen, clothed or otherwise.’ A gleam came to the hooded eyes. ‘Yet I think we both know that Robert Devereux is not one to lay down the dice while he has breath in his body. He will forever seek to hit the hazard.’ He nodded. ‘So I will give you time to brood on loyalties. To consider where they might bes
t be placed. Eventually you will, I am certain, come to realise which shade of pawn you should be.’

  With that, Cecil turned and left the cell. John wanted to call, to delay, to bargain, but found he could not speak, his voice taken away by the truth in the man’s words. For he had always been a slave – to other men’s ambitions, and to his own appetites, equally. He was a conspirator in one way, for he had conspired to bring himself here, to this cell, to this fate. His son; Tess; Will: all had been right. He had chosen his own way. Now he must live with the consequences.

  Those began now, with guards re-entering the cell. John raised his manacled hands . . .

  ACT FOUR

  They are the faction. O Conspiracy!

  The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

  XXIX

  The Gaoler’s Man

  Fifteen months later. 6 February 1601. Morning

  When he was ready, John spoke.

  I have been studying how to compare

  The prison where I live unto the world.

  And for because the world is populous

  And here is not a creature but myself

  I cannot do it. Yet I’ll hammer’t out.

  He regarded his audience – one man, his face near all beard now his eyes were closed. Matthew Wingate, turnkey and John’s sole benefactor.

  Well, he thought even as he declaimed, the company at the Globe are the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. At the Rose play the Admiral’s Men.

  So in the Tower, I must be the Gaoler’s Man.

  As patrons went, he was more generous than most lords. They gave little more than their name. Matthew supplied additional food and ale, the opportunity for air and movement in the courtyard, two extra blankets, candles, and a far more regular change of floor reeds than his dull and rule-abiding predecessor. And all because he’d discovered that his prisoner was the very thing that was his soul’s delight and that he spent most of his spare hours watching: to whit, a player. In return for his favours he only asked for John to exercise his talents, which he was more than happy to do – as now – even beyond the benefits they brought. Near a year of brooding had been ended these last three months by his appointment as the Gaoler’s Man. Better food had strengthened him. A warmer cell had kept sickness away. And the last benefit, perhaps the best, was that he had finally gained news of the world.

  Yes, thought John. Sending Matthew to Shakespeare, with the note to treat him well, had worked extra wonders. The gaoler had returned ever more fired by his tour of the playhouse and a seat near the stage he could never have afforded; and he had brought back with him some quartos – play scripts for John to speak from, a delight in themselves, but even more for what lay concealed in their leaves, his friend Will having read his mind: letters.

  A joy indeed, to hear word of the world he was exiled from . . . until last week’s script, the very one from which he was reciting. The play had speeches worth learning – but placed within a split sheet was the news he had long feared he would get. It was the first he’d received from Tess, and the last he wanted. Short in letters. Long in their implication.

  Sir Samuel is returned from Ireland and our plans may now proceed.

  Tess would have known how the brief words would scorch him. She did not try to cool them, or explain. It was clear what actions would follow. They were already troth-plighted. The banns could now be read. In three Sundays they would be married. Ned would be a squire’s son, Tess a squire’s wife.

  He flushed hot on the thought and, even as he built to the conclusion of his speech, studied the man before him. He was grateful to Matthew – but he was still the first barrier between him and escape. Since receiving the note, he had thought of little else, of what he would do in the short time he would have. Many thoughts revolved around blood, the letting of it. But when his own cooled, he realised: he had nowhere to go, not as a fugitive, forever hunted. He might lie in some Southwark stews hidden awhile, but not for ever. Someone would betray him. Or, more likely, he would betray himself, as was ever his way. He needed freedom. And for that he depended, curse them, on others.

  His one hope lay in what letters did not bring, but rumour did. Though February’s chill gripped, the streets of London burned with it. Conspiracy was at the centre of the flames – with one man, whom John knew well, feeding it ever more fuel. And if London exploded, as was being whispered, it would blast open many a cell door.

  Then, as if in echo to his thoughts, his own door was flung wide and the gaoler’s boy came running in, cutting off speech and schemes. ‘There’s one coming,’ he screeched.

  They had planned for this. Matthew had to conceal his liberality. So while John dragged the chest from beneath the table, sweeping all the quartos into it, stowing the cheese and sausage more carefully before shoving it back, Matthew swiftly emptied tankards on to the rush floor. The boy grabbed the one stool and two blankets and was gone, the turnkey following with spare candles and the horsehair mattress, slamming and locking behind him.

  John looked about. In the pallid morning light that came through the one grille set high up, the cell looked as bare as it was meant to. He sat upon the straw pile. Suddenly chilled, he wrapped the remaining and most threadbare of the blankets around his shoulders.

  Who is the one who comes? he wondered. Executioner? Torturer? Murderer? Deliverer?

  Footsteps sounded in the corridor, flame light moved in the grille. The key was thrust in again, the squeal came, the door opened. Three men walked in. One he recognised.

  ‘Easy or hard?’ said Thomas Waller, holding up manacles, just as he had done before. Yet this time John could not muster the spit for defiance. He simply held out his wrists. Waller secured them but did not yoke his ankles again. Instead, the two guards came either side of him, took an arm each and held him, while their officer peered, then walked deeper into the cell.

  ‘What’s this, Lawley?’

  John craned around. Waller was holding up a play script. John recognised it at a glance. The one he’d lately been reciting from. The one he’d least like discovered. ‘Oh, just something I am reading.’

  ‘Indeed. I did not know you were allowed such pleasures.’ Waller shoved it into his cloak. Then, on his nod, the guards followed him from the cell, a firm grip on each of John’s arms.

  When they emerged from the depths on to a stone walkway, freezing wind drove snowflakes into his face. He bent against it. Is this it? he thought. The moment every prisoner tried not to think on and ever did? Trussed, taken to Tower Hill, handed over to the executioner? Hung, dragged, disembowelled to the cheers of the mob? No. Since he had never had a trial, it was either a sham version of that first . . . or more likely he would be murdered in a cell with easy access to the river gate.

  He closed his eyes to the driven snow. He’d always believed he would fight, no matter the odds, the futility. In his day, it would have taken more than even these three large men to stop him. Now he tripped, was hauled upright and back on to his feet. Over a year in prison had sapped his strength, despite the recent better treatment. His will too. Though it had been nothing compared with the cruelties he’d endured in Spain, after Cadiz, yet it had still diminished him. Every day had begun with the little hope that today he might be freed. Every day had ended with the dread that tomorrow might be his last. And now that end had perhaps come, could he only meekly accompany his killers to murder cell or gibbet?

  Yes, it seemed. He felt his guts churn, his legs weaken.

  They left the Martin Tower, his prison within the prison. Yet they did not make along the ramparts in the direction of the Hill, its scaffold shrouded in the swirling snow. Instead they swivelled towards the looming shape that stood as the still centre of the whole fortress. And when he realised it was there that they were bound, John finally pushed his arms out against his guards, dragged his feet, a weak rebellion, swiftly suppressed.

  The White Tower, he thought. Jesu save me.

  All knew what occurred within its grey and ivy-clad walls. Even though th
ey were reputed six feet thick, and the dungeons far below ground, some days he had still believed he heard, like the faintest bat’s squeak, the shrieks of a prisoner undergoing torment. Like every other unwilling resident, he had ignored them. Like every other resident would now ignore his.

  Yet when they’d manoeuvred him up the slick steps and through the main doors, they did not descend the dank, dark stairwell. Instead they went up, into an area for administration. Through half-open doors he glimpsed clerks plying quills at desks. Then he was before a door at a corridor’s end. A sharp knock brought a cry from within. ‘Come!’

  Waller opened the door. Behind a desk overflowing with parchment stood Sir Robert Cecil. ‘So, knave,’ he said, waving them into the room, ‘have you a bow for your better?’

  The Master Secretary had only just arrived, by the snow clumps encrusted upon his cloak. He also had bags beneath his eyes that had not been there before, and a face thinned by care, John suspected, rather than winter’s leanness. His appraisal was returned. When the guards stepped back an arm’s length, he made the bow required, as far as his chained state allowed.

  When he rose, the other man was still staring. ‘You look . . . well, Lawley,’ he said, as if this peeved him. ‘Fifteen months in a cell is meant to diminish a man.’ As John shrugged, the officer, Waller, came past the group and placed the play script on the desk. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I found it in his cell, sir.’

  The Master Secretary picked up spectacles from the desk, held them up to his eyes – which widened beneath the thick lenses. ‘ “The Tragedy of King Richard the Second”,’ he read aloud, then looked up. ‘What are you doing with this?’