The Sacred Stone

by The Medieval Murderers

  That was what Case had said, or as near as I can recall. After that, everything went a bit hazy – although in truth it had been hazy enough before.

  With eyes still closed, I tried to put events in order, to make some sense of how I’d come to be on board the Argo. Because that was surely where I was, lying awkwardly in a swaying berth, listening to the groans of the ship’s timbers and the gurgling waters as they rushed past inches from where I lay. Was I already at sea? The thought was almost too terrifying to contemplate. Instead, I clung to the notion of land, dry land.

  The previous evening I had definitely been on dry land. Very dry land indeed. Legal land, since we of the King’s Men were performing William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in that den of lawyers, the Middle Temple. It was springtime, and although Twelfth Night may seem unseasonal it is a play for all times and every audience.

  We’ve performed in the Middle Temple on previous occasions, and I have to say that the fledgling lawmen make for a coarser and more noisy audience than the groundlings at the Globe. Since they were well-off and educated, that’s what you would expect. Unlike the groundlings, the young lawyers did not stand on their hind legs but rather perched on bum-numbing benches in the well of the dining hall while their seniors – benchers and serjeants-at-law and the like – were enthroned on a dais at the opposite end to our makeshift stage. Many of these were in the company of lady guests, whose incessant chatter did not signify much interest in anything we poor players were up to. Don’t get me wrong. We were pleased enough with the audience. They paid well, and the men among them were (or soon would be) people of influence. More than other trades, players need friends in high places.

  We had an especially elevated guest this evening. It was the French legate, the ambassador to England, a gentleman by the name of Antoine le Fèvre de la Broderie. He and his entourage had pride of place in the middle of the dais. I don’t know why he was gracing us with his presence. Perhaps he was on friendly terms with the legal greybeards of the Temple. Perhaps he was a devotee of William Shakespeare. Certainly, a visit to this place was a simple enough matter for him, since the little patch of France-in-London which he inhabited was close by, in Salisbury Court off Fleet Street. However, my knowledge of Monsewer de la Broderie did not extend much further.

  Where was I. . . ? Ah, yes.

  It is a grand place, this Middle Temple, regardless of the quality of its occupants. Above the dais are banks of varnished portraits which glimmer in the light of countless candles. The mighty roof, with its tiers of beams, dissolves into mysterious shadows. On everything is the lustre of power and wealth. And solemnity, if you ignore the braying young lawyers.

  They particularly brayed at me, for I was playing that foolish knight, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who blusters and threatens but whose sword turns to a piece of limp string when it comes to fighting a duel. Even though I never came to proper blows against my opponent, Viola (attired as the masculine Cesario), I received a painful injury which caused plenty of amusement in the pit of the Temple hall. He – or rather she – made an unexpected thrust at me with the foil and, when I twisted clumsily away to avoid it, I fell with a resounding clunk on the boards of our makeshift stage. As I scrambled to my feet with the guffaws of the lawyers ringing in my ears, I felt a stabbing sensation in my side which made me fear I might have cracked a rib.

  Once we were offstage, Michael Donegrace, who was playing Viola-Cesario, was all concern until I reassured him that no damage had been done. He shouldn’t have lashed out at me unexpectedly, but, equally, I should have known how to avoid his foil or at least to have fallen without injuring myself. But I’ve noticed that accidents are more likely if you’re playing on strange territory.

  By the time that Feste the clown had finished the play of Twelfth Night with his bitter-sweet song and we players had done a little jig – a cautious little jig for me – to round off the action, and once we had bowed to the applause, made our final exits, changed out of costume and quit the Temple, night had fallen. It was cold outside with a draught coming off the river. We wrapped ourselves tighter in our street clothes and looked towards the rest of the evening. Some were going home to wives and families, some to idle away their time in an alehouse, some to do the second thing before the first if they were willing to face their wives afterwards. I, lacking wife and child, could visit the alehouse without a qualm.

  There was a place called the Devil’s Tavern not far from the Inns of Court which was convenient as well as a couple of cuts above the dives in Southwark. I’d already arranged with one of my fellows, Jack Wilson, to stop off at the Devil on the way to our respective lodgings. With my side still aching from the clumsy fall onstage, I thought that a draught or three would numb the pain before I sought the shelter of my bed.

  I spotted Jack in conversation with a man and a woman near the entrance into Middle Temple Lane. Not players but members of the audience. They were fitfully lit by the flare outside the porter’s lodge. Noticing me, Jack beckoned. I was going in that direction anyway.

  ‘Nick,’ he said, ‘you will help me out here, I am sure. I have a question, or rather this gentleman has a question. He wants to know whether William Shakespeare has ever been to sea. I thought you might know, since you are closer to William than I.’

  This was such an odd thing to ask that I wasn’t sure what to answer, not that I knew the answer in any case. Instead, I glanced at the couple in the flickering torchlight by the lodge. The man was thickset, with firm features and a square-cut beard. He was wearing a long gown and holding an ornate but serviceable stick with one hand while the other grasped a bag. It was hard to see much of the woman, on account of her broad-brimmed hat, but I had an impression of a slight figure swathed in expensive clothes.

  ‘I know no more than you, sir,’ I said. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Your Shakespeare writes of the sea and seamen and shipwrecks with real feeling,’ said the man. ‘The struggle of the brother and sister to reach the shore, their poignant separation, the quiet courage of the captain and Antonio here.’

  He gestured at Jack Wilson, who had taken the part of Antonio in Twelfth Night. I wanted to say that WS had created these figures and their emotions from his imagination, or perhaps that he had copied them out of old books, but somehow it would have seemed like giving away a trade secret, so I just replied, ‘Perhaps you’d better ask the author.’

  I knew that they would be most unlikely to find Shakespeare, let alone ask him anything. The playwright was elusive, almost anonymous, unless he wanted you to know that he was there. But the large gentleman responded to my cursory answer with a warmth that made me feel slightly guilty.

  ‘Perhaps I will ask him! Thank you. I know Richard Burbage.’

  He knew Burbage. That was different. The Burbage brothers, Dick and Cuthbert, were the most senior figures among the Globe shareholders. Dick was also a player.

  ‘We much enjoyed the play,’ added the man. ‘I believe that the French legate did, too. We were sitting near his party. A handsome fellow.’

  ‘Il est un favori du roi.’ This comment came from Jack who, after sensing rather than seeing our baffled expressions, said, ‘Well, it’s no secret, is it? Queen Anne favours the Spanish ambassador while the King is . . . partial to the French legate.’

  Jokes and ribald comments about King James’s tastes were everywhere in London, but those who voiced them tended to know and trust their audience. I was a bit surprised that Jack was speaking like this in front of a couple of strangers. Perhaps the man was, too, for he changed the subject by addressing me.

  ‘Have you recovered from your fall this evening, sir?’

  ‘Oh, that. It was just a piece of stage business.’

  ‘Surely not,’ said the man. ‘I could tell from the way you tumbled down and, more important, from the way you got up afterwards that you were hurt. Some damage to your ribs, perhaps?’

  Since this was not too far from what I was already thinking and feeling,
I gave the feeble reply: ‘It was nothing.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ he said. ‘In recompense for the enjoyment of the play, however, can I offer you both some hospitality? I am staying fairly close by.’

  I glanced at Jack. We sometimes got such invitations from people who want to consort with players, for various reasons. Was this gentleman someone important? Or could he be thanked for his kindness and then ignored? A few companionable drinks in the Devil and then my solitary bed seemed preferable, to be honest. But if he knew the Burbages, who were our employers . . .

  ‘I am a doctor,’ the man said conclusively.

  ‘Of law?’ said Jack Wilson.

  ‘No, a doctor of physic,’ he said, raising his bag as if it contained the tools of his trade. ‘Dr Jonathan Case. This lady is my young cousin, Thomasina.’

  The lady dipped her head, or rather her hat, in acknowledgement but said not a word. Sensing reluctance to his offer on our part, Dr Case said to me in an oddly pressing way, ‘If you accompany me, I can give you something to soothe the pain in your side, Mr. . . .?’

  So both Jack and I were compelled to introduce ourselves. It would have been churlish to refuse the invitation now, particularly after Thomasina laid a gloved hand on my arm as if to reinforce the other’s words.

  Jack and I followed the couple from the lodge. I observed that they stopped on the threshold and that Jonathan Case looked in each direction as if he was about to cross a busy street. But the lane was empty as far as I could see. To the right was a glow of light from the top of the stairs leading to the river. The trees in Temple Gardens, newly in leaf, rustled unseen in the breeze.

  As they walked up Middle Temple Lane and into Fleet Street, Dr Case put his stick and bag in one hand and offered the other arm to his female companion. But she seemed unwilling to move closer to him. When we reached the broader thoroughfare, the physician once more looked carefully around. This time there were a few passers-by, but none of them paid us any attention. Case rapped his stick sharply on the ground before waving it in the air. A covered coach drawn by a pair of horses materialized from the shadows of Temple Bar and lumbered in our direction.

  The driver reined in his team and leaned down from his perch to listen to the physician’s instructions, which I did not catch except for the name at the end. When Dr Case addressed the driver as Andrew, I realized that Jack Wilson and I were in the presence of an important gentleman, or at any rate one who was wealthy enough to own or to hire his own equipage. We clambered aboard, and the carriage pulled away up the gentle incline towards Ludgate.

  ‘How did you enjoy the play, madam?’ said Jack. Like all players, he wanted to talk about the most recent performance. It is what we would have discussed had we gone to the Devil’s Tavern.

  ‘She felt sorry for Malvolio,’ said Dr Case, answering for his companion. ‘The steward was most notoriously abused, but then he deserved to be.’

  The cousins, young and middle-aged, were sitting opposite Jack and me. The seats were low, and the space between us was all knees. I had hoped to get a better look at them, but scarcely a glimmer penetrated the carriage from outside, since there was little enough illumination in the street and the window curtains were almost drawn. When we halted at Ludgate, instead of looking out as would have been natural, the physician pressed himself back into his seat, clutching his bag and his stick to himself. We heard the coachman exchange some words with one of the watchmen at the gates, which were not yet shut up for the night, and then we trundled on.

  I wondered how far we were going. Where was Case’s house? Already I regretted accepting this invitation. Could Jack and I contrive an excuse to stop the carriage and get off?

  ‘Were you a guest of someone at Middle Temple, Dr Case?’ I said. ‘It was not Mr Burbage?’

  ‘No,’ he said curtly out of the gloom. Then, as if he owed us more of an explanation: ‘I am acquainted with a gentleman in the French legation. He suggested that Thomasina and I might be diverted by the play.’

  ‘Which you were.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Case, as if he had forgotten his earlier compliments. ‘Your Shakespeare writes most feelingly of . . . of . . . the sea. As I said.’

  I couldn’t help contrasting his manner now with his eagerness for our company while we were talking by the lodge. Something about the man or his manner obviously made Jack uneasy, too, for he said, ‘I hope your dwelling is not too far off, Dr Case. Both Nick and I must return to our lodgings in good time. We have a rehearsal to attend tomorrow. We are fined a shilling if we are late.’

  The physician gave a mild snort of derision, whether at the small size of the fine – although a shilling was a whole day’s pay to us – or at the notion that a young man should be concerned about getting to bed on time.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I shall see you safe home.’ We lapsed into silence as the carriage clattered along. It was not a comfortable ride. Quite apart from the hardness of the seats, we received frequent jars when the driver failed to see or was unable to avoid one of the many holes that pitted the road. I was glad I was not wealthy enough to have to employ any other means of transport than my legs. And now we seemed to be on a downward slope with the smell of the river wafting through the unglazed windows. After a few more minutes we drew up.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Case. ‘After you, dear sir.’

  I got down quickly enough, followed by Jack. A spasm from my side reminded me that the physician was supposed to be providing something to dull the discomfort. If he really was a physician . . . if he really lived here.

  My doubts were on account of where the coach had stopped. We were by a wharf on the river, and the neighbouring buildings had the look of storehouses. This place was either Botolph’s Wharf or the Lyon Key, I wasn’t sure which in the darkness. To our right as we faced across the river was the great bulk of London Bridge. Against the night sky it stood like a mighty wall but one interrupted by pinpricks of light from the windows of the houses that line it. From below came the rumble of water as the tidal surge forced its way through the piers of the bridge. Was this our destination? It must be, for the next thing we heard was the doctor’s carriage pulling away.

  The sight of the bridge and the sound of the Thames were strangely reassuring. I had only to cross the river to be at my lodgings at Mrs Ellis’s in Tooley Street within a few minutes. Jack Wilson also lived on the far side of the river, the unrespectable side. I was about to say to Jack that we should quit the scene now when I became aware that Jonathan Case and cousin Thomasina were behind us. I must have been jumpy, because I suspected some trick, even an ambush, and whirled around, causing me to groan involuntarily from the hurt in my side. But Case put his hand gently on my shoulder and used his stick to point ahead.

  ‘We are down there,’ he said. ‘On the river.’

  ‘You live on the river?’ I said, incredulous.

  ‘No, no. I am about to board a boat, because like you players I need to make an early start tomorrow morning, with the tide. Come on board and I shall explain. Oh, and I will find a remedy for that injury you gave yourself, Mr Revill.’

  He went to the head of the stairs leading to a landing stage and, as he had done in Fleet Street, rapped with his stick on the cobbled ground. Within a few instants a figure puffed up the stairs, bearing a smoky torch. He stood as still as a statue to illuminate our descent down the greasy flight. In the diffused glow cast by the torch, I could see little of the boat which we boarded except that it was substantial enough to be a merchant vessel, with treelike masts bearing furled sails. The low murmur of voices, together with the smell of pipe smoke and the embers of a brazier near the bow showed that the craft was manned.

  Picking their way among various unidentifiable marine items on deck, Case and his cousin paused by a massy construction in the aft portion of the vessel. Do I have these terms right – aft and bow? I’m neither knowledgeable about boats nor happy away from dry land, to be truthful. I have never seen the
open sea and have no great desire to catch sight of it. Even taking the ferry to cross the Thames, especially when on the broader stretches below the bridge and if there’s a hint of bad weather, has me glancing nervously at the shore.

  ‘Welcome to our quarters, gentlemen,’ said Case, as he opened a door and ushered us through. We negotiated some steep wooden steps and emerged into a surprisingly spacious area below the deck. It was illuminated by candles and oil lamps and, on this chill spring evening, warmed by a metal tripod heaped with charcoal. The ceiling was low, scarcely above head height, but the other dimensions were generous enough. A table and benches occupied the centre. There were curtained-off spaces in the side walls but no windows or ports. At the far end were a pair of doors. A black cat was curled on the floor near the charcoal tripod, but it quickly roused itself and bolted up the steps we had just descended.

  Jonathan Case and Thomasina stood in the centre of the cabin, watching as we took in the surroundings. The lady was still overshadowed by her hat, and the better light revealed no more than I’d seen already: a slim, almost lanky figure. Under a mantle, she was wearing a bodice and kirtle of fine scarlet taffeta. As for Case, the gentleman’s cap and coif marked him out as a physician almost as clearly as if he’d been carrying a urine flask, but somehow this just deepened the mystery. I think Jack was as baffled as I. What business had caused this doctor of physic to board a vessel on the Thames? Furthermore, what business meant that he had to sail with the tide tomorrow morning?