Crimson Rose

by M. J. Trow

  ‘On loan,’ Alleyn said, ‘from a patron. You may have heard of him. The Lord Admiral.’

  Thynne smiled. ‘We had a similar conversation the last time we met, Master Alleyn. Howard of Effingham didn’t frighten me then; and he doesn’t frighten me now. Where’s Shakespeare?’

  ‘Who?’

  Thynne threw the wheel-lock back and Alleyn winced as it jarred against his already-bruised shoulder. ‘The man accused in the murder of Eleanor Merchant. The man Robert Greene sprang from the Clink. Do you know where he is?’

  Alleyn spread his arms wide. ‘Perhaps your clods would like to search me,’ he said, ‘to see if I have any bit-players in my codpiece.’

  ‘We’ve searched your house already,’ Thynne told him.

  ‘What?’ Alleyn’s jaw dropped along with his arms. ‘You have no right …’

  ‘We had every right,’ Thynne corrected him. ‘Williams – you made the list. What did we find in Master Alleyn’s inner chamber?’

  The Constable produced a paper from his purse and read aloud: ‘Three fullams, sir.’

  Thynne closed to Alleyn and whispered in his ear, ‘That’s dice loaded with quicksilver.’

  ‘Eight gourds.’

  ‘Dice hollowed on one side,’ Thynne translated.

  ‘Six bristles.’

  ‘Dice doctored with horsehair so that they won’t land straight.’ He leaned back and the whisper turned to a bellow. ‘And in the bedchamber?’

  ‘Two morts,’ the Constable told him, not needing to check his paper for this. ‘One a blackamoor who gave the name of Ebony Sal. The other a country wench called Nell Bishop.’

  ‘And what were these young ladies doing when we arrived, Constable Williams?’

  ‘Painting their nipples, sir.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘To draw their clients, sir.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere they could, sir.’

  ‘Specifically?’

  ‘Up the smock alleys, sir. Petticoat Lane and the Spittle they said.’

  ‘And for whom do these night-walkers work, Constable Williams?’

  The man smiled and delivered his last line with a certain relish. ‘One Edward Alleyn, sir.’

  ‘You know,’ Alleyn smiled back at him, ‘you’re rather good. Ever thought of acting?’

  ‘You’re in trouble, Alleyn.’ Thynne wiped the smile off his face. Ned Alleyn was no stranger to the hospitality of London’s prisons and he didn’t care to repeat the experience.

  ‘Oh, come now, High Constable.’ He decided to brazen it out. ‘These girls are just friends of mine. Doing … favours for other friends. You know how it is? As for the dice, well, let’s not beat about the bush, shall we? Your lads planted them. You see, I’ve got rather a thing about gambling. Especially illegal gambling. Would you believe, some ill-educated souls in the audience actually play at Mumchance and Primero rather than watch the great Ned Alleyn in action?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Thynne, ‘I would.’ He tapped Alleyn on his bad shoulder with his cane. ‘You keep a sharp look out for Shakespeare,’ he said. ‘If you see him, and if that sighting leads to an arrest, well, I think I can persuade Constable Williams here not to be too zealous in passing your name to the Recorder. Of course –’ he tapped the Lord Admiral’s wheel-lock – ‘you could save us all a lot of bother and just shoot Shakespeare yourself.’

  Master Sackerson was confused. He was used to the smell of humans, leaning over his Pit, shouting, cursing, laughing. He was used to the smell of blood: his own; those of the mastiffs they unleashed against him; the butchered carcases they gave him in lieu of pay. But today, things were different. He could smell human. He could smell blood. But it was another kind of blood. It was human blood. He stood on his hind legs in his garden, nostrils quivering against the wind, his evil little eyes darting here and there, his head cocked to one side so that his one good ear could catch the sounds. Nothing unusual: the cries and shouts from the river, the church bells calling the faithful to prayer, the wind from the east.

  That was the wind that scattered the dead man’s papers into Sackerson’s Garden, that sent them twirling and flying like leaves of the fall along Rose Alley and into Maiden Lane. Moll Devereux caught one as she stepped out from the Upright Man that Sunday morning. Her head thumped from the carousing of the night before and she’d spent so long on her back in an upstairs room that her legs weren’t working any too well either. But Moll had been a good girl once and she knew how to read. She looked at the paper scrap in her hand. ‘Abominations of the Devil,’ she read aloud. ‘Leave this place of Sodom and Gomorrah. Have done with the atheist Tamburlaine and turn to the Lord.’

  Instead, Moll Devereux turned the corner. She saw the wall of the Bear Garden and that vicious old bastard Sackerson safely below in his Pit. But that was odd. The bear was on his hind legs, his hands raised as though in prayer, the matted fur swinging as he trod rhythmically from foot to foot. His mouth was open and he was growling, low in his throat. And he didn’t take his eyes off something he had spotted, ahead of him, on his wall.

  Instinctively, she followed his gaze. Lying on his back on the wall, his arms and head lolling into the Bear Pit, was a man. He was dead. Moll knew that because the man’s face was ghastly white, like the make-up she wore on high days and holidays. She knew that because he wasn’t moving. She knew that because there was a dagger thrust up to the ornate hilt in his heart.

  ‘To the point, at least,’ Hugh Thynne said as he peered over the corpse an hour or so later. The dead man was still sprawled awkwardly across the wall, his feet dangling over the roadway, his head arched backwards, his hands trailing just a little too high for Master Sackerson to make a meal of him.

  The High Constable jerked his head and one of his headboroughs hauled the body off the wall so that it flopped unceremoniously on to Maiden Lane; another money-making opportunity for Philip Henslowe. ‘First Finder?’ Thynne straightened, looking at the little crowd that had gathered.

  Another constable nudged the girl forward. Thynne looked at her. He knew her profession straight away. ‘Name?’ he asked her.

  ‘Moll Devereux,’ she told him sulkily, hands on hips. She knew this man and knew his reputation. How she wished that dagger had been tickling his ribs instead.

  ‘You found this man?’

  ‘Yes,’ she told him.

  Thynne leaned closer and whispered in her ear, ‘It is customary to address the High Constable of London as “Sir”.’

  She fumed, but Moll Devereux had not been born yesterday. There were people you could afford to annoy, and those you couldn’t. And the High Constable was certainly not one of those she went out of her way to irritate, though it went against the grain. ‘Sir,’ she said, curtseying as though the Queen herself had asked to meet her.

  ‘Better,’ Thynne said, standing back. ‘So, you found him like that, over the wall?’

  ‘I did … sir.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Not an hour since. I heard the clock of St Benet strike the time. It was seven of the clock.’

  ‘What’s all this fuss here?’ A voice called from the back of the rapidly growing crowd. ‘If any of you are baiting my bear …’

  Thynne half turned to face the new commotion. ‘Well, well,’ he smiled. ‘Master Henslowe. You seem to turn up whenever a body is found.’

  Henslowe pushed his way to the front of the mob and saw the body on the ground. Instinctively, he stepped over it to make sure his bear was unharmed. Then he turned to the girl. ‘Everything all right, Moll?’ he asked.

  ‘All right as it can be when you trip over a corpse first thing in the morning.’

  ‘You know this woman, Master Henslowe?’ Thynne asked.

  ‘Of course I do,’ the impresario snapped. He knew far more than the High Constable and wasn’t at all happy at the way the morning was going. ‘She works for me.’ He could have bitten his tongue for letting that slip out, but it was too
late now.

  Thynne looked along the twisting lane to the sign of the Upright Man swaying gently in the breeze. ‘Of course she does. I’d forgotten what a Johannes Factotum you were. Finger in every pie, eh?’ He winked at Henslowe and nodded in Moll’s direction at the same time. The High Constable turned to the crowd who eked a living of sorts on the Bishop of Winchester’s ground. ‘Anybody know this man?’ he asked, pointing to the corpse at his feet.

  There was a long pause, then Henslowe cleared his throat. ‘I do,’ he said.

  Thynne turned to him again. ‘This is better than any play,’ he said. ‘Who was he?’

  ‘I don’t know his name,’ Henslowe assured him. ‘But I know his calling. He was a Puritan, Presician, call them what you will. One of God’s Elect.’

  ‘Well, he’s been well and truly elected now,’ Thynne said. ‘How do you know him?’

  A look of anguish passed briefly over Henslowe’s face. Who’d run a theatre when the Godly walked the earth? ‘I’d had him thrown out of the Rose,’ he said. ‘Twice.’

  ‘Twice?’ Thynne raised an eyebrow. ‘I assume he didn’t keep coming back to enjoy the show?’

  ‘No,’ Henslowe grumbled. ‘He came to rant. Screaming nonsense about blasphemy, fornication, Godless ways. I ask you …’ He absent-mindedly reached out and wrapped Moll Devereux’s cloak around her, concealing the swell of her breasts.

  ‘This kind of rant?’ Thynne held up one of the scraps of paper that still lay strewn near the body. Henslowe looked at it. ‘Sounds about right,’ he nodded. ‘Nice font, though. I wonder who his printer is.’

  ‘Right,’ Thynne said to his men, ‘let’s get this off the street. I happen to know that Master Henslowe here has ample space for the laying out of a body. Get him into the Rose.’

  ‘Now, just a minute,’ Henslowe protested. ‘I’ve got a show to put on tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Have you?’ Thynne said through gritted teeth. ‘Have you really? It would be ironic, wouldn’t it, if I had to close your theatre down because of the death of a Puritan? Sort of … playing into his hands, if you will excuse the pun.’ He lifted his cane and deftly parted Moll Devereux’s cloak so that her cleavage graced the Southwark crowd again. ‘Then there’s the other little matter,’ he said, ‘of living off immoral earnings, that sort of thing. What a perfect pair you’d make,’ he said, ‘whipped at the cart’s tail. What would Mistress Henslowe say? I understand she is beginning to make her mark on society, these days? My own wife mentioned that …’

  Henslowe went white. He nodded to the constables and they hoisted the dead man on to their shoulders and made their way towards the theatre. ‘By the way.’ Thynne stepped forward and stopped them. ‘Have you seen this dagger before, Master Henslowe?’

  The impresario looked at it, the quicksilver curls of the hilt, the initials Ch. Ma. just below the ricasso. ‘Never,’ he said cheerily. ‘Never.’

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry about this, Ned,’ Henslowe was nodding and smiling to the gallery commoners shuffling into their places as the orchestra warmed up, ‘but the Tiring Room’s a little crowded today.’

  ‘Really?’ Alleyn’s mind was clearly elsewhere. He snapped his fingers and a lackey hurried to him, clutching a breast and back. He started buckling them around Alleyn who was already doing his breathing exercises.

  ‘Yes. It’s … well, there’s no easy way to say this. It’s another body, I’m afraid.’

  Alleyn stopped breathing, at least in the theatrical sense, and held off the plumed helmet for a moment. ‘What are you talking about, Philip?’

  ‘It’s that bloody Puritan – you know, the one I’ve had to throw out a couple of times. Moll found him, on the Bear Garden wall.’

  ‘When was this?’ Alleyn held on to the lackey’s shoulder and proceeded to flex his knees and hold a foot up behind him, first the right, then the left.

  ‘Yesterday morning. First thing.’

  ‘Well,’ Alleyn let the lackey buckle on his sword, ‘if he was found in the street, what’s he doing in here? And why is he still here?’

  ‘Thynne insisted.’

  ‘Thynne!’ Alleyn bellowed and the theorbo player behind the curtain jumped and missed his note. ‘That’s twice in three days that interfering bastard … No, no.’ He calmed himself. ‘Nothing’s going to ruffle me today, of all days. How did he die?’

  ‘Well, that’s the Devil of it.’ Henslowe became conspiratorial, glancing around to make sure no one was too close. He shooed the lackey away. ‘He was stabbed,’ he hissed, ‘with a knife.’

  ‘That must reduce Thynne’s suspects to a few thousand or so.’

  ‘Actually, it reduces the suspects to one,’ Henslowe murmured.

  ‘One?’ Alleyn was carefully combing his beard over his ruff. ‘How so?’

  ‘I saw the blade, Ned,’ Henslowe said. ‘It was Kit’s dagger. Kit Marlowe’s.’

  This time Alleyn’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped so that his careful combing had been rather a waste of time. ‘Never!’ he said. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  The first trumpet sounded and the beginners were assembling behind the curtain. It wouldn’t be long now. ‘You’d better show me this body,’ Alleyn said and Henslowe led the way. The pair ducked under the low lintel and down the steps into the Tiring Room. The noise of the audience here was louder than above, the thud and scrape of the groundlings shaking the Rose’s timbers.

  Alleyn collided with a serving wench with a large nose and an ill-disguised, straw-coloured beard. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  The serving wench drew herself up to her full height. ‘I am Richard Burbage.’

  ‘Good for you.’ Alleyn patted the man on the shoulder and carried on his way. ‘Scraping the barrel a little, aren’t we, Philip?’

  ‘Oh, he’s been hanging around for days, asking for a part. I relented in the end. You know me – all heart.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Alleyn agreed, rolling his eyes. ‘I … Mother of God.’ Alleyn crossed himself. It was an odd gesture from a Scythian shepherd. It was even odd for an innkeeper’s son from Bishopsgate but shock took men in different ways. ‘I know this man,’ he said.

  ‘You do?’ Henslowe muttered, looking the body up and down, wondering if there was some identifying mark he’d missed.

  ‘It’s John Garrett. He’s … was … a neighbour of mine, of sorts. A Puritan. There’s a whole nest of them in Old Jewry. God’s Word, that’s what the Brethren call him.’

  ‘Have you had any trouble from him?’ Henslowe asked. ‘At home, I mean? Presumably he knows you’re an actor.’

  Alleyn turned to him and clapped the plumed, gilded helmet on his head, careful to keep the ruff free. ‘I am not an actor, Philip. I am the actor. I trust you’ll remember that. Besides.’ He glanced briefly at the dead man. ‘Nothing, not even this, can dim my light today.’ He strode up the step as the second trumpet shrilled. Henslowe followed him, bemused. Alleyn had got over the shock of knowing the corpse extremely quickly. But then, Henslowe knew actors. They could screw themselves up to raging giants and shrink to timid mice on the turn of a groat and Alleyn was the best of them.

  ‘Not today.’ He paused to silence a lackey who was about to say something. ‘Later, son, later. Today, I stride among the tree tops.’

  ‘Well, yes, the play’s going well,’ Henslowe enthused. ‘Another packed house out there.’

  ‘The play be hanged.’ Alleyn adopted his magnificent entrance stance, hands on hips and head thrown back. ‘Today, Mistress Constance and I are betrothed.’

  There was a loud snort from a passing figure in the half-shadows. It was Thomas Sledd. Alleyn sneered at him. ‘None of your cynicism, stage manager,’ he said. ‘I have found my way into Constance’s heart. I am her lord … her King Edward.’ He liked the sound of that.

  ‘And that’s not all, I’ll wager,’ Sledd muttered.

  ‘What, sirrah?’ Alleyn may have been unrufflable today but the little boy-actor-grown-too-big-for-
his-breeches was just beginning to irritate.

  ‘King Edward, eh?’ Sledd turned to him, smiling. ‘Well, my history doesn’t run to much, but even I know William the Conqueror came before King Edward.’

  The next thing Sledd knew, Ned Alleyn’s hand had closed around his throat and he was pinning him up against the gates of Babylon, which shook and trembled with the impact. ‘You’ve got three tickings of the clock to explain that, sirrah.’

  ‘Well …’ Sledd did his best to oblige, in a strangulated way. He didn’t like the look on Ned Alleyn’s face and he didn’t like the size of his sword, either. ‘Just a joke, Ned,’ he managed. ‘A one-liner. Kit’s not here, so I thought I’d …’

  ‘What did you mean, William the Conqueror?’ Alleyn twisted the man’s collar even tighter.

  ‘It’s … it’s common knowledge, Ned. Constance Tyler is with child. And it’s Will Shakespeare’s.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘He told me,’ he said. ‘He was in his cups one night at rehearsals. I don’t think you were there. He told me they were lovers. He wasn’t sure quite how his wife would take it … Everybody knows, Ned. I thought you did too.’

  Alleyn looked at the nearest cast members, ready for the third blast of the trumpet. ‘It’s true, Ned,’ the Prologue said. ‘I heard it too,’ squeaked Zenocrate and there were nods from Tamburlaine’s children and murmured agreements from everyone in the room. Then the trumpet. Alleyn let go of Sledd and the lad half collapsed to the floor. Tamburlaine looked around the assembled company.

  ‘If anybody, anybody crosses me out there –’ he pointed to the wooden O beyond the curtained doorway – ‘God have mercy on their soul.’

  And that was how it went. Calyphas was a little warier than usual of his father that afternoon. ‘Villain,’ Alleyn roared at him in Act Three, Scene Two. ‘Art thou the son of Tamburlaine?’ He punctuated each word with a slap that rang through the auditorium and brought gasps from the audience for their realism. He was even more alarmed when Alleyn overdid one bit and slashed his own arm with his knife. This was no fake blood – that packet lay unopened under his sleeve.