King Arthur's Bones

by The Medieval Murderers

  ‘This is none of your business,’ said the Welshman, snatching it from me.

  ‘We came to you in quest of bones, I remember,’ said Martin Barton.

  ‘You got a dusty answer.’

  ‘You sent us to Bernardo Scoto.’

  I noticed the look that passed between Alice Leman and her steward at that. They obviously knew the man from Mantua. But then of course Edmund Shakespeare had seen Mr and Mrs Leman, together with Owen, going to Scoto’s house before they went on to the Tower animals. What was going on here? I was baffled.

  ‘To be round with you, Mrs Leman,’ I said, ‘it was you who were seen close to the scene of your husband’s death in the Tower.’

  ‘I was there, I admit it. My husband was drawn towards the Tower animals. They were a magnet to him. Like our king, he enjoyed watching the strange beasts. I sometimes accompanied him and our steward too. We were there yesterday evening. I grew tired, however, and found the air close and nauseous. So I left my husband to admire the animals by himself and returned home with Master Corner for company. I do not know exactly what happened after I left, but, with Leonard, valour or curiosity must have got the better part of discretion and he wandered too close to the beasts. He was savaged by the lions, was he not?’

  This was remarkable. If she was telling the truth and had not been there at the moment of her husband’s death, she could have heard the news only this morning. Yet she spoke in such even tones that she might have been talking about a stranger who had carelessly fallen victim to the lions. But then perhaps she was not very fond of her husband. Perhaps her attentions had long ago shifted in the direction of Jack Corner, who now so far forgot discretion as to put a soothing hand on her arm. Even if Martin and I hadn’t witnessed them at it, we would have known them for lovers. Yet surely lovers, if they had carried out a murder, would put on a show of grief to allay suspicion? That they were not doing so could be construed as proof of innocence. Or indifference. Or brazenness.

  ‘Is a little sorrow in order, madam?’ I said. ‘I ask only because, not being married myself, I am not sure how these things are carried on between husband and wife.’

  ‘They are carried on as they are carried on, Mr Revill. Be sure that you will be the first to know when I want to advertise my sorrow.’

  Almost despite myself I was impressed by her cold dignity. There was nothing more we would be allowed to discover here. I said farewell to Mrs Leman, and Martin Barton made a more elaborate goodbye to her. We nodded to the steward called Corner and ignored Davy Owen, who was still keeping watch over his bone-box. No one tried to stop us leaving.

  Martin and I said nothing until we’d made our exit from Pride House, crossed the courtyard and passed under the gaze of the supercilious gatekeeper.

  ‘We shall get no further with them,’ said Martin when we were back in the Strand. He was echoing my thoughts. ‘Maybe it is as Mistress Leman says: her husband walked too close to the lions and paid for it with his life.’

  ‘It’s a story that would suit everyone. But there was mischief going on in the Tower. Edmund Shakespeare did not beat himself up.’

  ‘And then there is that Welsh bookseller and his box of bones. You saw them, Nicholas?’

  ‘Indistinctly – but they were bones, yes.’

  ‘Human bones?’

  ‘I suppose so. How could I tell?’

  How could I tell? They might have been not human but animal. It was rumoured that what passed for the relics of saints in their crystal or metal settings were often no more than bones of sheep. I thought of the bone that Edmund Shakespeare had given to William and which had been supplied by Davy Owen, the large bone I’d assumed came from a human limb, even one of King Arthur’s. I remembered the unicorn horn hanging from the ceiling in Scoto’s den. That was nothing human. So where would one go for large, queerly shaped items of bone?

  ‘What?’ I said. Martin Barton had made some comment.

  ‘I said, I would like to cause trouble for Mr Owen.’

  ‘Because he is Welsh? Because he referred in a less-than-respectful way to your trade of writing?’

  ‘I do not rise above malice,’ said Barton as if claiming some special virtue.

  There was certainly something unsettled, as well as unsettling, about the situation. We returned to Barton’s lodgings and found Edmund recovered from his bad night and ready for action.

  A notion was taking shape in my head, and I outlined to the others what we might do.

  A few hours later we were sitting in the Black Swan, the tavern close to the narrow-windowed house at the corner of Tower Street. From our position in the front room of the Swan we could keep watch on Scoto’s place. We were not rewarded until late in the afternoon, when we saw our old friend Davy Owen approaching the house. I half-expected him to be bearing books or bones, but he was carrying nothing.

  Owen must have been a very welcome visitor for instead of knocking he was about to let himself in with a key which he retrieved from his jerkin. He would have done so had not I, closely followed by Martin and Edmund, raced out of the tavern to intercept the bookseller at the front door.

  Davy Owen looked alarmed and, rather than fumble with the key, he banged on the door to be let in. That was a mistake, because it was opened almost straight away by Nano, the dwarfish attendant. Together with Owen, we jostled ourselves inside and stood in the hallway. There was an awkward silence. I had impressed on the others that we must not resort to force. Now I said, not to the little servant but to the bookseller: ‘Forgive this intrusion, but we must speak to Scoto of Mantua. Tell him that we know the truth, about the bones and the king and the Lemans. Tell him that we have uncovered a plot and that we must see him now, even if he does claim to be a creature of the night.’

  Owen nodded and scuttled off down the passage, disappearing into its far shadows. Meantime, Nano planted himself across our path and folded his arms. The three of us could have bowled him over, but it would have felt like attacking a child. Besides, he looked as though he might have put up a good fight.

  After a time, and as if he were obeying some hidden signal, Nano stood to one side and with mock ceremony bowed us through. Once again, Edmund, Martin and I approached Scoto’s den at the end of the passage. We knocked and were bidden to enter. Inside, there was no way of guessing the time of day from the smoky, ill-lit interior.

  The Italian was sitting at his desk as before, his head covered with a cap and his shape largely concealed by the mantle with its cabbalistic symbols.

  ‘You ’ave something to tell me,’ he said. ‘Il segreto.’

  ‘It is to do with King Arthur’s bones,’ I said, appointing myself as speaker. ‘As you know, this gentleman here purchased one from a bookseller friend of yours – where is Davy Owen, by the way?’

  ‘Signor Owen?’ said Scoto, as if he’d never come across the name before. ‘’e is about the ’ouse.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I think he is sitting right in front of us.’

  I took a couple of steps forward and, greatly daring, snatched the cap off Scoto’s head. He clapped his hand over his scalp but not before the distinctive arrow-shaped pattern of hair was revealed.

  It was Davy Owen. He stood up. His eyes flicked from one to another of us. Seeing that denial was useless, he said in an accent that substituted a Welsh lilt for the Italian cadence: ‘My congratulations, Mr Revill. How did you guess?’

  ‘The fact that the two of you were never seen together, the fact that Martin Barton here said that your voice was wrong for a citizen of Mantua, the fact that I’m a player and can usually tell when someone’s acting a part. Your speech was seeded with Italian phrases, Mr Owen, like flowers in a garden, all carefully set out for the sake of ornament.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Owen. ‘I am uncovered in both senses. You may give me back my cap now.’

  I did so. Martin and Edmund were looking at Owen (or Scoto) in surprise. Whatever turn of events they’d expected, it wasn’t this. I was surpr
ised too, for I had only been half-convinced by my own reasoning.

  Owen resumed his cap and became Scoto once more. He went back to his place behind the desk while we three stood before him, half-suppliants, half-accusers.

  ‘What is the point of this deception?’ said Martin.

  ‘Deception? Can a man not have two lives, can he not pursue two trades? Due mestieri. As a bookseller I have something of a line in herbals, while as a practitioner of the art I prepare and administer them. Under one name I stand with my own race and am proud to be Welsh. In the other part I assume the guise of an Italian. It’s better for trade, you see.’

  ‘Trade must be pretty good, judging by this house and your premises in St Paul’s yard,’ I said. ‘But you don’t just deal in herbs and remedies, Signor Davy; you also handle stolen goods.’

  ‘Nothing stolen. Only what is rightfully acquired.’

  ‘Then, if not stolen, you are attempting to pass off one thing as another. It’s a type of forgery. You get bones from the dead animals in the Tower and you claim that they are the remnants of fabulous creatures – the unicorn up there, for example, or the mermaid’s ribs.’

  I gestured overhead, where the bones were suspended. The man in the cap and cloak raised his arms.

  ‘Where is the harm in that? It is no great imposture. Have you never visited a fair where the monsters are exhibited, Mr Revill? Do you think that woman behind the curtain really has two heads or that the fish-man is covered with genuine scales?’

  ‘The harm comes when you try to pass off some animal bones not as a unicorn’s or a mermaid’s but as a great king’s. When you are selling them to Leonard Leman because he wishes to curry favour with King James and knows that one sure way of doing that would be to present the monarch with Arthur’s remains.’

  ‘I had those bones from a different source,’ said Owen. ‘I know that they are real. For I am Welsh, you know, and Arthur was of our tribe.’

  ‘Perhaps some of the bones are real, but I think that you grew greedy and were prepared to use any old bones you came across. You sold one to my friend Edmund here and he in turn gave it to someone else. The Lemans found out you’d disposed of one and were angry with you. We saw you arguing the other day outside your shop. The argument continued last night at the Tower. Perhaps it turned violent. At any rate, Leonard Leman is dead.’

  ‘Not by my hand.’

  ‘Then whose?’

  Davy Owen, who was also Bernardo Scoto of Mantua, hesitated for a moment. He looked wildly about the chamber. He was no longer the mysterious Italian mountebank or the canny Welsh bookseller. He was simply desperate to save his skin.

  ‘It was the good lady, Alice Leman! She and that steward of hers. You must have seen the way they were acting towards each other this morning. They could not wait until the husband was cold in his grave. They had no interest in Arthur’s bones or anyone else’s bones. No one’s bones except their own, which they want to grind against each other without let or hindrance.’

  ‘You are lying!’

  The tapestry, which stood against the left-hand wall, stirred and for a moment I thought one of the strange, demonic figures on it had spoken. My hair prickled. But there must have been another, secret entrance into the room that way. And a recess behind the tapestry to allow for eavesdroppers. From behind the arras there entered Alice Leman. She strode across to Owen.

  ‘I have been listening to every lying word, Davy. Nano let me in, thinking I had come on business. I have always been a friend to Nano and so he is a friend to me. I heard voices coming from here and thought I would see who your visitors were. And hear what tales you were spinning. Just like the tales you spun to my husband. The king’s bones, indeed! It is a fable.’

  ‘No fable,’ protested Owen. ‘The bones – some of the bones – are real.’

  ‘As real as your accusation of murder. Gentlemen—’ she turned towards us ‘—what I told you this morning is the truth, if not quite all of it. We went to the Tower yesterday evening. I won’t conceal from you that my late husband had business there, business that I did not approve of.’

  ‘I was there too,’ said Edmund Shakespeare. It was the first time he’d spoken. ‘I was attacked. I bear the marks.’

  Mrs Leman nodded. ‘I regret that. My husband was fearful of some trap and my . . . steward . . . believed he had caught a spy, who was set on rather ferociously.’

  ‘It was I,’ said Edmund. ‘I was dragged down to the animal yard.’

  ‘That was none of my doing. I and Mr Corner left soon afterwards. As I said, I was nauseous. Not so much because of the air in that place as because I wanted nothing more to do with what was happening. It is not I or Mr Corner who should be accused of murder but this gentleman here, this bookseller, this mountebank. I want nothing more to do with him. We are returning the fresh bones that he brought to Pride House this morning.’

  She raised her voice slightly and, on cue, a second figure stepped out from behind the arras. Really, this was as good as a play for its disguises, surprises and improbable entrances. This time it was Jack Corner. He was carrying the battered wooden box. He walked across to Owen and tipped the contents into his lap.

  ‘I didn’t do it! It was the lions!’ said Davy. ‘They savaged Leman to death. We quarrelled, true, but it was the lions did for your husband!’

  ‘They may have done their own work,’ said the widow, ‘but be sure you led the way with your knife. I may not be in a great state of grief for my husband, but I would not stoop to murder.’

  Davy Owen’s nerve broke. The presence of five accusers was too much. He leaped up, scattering fragments of bone, and bolted past us to the door. It was some moments before we gathered our wits and set off in pursuit. There was no sign of Nano, but the open front door gave clear sign of where his master had gone.

  The sun was beginning to go down, but we saw the still-cloaked-and-capped figure running up Tower Hill and then swerving to the left down Petty Wales. I wondered why he was doing this, then realized that it was probably the most direct route to the river. He would have to run down the flank of the Tower, the same path I’d taken that very morning.

  We – Edmund, Jack Corner and I – were a couple of hundred yards behind Owen, with Martin Barton and Alice Leman bringing up the rear. He could not escape us, unless he managed to get a ferry across the river and lose himself in the meadows on the far side.

  In blind panic Davy Owen ran alongside the Tower wall and across the quay where I had been standing earlier that day. He disappeared over the edge, down the steps. We reached the brink and halted. The tide was going out again.

  We saw Davy Owen blundering and squelching across the mud and stone, head down, scarcely conscious of where he was going but doubtless hoping to reach the river and a ferryman.

  There were no ferrymen in sight, but the bear was there, sitting by the water’s edge, its yellowy-white coat distinct on the grey foreshore. For all I know it had been sitting there the whole day long, trying to catch fish. There was still no sign of any keeper.

  We gazed, horrified, as Davy Owen blundered bear-wards. When he was almost on top of the creature he realized where he was and slid to a stop. Too late! He toppled back in the mud and slime and the animal reared up. Perhaps it was aggrieved that it had spent a day in the sun without a catch. Perhaps it craved human company. Perhaps it wanted vengeance for years of captivity or had been maddened by them. Whatever the reason, it started towards Davy Owen as if to pursue the unfortunate Welshman. It swung one of its mighty paws against his head and I swear we heard the dull clout from where we stood on top of the quay.

  Davy Owen swayed and then fell face down in the mud and lay still. If the blow had not killed him, then he would surely be stifled in the mud. The bear dropped back on all fours and, as far as the chain securing it to the stake would permit, snuffed around the body. I could imagine its breath, hot and stinky. Davy Owen did not move. After a time the bear resumed its sitting position by the water,
although it no longer splashed its paws in the water. For some reason I felt sorry, not for the (surely) dead man but for the bear.

  We stayed where we were, now joined by Martin and Mrs Leman, not certain what to do next.

  VII

  But there was nothing for us to do and, when a few passersby gathered to look at the dead man and the white bear, we walked away.

  You may be interested to hear what happened to the few characters in this story. The death of Leonard Leman was accounted an accident. Maybe Davy Owen had killed him, maybe it was the lions. Rather like the famous Roman, Julius Caesar, the one-time favourite of Queen Elizabeth had been struck and gouged many times, and it was not possible to say who had done what, whether animal or human. All things considered, it was better to blame the lions. Nothing would happen to them; the king was too fond of his creatures. So the (more or less) blameless Alice Leman duly married her steward, Jack Corner, and they are established at Pride House. She took the dwarfish Nano into her employment.

  Martin Barton continues to write his satires and grows more carping as he grows more successful. Edmund Shakespeare began to plough a kind of furrow as a player with his brother’s company, with us, with the King’s Men, and he was not doing too badly before things were brought to a premature close. Edmund had already been ploughing another kind of furrow. The woman I’d seen hanging about his ears at the Mermaid tavern bore him a child in the summer of the following year. You remember the one who was called Dolly or Polly, the one with dark curling hair and the big tits? Edmund was ready enough to acknowledge the child as his – which, in itself, marked him out as a decent enough fellow for a player – but the little thing lasted no longer than a few weeks. And the father followed a few months later, dying in the December of 1607. William Shakespeare paid to have the great bell at St Saviour’s in Southwark rung in his memory. I am not sure how far WS lamented his brother’s passing, and if Edmund hadn’t been a Shakespeare I don’t suppose anyone else apart from Dolly or Polly would have given him more than a passing thought or tear either.