Before any of this, we gave a selective account of what had happened to William Shakespeare, Edmund and I. We included the bear. We could hardly have left the bear out, for the fatal attack on an innocent bookseller was briefly the talk of London. We also mentioned some of the other mischief but not the whole story. WS probably guessed there was more to it, but he didn’t press us. He did not even ask how Edmund had acquired the great bump on his forehead. We were sitting in his Silver Street lodgings, drinking, chatting. I was curious about WS’s plan to write a play on the matter of Britain and King Arthur. I recalled that both the bone and some pages of his manuscript had gone missing. Stolen? It seemed not.
‘My landlady took the bone. She thought it was an unhealthy thing to have in her house, and perhaps she was right. I am sorry, Edmund, since you presented it to me, but I fear it has ended up in some midden.’
WS did not seem unduly concerned by the fate of the relic, while Edmund too was unbothered. He seemed more pleased to be in WS’s good books.
‘And the sheets of manuscript?’ I persisted.
‘Nothing sinister, Nick. They must have blown out of the window. I found a few in the garden below. The ink had run and the snails had left silver tracks across them. I think I shall take it as a sign.’
‘A sign?’
‘That I should not pursue the subject of King Arthur. It is a doomed idea, or at least it is not one for me.’
‘I have an idea for a play, William,’ said Edmund. ‘Or for an incident in a play. It would be exciting. A man chased by a bear.’
WS gazed at his brother in disbelief. ‘Chased by a bear? And caught? And eaten? Like that unfortunate bookseller on the Thames.’
‘He wasn’t eaten,’ I said.
‘Good,’ said WS. ‘As I get older I find I am less inclined to put violence and horror on stage. Leave that to the rising generation.’
‘You could have the bear chase the man offstage,’ said Edmund. ‘Then you wouldn’t have to witness anything unpleasant. Sounds only. Cries. Crunching.’
‘Exit pursued by a bear?’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ll think on it,’ said WS.
ACT FIVE
‘Yeeugh!’
The screech woke Joe Malinferno from his disturbed slumbers. He had been dreaming of a horde of Egyptian mummies rising from their stony sarcophagi and pursuing him down the dingy London streets near where he lodged. Just as the greyish bindings unravelled from the skull of the leading mummy, revealing its gaping, dusty jaw, the scream reverberated in his brain. He sat up abruptly, his tangled shirt sticking uncomfortably to his sweaty torso.
‘Wh . . . aaat?’
His vocal cords were numbed, and he could hardly articulate his own cry of fear. He forced his eyes wide open, half-afraid that his nightmare might manifest itself in the grubby reality of his bedroom. Instead all he could discern in the darkness was a pair of pale, skinny buttocks poking towards him from across the room. He paused to admire them for a few minutes. The girl to whom the buttocks belonged then turned her pallid face towards him.
‘Here. There’s bones in this bag.’
‘Come back to bed . . . Kitten.’ He recalled her name just at the last minute, though its ridiculousness stuck on his tongue. Picking up a bawd in a gin-shop in Tooley Street was not his normal practice, and it wasn’t conducive to remembering the girl’s name later. Still, she had displayed a pleasing aspect last night, and he was drunk and in need of a romp. But by the cold light of day and in a more sober, if hung-over, mood Malinferno found her attractions less certain. However, the bed was still warm, and so were his passions. He beckoned her over to him, lifting the sheets enticingly.
‘They are just some old bones that Augustus Bromhead left me for safekeeping. They are of no consequence.’
The girl pouted, her pinched face puckering ever narrower until she began to resemble a rat. Malinferno was familiar with the appearance of such rodents. Creechurch Lane was on a convenient axis between Billingsgate Fish Market and Spitalfields, and rats infested the neighbourhood around his lodgings. One morning he had awoken to come face to face with a bold example of Rattus norvegicus sitting on his chest. He had screamed, and the rat had scurried off back behind the wood panelling that clad the bottom half of Malinferno’s bedroom. Kitten now looked less like the creature she was named after and more like a feline’s best enemy. She was bereft only of a rat’s whiskers. Though now that he looked closer, he could discern a fair sprinkling of hair on her upper lip too. He shuddered and let the sheets drop. Suddenly he was no longer in the mood to continue his amorous adventures. At least not with the pinch-faced Kit, who was now picking up one of the bones. A thigh-bone by its length and thickness, Malinferno reckoned. She waved it in the air.
‘Ooooh! Is it from one of them E-gyptian mummies?’
Malinferno smiled condescendingly. The fashion for all things Egyptian had been occasioned by England’s old enemy, Napoleon Bonaparte, and his invasion of that far-off land twenty years ago or more. Now, in 1818, it appeared that even a low bawd was influenced by the obsessions of the fashionable London set.
‘No. These are a mere hundred and fifty years old. Augustus Bromhead is an antiquarian, not an Egyptologist.’
He could see by Kit’s puzzled look that he had lost her already, and sighed. No use explaining to the girl the fine difference between his own interest in all things ancient and Egyptian, and Bromhead’s immersion in the more mundane and recent history of England. Neither man had much time for the other’s obsession, though both were eager to display their own knowledge to each other. It was only the previous day that Bromhead had thrust at Malinferno the bones that Kit was now playing with.
‘Tell me how old you think these bones are, young Giuseppe.’
The elderly man always used the proper version of Malinferno’s first name. Sometimes Joe thought it was done just to annoy him. Giuseppe was indeed the name with which he had been christened in his father’s native town of Padua. But he had been brought to England as a baby by his mother after the unfortunate demise of his father in circumstances his mother never explained. And as he grew up he easily adopted the familiar name of Joe, though his surname remained exotically Italianate. But Bromhead was strictly observant of formalities, so Giuseppe he was to the rotund, little dwarf of a man. The antiquarian had been perched as always on a high stool in his study amid a perfect blizzard of old texts, ancient stones and maps. Without getting down from his seat, he pushed a large canvas sack across the table towards Malinferno. Joe wondered if this was some sort of test of his scientific abilities. He hesitated a moment.
‘Go on. They won’t bite.’
Bromhead waved his strangely delicate hands at the sack and winked grotesquely. As if by way of explanation of his excitement, he described their origins.
‘I had them dug up myself. Witnessed the exhumation, indeed. At the Church of St Materiana in Trevenna in Cornwall.’
A wink once again contorted his wrinkled features, but it still left Malinferno in the dark concerning Bromhead’s interest in the contents of the sack.
‘How old are they, Augustus?’
Bromhead gave out a cackling laugh.
‘That is what I want you to tell me. You are always dabbling in the unrolling fad. You must know truly ancient bones when you see them.’
The antiquarian was referring to a new trend among society figures for holding a soirée at which an Egyptian mummy was the central guest. But the embalmed body was not there to be treated with respect and honour. A grotesque delectation in unravelling the burial bindings and revealing the skeleton within had gripped the smart set. And it was not scientific curiosity but rather a morbid delight in causing feigned horror that was the purpose. Some ladies affected to swoon quite away when the skull was revealed. Much to Bromhead’s annoyance, Malinferno had already taken part in two such unrollings. Joe, however, saw it as the only opportunity he would have to examine genuine mummies outside of the Britis
h Museum. So what if he had to play up to the upper-class set who frequented such events? He was already becoming known as ‘Il Professore’, and he quite liked the notoriety. Nor was he above purloining some of the jewels and other items that were sometimes bound within the funerary cerements. He waved aside Bromhead’s scornful remark.
‘So my perverting the true cause of science is acceptable now that it may be of some use to you, Augustus.’
‘Yes, well . . . we will say no more about that. I suppose you can salvage some knowledge from the depredations of the smart set. Knowledge you can now put to good use by telling me how old these bones are.’
Once again he pushed the canvas sack towards Malinferno. Joe picked it up, and the contents rattled against each other as he hefted the sack over his shoulder.
‘I will give you my considered opinion as to whether they are as old as an Egyptian pharaoh or as recent as something snatched from a grave by the Borough Gang.’
Malinferno’s naming of the best-known gang of bodysnatchers caused Bromhead to glance around nervously. As a man of limited stature, and odd proportions, it was quite possible he was already on some surgeon’s list. There was nothing that such eminent medical men as Astley Cooper liked more than giants and dwarfs to anatomize. And the Borough Gang served their voracious needs. Bromhead’s room, with its dark corners and strange funereal collections of stones and bones, suddenly felt an unpleasant place in which to be. Malinferno laughed at his friend’s frisson of fear, but in truth he too felt a cold finger of horror travel up his spine. The Borough Gang was not one to mess with, especially if you might be on their shopping list. For once, Malinferno gave private thanks for his nondescript appearance. He hurried from the antiquarian’s lodgings and back across the Thames. He deposited the bones in his own rooms, giving them only a cursory glance before resorting once more to the south side of the river Thames. And the gin-shops of Tooley Street, where his meagre funds would stretch further. There he encountered the rat-featured Kitten, and in a rash moment smuggled her into his rooms.
Now he was faced with the task of retrieving the thighbone from her grasp and smuggling her back out of the house without Mrs Stanhope, his landlady, spotting her. He slid from under the bedclothes and, pulling his shirt down to cover his privates, he nervously approached the bawd, who was now giggling and poking at him with the large bone. Malinferno noted, not for the first time, that it was unusually long, and probably had belonged to a man who had stood more than six feet tall when he was alive. And it was all the more capable of braining him if Kitten swung it in the wrong direction.
‘Now, come on, Kit. Don’t be silly. You have to go now.’
‘Not until you have paid me, James.’
‘Joe, the name is Joe. And I have paid you. In advance in the gin-shop where I picked you up.’
The girl poked him even harder in the chest.
‘Yes, but then I didn’t know you was a resurrection man, with bones hidden in your place. You’ll have to pay me to keep my mouth shut now, James.’
Malinferno cringed. Now he was being accused of being a sack-’em-up man himself. And the tart couldn’t even get his name right. He would have to deal with this quickly, or Mrs Stanhope would be woken up by the sound of the altercation. And then he would be out on the street. His landlady did not like women in her gentlemen’s rooms. He turned away from Kitten and began to pull on his long breeches, which had lain on the floor after being cast there the previous night in the heat of passion.
‘Very well, Kit. Whatever you say. But I shall have to pass your name on to Ben Crouch. He doesn’t like people poking their noses into his trade.’
On hearing the name of the legendary leader of the Borough Gang of bodysnatchers, Kitten went limp. She dropped the bone to the floor and scrabbled for her clothes.
‘No, that’s no trouble, sir. I was only joking. You can have this one on me. No need for Mr Crouch to know about it, is there?’
She didn’t wait for Joe to answer but disappeared from his room faster than the rat that had stood on his chest that other morning. The only difference was that Kitten used the door, rather than the hole in the wainscoting. Malinferno breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the long leg-bone.
Once again he wondered how Bromhead could be so uncertain of its origins. Though Joe couldn’t tell a newly buried bone from a pharaoh’s, he wasn’t about to tell Bromhead that. Probably this skeleton was no more than a hundred or so years old. The location of its discovery should have told the antiquarian whose bones they were likely to be. If they had been dug up anywhere on the edge of the Cornish border, then they were probably the remains of some cavalier or roundhead who had met his end at one of the battles of Lostwithiel. By Joe’s reckoning, that put the death in the year 1642 or 1644. There was no possibility that the bones had the age of the few mummified remains from Egypt that Malinferno had had the privilege to examine. But if Bromhead was so deceived as to wish the bones were as old as a mummy’s, who on earth did he think they belonged to?
Malinferno had no more time, however, to ponder the eccentricities of Augustus Bromhead. He had an important meeting with a personage he had long wished to talk to. Someone who had actually been to Egypt and seen first hand treasures of which Malinferno had only heard tell. The problem was the man was French, and England’s recent skirmish with that nation, and Napoleon Bonaparte in particular, had made it well-nigh impossible to speak to Monsieur Jean-Claude Casteix. But now Bonaparte was safely in exile on St Helena, the English mood had changed. Frenchmen were not viewed with such suspicion as before. In fact some members of the establishment had developed almost a fondness for their old enemy, Napoleon. Which suited Malinferno well, because Monsieur Casteix was not only French but a close associate of Bonaparte’s from his Egyptian expedition of 1798. He had been one of the savants who accompanied Bonaparte on his campaign, and he had accumulated a large collection of artefacts. The problem was that, when the French forces had capitulated to the British in 1801, General Hutchinson had cast covetous eyes on the savants’ collection of antiquities. Which had included the Rosetta Stone, reputedly the key to Egyptian hieroglyphics and most Egyptologists’ Holy Grail.
Malinferno had ideas about deciphering the stone, and enhancing his own glory in the field. But first he had to speak to Jean-Claude Casteix, who twenty years ago had refused to be parted from the collection plundered by the British, and who had come to England with it. Today was the day he had finally got himself an interview with the great man, and he didn’t propose to miss it. Despite a sick headache, resulting from his anxious imbibing of too much gin the previous night, he hastened to dress. Though his shirt was a little grubby from the night before, he thought it would suffice if he wore his best double-breasted waistcoat and a clean cravat over it. The problem was his fingers were too shaky to tie his linen in the latest fashion. And when he had managed it, it lay flat and irregular beneath his chin like a soiled napkin.
‘Damn! It will have to do for now. Or I shall miss my chance with Casteix.’
He cast around for his Hessian boots, which had been discarded the previous evening at the height of his passion.
‘Double damn. I shall have to go barefoot if I don’t find them soon.’
He realized it was a clear indication of his anxiety that he was talking to himself in this way, and he resolved to stop up his mutterings. Finally, tight-lipped, he found his boots behind the aged chaise longue beneath the window. For a moment he had an image of Kitten drunkenly yanking his boots off and collapsing behind the chaise longue in a flurry of muslin and bare thighs. His sick headache gave a vigorous twinge, and he closed his eyes on the scene. Sitting down abruptly before his dizzy swoon tipped him over, he took a deep breath and yanked on his boots. At least his tall hat and Garrick overcoat did not require hunting for. They hung in their usual place on the back of the door. He pulled the coat on and slapped the hat rakishly on his head. It was only on an impulse that he then picked up the long bone Kitten h
ad been waving at him and stuffed it in the capacious pocket of his Garrick. No harm in the great savant confirming it as being of no great age. He hurried down the creaky staircase and out into Creechurch Lane.
Young Malinferno’s talk of bodysnatchers had upset Augustus Bromhead. It had taken the rest of the day, and several glasses of dry sack, before he had settled enough to go back to his studies. He had always done his best work at night, when the sounds of London had dimmed to a tolerable murmur outside his ramshackle house in Bermondsey. He was fond of the unfashionable area south of the river for its antiquarian associations. Somewhere beneath his feet stood the foundations of Bermondsey Abbey, and some said the very fabric of his house incorporated parts of the abbey. He fancied sometimes he could hear the shuffle of monks’ sandals as they made their way to prayer. The sound had always been a comfort to him before. Tonight, however, the extraneous creaks and groans of the house and its environs were making him edgy.
‘Damn you, Joe Malinferno, for your scaremongering. How can I concentrate on my task when all I can think about is sack-’em-up men.’
He leaned over his work table and tipped his eyeglasses at a more acute angle in an attempt to read the poorly printed book lying before him. He opened the cover and scanned the title page anew, his lips silently forming the words printed thereon.
The British History
Translated into the English from the Latin
of Jeffrey of Monmouth
Printed by J. Bowyer at the Rose in Ludgate Street
MDCCXVIII
Augustus licked his lips at the thought of this old book – an edition of a hundred years ago – telling the stories of the kings of Britain.
‘Now, where was I?’
He skipped over the fanciful tale of the island of Albion, inhabited only by giants before Brutus of Troy came to found a nation on its shores. And ignoring the supposed origins of the name of the very city in which he dwelled as referring to a certain Lud who once ruled there, he again dipped into the prophecies of Merlin. He was particularly taken with certain references, which he could quote by heart that he thought referred to the demise of Napoleon.
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