Alms for Oblivion

by Philip Gooden

  But whereas before I’d been unable to come up with a motive for Peter’s murder, things made a little more sense if I was the intended victim. This wasn’t self-importance, the swollen belief that I was big enough to have earned myself many enemies. I’d lived in London for more than three years and Peter for just a few days. I had not set out to cultivate enemies, although I’d inevitably incurred the displeasure of a few and the hatred of one or two. I thought of a certain steward in a house on the north bank of the Thames – but as far as I knew he was safely dead.2 I thought of that dangerous band which had surrounded the Earl of Essex.3 But, once again, they were mostly dead or imprisoned. And my role in that affair was not widely known.

  No, if I was looking for a solution now, it must lie within the confines of this story. And since I had already fingered young Lord and Lady Venner for the murder of Richard Milford, could I now attach them for my murder – or rather for Peter Agate’s (but in mistake for me)?

  But my brain was weary with so much thinking and speculating. It was enough for one evening. I drained the last few drops from my tankard, and left the Goat. The fog hung in tatters. Useless threads of light could be discerned through the odd window. I groped my way through the streets to Dead Man’s Place as fast as possible. My feet slid over slick, dirty cobbles. I scarcely bothered to keep to one side, away from the kennel in the centre where the muck slithered or stuck. I had more pressing concerns than filthy feet. Since I’d come to the conclusion – the provisional conclusion – that someone wanted to kill me, my senses were sharpened, however dulled my brain was. In the open air, on the streets, that conclusion didn’t feel provisional at all. Here was I, a victim, the prey-in-waiting. Out there was the villain, the hunter. And how many hunters! What a strange pack had run through my mind this evening – Tom Gally, that old player Chesser, the rude brother and sister called Venner. I had accused them all.

  The world was a dangerous place, full of murderers and would-be murderers. If the fog was a blanket concealing me from any attacker, it was also a cloak hiding him or her from me.

  But I reached my house safely. I climbed the stairs, shut my door fast, crept into bed, pulled my fusty blanket up about my ears and fell asleep immediately.

  Habeas Corpus

  Two odd things happened the next day before I managed to visit Paul’s Yard in the hope of requesting from the bookseller a copy of Richard Milford’s The World’s Diseas’d. The first thing was quite minor or appeared so at the time.

  My fears of the previous night hadn’t gone away but they were diminished in the foggy daylight and I set off for the playhouse in calmer spirits.

  I’d no sooner arrived at the Globe – another rehearsal, life goes on, the show never stops – than I was pounced on by the tire-man.

  “Your sleeve, Nicholas, what happened to it?”

  For answer I held up my arm.

  “Looks all right to me.”

  “I mean your Troilus sleeve. The brocade one with the gold figures.”

  Bartholomew Ridd, the tire-man, was a fussy, irritating little individual. Like all those who have charge of costumes for stage plays he behaved as though the real function of the playhouse was to show off his fine gear. Players were merely the frames from which clothes were hung. Now, it was true that a player would have to play for many weeks, even for months in the case of a ‘king’ or a ‘queen’, to earn the cost of the costume he wore. It was also true that some of our audience – and not just the women – paid more attention to what we were wearing than to what we were saying or doing. Costumes count.

  None of this, however, made any difference to the fact that Bartholomew Ridd was a fussy, irritating little individual. He would have been fussy, & cetera, if he’d been a vagrant – or the Queen of England. Sometimes Ridd behaved like the Queen of England. Imperious and snappish. And I should know. I met her once.

  “You mean the sleeve I gave to Cressida as a love-token?”

  “Of course that’s what I mean. What’s happened to it?”

  “Have you asked Peter Pearce? I gave it to the boy-player. I had to give it to him. It’s in the play.”

  The memory of that painful moment in the Middle Temple banqueting-hall returned. Wear this sleeve. There I had stood, as if turned to stone, while Peter waited for me to hand over the rich gold token in exchange for a glove.

  “Of course I’ve asked him,” said Batholomew Ridd.

  “You’ve asked him, and what does Peter say?” I said carefully.

  “He doesn’t know what happened to it.”

  “You searched the tire-house at Middle Temple?”

  “Call that a tire-house! It was no more than a poky little space behind the hall-screen. No one appreciates the worth of my costumes. They require proper housing.”

  “Well then.”

  “Well then, Nicholas. It’s all very well for you to say ‘Well then’. You are aware that the sleeve was part of your costume . . .”

  “My responsibility, you mean.”

  “Of course that’s what I mean.”

  Ridd was in the right, and not only from a tire-man’s limited point of view. From the instant we put the costumes on to the instant we put them off – donning and doffing, as it was called – they were our responsibility. It didn’t matter that we might be required by the script to give away bits of clothing. It was up to us to get those bits back afterwards and return them unscathed to the tire-house. I suppose that I’d got a bit distracted in the unusual circumstances of the Troilus and Cressida performance. A different venue, the makeshift tire-house, the strange fit of forgetfulness which had overcome me during the play when I was meant to hand over the sleeve to Cressida, the heat and the drinking and talking afterwards. But none of this was really an excuse, and I knew it. I should have looked after my costume better. Nevertheless I felt I should also defend myself against Ridd’s niggling.

  “I am sorry that I had to unfasten the sleeve and give it away. It’s in the play.”

  “Oh the play, the play! That’s an excuse for anything these days. I must have a word with Master William Shakespeare and get him to stop his characters dismantling their costumes in this fashion. Costumes are not playthings.”

  “I thought that’s exactly what they were – play things.”

  “Very funny, Nicholas. You’ll cut yourself with that tongue of yours one of these days.”

  “I’m beginning to wish now that I’d cut my arm off rather than lose the sleeve.”

  “The trouble with you players,” said Ridd, “is that you can’t see beyond the ends of your own noses.”

  “I am truly sorry, Bartholomew.”

  “You will be sorry when I’ve had a word with Richard Burbage. That was a valuable costume and it’s not much good with one arm, is it? You may find your wages docked to pay for a new sleeve.”

  And Bartholmew Ridd stalked off. I couldn’t be that angry with Ridd, although he was a fussy little & cetera, because the fault lay with me. I’d have a word with Peter Pearce about the sleeve but it was I who should have retrieved the wretched thing after the performance. If Burbage decided to dock my pay until I’d earned enough sleeve-money, well then, I’d just have to grin and bear it. How costly was a gold-figured brocade sleeve anyway?

  Never mind that. I had more pressing considerations on my mind. Such as: was I about to be indicted for murder by Alan Talbot, the Middlesex coroner? Such as: was Nicholas Revill the real, intended target of Peter Agate’s killer?

  By the middle of the day I’d more or less argued myself out of the second consideration, and gone back to the idea that the intended target of Peter’s killer had been, all along, Peter himself. In truth, all this thinking and speculation tended to show one thing only: that I had no idea what was going on.

  On a different track, investigating a different mystery, that of Richard Milford’s murder, I crossed the river to Paul’s Wharf. I chose the ferry. Alan Talbot’s suggestion that I, a mere player, didn’t have the money to pay f
or a water crossing still rankled slightly. I’d show him. I’d take the ferry whenever I wanted to. But I ought to have walked across. The day, which had begun not too badly (considering the murders which were springing up around my heels), now showed what it really had in store for me. That little altercation with Bartholomew Ridd had merely been the first course.

  The ferryman took me for an out-of-towner who could easily be rooked, which I wasn’t, and I took him for a cheating bastard, which he was, and we exchanged words. After the words we nearly came to blows at the foot of the steps on the far side, regardless of the arrival of two or three other ferries. The disembarking passengers hardly gave us a glance. Our quarrel may have had entertainment value but it was too cold and misty and miserable to stop and stare. We were squaring up opposite each other and I had half an eye out for the boatman’s fellows pitching in to help him out. Then, luckily, several potential customers materialized through the fog on the top of the wharf. My bellicose friend had to choose between the pleasure of beating up a player or allowing the others to snatch all the fares. It wasn’t easy for him. Punches or pennies? Taking advantage of his indecision, I tossed my single penny – and not the two which he’d demanded – on to the slimy stone at his feet and quickly ascended the steps.

  I set off in the direction of Paul’s Yard and Nicholson the printer and bookseller. The ground rises quite sharply from the river bank at this point. There is a large open area to the east of Burleigh House and a path leading across it, or rather a wide indentation worn in the ground by the comings and goings of countless feet. Then you must pass through a narrow alley between buildings before coming out into Thames Street, the very thoroughfare where Richard and Lucy Milford lodged and where Richard had been so treacherously surprised two nights before. I knew their house, had visited there once or twice. It crossed my mind to call on the new widow but prudence prevailed. I was already implicated in one unlawful killing. I did not want to get involved with another, however distantly. Then why are you setting off to see Benjamin Nicholson about Milford’s play? a voice in my head whispered. I had no answer to that.

  I was wrapped up in these thoughts but even so I heard someone calling out some words. After a time I became aware that these words were “Look out!” And then again “Look out!” I had the leisure to wonder who the warning was directed at. I peered towards the mouth of the passage which leads to Thames Street. I couldn’t see the entrance, hardly surprising since everything was obscured and mist-wrapped. But I did see a darker shape take sudden definition in front of me. And grow darker and larger. Like a great door opening up in the fog. There was a confused rattling and rumbling and then that repeated shout riding over the noise.

  “Look out below!”

  I flung myself sideways to the ground, and felt the wind of the cart – horseless but heavily freighted – as it rushed past my heels. Another couple of feet to the left and the iron rims of the wheels would have crushed my leg. A couple more feet and my earthly term would have been over. I lay hugging the sloping ground, safe for the instant. Somewhere over my shoulder the loaded cart proceeded on its downward path. I prayed that no one else was in the way. The rumbling and grinding seemed to last for a little eternity and then, abruptly, ceased. Seconds later there were a couple of resonant thumps.

  “Man, are you well?”

  I felt the warm breath of my rescuer on my face as he bent over me. He was panting. The voice was familiar. I twisted around and sat up, ready with a thousand thanks for his warnings. Then my mouth must have fallen open. Looking at me through his old rheumy eyes was Chesser, the chalk-coloured face even paler than the surrounding air. The aged player looked as surprised as I felt.

  “Why, Master Revill, it’s you. I didn’t know it was you.”

  “I – thank you, Master Chesser. If you hadn’t shouted out . . . what happened?”

  By this time I was on my feet, shaky and uncertain.

  “I do not know, master. The cart swept past me in the mist and I called out a warning in case there were any Christian souls between it and the river.”

  “We’d better go and find out whether there’s anybody down there apart from me.”

  We discovered the whereabouts of the cart by smell. It wasn’t so far off. A sweetish, vinous scent hung in the vicinity, more agreeable than the usual river odours or the brassy fog. By chance, the cart had slewed to one side and on to a relatively level patch of cobbled ground near the waterfront. Then, thankfully without running down any passers-by, it had fetched up against a pair of stubby stone stumps used for securing ropes or boat cables. The sturdily made cart was undamaged. But a couple of wine barrels had slipped under the straps which fastened them and tumbled off the back. One had shattered. Its contents pooled like spilt blood across the cobbles, running into the crevices and mingling with the scum and dirt. If this had occurred on our side of the river, the Southwark side, the householders would already have been out with their cups and spoons, even with their rags and clouts, to scoop and sponge up the dregs, mud and all. But here, on this respectable shore, the inhabitants were more restrained. In fact there was nobody at all on the scene apart from Chesser and me, no passengers embarking or disembarking.

  I still felt light-headed and unsteady from my near escape. The scent of the red wine was in my nostrils. But I could work out what had happened. It wasn’t difficult. This open area next to Burleigh House and at the top of Paul’s Wharf was used by carters and carriers as a convenient space to leave their conveyances for a time. This wasn’t because they were waiting to ferry their goods across the water – London Bridge was near enough and free as well – but because carters whose business lay on the north side were amusing themselves on our southern shores with diversions like brothels, plays and bear-baiting. Empty carts were sometimes abandoned here for hours, often with a hobbled horse standing patiently between the shafts. Given the slant of the ground down towards the river, the wise carrier made sure that the wheels of his cart were securely blocked. Anyway it was usually empty conveyances which you saw here rather than the laden ones. To leave a load of wine barrels unattended for even a quarter of an hour was unwise – or would have been unwise in certain quarters on the Southwark side. Then I told myself to stop judging everything by the lower, more lax standards of my own neighbourhood. Over on this northern shore, folk were different. They were restrained, they were law-abiding. (But a murder had occurred in a street near here two nights ago.)

  Even so it was odd, this incident of the abandoned cart. The second odd incident of the morning, after the Troilus sleeve.

  The more I considered it the more odd and troubling it seemed. The carter must have left his conveyance for a few moments, unhitched his horse perhaps. Was it lamed? Perhaps he was waiting for a fresh horse. Perhaps the carter had gone off for a quick pot in a tavern or a piss in a corner, carelessly leaving his cart without blocks wedged under the wheels. Then it had begun to roll downhill of its own accord. It would naturally tend towards the wide indentation in the slope, the foot-worn channel. It had started to roll. Or been given a little shove by someone . . .

  When he returned from his piss or his pot, the carter would be surprised not to find his cart where he had left it. He’d be angry, he’d be worried, wouldn’t he? In his position I would have been. He’d start searching for his conveyance. So where was he then, this irate or anxious carter? I scanned the mist in an uphill direction but no one emerged. The only sound was Chesser’s steady breathing. He had recovered fast from the excitement of the past few minutes. He was in good condition, for an old man. His senses were sharp too. Sharp eyes and big ears. Players are tough creatures, even superannuated players. He was saying something.

  “What, Master Chesser?”

  “A miracle, Master Revill.”

  “Oh yes, and thank you again.”

  “Thank God rather.”

  “I do. I have.”

  Seeing that there was nothing we could do about the cart or its contents and sin
ce there was no one harmed, I remembered my original mission and began to make my way up the slope again. Master Chesser kept pace beside me and I was glad of his company, to be honest. Not only because he’d almost certainly preserved me from injury, even from death, but because his presence, almost anybody’s presence, would have been welcome in this white solitude.

  “It was not my doing but God’s,” he said.

  “You were the one who was here to help though, Master Chesser.”

  “But who directed my footsteps to this place?”

  Who indeed?

  A suspicion that I’d been trying to keep down was growing in my mind. It wasn’t that Chesser himself had been responsible for the runaway cart – if so, why should he call out a warning? – but that someone had been. To my active brain what ought to have been a street accident became a murder attempt.

  “Did you see – anything?”

  “No more than I have already said I saw, Master Revill. The cart flew past me as if it had wings.”

  “Strange that it should have been left unattended.”

  For answer, Chesser shrugged and indicated two or three other carts which almost blocked the neck of the alley we were trying to pass through. There were no drivers. However, these conveyances were empty, apart from a few pieces of dirty sacking and staves of wood in the bottom.

  “The question you should be asking, Master Revill, is why you have been preserved by God.”

  As we emerged into Thames Street, I refrained from saying that there were more immediate considerations on my mind, considerations such as: who was trying to kill me? But it would be churlish and ungrateful not to let Chesser have his say. Which he proceeded to have. Forgetting that he’d told me once already, he again recounted how the devil had appeared to the players during the Derby production of Faustus, a terrifying occasion for which he now thanked God, for was it not a warning to him and to his company to abandon their sinful ways? And now I, Revill the player, should treat this runaway cart as a warning from God. I too must depart from the paths of vice. Specifically, I must quit the Chamberlain’s and resolve to live a purer life.