The Bartholomew Fair Murders

by Leonard Tourney

  Also by Leonard Tourney

  Published by Ballantine Books:

  THE BARTHOLOMEW FAIR MURDERS

  THE PLAYERS’ BOY IS DEAD

  LOW TREASON

  FAMILIAR SPIRITS

  THE BARTHOLOMEW FAIR MURDERS

  Leonard Tourney

  BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published, in hardcover, by St. Martin's Press, Inc., in 1986.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast.

  ISBN 0-345-34370-0

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Ballantine Books Edition: March 1989

  “Thou art the seat of the Beast, O Smithfield ...”

  Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  Epilogue

  • Prologue •

  On the eleventh of June, the Eve of the Feast of St. Barnabas the Apostle, the old woman who had ruled England longer than most of her subjects could remember strolled amid the floral blazonry of the royal garden at her father’s palace of Whitehall, contemplating the very thing it was most distasteful for her to contemplate, her own death.

  She had just come from the chapel, where a certain Rever-end Bishop of the Realm—a foolish, prattling knave without the sense of a radish—had preached learnedly and long on the demise of the body. Not only on its demise but its putrefaction! Hardly music for the royal ears that could better endure the rude minstrelsy of a country wedding or the clamor of Thames fishmongers than a tedious sermon on the theme of decay, worms, and dust.

  As if she needed that bitter pill in her age and condition, when every creak and rattle in her old bones played herald to eternity.

  The Bishop’s sermon had put her in a mortal frame of mind. It had dropped her like a stone into a pool of sullen melan-choly. She walked now in the most beautiful of gardens, a tri-umph of art, a wedding of nature and human cunning unparalleled. Yet no birdsong nor gardener’s skill gave her de-light. The sun of this most blessed month provided no warmth for the mortal chill at the bone. Even the efflorescence around her seemed to mock her waning vitality. Why, she might as well have gazed upon a chapless death’s-head for all the joy the garden gave her.

  Her maids, guards, and sundry other attendants waited her pleasure at the foot of the garden. Waited at her command. A flick of her little finger would have brought the whole fawning pack running. But that gave her no pleasure either. She ignored them all, walking erect of back and high of head as though she needed none of them, insisting upon her privacy for a change, a respite from the constant obsequiousness she both demanded and despised. Her sole companion and confidant at the mo-ment—he whose arm she used for support, not that she could not have done without it if she wished—was he whom she trusted more than any other in her old age. Sir Robert Cecil. Son of the great Lord Burghley. The same Lord Burghley she had trusted more than any other man in her youth.

  Cecil, small of stature, misshapen in body—the result of a fall as a babe—appearing older than his forty winters (what, after all, were forty winters to her nearly three score ten?), lis-tened unfailingly, like an heir awaiting mention of his name in a will. That, she had concluded long ago, was the best of Cecil’s virtues. That and most careful discretion. Cecil knew when to listen, when to speak. And at the moment, he at least was pleasing her by playing chorus to her meditations, reprov-ing her gloom without too much insistence (God’s blood! If she wished to be gloomy she would be!) nor adding to it with de-pressing observations of his own.

  “My body will rot. It will rot and occupy no greater room than will hold the meanest of my subjects,” she said.

  “Ay, Majesty,” Cecil replied. “It’s a sad truth, but please, give over this talk of rotting corpses.”

  “For Queen and clown—life’s but the same span,” she went on obstinately. “Does it not seem contrary to reason, good Robin, that a Queen should not live twice or even thrice as long as the elderly fishwife of Billingsgate who they say lived to be a hundred and five?”

  “Reason would dictate that a Queen’s life be longer,” Cecil said, “since she is the very font of civic virtue and the viceregent of God on earth. Unfortunately, reason does not prevail in the matter. God has set man’s span—yea, and woman’s too.” “Oh, I am weary of this world, Robin. Weary of my crown.”

  Cecil chuckled. “I doubt you are weary of either. Come now, Majesty. Put yourself in a better mood. Give over this melan^ choly. The air is fair, the garden fragrant and goodly to look at. Your recent indisposition is past. You have great cause to be joyous.”

  She gave assent with a nod but spoke no more; Cecil did not interrupt her silent contemplation. They followed another path through the garden, out of sight now of her attendants. She began to think about the Bishop again. How she hoped her scowl of disapproval was plain enough when he had finally said amen. Ridiculous, presumptuous fellow. Like the lot of them. Was not the truth of Our Lord’s Gospel verified in its sur-vival—despite its rankling churchmen and theologians who gave her more trouble than consolation and kept the nation in an uproar with their disputes over discipline and doctrine?

  Then she thought of St. Barnabas, whose feast day the mor* row was. Good St. Barnabas. A simple man, like the apostles. An obscure fellow, Barnabas, no preening prelate, but a simple servant of God and man. She had always confused Barnabas with the other one whose name began with the same letter. Bartholomew. Yes, he of the great massacre at Paris wherein all those French Protestants were murdered. The booksellers at Paul’s churchyard ever placed stacks of Bibles in their stalls on Bartholomew’s Day to commemorate the event and tweak the noses of the Papists, who sought to keep God’s Holy Word the private preserve of priests and monks. St. Bartholomew’s Day. The twentyTourth day of August. Bartholomew also of the greatest fair in England. The fair she had taken great pleasure in when a child and young girl. Bartholomew Fair. What a joy it would be to see it one more time. Perhaps the last time. Dusty, dirty, vulgar Bartholomew Fair, but what of that?

  The idea leaped into her brain like a nimble dancer full of japes and tricks. Her mood suddenly lightened. At once she gave voice to her wish.

  “Should God grant me till August, Robin, 1 would gladly go to Bartholomew Fair,” she said, contemplating an expanse of

  flowers so arranged as to form the initials of her name and title, Elizabeth Regina.

  “A royal progress in Smithfield!” Cecil replied, obviously sur~ prised at the suggestion. “If it rains, you will be surely mired in the mud. If dry, dust and the stench of horse dung wall be the death of us all. A most scurvy resort of the rout of beggars, country bumpkins, and common citiz
enry.”

  “I don’t dispute it,” she said, holding her chin even higher. “Come fair time, half of England will he there.”

  “And must you therefore parade before them with your train so that they may feast their eyes on Your Majesty while their mouths drool with Bartholomew pig and barrel ale?”

  She laughed, and although it was his arm she leaned on she managed all the same to steer him into the path she chose. “It’s my pleasure to see the fair once more before—”

  “Do not say it, Your Majesty,” Cecil pleaded. “May God grant you twenty more years to rule—”

  “Twenty more! Why, if it’s a tithe of that ’twill be a miracle, Robin. You haven’t started lying to me like the others, have you?” She searched his face for dissemblance and found nothing in his eyes but that upon his lips. And by the Mass, regret too! And devotion unfeigned! A good and faithful servant, her little Pygmy, as she called Cecil in her playful mood. She smiled thinly and with her bejeweled hand took in the garden in a sweeping gesture.

  “All this glory must fade and pass. Its wintry state I well remember, its iron grip of frost. That winter will come again, for all the garden’s present luster. Nonetheless, I tell you, Robin, it is my pleasure to see the fair again before death takes me. I long to see the jugglers, the dancers, the garish shows, to hear the beating of drums and blaring of bugles. Just thinking upon it makes me young again. Don’t worry yourself about the dirt and stench. I won’t. I am an Englishwoman born and bred, noble Henry’s daughter—no French lady with her nostrils in the wind for fear of inhaling other than her own perfumes. I will taste of roasting pig and drink good English beer with my

  subjects. I know how gossip has had me practically dead and buried this half year. ’Twill be a marvelous resurrection, and as I say, half of England will be there. What a better way to satisfy the multitude that Elizabeth lives and rules still?”

  “You have been often sick of late, yet no one believes—” “Hush, Robin. Now I do know you lie in your teeth. I know what is said of me behind my back. Even now at the end of the garden that gaggle of maids—green girls, the lot of them— whisper of my condition. Give more attention to the state of my urine than a dozen bungling physicians and are ever after rouge to remedy the pallor of my complexion. Because I’m old, they think me deaf. But I can hear the mouse behind the wainscotting, and I have heard their whispers in the gallery.” “If you will permit me to say it, Majesty, it does not seem to me advisable,” said Cecil, wording his objection to the pro-posed visit with proper caution.

  “But it is my pleasure, Sir Robert,” she replied shortly. She indicated with a toss of the head that such was her last word upon the subject. “Come now, lead me back to the geese and their cackling. They will be beside themselves to know the matter of our conversation this halThour. God, how I weary of these court intrigues. Since before you were bom, Robin, since before you were born.”

  They walked in silence. She had had her fill of the garden, since she could not stay its decline or her own. Yet she would go to the fair, she thought. Yes, and eat pig too. She would not be gainsaid by her meddling physicians. Let them warn against it if they dare. There were some compensations for being Queen.

  The Queen and her Principal Secretary came to the foot of the garden. She was surrounded by attendants. She said to Cecil, “Prepare an announcement that my coming may be no surprise to Lord Rich or the Mayor. Tell him I want nothing too elaborate in the way of ceremony. On the other hand, don’t invite his parsimony. Stingy fellow. I presume he will remember that I am Queen.”

  “I’m sure he will remember, Majesty,” Cecil replied with a condescending bow.

  “The officials at the fair will be overjoyed. My coming can only make them the richer. Surely my attendance will bring the crowd, will it not?”

  She tossed her head and laughed heartily before Cecil could reply. Happy to see her morbid mood had passed, he bowed with the others and watched while she was led inside to supper, a train of maids following in her wake. The afternoon air had turned cool. It was feared the Queen would catch cold.

  As Cecil rode homeward in his coach, he stared vacantly out the window and thought again of the Queen’s desire to go to Smithfield. And what a desire it was! Why, what would she think of next in her dotage? A tour of the London fishmarket? A picnic in the slums of Southwark? If it was public exposure she wanted, what was wrong with a leisurely progress on the Strand or some other place of fashion compatible with her royal station?

  It was silly; it was dangerous. He tallied the risks, not the least of which was the likelihood of contagion among such an unwashed multitude. He reckoned the cost of her personal se^ curity—especially at fair time and in an atmosphere of holiday misrule. He shook his head, frustrated.

  He was in the process of methodically refuting her own rea^ sons for going, when his own instinctive prudence began to give way to his royal mistress’s native political sense. Well, there were risks beyond doubt—and they were considerable. That could not be denied. Yet she was Queen and would have her way. That was true too. He considered her plan again— from beginning to end; and by the time he had arrived at his own house, his opposition had tempered into something reserm bling mild support. Indeed, he had come around to the Queen’s way of thinking—not because he was obsequious but because like all men of intelligence he could recognize a good idea even when he had not thought of it himself.

  Well, he resolved, the Queen should have her day in Smithfield, since that was her wish. Stinking Smithfield. Bane of Puritans and scorn of the nobility. Sinkhole of vice and vib lainy. He would advance the motion for policy’s sake and pray for dry weather. As for himself, he would find some excuse to stay home, claim some minor indisposition if need be.

  • 1 •

  Fate might have chosen another circumstance for such an appalling deed—say, an obscure, owhhaunted night, or driv-ing, blinding rain, or some dismal wood remote from human habitation. But it is only in the imagination of poets that time, place, and weather necessarily conspire to make a fit setting for violence. The act in question was accomplished in the full light of day, upon a broad open road, and before at least a dozen witnesses as though the thing done were an act of corporal mercy worthy of commendation. That the witnesses did not at the time understand what they saw, or how the act itself might threaten harm to a much greater one than he who presently would be dead, does not mitigate the audacity of the killing. Nor does the fact that the deed was provoked by an impetuous gesture of the victim. There were supernatural forces at work. Whether satanic or divine, let every man judge for himself.

  It was August. Not a breath of wind relieved the oppressive heat of midday along the road that led south from Norwich to London. A young man of pleasant if weary countenance, with a staff at his side and a small pack on his back, rested in the shade of a hedgerow. His long, slender legs stretched out before him to reveal much-patched hose and worn, dusty shoes. He had traveled a long distance and stared listlessly at the road, caught up in some private meditation.

  Hidden within his sweaty shirt was a welLthumbed volume of quarto size, loosely bound with paper cover and thus hardly more than a pamphlet, which he had purchased from a book' seller a week before and had since studied with great interest. Its title had piqued his imagination upon first view, but upon reading the work itself he had become wholly absorbed by its

  message. The slender volume was in part responsible for his present deep contemplation, and its title—to abbreviate some' what and yet keep faith with the substance—was A Faithful Discoverie of the Sundrie Shapes in Which Satan Hath Appeared from Antiquity to Present Times. Its author, a learned clergyman named Richard Foxworth of London, was a rigorous sort of Pm ritan who by diligent search of the Scriptures and collection of anecdotes from other learned authors had chronicled Satan’s delusive metamorphoses and warned of his triumphs in the latter days as figured forth in the Revelation of St. John.

  This bracing reading, done with
care and eyestrain in the fading light of barn lofts where the youth was fortunate enough to find refuge of nights, had brought about a crisis in his thinking. Only recently had he turned from the wickedness of his earliest years and, under the tutelege of an itinerant preacher, received the blessing of saving grace. Still green in his biblical studies, he had found Foxworth’s vivid description of the Beast as recorded in the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation so forcefully presented, so subtly interpreted, that he wondered how the men about him could possibly carry on the normal course of living when such a titanic struggle between the forces of good and evil was not only in the offing, but presently under way, although as the book’s author had said, such a struggle as could only be witnessed by “spiritual eyes.’’

  For the youth, all life had changed. Modest ambitions were forgotten; thoughts of tomorrow suspended. What had impressed itself most on his imagination was the image of the Beast. There it stood in his mind: part leopard, part lion, the feet those of a bear. Of these beasts the youth knew little, except for the bear. One such beast he had once seen in his native place, chained and made to dance a jig to a fiddler’s tune. The bear was old and quite tame, or so the bearward had assured the villagers—not like the mighty Sackerson or Harry Hunks, whom he had heard were baited on Sundays in London and that all the world flocked to see at the bear pits of Southwark. Now the youth remembered the great bear feet, furry, armed with nails like blades, their strength so much beyond that of any human member, but the rest of the Beast was the worse for his inability to see it in his mind. He stared down at his own hands, turned them palms up and contorted the fingers like claws. His hands were small and white, delicate like a girl’s. But strong. Yes, strong for whatever work God should call him to.