Shakespeare No More

by Tony Hays

  “I am honoured at your visit, Master Jonson. And this must be Master Saddler, the constable from Stratford who is stirring up such a fuss. Indeed, I was told just this morning that you were dead. Yet here you are, alive and well and an agent of Sir Francis and Sir Edward.”

  That he knew so well who I was took me aback for a moment. “You honour me, my lord. ’Tis seldom that a simple man from the countryside is known by one of your stature. My death was merely a case of mistaken identity. That you should know of my visit with your judges says a good deal about your network of agents throughout the city.”

  Carr smiled an endearing smile, and I could readily see why he was so popular at court. “For a man who has only been in London two nights, you have quickly become the talk of the city. I have had three or four reports of your activities so far, beside that of your death, that is.”

  His candour was disarming. It was quite simply difficult to dislike him.

  “I will be blunt, my lord. I am seeking an answer to who poisoned William Shakespeare. That it has brought me to you is more coincidence than design.”

  Somerset laughed. “Why, Master Saddler, it seems that I am the favorite suspect in every poisoning in England at the moment. But, I assure you, I have been locked up here for months, and I have been nowhere near Stratford-upon-Avon. So, while I welcome your visit, I think that it will not bear fruit for you.”

  “That may be true, my lord, on both counts, but you are not without resources here. An agent of yours, perhaps?”

  At that, Somerset ceased laughing, and his voice took on almost a giggle, a nervous one at that. “What would it profit me to have Shakespeare killed? I barely knew the man. Whilst his poetry was certainly a thing of beauty, I knew him more as an errand boy. Why, I know Jonson here much better.”

  “And Ben Jonson visited Stratford and Shakespeare just before he fell ill from this poisoning.” I had not planned to state my suspicions so plainly, but Somerset’s reply had opened a door and beckoned me enter. “Understand me, my lord. I do not care who killed Thomas Overbury. His passing bothers me not a whit. My quest centers on William Shakespeare, but if I must unravel one killing to solve the other, then so be it.”

  “You go too far, Simon,” I heard Jonson say behind me.

  I spun to look at him; his features were contorted in anger. “Aye, so do you, Ben. You may think you are royalty, but I hazard nothing by striking you.”

  “Enough of this!” Somerset shouted, the confidence suddenly returned to his voice. “Master Saddler, I know nothing of how Overbury died nor anything of how Master Shakespeare died. When this silly trial opens in two weeks’ time, I will be proclaiming my innocence for all who can hear. Go back to your masters, Bacon and Coke, and tell them that! I know things that they would not wish revealed.”

  “As you like, my lord. But we shall be talking to the countess before we depart.”

  Somerset’s face turned a bright crimson. “You will not! She is my wife and I forbid it.”

  “My lord, you are a prisoner,” I reminded him, “and in no position to forbid anything.” At that, I called for the warder.

  Once in the corridor, Jonson, who had been silent, looked at me with something approaching respect.

  “You are an unusual man, Simon. You have just made a powerful enemy. If you are still alive by week’s end, you might have great things before you.”

  “I care nothing for that. I want only to find who killed Will. Somerset knows more than he is saying. You know more than you are saying. But I will not be blockaded in my efforts.”

  “Perhaps not, if you live long enough. I will tell you this: about the time that Will had his reversal of fortunes, I happened upon him writing something in the tiring house at the Globe. I asked him if it were a new play, but he became very agitated and covered it so that I might not see it.”

  “Was that customary?”

  Jonson shrugged. “Not in my experience. Will and I wrote plays differently, so we rarely kept ideas or plays in progress from each other. Besides, collaboration is a part of our world. Some would argue that it is collaboration that makes so many great plays. I would not argue that, however. But all of that is unimportant. Will was not working on a play, and this was just before or just after he removed to Stratford.”

  No true surprise there. Ben had never been one for sharing applause. Before I could pursue that, the warder returned with permission to see my next target.

  Frances, countess of Somerset, was a truly a beauty. She was every bit as pretty as her husband. “You are this constable of whom my lord speaks so often lately?”

  “I am a constable, my lady, of Stratford-upon-Avon, here enquiring into—”

  “Yes, yes. You are asking about the death of the poet Shakespeare,” she interrupted me impatiently. This was a woman who brooked no delays. “ ’Tis pity he is dead, but hardly a reason to place your own life in jeopardy.”

  Her words bespoke a familiarity that surprised me. “You knew Shakespeare?”

  She smiled, her eyes twinkling mischievously. “What woman at court did not know him, intimately?”

  “Noblewomen?”

  The countess laughed loudly this time. “Think you that we are made differently than common women? We simply have more advantages. Shakespeare seduced us all with his poetry and his skill.”

  Her candour was more than amazing; it was scandalous.

  “I shock you? Why? I am already imprisoned on a charge of murder. Why should I seek to hide lesser sins? I fear you disappoint me, Master Saddler.”

  “William Shakespeare was murdered by the same method that you and your husband used to kill Sir Thomas Overbury. I believe that this was done to keep him from revealing your complicity in Overbury’s murder.” I intended to show her that candour was not hers alone.

  The countess, her bodice tightly pushing up her bosom until it seemed about to explode from its confines, narrowed her piercing eyes at me. “And how would your poet know of my complicity in anything?”

  At that, it was my turn to laugh. “Why, my lady, you have already admitted to lying with him. Many are the confidences revealed between the sheets.”

  She dropped her head and shook it. “Master Saddler, we did little talking.”

  I needed no mirror to know that my face was a bright, shining red. “Perhaps not. But Master Shakespeare came into a great sum of money about the time that Overbury died. Do you know aught of that?”

  And now the crimson spreading in her face showed that I had hit my target.

  “I was not concerned with his money, only his virility.”

  “Such is a facile answer.”

  “ ’Tis the only one that you will receive.” She paused and turned. “I have tired of this. Go and trouble me no more.”

  “This did not seem so much a trouble,” I said.

  She looked back at me. “Master Saddler, allow me to offer some advice. If you continue to walk the path you are on, you will soon be buried next to it. I do not know who killed Shakespeare. And I do not want to know. That knowledge would put me in worse danger than I already am.”

  Worse than standing accused of murder? That seemed hardly likely. But I realized that I would get nothing more from her. At least on that day. For a wonder Ben Jonson had not uttered a single word. That deserved some consideration as well. It had almost seemed as if he were afraid of the countess. While she was definitely a woman of substance, and I recognized that in her world she was a woman of great beauty, beneath the ceruse and vermilion lay an ugliness that broke the beauty into hard edges. She was not for me.

  Ben kept his silence as we departed the Bloody Tower and then the castle itself. But once out of the gates, he turned to me. “Simon, you came here, I thought, to find if Will’s death had its genesis in London. Yet now you are bashing about through the homes of nobles, involving yourself in affairs that seem to have no connection to Will. And you are doing so angrily, as if all of these people bear some guilt.”

  “They
do. You all do. He came to London a good lad, bright, in love with words. He returned a wastrel, corrupted by the stews and fleshpots of London, a stranger to the very morals he carried with him to the city. As children we enjoyed tweaking the noses of the nobles. As a man, Will danced to whatever tune they played. Tell me, Ben Jonson, why should I not be angry?”

  “This is but so much sophistry, Simon,” Ben argued. I caught a hint, but just a hint, of panic in his voice. “You have a better chance of finding Will’s killer in Stratford than here.”

  “I have repeated this too many times already, but let me paint the portrait for you again. Will is overextended about the time or just prior to Overbury’s death. Suddenly, Will has plenty of money, more than enough to recoup his fortunes. And Overbury dies. You yourself witnessed him working on something that he was hiding most earnestly. Now, as Somerset and his wife are to be tried for Overbury’s murder, Will is himself murdered by the same method. It strikes me as someone ridding themselves of witnesses.”

  Slowly, grudgingly, Ben nodded. “To prevent you from again accusing me of hiding things, I will tell you this: I did not like Overbury. Indeed, I despised him. He was a sodomite and an overbearing dolt who pretended to be a poet. And I did not care who knew. Somerset would instinctively have turned to me for help in ridding himself of the buffoon, not Will.”

  Just as Southampton had when he decided that I needed to be eliminated, I thought but did not say.

  But if Ben were correct, then there was truly a flaw in my logic. Simply because Ben Jonson said it, did not make it true. Time and time again in our acquaintance, Ben had lied to better his position or others’ perception of him. In most men, this would be cause to dislike him, but Ben was not most men. And his braggadocio was accepted. Yet that still did not make it true.

  “Assuming that you are correct, there must have been other related secrets that Will was privy to.”

  “Now you are reaching, Simon. Were it not for John Hall confirming that Will had been poisoned, I would think you had imagined all of this.” He paused. “You and I fought battles together, side by side, so I say this in the spirit of brothers in arms. Are you certain that you are not seeking someone besides Will to blame for cuckolding you?”

  The fury in me threatened to explode.

  I drew back my fist and faced Jonson.

  To my surprise, he stumbled backwards.

  “How do you know about that?”

  The big redhead blinked. “He told me when I last saw him. Simon, I believe that he regretted that more than anything in his life. You were more brothers than friends. It was an act done in haste, without proper thought. And he hated himself for having done it.”

  “Easy to say after you have tasted the nectar.”

  “Enough, Simon!”

  I looked to the sky, covered though it was by the perpetual grey fog of smoke. The afternoon was all but gone. I had done enough for this day. “I am going to the George, Ben, to see if they have another chamber for me. To eat, to drink, and to sleep. Join me if you will and let us not speak of Somerset or Overbury or Will. I am heartily tired of nobles and their follies. Let us talk of the Low Countries and the friends we left there.”

  But that was not to be.

  Chapter Nine

  While I was not surprised to see Richard Quiney at the George upon our arrival, I was surprised at his purpose.

  “Simon, thank God that I found you!” Quiney was sitting at a table in the tavern at the George. He often came to London on council business, but though we knew each other well, we were not close.

  “Richard? You are seeking me?” I made my way to his table and sat, followed suit by Jonson.

  “Aye, a most horrible thing has happened in Stratford. I rode straight here, stopping only to change horses in Oxford.” And indeed, he looked haggard. His hair was in disarray and his clothes marked with dirt and soil from the road.

  “What, Richard? What has happened?”

  “John Hall has been set upon by rogues and nearly killed!”

  Ben and I exchanged quick, anxious glances.

  “How? When?”

  Quiney drank a dram of cider from his beaker before continuing. “Yesterday morning, he had gone out for an early walk. He had hardly left when two men attacked him and then broke into his house.”

  “John, is he all right?”

  Quiney emptied his beaker and waved for another before nodding. “Aye, but he will take some time before he will be well enough to be about. He begged me to come here and tell you.” Quiney leaned across the table and spoke in a whisper. “They took John’s notebook, Simon. The one that recorded his treatment of Will.”

  “What of Susanna and Elizabeth?” My mind was reeling.

  “They hid in another part of the house. Apparently, the scoundrels knew exactly what they wanted and knew where to find it. But they warned John.”

  “About what?”

  “Simon, they told him that more people would be hurt if you did not stop asking questions.”

  I burned inside. Shifting to look at Ben, I asked him, “What think you of that, Ben?”

  “I think,” the redheaded giant said, “that you have unleashed forces that you can no longer control. Perhaps there is something to your theories after all.”

  “Why, thank you, Ben. It only took my friend being half beaten to death for you to agree with me.” My sarcasm lay heavy.

  “What will you do? Henry Smythe thinks you should abandon this quest and return to Stratford. He believes your skills would be better used finding these scoundrels who attacked John,” Richard continued.

  “Then I should remain here, for I suspect that those men are within the city walls as we speak. Besides, I am now in the service of Bacon and Coke. Until I have followed that road as far as it goes, I will not be ready to return. They could only have wanted the notebook on the chance that it contained information critical to knowing who killed Will. Now, they have it. I doubt that they will see much profit in returning to Stratford.”

  “That is a mighty risk,” Richard warned me. “They could set upon your own wife and children.”

  He was right. But I was more convinced than ever before that Will’s death was decided in London. Whatever he had done, whatever role he had played in the Overbury Affair, it was scandalous enough that not only had he been killed to hide it, but whoever was behind that was not afraid to kill again.

  “What choice do I have?” I asked of no one in particular. “Thrice already I have been set upon. To safeguard my family and friends, I must discover the truth in this matter.”

  “If you live long enough,” Jonson reminded me.

  “If I do not, God will protect my family.”

  “While you protect…what? The memory of a dead man? Will that earn you stars in your crown in Heaven?” Ben Jonson hammered at me relentlessly. “Will that fill your children’s bellies while you float among the clouds with the angels? And your wife’s? A pity that those children will never really know their father, will not have the benefit of his guidance as they grow into adulthood.”

  I lurched from my seat, sending the table sailing across the room. Ben gained his feet, but I was already upon him. Before I knew that I had acted, I felt my fist explode so very satisfactorily against Ben’s nose.

  Blood spurted in great gobbets, and so surprised was Ben by my assault that he went flying backwards under my blow.

  Quiney, eyes so wide that they scarce stayed in his head, stumbled back against the wall, scattering patrons and furniture alike.

  I looked through blurry eyes at Jonson, laid against a brick wall. “Take your sarcasm to Hell with you, Ben Jonson. I will follow this trail no matter where it leads and should you interfere with me again I will impale you on the walls of the Tower itself.”

  But Jonson, collecting himself, stared at me.

  “What do you see, Jonson?”

  “A dead man.”

  “Why? Because you, Southampton and George Wilkins decided it
must be so?”

  And with that I had truly surprised Ben Jonson.

  “How…? You do not understand.”

  “That is my problem,” I retorted. “Now, go! Tell your masters that they have unleashed a hellhound that will not be sated until his family is safe.” Pausing, my eyes bored into him. “If you have the courage.”

  Jonson regained his feet and turned to go. “You will wish, someday soon, that you had not tossed me to the wind.”

  “Ben Jonson, you are the devil’s tool in this affair. And I will suffer not your presence any longer.”

  “Was that wise?” Richard Quiney asked.

  I shook my head. Even wise things had proven unwise in this affair. “Time will tell. Go, Richard. Get yourself a chamber and take some rest. You need it. I must think.”

  Quiney stumbled to his feet, but whether his stagger was from exhaustion or fear of my reckless ways, I did not know. He nodded quickly and went in search of the innkeeper.

  As I brooded over my drink, an older man approached from the depths of the tavern. “Ye must be the lad from Stratford,” he began.

  I tensed. In my recent experience, anyone could be out to kill me.

  He glanced at the retreating figure of Ben Jonson. “I am one of those you seek. Osward is my name.”

  I motioned to a bench.

  “ ’Tis not the first time that I have seen Ben Jonson set on his arse.”

  Something about the man was vaguely familiar, and I ventured a guess. “The Low Countries?”

  “Aye,” he nodded. “I saw you at Antwerp, though Ben Jonson was not your quarry that day. I will tell you what you wish to hear. Any man at Antwerp has earned my attention. And, any man that could lay Ben Jonson low, the blowhard, earns my respect.”

  I could not help but laugh. “Ben serves a purpose,” I answered. “I simply cannot think of one right now.”

  “I will tell you the truth of it.…”

  I held one hand up. “I am in the service of Bacon and Coke,” I warned him, but he waved me off.