The Play's the Thing (The Chronicles of Christoval Alvarez Book 7)

by Ann Swinfen

  I handed him the papers, which he scanned quickly.

  ‘Aye, this certainly seems to show that they have stolen your play, but I am not sure that it is definite proof that the man Stoker was involved.’

  I thought he was being over cautious, but Guy patiently explained again everything that linked Stoker with the rogue players.

  ‘There is not a great deal I can do,’ Sir Rowland said frankly, pressing down the papers I had given him with the palms of his hands. ‘I am prepared to report this illicit company, performing an unlicensed play, to the Master of the Revels. For if the play is as much changed as you suggest, then it does not possess a license. He can close them down and fine them. If they can be shown not to have a noble patron, then they can be whipped out of town as vagrants.’

  Guy winced at this, and I wondered briefly whether he had ever been whipped as a vagrant, but now was not the time to ask. I was impatient with Sir Rowland and longed for Walsingham, who would have seen at once that closing down the rogue company and dispersing its members would not be the solution. It took a particular cast of mind, I knew, to be able to delay action in order to take a longer view.

  ‘Sir Rowland,’ I said, ‘although we are concerned at the theft of our play and the possible theft of a play by Christopher Marlowe of the Admiral’s Men, simply punishing these men is not the most important issue here. There must be more at stake to justify two murders, as well as a vicious attack which might have led to a third death. I think perhaps we have not explained clearly enough what was afoot at the Blue Boar yesterday.’

  ‘Go on,’ he said, though he glanced at the sand running through his hourglass. It was not far off the halfway mark.

  ‘It was not mere bombast,’ I said, ‘the call to rebellion. It was seriously meant, and seriously understood by the people in the audience, the most of them young men. Some, I am sure, were already privy to what was to happen, and had come armed with rotten fruit for the mock “stoning” of the player king at the end.’

  ‘Throwing rotten fruit?’ He was dubious. ‘Does this not happen in every playhouse? I confess I rarely have time to attend.’

  ‘Not in our playhouse,’ Guy muttered.

  ‘It was symbolic,’ I said. ‘They did not intend to hurt the player who took the part of King Henry, for he is one of this conspiracy. Aye, I believe it is a conspiracy.’

  I was speaking more quickly, my eyes on that fast flowing sand. ‘Should it not be reported? Perhaps to Lord Burghley?’

  Lacking Sir Francis, I could not think who else to name.

  There was a tap on the door and the secretary entered. Sir Rowland stood up.

  ‘Gentlemen, I am afraid I have another meeting. For the moment we will not inform the Master of the Revels or Lord Burghley, but leave these players unhindered. That will give you the opportunity to find more evidence, first, that this matter is in any way connected to my enquiries into the two deaths, and second, whether there is a serious threat of treason. Come to me at once if you discover anything further.’

  He bowed, and we were hurried away by the secretary, passing, on the way out, a group of wealthy merchants who regarded us in some astonishment.

  ‘Well,’ Guy said ruefully, ‘that was hardly worth leaving our beds for, so early in the morning.’

  ‘Early?’ I said. ‘The rest of the world has put in half a morning’s work already. Not everyone is such a slug-abed as you players.’

  He punched me on the shoulder as we began to make our way to the Theatre. Master Burbage at least would be awake and would want to know the outcome of our meeting with the coroner.

  ‘I do not believe it was entirely fruitless,’ I said as we hurried through the streets. ‘He saw sense in not sending in the Master of the Revels to close everything down. He has given us time to find out more. If you look at the lie of the land from his viewpoint, our tale must seem very odd, especially to a man who did not sit in the Blue Boar as we did, witnessing that clear incitement to treason. To a great merchant, dealing in vast piles of coin for goods passing to and from England, the value of a mere play must seem like a purse full of pennies. What is Will paid for a play?’

  Guy lifted his cap and scratched his head. ‘Near seven pounds, I think, now that he has begun to make a name for himself.’

  It sounded like a great deal of money, although I knew that Master Burbage sometimes spent as much as ten pounds on one of the magnificent costumes that adorned his stage monarchs, and which he sometimes enjoyed borrowing for himself. If Will continued to write his plays rapidly, he would soon be a rich man.

  ‘Aye, well, I suppose seven pounds seems little enough to a man who must meet all the Lord Mayor’s expenses out of his own pocket,’ I said, ‘but I think toward the end of our meeting Sir Rowland began to believe there might be some real danger of conspiracy. We shall just need to find more proof. I wish we might discover what has happened to Marlowe’s play.’

  I also wished, though I did not voice it aloud, that I could share all this with Phelippes or Nick Berden. They would help to ferret out who was behind whatever was afoot at the Blue Boar. It was clear to me, now that Wandesford’s death could be attributed to Stoker – and no one had cared much for Stoker or his death – that the players were solely concerned about the theft of the plays. They nodded politely when I spoke of treason, but they did not really fear it. I was very fond of my friends of the playhouse, but at times like this they seemed as naïve as children.

  Master Burbage seemed unsurprised that the coroner had not taken us very seriously, though he was glad that nothing was to be done yet about approaching the Master of the Revels.

  ‘We must keep our ears open for any word of what this company at the Blue Boar means to do next. Do they plan to perform their Henry play every day? Or do they not perform every day? Let us all find out what we can.’

  This was all very laudable, but too vague and hardly practical. I spent some time during the rest of that day making a fresh copy of some old version in English of a Roman play which seemed hardly worth the keeping, but my mind kept wandering back to thoughts of Phelippes and Berden. The lad Harry at the Walsingham stables had told me that Berden now ran a poultry business, but he had not mentioned where it was located. Chances were that, like others in the same trade, his premises would be in the appropriately named Poultry.

  The next morning I set out to find him.

  I decided that I would search through the area where the poulterers were mostly located, and only if I failed to find him would I ask Harry if he knew the address. In the event, he proved not too difficult to find. Berden’s was a fine clean shop, round the corner from Bucklesbury, just past St Benet Sherehog.

  ‘The maister be back in his office, my maister,’ an apprentice told me, pausing as he plucked a goose while carefully stowing the feathers in a sack. He jerked his head toward a door at the back of the shop.

  To my tap on the door, a familiar voice called out to me to enter.

  ‘Why, Kit!’ Nick surged to his feet, scattering papers as he did so. ‘I have not seen you this year and more. Last I heard, you were away in the frozen north. Come, in, come in!’

  ‘It is good to see you, Nick.’ I found myself beaming as he seized me by both hands and pumped them up and down.

  ‘I swear, you have grown taller. Do you still have that dog we rescued in the Low Countries?’

  ‘I do. And as I remember it, he rescued us, as much as we rescued him.’ I looked around. ‘This tradesman’s life seems to suit you. You have grown somewhat larger about the waist, I see.’

  ‘Indeed, I fear I have.’ He patted his stomach. ‘Too much sitting about, trying to make my accounts balance. Not enough chasing of villains.’

  ‘Now that,’ I said, ‘is exactly what I have come to see you about.’

  ‘Caught up in more nefarious deeds, are you?’ He gave me a shrewd look. ‘Not working for Phelippes?’

  ‘Thomas Phelippes has tried to recruit me, but he is now in the empl
oy of Lord Essex, so I declined.’

  ‘Hmm. I recall that you do not care for his lordship.’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘So who are the villains you want to talk to me about?’

  Briefly, I gave him an account of the whole affair, from the death of Oliver Wandesford, the killing of John Stoker, the stolen play by Marlowe, down to our visit to the Blue Boar and what had happened there. It was a relief to set it all out for someone who would immediately seize the salient points and recognise, as I had done, just how dangerous the events at the Blue Boar might prove to be. The players were keen to discuss everything endlessly, and grew quite excited about it all, but I had the uneasy feeling at the back of my mind that it was not truly real to them. It was as though they were caught up in the drama as they might be in one of their plays. To Nick, as to me, there were here the certain signs, all too real, of some nasty conspiracy.

  ‘So,’ Nick said, tilting back his stool until he could prop his shoulders against the wall behind, ‘there is clearly something afoot. Do you think it is another plot against the Queen?’

  ‘That is how it seems. All the suggestions in their version of Will’s play were that the monarch should be overthrown.’ I frowned. ‘But what I find so curious is the blatant openness of it. Whenever we have dealt with conspiracies in the past, the perpetrators have been at pains to conceal everything from view until the last minute. Do you not find it strange?’

  ‘Aye, ’tis odd. Either they are very bold, or very stupid.’

  ‘Exactly what I think. And I need your help.’

  ‘Now that is a great temptation.’ He gathered up his scattered papers, tapped them into a neat pile and laid them on the table, held down with a smooth stone. ‘I tell you truly, Kit, it may be a great honour to be poulterer to the Court, but it is expensive. The Court does not pay its bills. It may be that my grandsons – if the Lord bless me with any – will be paid, but I fear I shall never see the money in my life time.’

  I made a sympathetic noise, while trying to hide my smile. It seemed this quiet life as a tradesman was not as agreeable as Nick had hoped.

  ‘And do you still keep your friends amongst the–’ I was not quite sure how to phrase it tactfully. I could hardly say ruffians of London’s streets.

  ‘Amongst the men who used to work for you?’

  ‘Aye, I do.’ He gave me a shrewd look. He knew exactly what had been on the tip of my tongue. ‘I was born amongst such men, Kit, until I was whisked off to Westminster choir and school.’

  ‘I never knew that,’ I said.

  He smiled complacently. ‘Sang like an angel, I did. At seven years old I was put to the choir. An angel at singing and a devil’s imp at everything else, though I learned enough of books and arithmetic, aye, and even Latin, to make my way in the world. But I did not forget where I came from.’

  I nodded. It accounted for much I had not understood before about Nick.

  ‘Now, how do you want me to help you?’

  I felt a sudden surge of hopefulness. Berden was a formidable ally.

  ‘We need to discover two things.’ I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees and my chin propped on my fists. ‘First, was Marlowe’s play also stolen by these men? Was Stoker killed by them, and why? But, most important, who is behind this staging of plays framed to incite rebellion?’

  ‘That is three things.’

  ‘I suppose it is, and the killing of Stoker is probably the least important, being over and done with, though the truth about how it happened will strengthen the coroner’s hand. The first and the last points are the most vital. Do they have Marlowe’s play about the murder of a king, do they plan to use it, and who is the chief conspirator?’

  ‘You are sure there is someone other than the men in this unlicensed company?’

  ‘If you had seen them, you would agree. They are indifferent actors, poor jobbing players, probably scraped together from some vagabond wandering troupe. They do not even have boys to play the women’s parts. La Poucelle – you know, her they call “Joan of Arc” – was played by a man at least thirty, with a baritone voice and the stubble of a beard. The one most like a professional player was the one who spoke the Prologue and then was the most vociferous of the nobles at the end, calling for the overthrow of the king, but even he did not impress me as a leader. Difficult to put my finger on it, but if you had been there, you would agree.’

  He nodded. ‘I trust your instincts. So . . . there is somebody else, not a player, who has devised this plan of using plays to stir up, at the very least, trouble. At the most, it may be a serious attempt to incite rebellion, though I agree that it is a curious way to go about it.’

  He clasped his hands behind his head and tilted his stool back still further, until I feared it might tip over.

  ‘It must be someone with money,’ I said bluntly. ‘The men must be paid, the Blue Boar hired, the costumes (though poor) bought.’

  ‘Therefore, either a wealthy merchant or a noble.’

  ‘No wealthy merchant would want to stir up trouble. Too damaging to trade.’ I grinned. ‘No one to buy his geese and capons.’

  He laughed. ‘Nay, we wealthy merchants prefer the status quo, and peace for our commerce. Hence, it must be a nobleman.’

  ‘Or,’ I paused, ‘could it be another Catholic conspiracy, financed from abroad, with the Pope’s blessing?’

  ‘It doesn’t feel like a Catholic plot to me,’ he said. ‘This feels home-grown.’

  ‘I agree,’ I said. ‘I doubt any Catholic agent, coming from abroad, would understand enough of how our playhouses work, and the powerful influence they can have. That is why the Common Council is always looking for an excuse to shut them down, and why the Master of the Revels is so strict about giving out licences.’

  ‘There is another point.’ He let his stool fall forward on to its front legs, and I felt the vibration of the floor through my shoes. He had certainly put on weight.

  ‘Which point do you mean?’

  He wagged an admonitory finger at me. ‘What agent from abroad would understand the significance to Englishmen of Edward II and Henry VI?’

  ‘Aye,’ I said slowly. ‘You have the right of it. Therefore, let us agree that this is not the work of foreign Catholic agents of the King of Spain, nor is it the work of discontented London merchants, annoyed that the Court never pays its bills. That leaves us with the English nobility. But who?’

  We were both silent, turning over what we knew of English nobles who might wish to overthrow the Queen.

  ‘In the early days of the reign of the House of Tudor,’ Nick said slowly, ‘there were a number of uprisings and attempts to thwart their rule. Henry VII silenced most of them, including remaining descendents of the House of Plantagenet who might have a claim to the throne. Henry VIII despatched any who were left.’

  I nodded. One did not speak of such things in public, but Nick and I trusted each other.

  ‘However, there is one possible claimant to the throne still living, though he is part of the Tudor dynasty, not a Plantagenet.’

  I racked my brains, trying to think who he meant. Lord Hunsdon was a cousin of the Queen, but that was through the Boleyns, not the Tudors. I shook my head.

  ‘Lord Strange,’ he said. ‘Or at least his mother, the Countess of Derby, Margaret Stanley, née Clifford. By Henry VIII’s will, she is next in line after his children, should they died childless. Two have already done so, and Her Majesty is past child-bearing. The Countess of Derby is Henry VIII’s great-niece, granddaughter of Mary Tudor. She must be nearly of an age with the Queen.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘I had forgotten the Stanleys. But surely she would not–’

  ‘Nay. But there have been rumours before this of Catholic plots to put Lord Strange on the throne. Some believe him to be a Catholic, though it has never be openly proved. That fellow Parsons, whom we arrested over the affair of the Scots queen, thought Lord Strange could not be relied on as a Catholic, though ot
hers have felt differently.’

  I shook my head. ‘I do not believe Lord Strange could be behind this, or even people putting him forward. He has always been generous to Burbage’s company. I cannot think he would countenance the murder of two of them. And he has great admiration of Will’s work, being something of a poet himself. He would not agreed to the theft of Will’s play and its use in some plot. He is . . .’ I strove to explain my conviction. ‘He is too admirable a man to behave in such a way. Nay, I think it must be another.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right. Let us not place him high on our list, then.’

  He began turning his stone paper weight over and over in his hands. ‘Our problem, Kit, is that we are no longer in touch with the political threads running through England today. If Sir Francis were but with us still!’

  ‘Something I wish almost daily.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  I smiled at him. Always straight to the point, Nick.

  ‘It has helped just to talk it through with you, but if you could send some of your men to ask around, listen to the word on the streets. I know they have been clever in the past at rooting out secrets in those riverside taverns. The Blue Boar is a few steps better than that, but it is located in the same part of the City. Perhaps they can discover whether these men dealt with Stoker, and killed him. Were they the footpads who struck down Henslowe’s copyist and stole Marlowe’s play? And if they can discover who is behind it all, we shall know whether it is just mischief-making or a serious threat of treason.’

  He nodded. ‘They can certainly try. I expect my lads can soon discover just what these rogues have been up to. Whether they can identify the man lurking in the shadows behind them may be more difficult.’