Witch Hammer

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Oh, do shut up, Blake!’ Greville snarled and threw the chick into the air to be caught by the shrieking, squabbling hawks. One of them ripped the chick’s throat with its murderous beak, then tossed back its head and swallowed the little bird whole. ‘You and I know full well that if it came to court, I would lose.’ He wiped his bloody glove in a napkin and threw it to a servant, before striding towards the door. ‘The trouble with you lawyers is that you’ve all been lying for so long now you’ve started to believe your own hocus pocus.’ He paused in the archway of the mews and clicked his fingers. A flunkey came forward with a goblet on a tray. ‘Strange is one of the richest men in the realm and close to the throne,’ he said, ‘for all he goes about without a retinue and consorts with play actors. He can afford the best. And, with respect, Henry, that isn’t you.’

  He took a sip of the red wine and wandered across the lawn towards the great house. ‘I don’t mind admitting, Henry,’ he said, ‘I hadn’t reckoned on Strange. If it were just old Clopton in my way, I’d have half the county by Lammastide. But Strange . . .’ He tapped the silver-gilded goblet against his teeth. ‘You said someone was with him at the Swan – some actor?’

  ‘Probably, sir. I didn’t ask. Seemed to fancy his chances, though.’

  Greville looked at him. ‘In what way?’

  ‘Squared up to the lads. I think it quite shook them.’

  ‘A sworder, do you think? A professional?’

  Blake screwed up his face. All his adult life he had been weighing up men’s characters, usually across a boisterous courtroom. ‘Difficult to say,’ was the best he could do in remembrance of the enigmatic face of Kit Marlowe.

  ‘Well, it would make sense,’ Greville thought aloud. ‘Old Clopton’s cleverer than I thought. He’s got Strange on board to fight me in Chancery – where, at very best, it’ll bankrupt me to take him on – and this fellow as a swordsman to handle the rough stuff.’

  ‘He wasn’t armed,’ Blake told him.

  ‘Was he not?’ Greville mused. ‘Was he not?’ He reached the ornate doorway with its oak and its carved stone tracery. It swung open as another flunkey wearing the Greville livery bowed to him. ‘Henry,’ he said, turning to the diminutive lawyer, ‘time, I think, that we were in touch with our friends.’

  The colour drained from Blake’s face. ‘Oh, no, sir. No, really. I’m sure I can . . .’

  But Greville’s hand was in the air and Greville’s mind was made up. ‘Our friends, Henry,’ he said, firmly. ‘See to it.’

  EIGHT

  William Clopton’s messengers cantered the length and breadth of the county that summer, thudding through the Forest of Arden, clattering under the great grey stones of Warwick and proclaiming their message in the Bull Ring in Coventry. There was a masque afoot at Clopton Hall and all were invited, high or low.

  Men who knew Sir William assumed he had gone mad, that second childhood had come to him. Men who did not could not care less – there’d been no masques in Warwickshire for years. The Puritans had put a stop to the old Mystery Plays in Coventry and people missed them. Clopton Hall would be, just for a while, a place of magic. Men like Strange and Marlowe knew it was all a front; that an old, frightened and perhaps dying man was trying to recreate the gilded days of his own summer, when he had danced with Queen Catherine Parr under a floodlit sky.

  No Clopton messengers came within a stone-bow shot of Edward Greville, but their horses’ hoofs clashed over the cobbles in Guild Street and Waterside, blasting their trumpets along sleepy Scholars’ Lane and throwing Clopton’s rosebuds to the Puritan ladies of Stratford, who recoiled in horror and clutched their prayer books.

  At the Hall that afternoon, it was all clash and carry. Like a general in the field, Ned Sledd directed his troops, hauling timbers and flats for the makeshift stage, hanging gilt-thread curtains and sweeping corners. The noise was pandemonium, the cross-saws of the carpenters and the tapping of their hammers vying with the lutes, flutes and hautboys of the orchestra, vainly trying to keep time. Stalls had appeared from nowhere in what had been the outer bailey in sterner times, enterprising townsfolk anxious to make money as well as merry at Clopton’s masque. But by cock-shut time, the cracks in Sledd’s well-oiled production machine were beginning to show.

  The actor-manager’s face flickered in the torchlights the crew had set up around the stage. And he was not a happy man.

  ‘Twenty-four hours,’ he said, solemnly. ‘Twenty-four hours, Thomas, and you must play Britannia.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Thomas nodded in agreement. He certainly looked the part, his breastplate gleaming copper in the torchlight and his plumed helmet magnificent on his head.

  ‘And how do you propose to do that?’ Sledd asked him.

  ‘Hmm?’ Thomas was fiddling with his trident and prowling the stage, in accordance with the old theatrical adage ‘If in doubt, walk about.’

  ‘Give me your opening line,’ Sledd commanded.

  Thomas stood still, raised his trident aloft and steadied his shield. He cleared his throat. ‘Yes, good St George, my man of men. What do you on the stroke of ten?’

  There was a stunned silence.

  Thomas cleared his throat again, looking nervously at Sledd. ‘Well, it’s your line now,’ he hissed.

  Mechanically and in a numbed disbelief, Sledd intoned, ‘Why, good Britannia, queen divine, what time I have is at your shrine.’

  Thomas raised the trident again to deliver his riposte, but nothing came out even though his mouth was open. In an instant, Sledd was up on the stage, hissing in the boy’s ear, ‘Your voice, Thomas.’

  ‘What about it?’ the boy warbled.

  ‘It has broken. Nay, shattered.’ He gripped the lad’s shoulders so that both shield and trident clattered to the planks. ‘You’ve been using that little pocky of yours, haven’t you?’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, sir. Who was the slut? I’ll have her stripped and tied to the cart’s tail.’

  Thomas stood as tall as his corselet would let him. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said.

  Sledd snarled at him. ‘Honour among fornicators, eh? Well, you’re out, young man. Collect your wages, such as they are, and I want you on the road by nightfall.’

  ‘Master Sledd?’ a female voice stopped him from felling the boy on the spot. The actor-manager peered beyond the torchlights’ flicker to see Joyce Clopton standing there with Marlowe.

  ‘Mistress?’ He half bowed.

  ‘Do I understand you have lost your Britannia?’

  Sledd glared at Thomas before replying. ‘Aye, Mistress, I have. And more has been lost besides.’

  ‘I know the part,’ she told him.

  Sledd was appalled. ‘Mistress . . . My Lady.’ He let Thomas go and came hurtling down the steps. ‘Madame, you are aware of the law?’ He looked frantically from side to side. ‘No females may perform . . .’

  ‘That applies to the London stage, Master Sledd,’ she told him, ‘and to what is deemed by the Lord Chamberlain to be a play. This is a masque and this is not London. I have heard that Queen Anne Boleyn first appeared at court in a masque.’

  ‘Yeah, Ned, you must remember that,’ Thomas growled, now that he had no need to hide his lack of octaves.

  ‘Kit?’ Sledd spread his arms theatrically.

  ‘Don’t look at me.’ The playwright smiled. ‘The lady is right.’

  ‘Look . . .’ Sledd was frantically rethinking the whole performance. ‘Couldn’t we do something else? I mean, Rafe Roister Doister, for example. That always goes down well . . .’

  Marlowe frowned. ‘It’s rubbish, Ned,’ he said, ‘from beginning to end. You know that. Anyway, it’s full of parts for boys.’

  ‘All right, then. Can you knock something up – er . . . a shortened version of Dido, Queen –’ he pierced Thomas with a look and corrected himself – ‘King of Carthage, perhaps?’

  Marlowe looked at the man with disdain. ‘You’ve hired an orchestra here, Ned. And
they’ll have to be paid. Might as well put them to use. And no, before you ask –’ and he held up a warning finger – ‘I don’t write musicals.’

  The riders came in all through the night, in ones and twos. Rain was coming from the south-west and the wind was already howling in the elm tops as darkness fell. Clopton’s steward, Boscastle, was kept busy finding accommodation for them all, placing them carefully according to their rank, itself based on appearance. But one man confused him. He was of middle age and middle size and his knapsack was stuffed full of herbs that trailed the ground from saddle height. He wore old fustian and spoke with an accent Boscastle had never heard before.

  ‘Reginald Scot,’ the stranger announced, easing himself out of the saddle. ‘I hear there’s a masque toward.’

  ‘There is, sir.’ Boscastle wrote down the name in his ledger. ‘Where did you hear of it, may I ask?’

  ‘On the road,’ Scot said, beaming. ‘On the road. I’ve heard fine things of Warwickshire theatre. Coventry – the mystery plays.’

  Boscastle narrowed his eyes. ‘Before my time, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ Scot frowned. ‘Well, well,’ he dismissed it. ‘Where am I sleeping?’

  ‘In the barn, I fear, sir, for tonight.’

  ‘A barn will suit me well,’ Scot told him, hauling his saddlebags off the horse. ‘Know what these are?’ He all but pushed the tendrils up Boscastle’s nostrils.

  The Cloptons’ retainer sniffed them. ‘Hops.’

  ‘Ah.’ Scot looked a little crestfallen. ‘You’ve heard of them, then?’

  Boscastle felt he had to explain. ‘We do drink here, sir.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Scot said, ‘but they don’t grow, surely, in these parts?’

  ‘Not in Stratford, sir, no. They come from the south, I believe. Kent.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Scot said, beaming. ‘My county. Have you read this?’ and he tugged a leather-bound book from the knapsack as well.

  Boscastle squinted in the torchlight to read it – ‘A Perfect Platform of a Hoppe Garden. Is that how you spell it?’

  ‘In Kent we do,’ Scot assured him. ‘A small volume, but my own.’

  ‘Very nice, sir.’ Boscastle smiled and clicked his fingers. ‘Find a bed for Master Scot,’ he growled to the lackey.

  ‘Near the door, please.’ Scot scuttled away with the man. ‘The hops need all the fresh air they can get.’

  It was a bleary-eyed Boscastle who signed in the next two arrivals. They came together, each man leading his horse up the gentle rise to the outer gate. It was nearly dawn now and the golden glow of the morning was warming the stands of elder and coppiced hazel that fringed the park. Boscastle shook himself free of his sleep and waved to the dismounted horsemen.

  ‘Not too late, are we?’ one of them asked. ‘For Lord Strange’s masque?’

  ‘Indeed no, sir,’ Boscastle told them. ‘This evening. Have you ridden far?’

  ‘No, only from Winchcombe,’ the other one told him. ‘It’s no more than a day’s ride as a rule, but my damned horse threw a shoe.’

  ‘May I have your names, gentlemen?’

  ‘I am Richard Cawdray,’ said the first. ‘From London.’

  Boscastle wrote the name and sat poised with his quill for the second.

  ‘Look,’ the man said. ‘Is this all really necessary? I mean we’ve just come to see a show, man, not to answer God’s judgement.’

  ‘A matter of security, sir,’ Boscastle said. ‘These are dangerous times, sir; I’m sure you understand.’

  The stranger clearly didn’t. ‘Haywood,’ he snapped. ‘Simon Haywood. From Oxford. Any chance of a bite to eat?’

  Boscastle could see another rider trotting forward out of the dawn mist and dripping slightly as he passed under the archway. ‘Viands for these gentlemen,’ he ordered a servant, ‘and some wine. Eat first, gentlemen –’ he smiled at them – ‘and then we’ll find you a bed.’

  ‘Two beds,’ Haywood insisted, looking his companion up and down.

  The last horseman of the morning dismounted carefully. He too had been on the road for most of the night and every muscle ached. Boscastle noted the Colleyweston cloak, the plumed hat and the rapier, longer by far than the law allowed. If truth were told, he didn’t look like a playgoer.

  ‘Welcome to Clopton Hall, sir. May I have your name, for the record.’

  ‘Certainly.’ The stranger pulled off his glove as if to write it himself.

  ‘Just say your name.’ Boscastle dipped the quill into the inkwell. ‘I have my letters.’

  ‘Good for you.’ The man smiled thinly. ‘York,’ he said. ‘Nicholas York. From London.’

  How confusing, thought Boscastle, but both men at that time of the morning were too tired for witticisms. ‘Would you like your bed, sir? Or breakfast?’

  ‘A bed,’ York opted. ‘I need to be fresh for Lord Strange’s show. Tell me –’ he paused as the servant bobbed to lead him to his chamber – ‘is one Christopher Marlowe with Lord Strange’s Men?’

  Boscastle looked suitably vague. ‘I don’t know their names, sir,’ he said unhelpfully. ‘Seen one actor, seen them all.’

  NINE

  The Greville arms hung in the stillness over Milcote that morning as the Lord of the Manor lay dozing against a mighty oak. He had seen Blake, the lawyer, half a mile across the deer park, puffing and wheezing as he plodded up the road. Even so, he wouldn’t give the man the satisfaction and kept his eyes closed as the lawyer arrived, sweating in the July heat.

  ‘You look hot, Master Lawyer,’ he murmured, crossing one elegant outstretched foot over the other. ‘You shouldn’t rush about so. A man might die of overexertion at your age and in your condition. But please, sit awhile and catch your breath.’

  The lawyer stood panting, but lacked the flexibility to lower himself to the ground. ‘I am perfectly fit, sir,’ he protested, in the teeth of the evidence, ‘but it is a long way from the Hall.’

  Greville smiled a slow smile, opened his eyes and levered himself upright on one elbow. ‘Yes, isn’t it? Now, what news from the Maiden?’ He shielded his eyes against the sun to look up at the lawyer, standing a respectful distance from his outstretched legs. ‘Do sit down, man. It hurts my eyes to look at the sun.’ He patted the grass at an arm’s length away. ‘Sit. Sit.’

  Blake could see nothing would progress until he was seated, so bent his knees until they would bend no more and then flopped in an ungainly heap on the grass. Getting up would be another problem, but let the future take care of itself. He rummaged in his satchel. ‘Well, with this masque nonsense,’ he said, wriggling himself into a marginally more comfortable position, ‘you can imagine that Clopton Hall is awash with visitors at the moment.’

  ‘Anyone specific?’ Grenville asked.

  Blake shuffled his papers. ‘We have a party from Coventry,’ he said. ‘Guildsmen on their annual outing. Sir George and Lady Wentworth.’

  ‘The Buckinghamshire Wentworths?’

  ‘The Maiden didn’t say.’

  Grenville waved him to continue.

  ‘Er . . . a few of the Papist persuasion, perhaps not surprisingly, sir. I have a list somewhere . . .’ He riffled through his papers again. ‘Here it is.’ He found it and held it out.

  ‘We’ll get to them anon.’ Greville nodded grimly. ‘Anyone . . . suspicious? The Maiden has a nose for these things.’

  ‘Well, there’s a hop grower, she thinks from Kent.’

  Grenville frowned. ‘And?’

  ‘One named York will bear watching,’ Blake said. ‘The Maiden saw he watched everybody and his hand never strayed far from his sword hilt.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Grenville nodded. ‘What of the sworder who was with Strange?’

  ‘Ah, well,’ Blake said, warming to his theme. ‘We’re on surer ground there. One Christopher Marlowe, a scholar and playwright.’

  ‘A scholar?’ Grenville scoffed. ‘Well, there you are, Blake. Some harmless scribbler. And you say he squared up
to the lads! You’re losing your touch, man.’

  The lawyer shook his head. ‘Scribbler, sir, no doubt,’ he said. ‘But harmless? I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Well, well. What of the poppet?’

  A dark smile spread over Blake’s face. ‘That’s already in place, My Lord,’ he said. ‘Somewhere it is sure to be found.’

  Rain had spread across leafy Warwickshire by mid afternoon, threatening to ruin the squibs that Ned Sledd had carefully placed near to the edge of the copse to add that touch of authenticity as Guy of Warwick – played with due self-deprecation by Sledd himself – strode the little O to destroy the Dun Cow, leaving young Martin as St George with the lesser task of killing a dragon. The second hautboy was having difficulty too as the perpetual drip from the canvas awning had warped his instrument.

  By evening, though, as Boscastle and Sledd’s minions let the groundlings from Stratford in, it was fine again and Clopton Hall stood black and magnificent against the crimson of the sunset. All was bustle and excitement. It had been years since many of the townsfolk had passed under William Clopton’s great arch. Some disliked the man’s secret religion. Others disliked his politics. They were all prepared to put that to one side however in respect of his ale, which flowed freely once the admission price was paid.

  Anybody who was anybody was in the Great Hall, glittering with torches and candles where Sir William and Lady Joyce received their guests. At the door each one was given a vizard, a black mask to be held in front of their faces except when there was serious drinking to do or the galliard called for a change of hands. Boscastle, in fine form and in his master’s best livery, announced each guest in turn and the great and good of the county hobnobbed with each other as if there had been no Reformation, no enclosures and as if they all sang lustily from the same hymn book.

  Kit Marlowe wandered among the guests, his poet and playwright’s ears pricked for a handy line.