The First Murder

by The Medieval Murderers

  As Christopher thought of Shakespeare, his hands clenched and he felt the familiar knot in his stomach. The rest of the world considered the man from Stratford to be one of nature’s gentlemen, a generous and mild-mannered individual. But Christopher had particular reasons to hate the more successful playwright. One of them was to do with Shakespeare’s opportunism. Years before, Christopher had devised a play based on an old poem entitled The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. Perhaps he was unwise enough to speak about his intentions, and word got back to WS. Or perhaps the Stratford man stumbled, by coincidence, across the same source. Certainly he worked much more quickly than Christopher. And, as Dole was bound to acknowledge when he finally saw Shakespeare’s love tragedy, WS had done a better job than he, Christopher, would have been capable of. A much better job.

  This was the beginning of their rivalry, even if it was a rivalry mostly apparent on Dole’s side. Now he was determined to revenge himself on the individual who’d wronged him, using the playwright’s own medium of words. It was his last chance for revenge since Christopher Dole did not think he would be alive for much longer.

  So he cobbled together, during forty-eight hours of frantic scribbling, a piece guaranteed to cause WS a few problems. And it was all his – Christopher Dole’s – own work. Or very nearly all. Lying on the desk-top was an ancient vellum manuscript, some of which Christopher had put to use in The English Brothers. This was an old drama known as The Play of Adam. To bulk out his own play, Christopher had copied a couple of pages from this piece, ones telling of the rivalry between Cain and Abel and the first murder, and presented them as a play-within-a-play. The manuscript was worn and, in places, the writing so faded that Christopher was forced to peer closely in order to copy it out. The play-within-a-play was a fashionable device. Shakespeare himself had done the very same thing in Hamlet.

  A few months earlier Christopher had discovered the vellum manuscript in a chest in a neglected corner of the shop belonging to his brother, Alan, a bookseller. Alan had just turned down Christopher’s request for a loan and disappeared upstairs, above the shop. Christopher, feeling aggrieved at his brother’s refusal, had poked around among Alan’s stock of books. He’d unfastened the chest in the corner and, straight away, his curiosity was sparked by a wax seal securing one of several rolls bundled inside. The elaborate seal suggested the contents might be valuable.

  Unthinkingly, Christopher broke the disc of wax. Casting his eyes over the text inside, he soon saw that it was from the earliest days of drama, a period when plays were scarcely to be distinguished from religious celebrations and festivals. He secreted the scroll inside his doublet, believing it might come in useful. And so it proved when he had transcribed a few dozen lines from the old text into his own hastily composed piece. Since Christopher Dole did not get on with his brother, he liked the fact that the section he’d copied out was to do with Cain and Abel. It had given him the idea of titling his work The English Brothers.

  The material for the play itself he had discovered in a collection of antique tales. It was a narrative about the rivalry between a pair of English siblings who should have been fighting the Norse invaders but were instead more interested in fighting each other over the same noble lady. Christopher versified this story and dashed it down any old how, hardly caring how it came out.

  The English Brothers was never going to be performed.

  It would be printed, however. Printed without the approval of the authorities and without a licence. And it would bear Shakespeare’s name on the title page or, if not his name in full, then a hint of it. Let the man from Stratford explain himself to the Privy Council. They would definitely be interested in some of the coded comments in The English Brothers.

  It was a late afternoon in autumn and growing dark. Christopher Dole might have slept now his work was complete but he was seized with the desire for action. He took the old vellum manuscript and hid it away inside his own chest, which contained nothing more than his shirts and other faded garments. Then he folded up the foul papers and tucked them inside his doublet. He snuffed out the dying candle and made his way out of the little top-floor room and down the rickety stairs of his lodgings.

  In the small dark lobby he almost collided with a figure who was leaning against the jamb of the front door and blocking the exit.

  ‘Ah,’ said the figure, ‘it’s Christopher, isn’t it?’

  ‘You are in my way.’

  ‘I knew it was you. I can identify every member of this household by their tread, even when they’re hurrying, as you are.’

  ‘I am going out.’

  The figure pushed itself away from the door-jamb and moved slightly to one side so that Dole was forced to brush past him. He smelled meat and liquor on the other’s breath. It reminded him that he had not eaten properly for at least forty-eight hours.

  The lounger in the lobby was Stephen. He was the landlady’s son. Stephen did not seem to do anything in his mother’s house other than pad softly around, like a cat, and push his nose into other people’s business, like a dog.

  ‘You are surely on your way somewhere important, Christopher,’ he said in his usual familiar style. ‘Judging by the way you came downstairs almost running – for a man of your age, that is.’

  ‘Shog off, Stephen,’ said Christopher, opening the door and stepping into the street. He heard the other say, ‘My pleasure’, as the door closed behind him.

  It was damp and cold in the streets outside but no damper or colder than it was in Dole’s garret room. The playwright walked briskly so as to keep out the weather and because he was eager to reach his destination, a tavern called The Ram. The tavern was in Moor Street in Clerkenwell. Dole knew that he would find the man he wanted there. Old George preferred The Ram to his home. It was quieter in The Ram. It was too distant for any member of his household to come hunting for him. Ensconced in the tavern, he would not be bothered by wife and children.

  Sure enough, George Bruton was sitting in front of a pint pot in a corner. The interior of the tavern was smoky and no better lit than Dole’s own quarters. But George always sat on the same bench in the same corner, and a blind man might have found him. There was a knot of men in another corner of the room. Christopher could see nothing of them except the flash of an arm, the turn of a jaw.

  George Bruton observed Christopher coming in his direction. Before the playwright could reach him he pinged his fingers against the side of his pot, and Dole took the hint to order two more pints from the passing drawer. Then he sat down next to Bruton. He waited until the drinks arrived and his companion had taken several gulps, almost draining the pot. Bruton was a large man who occupied more than his share of the bench. Dole remembered the days when he’d been slender. Their association was through Christopher’s brother, Alan, the bookseller and publisher. George Bruton was a printer who sometimes worked for Alan.

  ‘A damp evening, George,’ said Christopher.

  George humphed. He was not a great one for talk. Neither was Christopher Dole, for all that his business was to do with words. So Dole decided to get straight to the point.

  ‘You recall that commission, a private one, that I mentioned to you a few days ago?’

  ‘My memory is not so good these days,’ said the printer. ‘It will take another one of these to stir it into life.’

  Christopher had hardly drunk anything from his own pint but he snapped his fingers for the drawer, a pimply lad, and placed a fresh order. There was a bark of laughter from the shadowed group in the opposite corner. The very sound of the laughter, and a disjointed sentence or two, was enough to tell Christopher that these were gentlemen. The Ram was rather a down-at-heel place but perhaps the group liked it for that reason. He turned his attention back to George Bruton.

  ‘I require something to be printed – printed privately.’

  For the first time George swivelled his block-like head to stare at Christopher.

  ‘Printed in small quantities – and then
distributed discreetly.’

  ‘Some filth, is it?’

  ‘Not filth, not exactly.’

  ‘A pity.’

  ‘It is a play.’

  ‘One of your plays, Christopher?’

  The boy returned with Bruton’s fresh pint. Christopher took advantage to delay replying to Bruton’s question. Then he said: ‘No, not mine. I am merely an intermediary, acting for someone who wishes to see it published.’

  ‘That’s strange,’ said Bruton, ‘because from your silence I’d been assuming it was one of your things. Like your tragedy about the Emperor Nero? What was that called? The Mother Killer? The Matricide? It was put on by Lord Faulkes’s company for a single performance, wasn’t it?’

  Christopher Dole might have replied that plenty of plays were only put on for a single performance but he said nothing. There was another bark of laughter from the shadowy group of gents in the other corner and, if Dole had not been so fixed on what he was saying to Bruton, his sensitive spirit might have interpreted the sound as a judgement on that disastrous play about Nero and his mother.

  George Bruton took another great swig from his pint before saying, ‘But then I am forgetting that The Matricide is something you’d rather not talk about, my friend. I told you my memory is not so good.’

  ‘Then let us agree not to speak another word of that play, Mr Bruton. I have in my possession the foul version of a drama entitled The English Brothers. Who the author is doesn’t matter. It has not been performed. In fact, I do not think it will ever be staged anywhere. But I want it printed . . . no, he, the author, wants it printed on the quiet.’

  ‘Without a licence?’

  ‘Yes, without a licence,’ said Christopher. ‘Come on, George, don’t act surprised. We both know that books are issued from time to time that are not licensed or registered with the Stationers’ Company, whether by oversight or intention.’

  ‘Are you well, Christopher?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dole, wondering whether Bruton meant well in his head or his body. ‘Why, don’t I look well?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, you do not. Even in this light, you appear white and thin, and there are bags under your eyes like sacks of coal.’

  ‘I’ve been too busy to sleep.’

  ‘Ah, yes. You say you’ve got the play with you. Let’s see it.’

  Christopher Dole dug inside his doublet, retrieved the script that he had so recently finished in his little room, and gave it to George Bruton. For all that the light was poor in The Ram tavern, Bruton riffled through the pages, stopping every now and then as if he was actually able to read the thing. Perhaps he could. Christopher knew from his dealings with printers and publishers that they had an instinctive feel for a handwritten script. It was almost as if they were capable of reading with their fingertips.

  ‘It’s messy,’ said George.

  ‘It must have been composed at speed.’

  ‘Your author friend was obviously inspired. Even so, it would be easier to work from a fair copy.’

  ‘He doesn’t want it to be seen by more eyes than necessary. I can be on hand in your printing-house to help . . . interpret it.’

  ‘Your friend is prepared to pay well for this to be printed, Christopher Dole? Even to pay over the odds, seeing it has to be done on the quiet.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Quarto size?’

  ‘Quarto size, and not bound in vellum either, but merely sewn together.’

  ‘We call it “stabbed” in the trade. But I gather your friend wants to keep the cost down.’

  ‘He is not concerned with appearances.’

  ‘I was concerned with appearances, once,’ said Bruton, handing back the sheaf of papers containing The English Brothers and staring mournfully into his newly empty pot. ‘Once I had ambitions to follow in the steps of John Day . . . of Christopher Barker . . . ’

  These were the names of well-known printers, distinguished and successful ones. Christopher Dole cut across what threatened to turn into a bout of self-pity from Bruton. He said, ‘You’ll do it then, you’ll print the play?’

  Bruton paused. There was a further outbreak of laughter from the men in the opposite corner. The printer said, ‘On one condition. Tell me now the author of The English Brothers. If you do not, I shall be forced to the conclusion that it must be you after all.’

  William Shakespeare was the supposed author, of course, but Christopher did not name him. Even George Bruton, however negligent, would never have accepted that this bundle of untidy, blotched papers was by the man from Stratford. So he invented an imaginary author.

  ‘It is by a gentleman called Henry Ashe. He is a friend of mine. He has asked me to be his agent in this matter.’

  Christopher Dole spoke so promptly and confidently that he almost believed himself. Henry Ashe? Where had that name come from? It seemed to have dropped out of the dark, smoky air of the tavern. Yet Bruton must have been convinced for he nodded and went on: ‘This play by Henry Ashe, which you say is not for performance, contains nothing seditious or blasphemous?’

  ‘I guarantee it,’ said the playwright. ‘One more thing. I don’t want my brother, Alan, knowing anything about this.’

  ‘As it happens,’ said Bruton, ‘I saw your brother the other day. Or rather he saw me. Demanded to know if I knew the whereabouts of a scroll called the Oseney text. Apparently it’s disappeared from his shop.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what he was on about,’ said Christopher Dole, but guessing that this might be a reference to the manuscript he’d uncovered at Alan’s place. Quickly, he changed the subject.

  ‘Time for another?’

  ‘Always time for another, in my opinion,’ said Bruton, clinking his plump fingers against the pot.

  So Christopher Dole summoned the drawer again and bought George Bruton yet another drink. His own was scarcely touched. They shook hands on the arrangement. The English Brothers would be printed and published.

  George Bruton’s printing establishment was in Bride Lane on the city side of the Fleet Bridge. Downstairs was where the work was carried on. Upstairs was where the family – Martha Bruton and her many children – lived. Bruton employed two men. One was Hans de Worde, a long-time apprentice and then assistant to Bruton. Hans was second-generation Dutch, one of two brothers, and the respectable one. The other brother, Antony, had somehow shouldered his way into the rough but closed world of the ferrymen and he transported passengers across the Thames for a living. As for Hans de Worde, the joke was that George Bruton had taken him on originally because of his surname. Hans wore spectacles and had a nose on whose very tip was a large black mole as though he had dipped it in a pot of ink.

  George Bruton’s apprentice was called John. He was a wiry figure, and adaptable, which was just as well since he slept in a space hardly bigger than a cupboard in the press room. Hans de Worde, as befitted his higher standing in the household, occupied a little room at the top of the house.

  These young men had not met Christopher Dole before but the playwright became a familiar figure at Bride Lane when he called in from time to time to check on the progress of The English Brothers and to help clarify the blotches and crossings-out in the foul papers. If it occurred to Hans or John that it was odd to be printing a play that had never been performed, they did not mention it. Probably they were not even aware of the fact. Hans was a serious individual and a devout attender at Austinfriars, the Dutch church in the city. His spare time was spent poring over religious pamphlets and tracts in his top-floor eyrie, undisturbed by the racket of the family coming up from the floor below. John was supposed to be bound by the terms of his apprenticeship and to avoid taverns, playhouses, brothels and the like, but George Bruton tended to turn a blind eye so it’s likely that he went to at least one or two of those places.

  During one of the playwright’s visits, George Bruton had a question for Christopher Dole. Using the same gesture as when he signalled for another pint pot in The Ram, the printer tapped w
ith his fingernails at a bit of verse on the page in front of him. They were standing to one side of the press room. From overhead came the thump of children running around. Christopher wasn’t sure how many there were up there. Perhaps Bruton himself did not know.

  ‘Where did this come from?’ said Bruton. ‘This Cain and Abel stuff. “Oh, go and kiss the Devil’s arse! It is your fault it burns the worse.” Or “With this jawbone, as I thrive, I’ll let you no more stay alive!”’

  ‘I believe that Henry Ashe copied it from an old manuscript that he found . . . somewhere,’ said Christopher, suddenly remembering that Bruton had heard of the Oseney text from his brother.

  ‘It is cleverly worked in,’ said Bruton. ‘There is a troupe of mummers performing a fragment of an old play that reflects the action of the main piece. Ingenious.’

  ‘I’ll tell Mr Ashe,’ said Dole.

  ‘You haven’t said yet what you want on the title page. No author’s name, I assume?’

  ‘No, no. Not even initials.’

  Bruton did not look surprised. It was usual for plays to be printed anonymously.

  ‘But I am asking you to include this device,’ said Dole, taking a scrap of paper from his pocket. On it was a simple drawing of a shield with a bird perched on the top. It appeared to be a coat of arms but when one looked closely it was more of a mockery than anything else since the bird was a ragged black thing and clutching a drooping lance in one of its claws.

  ‘I’m not so sure about this,’ said George Bruton. ‘It is a serious matter, the right to bear arms. I don’t want to find myself in trouble with the law. Your own name may not be appearing on the title page, Mr Dole, but mine will be as printer.’

  ‘It is not anybody’s coat of arms, I promise you. I’ll pay you extra for this. Mr Ashe is very insistent on it.’

  ‘Very well.’