Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu

by Jonathan Green

  a great knot of mottled scar-tissue covering it and most of the right side of his face, its tautness pulling his upper lip into a brown-toothed leer.

  Thirsty from their journey, Drayton and Jonson each took a long draught of his ale, which turned out to taste not nearly so foul as either had expected.

  “It is as well Fletcher did not come, I think,” said Jonson “I doubt his nerves would have stood the journey,” he glanced about himself before adding, “nor the setting.”

  “You said you spoke with him; what reason did he give for declining Will’s invitation?”

  “John is beside himself. In a fair terror of Will, or anything connected with him. He said that he wished never to hear from him again.”

  “A falling out over a play, is it?”

  Michael Drayton shifted in his seat uneasily, leaning in and trying to turn his face away from the rest of the room as he spoke. He was increasingly aware of being watched by The Swine’s other clientele, some of whom he almost thought he recognised from the labyrinthine journey.

  “It is exactly that,” replied Jonson, his own eyes flicking suspiciously in the direction of some of the curious drinkers, “but not in the manner you mean it, I fancy. Will sent him something he had written, or at least begun to write, some twenty years ago. It was about the death of his boy, Hamnet, and John said it was enough to break his heart. Yet, the letter which accompanied it said it was John’s to do with as he wished. That he may re-work and claim authorship of it, should it suit his purposes.”

  “His purposes?”

  “John and Will had been discussing the notion of a grand tragedy – the ultimate tragedy – something more affecting than all that has gone before. John said that he could see that Will was thinking of Hamnet and, though he regretted doing so, tried to use that pain, that loss, as an example to help him evoke such. Will was greatly offended.”

  “I see.” Thirst and unease had caused Drayton to drain his cup quickly and he set it down upon the table with a rattle that seemed jarringly long and loud, threatening to draw yet more unwelcome attention “Why then, did he send the manuscript?”

  “Because, according to Will, it was of no consequence. Insignificant. He wrote that since John and he had spoken he had come to understand something of what a grand tragedy may be and that it undoubtedly rendered his own loss, indeed all such personal losses, petty in the extreme.”

  The scar-faced barkeep thumped another two ales down on the splintery table-top between the pair, causing each man to start.

  “Thirsty.” It was not a question. He bared those of his teeth not already exposed in what might have been an attempt at a smile. Picking up the empties in one oversized paw of a hand, he left them once more.

  “We are to expect Will in a black mood indeed, then,” Drayton reflected, taking a nervous gulp of beer. “Strange. He seemed bright enough in his invitation. Excited even.”

  “Indeed. I have a notion why. I believe you and I may be about to read a new Shakespeare play. John said that Will began sending him ideas – notes and suggestions at first but eventually whole acts in rough. As the play developed so John’s terror grew. So affecting were these passages, so acute had his fear become, that he confided in me he had burned the most recent letters without so much as opening them.”

  “What on Earth is the play about?”

  “Oh, there was some lost, far-off land, some monarch or other. A masked king I believe John said, but he said little more. He could barely bring himself to speak of it. I fear the whole thing has had an ill-effect upon him. He pleaded with me not to come today, warned against reading anything Will has written in the last month.”

  “Wine!” a voice bellowed.

  The duo, who had been leaning in closely as they spoke, looked round in surprise. William Shakespeare was striding towards them, a broad grin upon his face.

  “And meat!” he added.

  At this a strange ripple of excitement passed through The Swine’s patrons, and the barkeep moved hastily to meet the playwright’s orders.

  Drayton and Jonson stood and clasped their host’s hand in turn as he joined them at their table.

  “I’m so glad you could come,” grinned Shakespeare, removing his cloak with flourish, “but where is John?”

  Drayton and Jonson exchanged an awkward glance before the latter cleared his throat.

  “He is unwell. He sends his apologies.”

  A great onion-shaped bottle twice the size of a man’s head was plonked on the table before the trio, its glass opaque, its surface thick with dust and cobwebs. Three pewter goblets clattered as the barkeep set them down and began to pour the wine. It was a deep red with a heavy, spicy odour and Drayton suddenly became aware of some of the other drinkers trying to catch its scent.

  Emboldened by Shakespeare’s arrival, and his apparent comfort in such strange surroundings, Drayton looked fully upon the faces of some of his fellow customers for the first time. Several were indeed men and women whom he and Jonson had encountered upon their strange journey, only now they had unfastened their shabby, stained cloaks, and uncovered their pallid, greasy heads.

  It seemed, to his horror and disgust, that all bore the taint of some illness or other. Some seemed too thin and wan while others appeared bloated and sebaceous like great swollen toads. Pronounced dark rings were around the protuberant eyes of some, while still others had flesh mottled and marked with crazed networks of blackened veins. He thought in horror of the plague.

  There was no doubt now that they had caught the heavy scent of the wine, some actually closing their eyes and taking great chest-swelling breaths, drawing the odour in. Appalled, Drayton turned back to his companions to see if they had seen as he had. Shakespeare’s face was much closer to his own than he had expected, the wide grin still upon his lips. He clapped a hand on Drayton’s shoulder.

  “And you. Are you well, Michael?” he enquired.

  Drayton glanced uncomfortably towards Jonson but he was fully occupied in drinking deeply, apparently much enamoured of the aromatic wine.

  “I... I am fine, Will.” he managed weakly.

  “Good. Good!” came the emphatic reply. The smile and gaze remained fixed and intense until at last, after what seemed like an age, Jonson spoke.

  “Ah, fine stuff. I’ve never tasted its like.”

  The goblet was barely on the table before the barkeep was filling it again.

  “Thank you,” grinned Shakespeare, “and now to the kitchen, if you please.”

  The huge man growled an acquiescent chuckle and staggered off. Drayton saw the man lick his lopsided lips as he departed and, to his growing discomfort, thought he caught sight of some of the other drinkers doing likewise.

  “John told me you have been working on a play, Will. How goes it?”

  Shakespeare stared at Jonson for a moment, his smile unwavering but his eyebrows knotting into a frown as if he had to search deep to make sense of what was being asked.

  “Oh that,” he laughed, slapping the table. “I should not have troubled poor John with all that nonsense. I couldn’t see it then. I hadn’t got it, you see.” His laugher continued and Dreyton thought he heard stifled sniggers from across the room.

  “Hadn’t got what?” Jonson asked, taking another gulp of wine.

  “Why the joke, of course. The Joke!” Shakespeare wiped tears from the corners of his eyes as he fought to master himself. “There is no Grand Tragedy, you see. It’s a comedy. It’s all a big joke. One great big –” Words failed him as he broke into a paroxysm of laughter once more, the mirth in the room at large growing in response. Dreyton caught the baffled Jonson by the wrist.

  “I think we had better leave, Ben,” he said, as emphatically as he dared.

  “No, no, no,” managed Shakespeare, rubbing his hands across his face vigorously in an effort to control his mirth “No. I-I apologise. I am getting carried away. Please, you are my guests and I have something very special I wish to share with you.”
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br />   Seizing his goblet, he raised it in a toast.

  “I drink to the joy of the whole table!”

  In a moment Jonson, seemingly already a little groggy from the heavy wine, raised his own drink. The pair looked to Dreyton who reluctantly lifted his goblet to meet theirs.

  “And to that of the whole room!” Shakespeare added loudly. A cheer went up among the other drinkers. Some of the voices sounding eerily inhuman.

  Drayton nervously touched his cup to his lips, taking a sip of the wine. Its fragrance was almost overpowering; the taste peppery and dusty beneath the excessively rich perfume. His tongue tingled at the touch of the liquid, the back of his throat burned as he swallowed. He choked and set the vessel down hastily. Neither of his companions seemed to find it disagreeable, however, each drinking heartily of his tankard.

  “So then,” Jonson rubbed at his tingling lips with the back of his hand, “the play is a comedy.”

  “There is no play, Ben,” Shakespeare laughed. “I could not hope to capture even a morsel of it in my writing, in language at all. That is why I must show you. Why I must share the experience.”

  “I see,” said Jonson more sceptically. “Tell me, Will, is this a religious experience you speak of?”

  Shakespeare clapped a hand over his mouth and shuddered for several moments with suppressed mirth. He raised the index finger of his free hand and wagged it to and fro, as if admonishing Jonson for making an unfair joke.

  A collective gasp alerted the trio to the return of the barkeep. He appeared stooping out of a low curtained door behind the bar, carrying a huge platter in both hands. As he approached the table The Swine’s other patrons followed to surround the trio of men.

  Upon the platter was what Drayton took to be a roasted pig or boar. All four of the creature’s limbs were absent but the torso, still studded here and there with tufts of coarse black hair, was as broad and long as that of a full-grown man. The head was intact and by far the most unpleasant part of the thing: its snout and jaw shallower than those of any true pig, its ears small and set at the sides of its skull rather than the top.

  There was something disgustingly simian about the face of the beast, something obscene about its blackened empty eye sockets, set close in the front of its skull, and even the bruised apple in its small, almost child-like, mouth.

  Shakespeare eagerly shifted the great onion-shaped wine bottle and the goblets onto an adjacent table where the inn’s sallow clientele began thirstily helping themselves to their contents.

  The platter was so large it overhung the table at either end, legs creaking under the burden. A cloud of greasy steam hung around the body of the beast, settling like meaty sweat upon the faces of the trio. Three sharp carving knives and three tri-pronged forks were retrieved from the sticky puddle of fatty juice that pooled around the creature and distributed among Jonson, Drayton, and Shakespeare.

  “Today we feast as Romans feasted in Londinium, and as our own ancestors feasted long centuries before,” Shakespeare grinned. “That is how Marlowe put it to me, and it seems fitting enough.”

  He stabbed his fork into the shoulder of the animal and began hacking off a great slab of juicy, pink flesh with his knife.

  “Marlowe?” asked Jonson, somewhat reluctantly carving himself a modest piece of pig-meat “Christopher Marlowe? You mean to say you came here with him in the old days?”

  “Not in the old days,” Shakespeare replied through a mouthful of flesh, spraying saliva and swine-juices across the table, “only last month. You see,” – he swallowed with a great gulp then grinned, showing dangling tendrils of fat caught between his teeth – “I met him in The Tabard that night after I saw John and he brought me here.”

  “But that is impossible,” interrupted Drayton desperately. “Marlowe has been dead for decades!”

  He looked towards Jonson imploringly. Surely this had gone too far for him too, by now? To his disgust Drayton saw his companion chewing a mouthful of the flesh with an expression bespeaking his utter pleasure at its taste. Jonson, noticing him at last, made a motion as if to suggest he could not talk with his mouth filled, yet immediately began carving himself another, much thicker, slice of the body.

  Feeling a nudge at his back Drayton turned and saw that a fight over the great wine bottle had broken out amongst some of those who now crowded around them. Others simply leered from the table’s edge at the great steaming corpse of the hog-thing, salivating.

  Shakespeare raised his voice over the growing clamour: “Michael, you know as well as I the rumours that always persisted about dear Kit. He was a spy they said, and indeed he was. He was Lord Strange’s man. And aptly so, for he told me that he learned many strange things, saw many strange sights in his employ. Some, in Holland, or rather in the sea off its coast, proved to be his end... in a manner of speaking. The end of his career – both careers – at the very least.”

  “You mean to tell us that Marlowe did not die at all,” – Jonson’s jaw worked on the succulent meat as he spoke – “that he has been in –?” His question was cut short as he began to choke.

  His mouth opened wide as he struggled to cough up the chunk of flesh which seemed to swell to fill his throat. Drayton tried to pull back his chair to stand and help his friend but their audience was so tightly packed around him that there was not room to do so.

  “In God’s name, someone help him!” he shouted urgently.

  Jonson’s eyes bulged, his face reddened. Shakespeare, apparently oblivious, carved himself another slice even as the fighting and jeering in the rest of the inn seemed to intensify.

  Drayton in panic and fury shoved hard at the edge of the platter, driving the curiously tailless rump of the pig corpse into Jonson’s chest. His friend folded over the steaming hog-arse, an under-chewed hunk of the beast’s flesh flying from his gaping jaws.

  Jonson gasped for air, then coughed painfully. In moments he was bringing up his meat, wine and ale in steamy convulsions upon the platter before him. Drayton had to cover his mouth to stifle his own reflexive gagging at the sight and the stench. Shakespeare however, merely chuckled and popped a final slice of meat into his mouth before declaring, “Well, it seems we have had our fill.”

  As Shakespeare made to move back his chair, the scar-faced barkeep shoved those closest to the playwright back a few steps to give him room.

  All around the table people jostled to get closer. Some began making furtive grabs at the beast on the platter, digging their dirty fingernails in to scratch out chunks of greasy flesh. There was the smashing of glass followed by a high, gurgling scream from somewhere among the crowd.

  Jonson, still clutching at his throat, staggered to his feet with the assistance of the barman. Rounding the table, the giant pushed away some of those closest to Drayton so that he too was able to stand. The table barely deserted, the odious customers began to fall bodily upon the hog-thing’s carcass, tearing at it and each other like a pack of ravenous wild dogs.

  The barkeep shoved and elbowed his way through the fevered crowd toward the squat doorway behind the bar, the threesome following closely in his wake. Jonson, catching his breath at last, managed to croak out, “Where are we going?”

  Shakespeare clapped him heartily on the back.

  “Down,” he grinned.

  Act Three: Journey’s End

  Beyond the stained and tattered curtain, a series of well-worn wooden stairs led steeply down into blackness. The playwright took the lead and began to descend the creaking stairs, whistling a happy tune as he did do. Jonson and Drayton, much afraid and for the moment stunned into silence, were encouraged to follow with grunts and nudges from the now unseen giant.

  A heavy door of wood and iron was closed and barred by the Cyclops guide, blocking out all light for a moment. Horrific sounds as of an orgiastic and bloody riot could be heard from The Swine above. The stairwell took on a soft red glow as Shakespeare opened another door at its bottom, immediately disappearing inside.

 
The room was a kitchen, clearly centuries older than the hostelry above. A large fireplace occupied most of the wall facing the doorway. Embers glowed amid a great pile of ashes, the metal turn-spit on which the hog-thing had been roasted shimmered greasily above.

  It was here the beast had evidently been butchered too; blood and offal oozed from a collection of battered buckets. The legs of the pig-thing were suspended from hooks driven into the beams of the low ceiling to cure, their surface encrusted with salts and herbs. Though they terminated in what appeared to be malformed trotters, the limbs were far too long and too thin to have come from any normal pig. Drayton tried to imagine how such a creature might move when alive and intact and shuddered at the thought.

  Nicked and tarnished knives and cleavers, battered pots and pans, and other cooking implements hung from hooks or lay in piles on the blood- and shit-stained floorboards. There was, Drayton and Jonson realised in the same instant, no means of exit other than the door through which they had come. As one they turned, only to see the barkeep closing and barring the kitchen door.

  “What in God’s name is going on, Will?” Jonson managed croakily.

  Shakespeare, bent and searching amid the buckets of death-reeking swine-guts, did not seem to hear the question.

  “What just happened up there?” Jonson asked with more vehemence, his voice hoarse and raspy as he tried to raise it. “What are we doing down here?”

  Shakespeare turned to face his associates with a manic grin, a long-handled axe gripped in both hands. Wordlessly he crossed to the fireplace and began raking out the smouldering ashes onto the floor with its head. A spot thus cleared, the axe was dropped with a clatter. The Bard stepped into the fireplace and in a moment seemed to disappear up the chimney with a cackle which echoed eerily.