Rotten at the Heart

by Bartholomew Daniels

  The rooms in which he kept his office now were near the courts where he plied his trade, and were more richly appointed than were those spare rooms he once did keep not far from Bishopsgate.

  He turned up his hands and smiled. “The benefits of a wealthy wife. She not only would have me ensconced as befitting our station, but her society often has need of my trade. It seems that wealth attracts law the way a dog attracts fleas. And, Will, her society pays with coin, not words.”

  “As my words did help win your wife and thus your wealth, I should think you value them dear,” I said.

  “Much dear, my friend. Much dear. But I assume it be wealth that brings you hence today, as you have in ready supply such words as I imagine you need.”

  I gave to him both our lease and the notice of eviction, and recounted my conversation with Miller. Upon quick review, he made a sour face. “Methinks your Miller has some good friend in the courts to have a decision that is so clear to your detriment and so little

  to his gain made so quick, this business of risk being too much the realm of opinion and too little that of fact. But, as it has been rendered and as you have so little time before its enforcement, you have little choice but to comply. You could challenge, but even if your challenge proved successful, such success would like come after you already have been made to leave your theatre. So, a challenge seems not worth its cost, unless you make suit to claim some damage, which would be an uncertain business.”

  “Which was my thinking, too, until I chanced to learn from a butcher that this matter of the theatre seems likely for Miller only fodder for some fatter calf.”

  Webb raised his eyebrows in question. “Then perhaps I should hear the meat of what matter as your butcher shared.” I relayed what I had learned regarding the new-planned mall of shops in Shoreditch.

  Webb rose from his seat and pulled out a large drawer from which he produced a sizable map of London and its immediate environs, his face lost in thought. “I hear in this meat much mischief, and suspect too much appetite for it be Miller’s alone.” He flattened the map on the table between us, marking with his fingers the scenes of our discussions. “Here is your theatre. Where is this butcher?”

  I pointed to the place on Bishopsgate, south from the theatre toward the river, and also to the tavern at which I first heard news of the exchange.

  “And the butcher thought the offer he received was common to all business near?”

  “He did,” I said.

  “And so the district of shops most near the city border would be emptied and their commerce moved into Shoreditch, which would be outside the control of the City Corporation and instead fall to that authority that does Shoreditch’s rolls maintain. And so those coffers currently enriched of its taxes would be emptied and other coffers currently empty would be filled.”

  “I hear that taxes collected in any parish oft mysterious shrink before they reach the Treasury,” I said.

  “Oh, there be much corruption in lands, Will. In their taxes and in their transfer, the law providing an ever-denser thicket of words in which we lawyers find definitions of sufficiently varied shade so as to make of them what our clients will – at least to such extent as their purse gives us cause. If you think the more law the more justice, you think wrong, for each law comes twinned with its own mischief. Give me law enough and I can make a hen a cow and have you pay beef prices for your eggs, and pay again for the privilege of collecting them.”

  “Miller’s corruption is my only current concern. Such larger sins as you and your ilk may commit, I shall leave to your own conscience and penance, as I have sufficient of my own to consider.”

  Webb slumped back in his chair for a moment. “I find Miller’s role odd, for I know that he has some few holdings, but little more than you yourself have amassed near Stratford – though, his being in London, have probably been advantaged by the late inflation. The scheme your butcher has relayed is a fatted calf out of reach of his purse.”

  “The butcher does not know him, and has dealt only with other lawyers who have spoken for this Somerset Company.”

  Webb nodded. “Miller could hold shares in this Somerset Company, but I think then, too, he would have relied on the company’s lawyers for his commerce. For if that company’s shareholders prefer to conduct their business behind a veil of law, they have reason to stay masked. And they are also likely wont to ensure each step of their adventure be executed such that it could not later be assailed by some lawyer who could find fault in their approach. No, if Miller is of their number, I think his fellow shareholders would be much aggrieved to find that he would endanger their enterprise through such folly as his truck with you suggests – for if I can find any document or testimony that he is either of such company or in league with their efforts, then it has clear been his long intent that you be gone from your holdings so they be free for his other exercise. And then also tis clear that he did owe you notice. And then, such notice having been owed before the late Carey’s death, it being further clear that his claim of risk is a ruse, making his delay simple fraud, and of a most vile kind as meant sole to do you harm without even any real gain to him.”

  “If he is not of this Somerset Company, then what?”

  Webb again leaned over the map. “The plot on which your theatre sits is direct on the main route about which this entire enterprise would centre, and is most close to London proper, from whence most of the custom this scheme of shops hopes to attract would come. That makes the property of your theatre vital to their enterprise. I suspect that Miller would have you gone so that no lease encumbers the property and it may be sold free to this Somerset Company, likely at a dear price.”

  “Meaning he has long planned the sale and did clear owe us notice.”

  “Indeed.” Webb took the map from the table and returned it to its drawer. “Leave the lease and notice with me, Will, and I will think on this further and see what news of this scheme I can learn. An enterprise of this scope is, in law, like a herd of beasts – it will have left droppings of documents thick on the ground. I think it likely we can compel Miller to grant you what time you require to manage your removal, and probably convince him that you should have such time without the cost of the rents that you would have ready paid had he been other than an ass.”

  “Make what haste you can, as we have only little days and I have little purse. I know how the cost of your service swells with the time you find for it.”

  Webb stood and gave a short bow, as though to an audience. “As I have but my time to sell, and as such reflections that such time allows oft add to the value of my advice, haste profits neither my art nor my purse. But I should have word for you soon.”

  “And will perhaps save us some on our rent.”

  Webb smiled again. “I think what you will save in rent I likely will charge in service, so that you are not, in whole, affected ill while I do still profit, and only dear Miller will find himself at loss.”

  “I suppose it is too much to hope that your wife be in some melancholy and require a new verse to lift her heart?”

  Miller drew from another drawer in his desk a wood case, which he turned toward me and opened. Inside was a necklace adorned in gold and richly jewelled. “Just this past month, I had business with a merchant house in the Bourse at Threadneedle that required my travel to their competitors in Antwerp, which business I concluded to their good. Much of the fee I invested in this, which I will give her next week to mark the date of our marriage. It will, I think, my wife’s favour secure for some long months. Jewels are to the eyes as words are to the ear, my friend.”

  “Remember, all that glisters is not gold.”

  “True,” said Webb. “In this instance, much that glisters is emeralds and pearls and other bangles that make gold seem cheap by compare. But they do all glister and will for a time blind my wife’s eyes to any need for poetry.”

  CHAPTER 11

  I was late with Webb, so the Lord Admiral’s Men’s perform
ance was near to starting by the time I made Bankside. Many booths and tents marked the vendors of food, drink, and varied sundries that flocked about any performance like gulls, all clamouring for a snack of coin from the crowds gathered. I made to the theatre straight, paying my penny and pushing with much effort and accepting many insults as I made through the throng crammed in the yard to the front of the stage. In any theatre, this was the reserve for those poor groundlings who would, standing in the muck, the play enjoy; such comfort as a seat in the surrounding arcades might provide being beyond their means. The crowd was thick and my passage through it would harvest come morning, but I made my way to the stage front. As his word, Burbage had claimed the prime spot, he and Heminges fending off those who tried encroach until I could press to their left and gain their company at the front edge of the stage just as the play was begun.

  “How with the lawyer, Will?” Burbage asked.

  “I think well, but soon events will tell.” His manner was weighted in the way of one who had heard sad news since I was last in his company.

  “And what now?” I asked, at which Heminges reached across to pass a small pamphlet, atop which clear I could read mine own name.

  Do your coins make rich

  Wm. Shakespeare

  Satan’s Good Servant?

  As Clear you already do despise the good grace of God by choice to frequent such vile entertainments as do here transpire, I rightly fear any further charge doth fall upon such ears as are already sealed up against any appeal to grace, but do pray that once you know the debased nature of its human agents, you may in their foul deeds recognise the evils buttressed by your coin, and the lusts and appetites that cloud your vision will fall away and you will see clear to frequent these iniquities no more and beg God his forgiveness and return to his fold.

  Wm. Shakespeare, much eminent amongst the merchants of filth that are the diseased fare of these venues, though lawful married, hath oft lain with those fallen women who can endure his favours, but in his latest adventure hath made such brazen insult to God’s command as to shock the conscience of even his fellow players who before celebrated his depravity, a shock so dire that they have to me relayed the details of his sordid conduct.

  In recent weeks, having made acquaintance of a fair child who did her father’s booth tend at the Royal Exchange in Threadneedle, he seduced her to his foul purposes, much to her despair. She, being a goodly child and not the wanton harlot of his usual custom, having yielded to his cunning blandishments, lost sight of God’s grace and leapt from the bridge unto her death.

  We did to both Sheriff and Bailiff appeal that he be made to answer before law for such offense, but as the child, now dead, can offer no testimony, and such witness who to our keeping has entrusted this tale is of the theatre also and of insufficient character to speak in her stead, so it falls to our poor office to at least share to you this tale so you at least know those devils whose mouths you feed and may, perchance, redeem your ways.

  A Puritan Friend

  I felt my shame hot on my face, and could scarce look up at my fellows. I was double shamed that, having the past day been much distracted both with Carey’s charge and with the Company’s business, I had, after the harsh night I first passed upon learning of those events related in the pamphlet, since suffered for it only little. Then, triple shamed to know that what distress I felt now was for myself as I weighed the cost of having the insult I had done to my own honour wide known – distress any good man would feel for that child alone. What shame I would now in public bear was my earned wage, while the despair that pressed that girl to the river’s depths was an unearned gift I had fastened around her neck like a millstone.

  “I will not call it false,” I said.

  And Burbage shrugged and reached his arm around my shoulder and pulled me to him close, saying into my ear to be heard over the clamour of the crowd that now did greet the players as they took the stage, “I call thee my good friend, Will. And I do say good, knowing full such ills as we may each commit, sure knowing full my own, and sure that you do suffer for those sins you know to be such, and do require no scold from me but instead only my love.”

  Heminges, too, did reach to squeeze my arm in assent to Burbage’s word. And my eyes burned with tears for my deeds, regret for my reputation, and love for these friends with whom I was unjustly blessed, whilst all about, our common fellows rollicked at the comedy on stage. For these short hours they would take leave of the concerns of their mean estate, the pamphlets they had been handed crushed into the muck at their feet.

  After play’s end, whilst we waited for the crowd to disperse, Alleyn called down from the stage, saying “Will, it seems your spear does shake, quivering likely in weariness from its frequent employ. In this at least, sir, I must admit you my better, for whilst the ladies offer me some little love, I have not the surfeit of their adoring from which you profit.” And he gave a deep bow, his gibe seemingly meant in good humour.

  Burbage then having to add, “They do thee little love, there being so little,” then grabbing his codpiece, “and so little,” Alleyn succumbed to his tempers and rushed at Burbage, and was restrained by his fellows and dragged back across the stage, such being the common method of his exit whenever he and Burbage met.

  As we made our way back to the bridge, I was accosted by those of my acquaintance who had seen the pamphlet, but more in good spirit than in ill, as such broadsides as this pamphlet had been regular fired at varied persons in our professions by the swelling Puritan ranks who did find in us so much offence. And so, whether those I knew felt the charge true or no, they did ignore it or else used it in sport.

  I suspected that such common eyes as these were not this instrument’s true audience, but that it was true meant for the loftier vision of those nobles by whose patronage the business of theatre maintained its precarious balance. In this pamphlet, in the late attack on my person, and in our eviction there seemed some broader scheme to do our company ill.

  I parted company with my fellows, them to a tavern and me to my room, as I had no appetite for merriment. I knew also that I owed these fellows who had again proved their loyalties the tardy duty of truth.

  CHAPTER 12

  I was early to the theatre next morning, for my bed held no rest. Through the night, I full confronted again those demons I had well earned, inventing what arguments I could to make less certain my own guilt. But I could see plain through each attempt the stark fact that the girl was dead – dead at her own hand, and thus, by the teachings of Catholic and Protestant both, beyond hope of redemption. I puzzled considerable on how I, as the agent of all evil in her regard, could still hope forgiveness if she be beyond the grasp of mercy. In my last excuse, I told myself that I could say true in my heart that I never did intend her ill, but how could I claim I intended her good or ill when I had tended her not at all? Having been bewitched by her beauty I credited her hardly human, but instead simply a vessel to use for my own pleasure. Even now I sought comfort in such words as bewitched, as though to excuse through the agency of some magic that choice I made in full conscience. She was as full precious as are we each, and was now as full gone as we each will be, but well before her time and absent what chance at hope or wonder or love or the comfort of a husband or the blessing of a child as she may have been due. And I could by no word or thought or action make it other.

  The cast of such thinking must have been plain on my arrival.

  “Will,” said Burbage, “think no more on that pamphlet, for there can be no good end to such pondering. Make what confession you must – even to some priest, if that be your need – and then be so humble as to know yourself human, as are we each, even in our failings. You used that child ill, true, but you can no more own her latter sin than she can own yours. To attempt to hold, as does God, all such evils men by our own hands create instead of surrendering them to his fair mercies, that invites madness.”

  I was choked for a short moment at his kindness, and ne
w aggrieved that I had not been true with him and my other fellows as to the nature of my affairs these past days. I drew Burbage and Heminges aside so as to right at least the sin of my secrecy.

  Heminges’s face stayed flat and beyond my intuiting while I made bare Carey’s secret charge and that same night’s attack, my discussions with his family and the apothecary, the swollen-nosed shadow that I still did from time to time encounter, and such news as I had from Webb concerning Miller’s ploy. But Burbage’s face showed red, and his jaw clenched as though in labour to still itself. When I finished my discourse, he clouted me on the shoulder – and not in jest but with such unfriendly intent that I near fell.

  “I would have stuck thy face if we did not need it pretty for our next play,” he said. “If you have forgot we are your friends, and have much proven so, then did you too forget that we are a company, and you but one shareholder? It is not your place to make this league with Carey not only absent our assent but even our knowing.”

  I could only nod. “This I do know, and I am both shamed and sorry to have done so.”

  “You make too much a habit of shame of late, methinks,” said Heminges, his words cutting the deeper for being said with more measure and some sadness.

  “So, our standing as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men depends now not on our common art, but instead on this uncommon mission?” Burbage said, his anger still plain but, as was his nature, quick abating.

  “He did not say so plain,” I said, “but made it ample clear that my response to his request be either yes or yes, if I held his patronage dear. I do hope you know I value your company above our company, and do hold you friends and dear, and have been much troubled to have held this news alone. It was, in fact, your fair love to me this evening past, and at such hour when I so little deserved it but did so much require it, that made me know I could be false to you no more. And I do now, must humble, beg both your forgiveness and your console.”