Rotten at the Heart

by Bartholomew Daniels

  “I have bought this property in good faith, and from this honest man here, only to learn this very morning that your… your… company,” which he tried in tone to make into some curse, “has torn down my property in the night and now tries to spirit it away. Not believing that even you could be so audacious, I fetched Miller and made hence and am here stunned to see this offence be true.”

  “Tries to spirit it away, sir? Tries? It would seem at current we have more than half succeeded.”

  “Then you admit to the crime?” Spittle flew with his words, and I made a show of pulling a kerchief from my sleeve and dabbing the offending fluids from my face.

  “As you are not among your company’s writers, and as those you employ fall some short of my art, I will forgive your mistaken thinking, as you evident hold little command of your own language and, language being the stuff of thought, thus think false. I will instead offer such schooling as you clear require, in particular in the matter of tenses, there being many – past, present, future, and then those each being either simple or perfect, the past being sometimes pluperfect, and there being the additional complication of conditional phrasing. But I see by your slack expression that I already have taxed your limited faculties, so I shall simplify my instruction. Tenses in simple terms allow us to tell those things that have happened from those that are happening and those that will or might yet happen, and this seems to lie at the heart of your confusion. You say you have bought this property, which would be true, were your transaction complete, in which case you could produce title and make this conversation moot. But what you should say is that you will buy this property. You say you have claim to these materials when, again, you mean to say you will have claim at such time as you do hold title. Or, rather, you should say would have had claim, the conditional now raising its troubling head, as, by such time as you do hold title, the question of these materials will be settled in our favour.”

  Henslowe was now much red in his face. And though he opened his mouth as though to speak, he articulated nothing beyond some grunts.

  “Being unable to discern any meaning in your utterance, I will assume you are now clear as to those matters of tense that concern this instant case. Therefore, I shall shift our lesson to matters of law. In this area I claim no special schooling, but there are some simple facts of it that I think I know complete. Namely, that law is at heart a matter of contracts, and that I have in hand a contract with this land’s current owner – that owner not being you, as we have already demonstrated. This contract gives our company full right to remove all improvements to this property for our own use. That owner being here present and speaking no protest on the matter, and you already having called him honest, I can see no dispute. I have also such lease that said owner has agreed remains in force until such date as this sale does final close, making us this property’s legal tenants and putting you, sir, in trespass. So, your bailiffs, in my view, cannot arrive soon enough, as I will have you off my land of your own accord or in irons, though I do admit to preferring the latter.”

  Henslowe turned now on Miller. “Does he have such documents as he claims?”

  Miller now stammering, “Recent days have seen much confusion in this matter, my addressing both your issues and such as Shakespeare’s lawyer has raised both at once, and I think I may have granted such right as he claims. But only in confusion and through some trickery, as his lawyer did much cloud the air with his contesting.”

  “Then I call fraud!” Henslowe shouted.

  “Fraud is the one word about which neither you nor our friend Miller requires instruction,” I said. “And I would advise you each to hold its meaning and consequences close in mind.”

  There was then some shouting and general tumult, little said by any party being heard by any other until Webb arrived with Jenkins on foot from one direction, Burbage and the teamster on his cart from another, and Henslowe’s summoned bailiff on horseback from a third. Finally the bailiff gained some control by saying the next to speak without his assent would be the first to jail. He then heard from each in turn, and read those documents available, and then turned to Henslowe.

  “This sale you claim, do you have any proof for it? Any title?”

  “It completes some few days hence. So, as yet, no. But I did contract for both this land and this theatre.”

  “Having had chance to read your contract,” Webb said, “I would suggest you have your next drafted so as to reflect the facts and not just your wishes. Your contract is at best unclear concerning this property’s improvements, and, said contract being drafted by your own lawyer, such ambiguity will, by law, be read in your opponent’s favour. But in any case, that contract is with Miller, as is ours, and so your quarrel is with him at such time as your sale is concluded; while we have no quarrel, our contract being clear and in force now.”

  The bailiff nodded, holding up our agreement with Miller. “Having only this to read and it being plain in its meaning, I can conclude only that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men are within their right to remove these materials. There is no matter of theft here, at least not of any kind I can rightly judge to breach the Queen’s peace.”

  “No theft you can rightly judge?” Henslowe screamed close into the bailiff’s face. “When carts bearing my property make such plain and regular exit? I know not whether to think you blind or simple!”

  The bailiff looked hard at Henslowe. “I will once forgive your temper, sir, you being clear distressed. But such property as you think yours is by all evidence theirs, and I can be of no further service to you in this matter. You have need of a court and not of me, and so I will retire and leave you… gentleman,” the last spoke with some edge, “to settle your matters as you will, trusting that my return will not be required. Good day.”

  With that speech, the bailiff swung quick back astride his horse and spurred it off.

  Henslowe stamped in a narrow circle, clear chagrined that this foray he had envisioned ending in my arrest did now end in his shame. “Oh, I will to court,” Henslowe raged. “With you,” looking at us, “and you,” now at Miller.

  “And I welcome the contest, sir,” said Webb, “you having had these many weeks to concoct your scheme – which, I warn you, stinks plain of fraud and is rotten at its heart – and having used varied lawyers to fashion in papers such trap as you considered inescapable. And yet I took but a day to find ways fully legal to deflate it entire, leaving you here blustering your empty threats in an attempt to win now, by acting, what you have already lost. But the present company knows an actor’s art full well and can see in both the poor quality of your lines and in your faithless delivery your admission of defeat.

  “I do warn you to remember, Henslowe, that your plot as to this theatre is but a small wart of fraud on a larger canker rich with it – one by which you already have profited. I would suggest you make home and lick those wounds you have. For, should you entangle your Somerset friends in your failings, you like will find the next wound your lies have brought upon you to be mortal.”

  Henslowe sputtered, his voice growing louder as his faith in its contents shrank. “Lies? Do you now call me a liar, sir?”

  “Now?” said Webb. “I thought sure I had previous. But to be plain, yes.”

  “A liar and a coward, sir,” I added. “As you could not defeat us in the open combat of commerce, you tried instead to undermine us with guile. And you have failed flat in both attempts. We have bested you on stage, we have bested you in law, and we have even, reluctantly – as we hold our honour dearer than do you, we being better acquainted with its virtues – bested you in scheming.”

  “Honour, sir?” He stepped close to me, puffing out his chest and drawing himself to his full height, him being some few inches taller than am I. “You dare question my honour?”

  “To question it, I would first have to find it,” I said. “It being smaller even than that worm you hide in your codpiece.”

  “You go too far, sir!” Henslowe shouted,
his spit flying once again onto my face and its small weight tipping final some balance in me that had quivered too long between caution and action. The chests holding our store of costumes lined the road, those being the last load that we would send to Bankside. I kicked open the lid of the chest that held our stage armoury, snatching out quick two swords and tossing one at Hemslowe. It bounced off his chest and fell to the dirt.

  “If your too little honour is too dear offended, then there is your remedy. Pick it up and be a man or let it lie and be that foul coward we have long known. Defend the honour to which you pretend, or scurry back under the skirts of the law, where my lawyer will carve you up instead of my steel. But enough words today. Be a man or be gone.”

  Henslowe glanced down at the sword a short moment, but then turned to leave. “This matter is not at its end,” he called back.

  “Because you lack the spine to end it,” I called to his back.

  Miller now stood alone, seeming in such pose he had held the entire time, his mouth agape.

  “Well?” I asked him.

  “I… I feel I have been ill used.”

  I slid the tip of my blade into the hilt of the sword that Henslowe had left on the ground, and lifted it up to Miller in invitation.

  “If you have been used ill, I invite you to use this better.”

  He held out his hands and shook his head, then backing away many steps, before turning into a mincing run.

  Our company now alone, Burbage threw back his head in laughter, and then clasped me by my shoulders. “By God, Will, you do act the lion well. But methinks you were perhaps too sure of Henslowe’s nature, for what if he had taken up that blade?”

  “Then I would the lion be,” I answered.

  He looked hard on me a long moment. “And in your eyes I see the truth of that. Can it be that this heart we have long known wise is now in equal measure stout? Your recent adventures have made you into a lion! Jenkins!”

  Jenkins stood to the side, slack jawed.

  “My God, lad,” Burbage cried. “You pick this moment to be without a bottle?”

  I looked down Bishopsgate toward the receding Miller, knowing that road would be the route from which, in one day’s time, Carey’s coach would fetch me to our meeting with Topcliffe. And, while my earlier resolve did hold, it was flavoured with a sick tickling in my belly that seemed to foretell the path of some future blade.

  “Be quick with the bottle, boy,” I said. “For I am soon a lion into the lion’s den, and I must fortify my newly fierce nature.”

  CHAPTER 27

  By the morning next, the theatre and our stores entire were at Bankside, and such small work as was needed to adjust the foundation to fit our design was complete. In the early hour at which I arrived, Burbage was already in his element, directing the raising of the timbers that would frame our stands. I watched for some minutes, marvelling at that easy congress he made with any, whether our own actors or the simple tradesmen he had contracted for this raising, being all at once cajoling and profane and a happy companion and a stern master so that each party was to his task and most willing. As skilled as he was in an actor’s art, he seemed almost happier in this role.

  I remembered suddenly fond those days in my youth when I was under my father’s tutelage at his glover’s shop, and that unalloyed satisfaction that came when first I made whole a product he deemed worth sale. They were simple gloves of only little adornment as would suit the purse of one mean in station, which were sold quick to a man who worked at the livery. And I still note, each time I arrive at Stratford and there board what horse I have rented for that passage, that he wears them still. I am always disproportionate happy to find them continuing in good service. I think there is some joy attendant to those real things we make with our hands that I cannot find in the more abstract products of my work, as my words can please only the mind and thus leave the body wanting.

  Burbage finally noted my presence. “Gads!” he shouted. “It seems even the foreman of this enterprise falls under some eyes.” And he walked over to my place.

  “It seems to go well,” I said. “Not that you’ve had much benefit of my sweat, nor am I sufficient schooled to know.”

  He nodded. “Most well. We will have it this day complete, even if we must again work into the night. Jaggard was by, and offered free printing of such bills as we might need to promote our first performance at this new location. While we will sure tell him “yes”, I told him I had first to seek your consult, as it is your offense to forgive.”

  “I find myself of late so burdened with insult that I think it will lighten my load to be rid of one. And so yes, and my blessing.”

  I heard a high, sweet voice singing, and noted Jenkins perched light atop the highest beam and pounding hard at the peg that would join it to its cross member. “I had not known his ear for music,” I said.

  “Like a bird, he seems happiest high up and, once there perched, graces us constant in song. Had I not grown fond of the boy, I would make him a eunuch and preserve both that voice and those womanly charms for which our stage has use.”

  “His new fondness for the bottle does not put him at risk at such heights?”

  Burbage drew a key and dangled it before me. “I have the sack under lock until our work is done, for fear the boy might take wing either in accident or in liquor’s fancy.” He slipped the key back into its pocket. “So, will I have use of your hands today, or must the Lion of Shoreditch again be on the hunt?”

  “To the hunt,” I said. “And I will have you know that I must some deplete the company’s purse in the effort, though such will be spent on costumes, which we must refresh before we next appear at Court in any case.”

  He nodded his agreement. “I pray this means your own costume today will be finer, and so you also will be armed? For I would not have my lion loose amongst the jackals without his claws.”

  I smiled. “I shall wear both our finest clothes and our finest sword. But I fear I shall not return hence until after tonight’s congress with Topcliffe, at which time I will like find the theatre complete and ready for my benefit, it having benefitted only little from my labours.”

  Now adorned well, I made to the mercer’s shop with the morning still only little commenced. Such early hours were still unusual in my custom, but I did recognise in the morning a certain fresh charm. The day, like a child, seemed to greet the world unmarked. But while this sight lent some faith to the heart, I knew I did still prefer the evening. The hours from dawn until dark take the day entire through the sweep of human experience, so that in the night’s darker confines I can see those scars and blemishes of the day’s passing and commune with those conflicts and sufferings and even comedies that are meat to my quill. I knew that, once this matter was settled, I would not change my habits and play the rooster where I had long played the owl.

  It was early enough that some other shops in the lane were just taking down their shutters, but I found the mercer’s ready for commerce. And as I made my way in, I had to admire his art at costume. For while his was dressed much fine, so as to display such wears as were his to offer, those clothes still were cut in such way as did make him seem clear your servant and not your master.

  “A good morning to you, sir,” he said. “I assume you come on some other’s behalf, as I cannot hope to improve on your appearance with my humble wares, though in truth you are a man of such fine form as to compliment any garment.”

  I smiled and bowed, thanking him, though noting some concern as his eyes passed over those injuries I still bore on my face.

  “I assure you, sir, that my face is usual as fair as my form, except that I made unfortunate acquaintance with some of our fair city’s lesser beings just recent past.”

  The man’s own face came sour. “For shame, sir. You did suffer dear at their unkind hands.”

  “Not so dear as they,” I said, putting my fist firm to the hilt of my sword, thinking it best that he hold some little fear of me.


  He nodded. “But it is too fine a day to dwell on your travails, sir.” He swept his hand graceful in an arc over his offerings. “Pray, how can I make your world more beautiful?”

  The shop was arrayed such that the counter displaying samples of his wares cut the room in half, the floor on my side covered with an ornate carpet and there being several chairs richly carved and dressed in fine fabric. The wall behind the mercer opened on my left to a room in the back, where I presume he kept his stores and where his cutting and tailoring were done. In that opening hung a curtain well embroidered in reds and golds, which would be as fine a sight as such opening could hope offer except that Mary Norton’s face did brief appear at its edge, and in that moment make the curtain seem just a painted harlot.

  “I am an owner in a troupe of players which does perform regular at Court for our good Queen, and as we have just received notice of several new performances there, we will refresh our costumes to include such as appropriate to this occasion,” I said.

  The mercer bowed slightly. “I do common make attires for nobles at court and for her Majesty, too, and am well versed in such styles current to her liking. And as our shop is mercer and haberdasher both, you can secure such fabrics as you need and have them shaped to your design.”

  I nodded. “Then I place myself in your skilled hands. Pray, give me some sample of what current pleases my noble audience.”

  The mercer bowed, and then called into the room behind. “Lucy, bring out such goods suited to court as we have near done. And Mary, be so good as to model for this fine gentleman that gown that awaits the young duchess, for whom you have proven such a fit example.”

  An older woman came out immediate, and laid forth on the counter several doublets, blouses, and gowns of varied design, but all rich in fabric and ornament. She then took her leave to help young Mary into that gown her master would have modelled. I passed some minutes complimenting the mercer on his wares and inquiring as to ways in which they might be made seem both older and more foreign, as our plays were usual set in times past and in lands distant.