An Eye of Death

by George Rees

Genres: Historical Fiction; Alternative History sci-fi

Synopsis

Thomas Dekker is a young playwright struggling to make ends meet in the London of Shakespeare and Marlowe in the 1590s. He hears of the mysterious murder of Mother Wingfield, a crime many attribute to witchcraft because she was alone in a room, locked from the inside, at the time of her death. He decides to investigate as he thinks the story might make a good play. His investigations draw him to the attention of powerful men like the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh who, riding the currents of religious hatred and xenophobia, are engaged in a vicious struggle to win influence with Queen Elizabeth. Thomas is caught up in the middle of these conflicting forces, in a volatile situation where treason and heresy are suspected at every turn. By the time Thomas has solved the mystery, his adventures have vividly illustrated Tudor London for us in all its chaotic, cruel, bawdy glory.

Release date: November 30, 2008

Publisher: Accent Pr

Print pages: 333

Sample

One

I first met the famous – or infamous – Christopher Marlowe while looking after his horse outside the Curtain Playhouse in Shoreditch. A job better playmakers than I have done. I was feeling downcast. The actors were proving reluctant to buy my plays. I’d sold a few ballads to street singers. Failures according to them: ‘Didn’t hold them enough, Master Dekker,’ they’d said as they negotiated a lower price for my next one. What that meant was the ballad had failed to lull the audience sufficiently for their mates to relieve the listeners of their purses. And when the poor devils were caught and hanged at Tyburn the ballad singer would be there hawking their last dying speech of repentance while a new mate worked the crowd. I know, having written a number of speeches for them. Still in my twenties, I’ve repented of being a murderer, cutpurse, housebreaker, coiner, highway robber – oh, and a Catholic priest. Bit awkward that last since he made his own speech which differed somewhat from mine. I’m a whole den of iniquity rolled into one.

But it is the theatre I long to write for. And not just because the rate is six pound a play. Although given my debts that is a powerful inducement. Even collaboration, the usual way to start, would be something. But getting actors to take my plays was like getting Puritans to take mass.

So I was feeling down. My girl, Elizabeth, was late with my bread and cheese and pot of ale. And when she did turn up I was going to have to ask her to pay for them. Again. The heat was heavy, oppressive. Trying to cheer myself up with thoughts of my coming meal I heard a plop. Marlowe’s horse had deposited his breakfast in a steaming heap on my shoes. Feeling down? I was lower than the Earl of Oxford’s knees just after he’d farted in the Queen’s presence.

A southerly breeze sprang up. That’s a plus, you’d think. Especially as doctors say the south wind is healthy and dispels melancholy. Healthy? Not when it wafted the putrid mud of Moorditch up my nostrils. And into my eyes the smoke of London. Smoke from forges, foundries, smeltries – and bakeries. But no bread for me. My ears were assailed by the iron-wheeled carts rumbling along Bishopsgate Street carrying chickens, turkeys, geese, cheese, vegetables, past me and into the city.

London is my city. I grew up there and most of the time I love the bustling vulgar life of the place. Crowds of men and women jostling through the narrow streets; the babbling tongues of many nations; sailors, soldiers, merchants, chapmen, whores; apprentices in leather aprons, ladies in silk gowns, colliers heaving sacks of coal and gentlemen strolling in satin doublets. Yes, I love the city. Usually. But just now I could have preached a sermon on the place to a congregation of Puritans that would have got me elected as one of their elders. London is a suppurating sore on the body of England, brethren, I would say. Lance the luxury and drain off the pus of pride through the purity of the pious. My stomach growled. Where was my bread and cheese?

Just as I thought things could not get any worse I saw old man Cruickshank hobbling towards me. When he caught my glance he put his hand to his back and on his face his look of, ‘I’m in pain but bearing it heroically’. With old Cruickshank there are two subjects you never raise. Illness and murder. Ask him how he is and he’ll complain of more ailments than a true doctor’s seen or a quack doctor could invent. The public executioner, fresh from disembowelling a batch of traitors, only brings his dinner back up when Cruickshank describes his haemorrhoids. Mention murder and for the thousandth time he’ll tell you about the murder next door when he lived in Milk Street. Thence the palpitations he suffered – and we’re back on his ailments.

‘Hello, Master Cruickshank,’ I said carefully. Nothing in that to get him going so he just nodded. Marlowe’s horse deposited the remainder of his breakfast on the ground. Cruickshank looked envious. I think he was just going to start complaining about his constipation when an explosion from the playhouse almost cured him on the spot. They were acting The Battle of Alcazar and a cacophony of drums, trumpets and cannon announced that battle had commenced. Cruickshank, bad back forgotten, leapt in the air. He came down quivering with rage. Pointing at the archers practising in Finsbury Fields he said, ‘When I was young that place was packed. We wanted to be ready to serve our country. Today’s youngsters, they’ve got to be given guns ‘cos they’re too weak to draw a bow and too lazy to practise. All they wants to do is watch plays. When I was young plays had a moral. But now it’s all fighting and killing and fornicating, teaching idle apprentices to beat their masters and bed their mistresses.’

I’m not interested in fighting and killing anyone but where is all this fornication? Elizabeth refuses to go to bed with me until we are married. Perhaps I should take her to more plays.

Cruickshank was glaring at me and complaining in his querulous whine, ‘People are so used to gaping at the stage now, they can’t hold an intelligent conversation with you any more.’

I sighed and was resigned to hearing a monologue on his health or his murder when a friend of his came along. No maiden could have been more relieved to see a knight errant than I was to see him. Their friendship was explained by two facts. Cruickshank bought him ale and he was deaf.

‘Quiet,’ he said, as the Battle of Alcazar erupted from the playhouse with the din of all the devils in Hell being spewed out of Vesuvius. Taking his arm Cruickshank led his captive audience away saying, ‘The only good modern play is Arden of Faversham though the murder in it is not a patch on my murder. Horrible she looked, Jack, horrible. It must have been witchcraft.’

Old Cruickshank was right about Arden. It is a good play. Popular too, even though it is about a fifty year old murder down in Kent. It set me thinking. Peele with his Alcazar, me with my (unacted, alas) Tragedy of Alexander the Great and other writers have, since its huge success, been trying to write plays as exotic as Marlowe’s Tamburlaine. But Arden proves there is a market for plays about ordinary English people. Having been warned beforehand about Cruickshank as a bore I’d never really listened to his account of the Milk Street murder. Could there be a play in it? He had called it horrible and mentioned witchcraft. Having read Reginald Scott’s book I am sceptical about witchcraft but most people still believe in it. If only I could keep Cruickshank off his health I might get something on the murder I could use.

Just as I was thinking of calling him back his health almost received a mortal blow. Finsbury Fields is used mainly by the lower classes but there was a young gentleman in a silk shirt learning to use the crossbow. Unable to wind it up he handed it to the man teaching him. Cruickshank snorted and turned to his friend. The words ‘Youngsters today,’ floated back from his diatribe. Meanwhile the young man was aiming the wound-up crossbow at the target and fiddling with the trigger. Nothing happened. He swung round with the bow to consult the tutor who dived swearing to the ground. Jack knocked Cruickshank flat on his face and followed him down. The bolt whizzed over them to impale itself in a pig hanging outside a butcher’s shop across the road. It did not seem the right time to ask old Cruickshank about his murder story. The tutor snatched the crossbow, reloaded it and sent the bolt smack into the centre of the target.

There’s nothing like a bit of excitement to cheer you up but now it was back to waiting. This was a boring job. Marlowe’s horse nuzzled my hand. I wished I had something for him to eat but I had nothing for myself. He was a fine looking animal but badly misused. As I looked at the flies buzzing around the blood on his flanks where Marlowe’s spurs had raked the poor beast, I heard a footstep behind me. Turning I received a blast of tobacco smoke full in the face. Marlowe had left the play early.

Through watering eyes I peered at him, a young man about my age. His doublet was good quality, unlike mine. He gazed at the fiery redness in the bowl of his pipe then darted his hand at a fly. It buzzed in his fist. Holding it over the bowl he unclenched his hand then drew it away. The fly sizzled. The large brown eyes in the pale oval face gleamed as he murmured, ‘A black soul burning in Hell.’ Drawing on the pipe he blew out a cloud of smoke and remarked cheerfully, ‘I like tobacco.’

I’m not sure I like you, I thought as I watched the smoke twisting about his head. This is how some wall paintings depict the Devil in Hell presiding over the torments of sinners. As well as tobacco many said there was also a smell of sulphur about Marlowe. Despite the warm day I shivered. As though having read my thoughts he said, ‘I was meant for the church, think of that.’

I sniffed the air and replied, ‘My nose detects rotting offal, stinking horse dung and the stench of a tallow chandler; but for certain there is no odour of sanctity.’

‘An insolent horse holder,’ he said with amused contempt as he threw me some coins. Contempt! And him the son of a shoemaker. Once men like him have been to university they think of themselves as gentry and want to forget where they came from. I did not go to university but I considered myself as good as Marlowe. Flinging the coins to the ground I looked him full in the face. But his eye had been caught by two horsemen approaching along the street while, over his shoulder, I saw Elizabeth pushing through a crowd of cursing porters and bawling hawkers. The smoke of London had not removed the country bloom from her cheeks; but serving in a tavern had sharpened her tongue. When I remarked on this at our first meeting she had replied, “The next man who says all roses have briars, I’ll scratch." As if I, a poet, would be guilty of such a stale comparison.

As the two horsemen neared, a maid leaned from an overhanging window and shook a mop. Drawing his sword one of the horsemen sliced off the mop head catching it as it fell. Riding up he threw it at Marlowe’s feet and laughed, ‘The same fate to our enemies’ heads, Kit. Come, we have some way to go.’

‘Ingram Frizer,’ said Marlowe coldly as he mounted his horse. ‘Where to, Robert?’ he asked the other man. Frizer cut in, chuckling: ‘We’ve prepared a warm welcome for the poet of Tamburlaine and…’ he leered – ‘Edward the Second. And I hear you’re writing another, Kit. About a man who sells his soul to the Devil? Faustus? Yes, a warm welcome at Master Walsingham’s at Scadbury.’

Marlowe I’ve heard was a government intelligencer and spying is the Devil’s business, for any side. I know that Robert Poley is a professional informer. As the poet says, “They cut men’s throats with whispers.”

‘That’s Marlowe the blasphemer,’ said Elizabeth grimly as he rode away. ‘He’ll pay. The Devil always collects his debts.’

There’s a Puritan minister in Elizabeth’s family. And she is Puritan about sharing my bed. With the low-cut dresses women wear now it’s hard for a man. In every sense. I think Elizabeth would like to turn me into a militant Protestant, writing fiery pamphlets against the Pope and all his works. I would not bet on the Pope in a face to face encounter with her. He wouldn’t stand a chance against a woman who can subdue a bunch of roaring boys in a London inn with a single glance. But just as I’m beginning to wonder why I’m going to marry a woman who seems to be a cross between Queen Elizabeth and Joan of Acre, that severe Puritan countenance will light up with a smile. Like opening the bible and finding a picture of Venus in the Book of Job.

Handing over the bread and cheese and pot of ale, she picked up the coins and asked if they were mine. I shrugged and agreed they were.

‘And what about your debts, Thomas? Are they paid?’

My mouth full of bread and cheese, I nodded. Well, why bother my lovely fair-haired beauty. She fixed her clear blue eyes on me and said, ‘So I need not have troubled trying to shake off the two bailiffs who…’

Nearly choking on the bread and cheese I looked across the street. We saw each other simultaneously. Dropping the food and ale I ran.

‘Henslowe wants you to collaborate on a play,’ shouted Elizabeth as I belted down Bishopsgate Street hoping to lose my pursuers in the crowded streets of the city.

Two

Elizabeth’s words put wings on my heels. Henslowe wanted me to write for his theatre. It was a start. But first I had to get away. Glancing back I saw they were gaining on me. Those two were stayers. The leader looked like a hog with his cropped hair and wart-encrusted nose.

Looking ahead I saw with dismay that a broken-wheeled cart was blocking the road. Swinging right into Finsbury Fields I ran behind the targets. No one bothered to stop shooting. Surely they wouldn’t follow me here. They must have been desperate to earn the fee for catching me because looking back I saw them still grimly chasing. As we ran, heads down, arrows and bolts whistled past. Bailiffs are unpopular. The archers were gleefully taking the opportunity to wing one and claim they were shooting at the target. As I ran, panting, I had to agree with old Cruickshank on two things about modern youth. We lacked exercise and our aim with the bow was atrocious. Most of the arrows were coming my way.

I couldn’t keep this pace up. I had to go to earth in London. They’d run me down in the open. The next entrance was Moorgate. Getting onto the road I groaned as I saw in front of me a great lumbering wagon heading for Moorgate. If it got there first I’d have a blocked gateway. Putting on a spurt I saw that it was going to be very close. If I could just squeeze through then my pursuers would be stuck. They’d have to wait until the wagon ground slowly through the gateway. Just as I reached the tail-end of the wagon the front was going under the archway. Trapped.

The bailiffs came running at me. As I was jumping onto the wagon Warthog grabbed my doublet ripping it from my back. But I was free, blundering through crates of squawking chickens, knocking them over, breaking them open. The driver turned, his mouth a gaping hole of black, broken teeth. Brushing past him I scrambled over the backs of the horses surrounded by flapping chickens and flying feathers. I jumped from the front horse and landed on a gallant bowing to a lady, knocking him flat. While disentangling myself I saw the driver furiously lashing the bailiffs with his whip as they blundered through the crates of chickens. Having got my breath back I made off down the street dodging in and out of the crowd.

I’d been given a slight start on them in the city but they still had me in sight. Swerving round a corner to my right I ran past shopkeepers shouting their call of, ‘What do you lack?’ then turned left into Ironmongers Lane. Taking a breather in a shop doorway I peered around the side and saw my pursuers arrive at the entrance to the lane. They stopped, looked down it, hesitated, then carried straight on. I’d shaken them off. Still looking to make sure they had gone I left the doorway and banged into a burly porter. He flung me aside and I crashed into a highly built pyramid of pots and pans bringing them clattering and clanging to the ground. Rushing out the shopkeeper swung a broomstick at my head, missed and hit the porter. He roared, dropped his pack, and began pelting the ironmonger with his own pots and pans. The two bailiffs came charging back round the corner and once again I was running.

Plunging into a maze of narrow, twisting alleys I ran with bursting lungs and aching legs. Sweat ran down into my eyes, sweat soaked my shirt. I ran seeing only the ground at my feet, hearing the thud of the carpenter’s mallet give way to the ring of the blacksmith’s hammer. And the smells. After the forge’s hot metal I passed the acrid charcoal burner, the pungent tanyard then the heady brewery.

Outside the latter, two prentices had piled up a stack of empty barrels. They were resting on a piece of rope. In passing I bent and pulled out the rope bringing them tumbling down. Barrels bounced back from the opposite wall while others bounded along the alley at the pursuing bailiffs. Another respite gained.

I was completely lost when I suddenly emerged into St Laurence Lane. Turning left to get into the crowds of Cheapside I heard the tap, tap, tap of the cobbler’s hammer and the cry, ‘Yark and seam, yark and seam.’ Crossing the road, I plunged into another alley.

That was my old master’s voice, Daniel Clay, shoemaker. My father was Dutch and had been killed in the rising against Spain. When our village was burned by Spanish soldiers my mother had fled to relatives in London where I had been posthumously born. I had a grammar school education but could not afford to go to university. Although the money I had was not enough for a premium Master Clay had taken me on as an apprentice shoemaker. He and his wife had been another father and mother to me. I think my lean and hungry look brought out Mistress Clay’s mothering instinct. ‘Give him some more,’ she’d tell the maid at meal times. Many a poor prentice goes short of food but not me. Yet I never took to shoemaking. Then I got in with a crowd of prentices who haunted the theatres and taverns and cobbling became more and more irksome. When I sold a pamphlet I thought I was a writer and decided to leave the trade. Master Clay begged me to stay but I was adamant and he would not use the force of law. He’d said that as a shoemaker I could earn a living anywhere in Europe. It would grieve him and his wife to see me now being pursued by bailiffs. Master Clay was proud of “The gentle craft” and had wanted me to take a pride in it. I glanced back along the alley. Those two bailiffs also had professional pride. They were sticking to me like hounds to a fox.

Next I came out into Milk Street. As I ran down it I wondered which was the murder house. Old Cruickshank was sitting in the window of the Sun Tavern as I went haring past. He must have thought I’d taken his strictures on exercise to heart.

At last I was in Cheapside. But it was not as crowded as I would have wished. A fine coach with a familiar looking coat of arms on the door passed by. Through the window I saw a young woman with beautiful dark eyes. Fanning herself she looked at me labouring in a bath of sweat, an amused smile playing across her lovely face. If this had been a romance like Amadis de Gaul I would have been rescuing her from a band of outlaws instead of fleeing from a pair of bailiffs. But this was real life and the coach passed on.

I caught up with it at Cheap Cross. Cracking his whip the driver was forcing it through a crowd gathered around a preacher giving an impromptu sermon. There was no way through for me so I was forced to turn up Wood Street. The preacher was one of those who like to pluck their ideas from the passing scene: ‘For what sin is that youth fleeing in this modern Babylon? Is he a haunter of the playhouse and the brothel? Learn from him brethren. For though he outrun the laws of man yet must he face…’ ‘Oh leave me alone’ I thought. What had I done to deserve this? All I wanted to do was write plays.

Ahead of me loomed the Counter Prison. Standing at the door were two bailiffs waiting to enter with their prisoners. Seeing me being chased by their fellows, one of them moved across to intercept. I cut along a lane which eventually brought me back to Cheapside. Rounding a corner I saw the young woman from the coach standing before me. I tripped over a loose cobblestone and flung out my arms catching the front of her dress and ripping it down. It must have made a fine sight. Me on my knees gaping up at her bare breasts and panting like an ardent lover. Those lovely eyes blazed with anger. Then the absurdity of it must have struck her, for she burst out laughing.

‘Bailiffs?’ she asked quickly. I nodded. ‘Into the coach.’ I dived in and pulled the door shut. Just in time. As I crouched on the floor panting I heard my pursuers come pounding around the corner, shoes ringing on the cobbles.

‘Look what the rogue’s done to my dress,’ shouted my rescuer, impersonating anger with a passion an actor would have been proud of.

‘Which way?’ was the terse response.

‘Towards St Paul’s.’ They ran on and she came to the window of the coach: ‘Stay there while I replace the dress you’ve ruined,’ she said before walking away with her maid to find a clothes shop. Seeing the way her lovely white breasts had bulged over the dress she held against them I had no objection at all to staying. At the same time I felt apprehensive. I had recalled who the coat of arms on the door belonged to. Lord Hunsdon, her majesty’s Lord Chamberlain, the man responsible for the performance of plays at court. The woman I was lusting for must be his mistress, Emelia Bassano. Heigh ho. If I did get my sinful way I wasn’t sure who I’d be most afraid of finding out. Lord Hunsdon or Elizabeth.

But first things first. Stretching out on a seat, I had a much needed rest. Turning over, I saw a piece of paper flutter to the floor. When I picked it up I found a hand written poem. Having a professional interest, I read it. I was sure it was not by his lordship. He was a bluff military man. Definitely not a soldier poet like Sidney or Raleigh. She had another admirer. It seemed an odd poem to write to your mistress. I read it aloud:

‘My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.

Coral is far more red than her lips red.

If snow be white why then…’

‘her breasts are dun.’ completed Emelia getting into the coach and sitting opposite me. She had sent her maid on an errand. ‘You read poetry, I see.’

‘I write it too,’ I replied with as careless an air as I could muster.

‘Ah, a poet. That fits with being chased by bailiffs. Poetry and poverty go together like sweetmeats and toothache. The one causes the other. So what do you write? Epics, epigrams, sonnets, satires? Not satires I hope or I shall be afraid of you.’

Any woman who looked less likely to be afraid of a poet or any other man I have yet to see. ‘I write plays,’ I replied casually.

‘Another playmaker. Should I have heard of you?’

‘Not yet, madam. But I think one day you will hear the name Thomas Dekker.’

‘So what do you think of my poet?’

‘Saying your eyes are nothing like the sun is not doing justice to them.’

‘Gaze into my eyes.’

‘I could gaze into them all day,’ I said looking deep into those lovely dark pools.’

‘Oh I wouldn’t like that, Tom – you don’t mind if I call you Tom? – I should soon become bored.’ She pointed to the window. ‘Now gaze into the sun and tell me which is the brightest.’ She patted the seat beside her and I leapt across with alacrity.

Breathing into my face she asked, ‘Is my breath like perfume, Tom?’

‘The very sweetest perfume,’ I murmured, wondering whether it was time to take her in my arms. She drew back laughing: ‘Oh, Tom. Try opening a perfumery and selling my bottled breath to fine ladies. You’d soon be bankrupt with a whole posse of bailiffs chasing you. You’ve seen roses, what do you think of the colour of my cheeks?’

‘Well the red and white do suggest…’

Taking my hand she rubbed it gently against her face and said, ‘You could say my smooth cheek is like the softness of the petals, but’ – pulling my hand beneath her chin – ‘where are the briars under them?’

‘Your tongue?’ I enquired dryly. She threw back her head and laughed: ‘Good, Tom. I liked that.’ She looked down at her bosom still showing a generous amount in the new gown: ‘My breasts are not as white as snow, but then…’ pressing my hand against them – ‘they’re warmer.’

I put my other arm around her shoulders and pulled her to me. She murmured in my ear, ‘My poet also says he’s never seen a goddess go and that I tread on the ground. Like a human being. And that’s what I am, Tom, a woman. Not an old man’s whore or a young man’s goddess but a human being just like you. And like a man I challenge the right to follow my desires.’ She kissed me full on the lips then called to the coachman to drive on and told me to pull down the blinds.

I’d heard of coaches being used for copulation, now I was experiencing it for myself. As I’d made a character in my (unacted, alas) comedy say, “Riding while riding.”

‘Slower,’ gasped Emelia. She was talking to me of course but really should have been telling the driver. It was hard to slow down when he was bouncing the coach over the cobblestones. Then a series of potholes jolted me to a climax.

We dressed in silence. She pulled up the blinds and ordered the driver to stop. Opening the door she hissed, ‘A woman’s entitled to satisfaction as much as a man.’ and gestured for me to leave. Watching the coach roll away, I thought of Phaeton who, trying to drive the chariot of the sun across the sky, had failed to control the mettlesome horses and been flung from the chariot down to earth. Then I cursed the Lord Mayor and the Council of London for the state of their roads.

Three

It was Sunday morning and I was sitting in the Cross Keys in Gracious Street. Elizabeth, skirt swinging, was bustling between the tables supervising the serving girls then springing up the stairs to check the guest rooms. As ever she was checking everything before leaving for church. She insisted on having most of Sunday off. The landlord, recognising her worth and anxious to keep her, had agreed.

I needed my beer. Today I was to meet the uncle and aunt Elizabeth was staying with in London. Then there was the vicar of St Olaves. He preached a long, long sermon. Some preachers can dramatise a sermon, make it as good as a play. You can smell the brimstone, hear the crackling hellfire and the shrieks of the sinners, feel their parched throats – I took a long swig of beer. Yes, some preachers can put heaven and hell in front of you. Well, at least hell. Not the Reverend Bracegirdle. He sounded like a schoolmaster interminably conjugating Latin verbs; or a long-winded lawyer pontificating on praemunires. Actually he does conjure up a kind of hell.

Elizabeth, guessing why I looked so glum, hissed as she passed, ‘It’s time you attended church or they’ll think you’re a catholic.’

True. And what was even more pertinent to my debt-ridden position was the threat of being fined for non-attendance. So it was St Olaves for me with Elizabeth and her uncle and aunt. I had another tankard of beer. They have a good full-bodied beer at the Cross Keys. And it felt good to be able to slap down my own money for it. My first earnings from the theatre.

After my escape from the bailiffs (yes and being ejected from the coach) I was ejected from my lodgings. A lot of ejections last Friday, including my own pot hole propelled one. With little money for rent, I was forced to move into the tenements of Coldharbour in Thames Street. Your neighbours there do not include any aldermen in red robes from the city’s Common Council. And you will not receive social visits from the Lord Mayor. (Private visits to Rosie upstairs, perhaps.) The previous addresses of my new neighbours included the Clink, the Fleet, the Marshallsea, Bridewell, Newgate and most of the other London prisons. And their visits are not social ones. So just enough money to keep me going. In beer, if not in board. Leastways not a board to which you could invite my lords Essex or Southampton. Always supposing you had their . . .