Crimson Rose (8 page)

On a table in the centre lay the body of Eleanor Merchant. Her cap and cowl had gone and her bodice had been ripped open in a frantic attempt to save her life. Somebody had closed her eyes, but her mouth was still open with the shock and impact of the musket ball that had hit her in the throat and blown her backwards off her seat.

‘Anybody know who she was?’ Thynne asked, peering at the gaping wound, almost black now with congealed blood.

‘Eleanor Merchant,’ Marlowe said.

‘My landlady.’ Shakespeare’s voice was almost inaudible.

Thynne’s head came up slowly. ‘Indeed?’ he murmured. ‘So you knew her well?’

‘Tolerably.’ Shakespeare shrugged.

‘Intimately?’ Thynne was watching the man closely.

‘I said “tolerably”,’ Shakespeare repeated, louder this time.

‘Yes.’ Thynne smiled coldly. ‘I heard what you said. Where’s the gun, Factotum?’

Thomas Sledd crossed the room and handed the arquebus to Thynne, who swapped it for his torch. He sniffed the lock, cocked it, reversed it in his hand and looked down the bore. ‘It was supposed to have been empty,’ Sledd said. ‘They all were.’

‘Who set the charge?’ Thynne asked.

‘I did,’ the stage manager told him.

‘When?’

Sledd was on his best behaviour, so he kept his voice level in the face of the endless questions rapped out by the High Constable. He owed it to Philip Henslowe not to annoy this man who could ruin him in the bat of an eye. ‘Half an hour, perhaps more … Before the play began, I know that. I don’t have time later.’

‘And when – in whatever play this was – did Master Shakespeare here kill this woman?’

Shakespeare raised a hand to protest, to have it knocked down again by Marlowe.

‘Act Five, Scene One,’ Marlowe explained.

‘In the real world.’ Thynne tried to be patient. ‘How long elapsed between the loading of the gun and the shooting?’

‘An hour and a half, perhaps a little more.’

‘Thank you. Now, that wasn’t too difficult, was it?’ The High Constable weighted the arquebus and brought the butt to the floor with a thud. ‘And who handled it in that hour and a half or a little more?’

‘Anyone could have,’ Marlowe said.

‘That’s right!’ Sledd clicked his fingers as he realized, his face oddly pale under the torch’s guttering light.

‘And did that “anyone” include you, Master Shakespeare?’ the High Constable asked.

‘Yes,’ the actor said.

‘Good enough. You will come with me. Consider yourself under arrest.’

‘On what charge?’ Marlowe asked.

Thynne frowned at him before taking his torch back from Sledd. He tucked the gun under his free arm. ‘I thought you told me you were a playwright,’ he said. ‘You work it out.’ He saw Shakespeare hesitating. ‘Now, you
are
going to come quietly, aren’t you, Master Shakespeare? I know my hands are full at the moment, but it’s surprising what a mess a flaming brand can make of a face. And like most of you vain bastards, I expect your face is your fortune, isn’t it?’ He peered closer at the pasty cheeks, the receding hair, the slightly petulant mouth. ‘Although possibly not so much in your particular case.’

‘I’ll come quietly,’ Shakespeare said sulkily. ‘I didn’t do anything. You can’t keep me locked up if I didn’t do anything.’

At least two men in that Tiring Room knew that wasn’t true, but neither of them was going to debate it. In High Constable Thynne’s world,
habeas corpus
was merely a serving suggestion.

‘Of course not,’ Thynne said, his voice flat. ‘We’ll let your friends know where you are when we have found a little corner for you somewhere.’ And he shepherded the actor in front of him with little prods of the gun barrel and passed through the Arras, leaving Marlowe and Sledd behind in the gloom.

After a moment or two, Thomas Sledd spoke. ‘Old Will, eh? That was a surprise.’

‘Yes,’ Marlowe said. ‘To Master Shakespeare as well as to you, Tom, I think. We have work to do, but we’ll let the dust settle a bit, first. All may yet be well.’ Although for the life of him, he couldn’t see how.

The sun filtering through the grimy window was weak, but even so it seemed to have a knack for lingering on every cobweb, every worn seat, every burn and ring on the oak table in the centre of the room. The chairs gathered around it were a motley bunch, some from great houses that had seen better days, others from alehouses where the owner was still trying to work out how the drinkers managed to steal things even when they were nailed down. The room seemed to be holding its breath. Despite overlooking Rose Alley the cries from below and the rumbling of wheels seemed muffled by atmosphere and the only sound that was noticeable to the man who sat slumped in the best chair in the house at the head of the table was the soft chink of coins in the round pot he rolled from hand to hand over the ridged wood in front of him. Occasionally he added a sigh to the mix, but generally the room just waited for the next Act.

Eventually, voices were heard below and then feet on the stairs. The door crashed back and suddenly the room seemed full of people, milling about, jostling to get the most comfortable chairs, of which there were precious few.

‘Good morning, Master Henslowe,’ said a large man, florid in the face and with his hair combed forward in careful curls, making every strand count. ‘Sad news that brings us here.’ He eyed the pots on the table and weighed one in his hand. ‘No refunds, then?’ He smiled round at the others, shuffling into position around the board. Some chuckled. Others looked mildly shocked. Only one face did not alter its expression: Nicholas Faunt had not risen to be Spymaster Walsingham’s right-hand man by wearing his heart on his cheek.

Henslowe waited, his chin supported on one weary hand. He had learned over the few years of his theatrical career that adopting a world-weary pose from the outset was always the best plan. There was no need to be too enthusiastic; the best of plays could let you down, he knew that better than anyone, and if the Master of the Revels woke up dyspeptic some morning, he could close you down just for the fun of it. Then again, the Plague could come calling and business could come to a dead stop. So he kept his thoughts to himself. Finally, all the shuffling and muted greetings from the men around the table subsided and he cleared his throat to speak.

‘As you must know, gentlemen, a very sad and shocking occurrence took place at the play yesterday afternoon. A member of the audience was shot and killed during the execution scene and a member of the cast has been taken by the High Constable to the Clink.’

‘A member of the cast?’ The florid man was aghast. ‘Not Ned Alleyn, surely?’

Murmurs ran round the table again. None of the men present had any grounding in theatre, but they all knew box-office gold when they saw it posturing before them.

‘No, no, Master Alleyn is not implicated,’ Henslowe said hurriedly – adding, in his head,
for once
. ‘It was Master Shaxsper – Shakespeare he calls himself now – from Stratford.’

‘A local man, then?’ someone checked.

‘Er … local? No. Stratford-on-Avon. It is …’ Henslowe waved a vague hand above his head. Money was his talent, not geography.

‘It is near to Oxford, gentlemen,’ Faunt supplied. He knew every corner of the realm; madmen intent on harm didn’t just come from London and it paid to keep your eyes everywhere. He looked at Henslowe. ‘I understood Master Shaxsper to be a playwright, Master Henslowe, not a player.’

‘You are very knowledgeable, Master … er …’ Henslowe looked at Faunt with an eyebrow raised, waiting for his name, but nothing came. ‘It is true that Master Shaxsper does … dabble. But we have Master Marlowe as our playwright here, and need no other.’

Faunt smiled his secret, closed smile and said nothing.

Henslowe began to feel he was losing his momentum. He cleared his throat and continued. ‘Master Shaxsper’s role was not large, so he can be replaced, but I wonder whether we might perhaps do best to cancel the performances. At least for a while.’ The men around the table were all looking at him aghast. At least one of them had made very big plans for the money which would pour in and several had spent it already.

The florid man was a pork butcher by trade, and money ran in his veins, alongside the lard. ‘We can’t close down Master Marlowe’s
Tamburlaine
just because some jade is dead!’ he cried. There were protests this time from every side. He blustered a little and some of his curls began to unravel. ‘You say this woman was shot. That’s not what I heard. I heard she was … well, shall we say she took on more than she could manage and she died of it.’

‘I heard she was stabbed,’ said a man from the bottom of the board. He was dried up, desiccated, and could only be a lawyer.

‘No, I heard what Walter here said, that she took a client while she was watching the play and she …’

Henslowe rapped on the table with the money box, which split and rolled its pennies across the table. The sight of the money collected their wits together again and they were quiet. ‘Gentlemen, please! I don’t care what you heard. I saw it and I know she was shot.’ He looked down for a moment to collect himself. He had seen some sights, God knew, but the mess the woman had been in was something he never wanted to see again. He swallowed hard, to force the bile back down his throat. ‘She was shot and Master Shakespeare’s gun seems to have been the guilty weapon. It was a sad event, brought about, as I understand it, because of some lovers’ tiff. So from that respect alone, it won’t happen again. We are also replacing the blank firing mechanism in the arquebuses in the execution scene with … Apparently the orchestra are coming up with something. I doubt it will be so effective, but … well, there are obvious advantages.’ He tried a wry smile. ‘But even so, we will not be putting on this play for at least …’

The dried-up lawyer licked his lips and spoke. His voice was as dry as he was, but he spoke for almost every man around the table and so they all listened. ‘You are closing the play down? Are you mad?’

‘Pardon?’ Henslowe was as keen for a penny as the next man, but there was a limit and he had reached it.

‘We could never buy publicity like this,’ the lawyer said. ‘Have the family been in touch? The dead woman’s, I mean.’

‘No. I understand Master Alleyn knows the sister …’

There was coarse laughter from the pork butcher’s direction. ‘Ned Alleyn knows everyone’s sister,’ he said.

Henslowe waited a second more for the man’s bulk to stop shaking, then continued: ‘Knows the sister of the deceased. He hasn’t managed to speak to her yet; apparently she is prostrated with grief at present.’

‘Well off?’ the lawyer asked.

Henslowe raised his hands. ‘I really don’t know,’ he said. ‘I understand that Mistress Merchant was a widow in comfortable circumstances. I can’t speak for her sister.’

Faunt leaned forward. ‘Shall I try and find out for you, Master Henslowe? I think what our friend Master Spenlove is getting at is – correct me if I am wrong – that we need to know what kind of payment Mistress Merchant’s family may require.’

‘Payment?’ The voice came from right next to Henslowe’s right elbow and made him jump. The man had sat there since the beginning and had hardly uttered a word. In fact, he had been so still that Henslowe had begun to wonder if he had dropped off to sleep. ‘Payment? Whatever for?’

Faunt blinked and exchanged startled glances with Henslowe. ‘Well, the woman is dead …’

All eyes turned to the man on Henslowe’s right. He was well dressed but not flashy, and sported a little beard which was years too young for him. He had been part of Henslowe’s little coterie of investors since the theatre had been built, but no one had heard him speak before.

‘She paid her money to come in, didn’t she? Just like all the others? She knew the risks. Paying to come in implies that there is no blame to be attached to the theatre whatever happens. Surely?’ He looked round for others to agree with him. Slowly, the heads around the table began to nod.

The lawyer coughed gently. ‘I think, Master Bancroft, that buying a ticket to a play does not imply that you expect to be shot,’ he said. ‘Although it is true the law is silent on this issue. Theatres are, after all, new, and the law is old.’

‘Look here, Spenlove.’ The pork butcher pointed down the table with a meaty finger. ‘Master Bancroft has a good point. She knew there are guns in this play. She took the risk when she bought her ticket.’

‘There is a slight complication, gentlemen,’ Henslowe said quietly.

‘What, another?’ spat Bancroft.

‘Mistress Merchant and her sister did not pay to come in …’

‘Aha!’ The pork butcher’s finger was in the air now. ‘That’s done them in then, as far as money from us goes. They crept in without paying.’

A weaselly man opposite the butcher piped up. He was one who had already spent his dividend and he felt his heart descend from his throat for the first time since he had heard of the shooting. ‘Can’t we sue her in Chancery, then?’ he said.

‘She
is
dead,’ Faunt said, reasonably.

‘Her estate, then?’ the weasel said. ‘For … distress. Loss of income.’

The nods were even more enthusiastic now, but Henslowe felt it incumbent upon him to ruin their relief. He usually went through as many somersaults as were needed to keep his investors happy, but he was not in the business of robbing orphans, even so. ‘There are two things that make that a really bad idea,’ he told the money men. ‘The first is that her estate comprises a house and some money which she has left to her small children and her young sister. All very vulnerable and the children about to be made wards of the courts, so that is unlikely to work. We will have the full weight of the law against us, begging your pardon, of course, Master Spenlove. And secondly, I have to tell you that they didn’t pay because they were in the audience as guests of Master Shakespeare.’

The silence that met that piece of news was absolute and the dust swirling in the weak sunbeams was the only thing moving in the room. As always, the pork butcher was the first to break the silence.

‘Bugger.’

‘Bugger indeed, Master Preston,’ Spenlove said. ‘Perhaps we can put aside talk of money and this … tragedy for the moment and concentrate on how we should proceed with whether this play goes on or not.’ There was something about the pause around the word ‘tragedy’ that made it hard to tell whether he was talking about his fellow investors or the woman stiff and stark in a coroner’s court.