The Lost Prophecies (33 page)

‘No,’ replied Michael. ‘But Shirford told me everything John said – that
he
found the book Drayton had hidden, engineered a dispute between King’s Hall and Peterhouse, poisoned Neuton, bludgeoned Roger and pretended that he had been attacked. He did it because he read the verses about kings and rocks and thought it was all foretold.’

‘He also decided he was the Hammer of the Unruly. It was all to impress the earl.’

‘But unfortunately for him, the wedding is off,’ said Michael with gleeful malice. ‘The earl sent word to say that he has other plans for his daughter now. I wonder what will become of John – I cannot imagine the earl wanting that sort of embarrassment roaming about freely.’

Bartholomew did not want to think about it. He had liked John and thought it a pity that two months of able proctoring had ended in two weeks of needless havoc. He also thought it rather pathetic that John had had such a low opinion of his own abilities that he had felt compelled to manufacture a situation in which he could be a hero.

‘
He
could not have stopped the fighting outside King’s Hall,’ he said, more to himself than to Michael. ‘It would never have occurred to him to compose bad poetry and tell lies about letters from the king. And even if it had, he would not have had the audacity to try it.’

Michael grinned. ‘I admit it was reckless, but I could see no other way to end the confrontation. Did I tell you the book is currently on its way to Westminster?’

Bartholomew stared at him. ‘Is it? I thought the king’s request was something you invented.’

‘It was, but then it occurred to me that it was a good way to get rid of the thing. The king is away, but the Prince of Wales has agreed to accept it in his stead.’

‘I hope he is not expecting a real book of prophecies,’ said Bartholomew uneasily. ‘Because if he is, he is going to be disappointed. It is just not possible to predict the future.’ He hesitated. ‘Except that I still cannot explain the reference to the traitor’s “sainted face”, which prompted me to consider John de St Philibert as the killer.’

‘Coincidence,’ said Michael with a shrug. ‘It is bound to happen over eight hundred years.’

‘It is a pity we did not solve Drayton’s murder, though. As long as his killer remains free, King’s Hall and Peterhouse will be suspicious of each other.’

‘But I have solved it,’ said Michael. ‘Did I not tell you? It was Shirford.’

Bartholomew was not sure whether to believe him. ‘Prove it.’

Michael began to count off points on fat fingers. ‘First, he knew that the book Drayton took with him to Peterhouse the night he was murdered was Aristotle’s
On Dreams
; we never made that detail public, so it was something only the killer could have known. Second, he made sure we knew Drayton was a reprehensible character whom no one mourned. Third, I do not believe he took the post as guardian in order to get a parish; I think he did it because he wanted to grab the book as soon as he could safely do so.’

Bartholomew remained sceptical. ‘Why? He is not ambitious.’

Michael smiled and handed him a piece of parchment. ‘And fourth, this arrived yesterday.’

Bartholomew read it quickly. ‘It is a royal writ, issuing a pardon for Shirford’s killing of Drayton. It is signed by the Prince of Wales.’ He regarded Michael with troubled eyes. ‘Who took the book to the prince in Westminster?’

‘Shirford, its faithful guardian. Who else? It seems to me that orders were issued from high places long before we knew of the existence of the Black Book of Brân. And these orders have allowed Shirford to get away with murder.’

HISTORICAL NOTE

Thomas de Shirford, priest and scholar at the University of Cambridge, really did kill William de Drayton in 1350 and was later pardoned for the crime at the behest of the Prince of Wales (the ‘Black Prince’). Shirford lived until at least 1387 and did well for himself, rising to the rank of archdeacon and Keeper of the Spiritualities at Norwich. We will never know why he killed Drayton, or why the prince should have ordered him pardoned.

William Bardolf, kin to Lord Thomas Bardolf, was admitted to King’s Hall in the 1380s, where he studied civil law. He went on to become a canon and prebend at York. Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s nephew was enrolled at Peterhouse. Wittleseye became an archbishop himself, and his will mentions a kinsman called Roger Neuton. Adam de la March was a University beadle in the mid-fourteenth century. Finally, John de St Philibert was indeed betrothed to Joan, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk. But the marriage never took place, and John disappears into the mists of history without further mention.

Ruler of two kingdoms, parleyment not humble,
Against great Rome do faithless spark.
He guides the means whereby their house doth crumble,
And fires the date henceforth will mark.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said to my friend Abel Glaze. ‘I didn’t even know he was alive.’

‘He’s not, it seems,’ said Abel, indicating the letter that lay open upon the table between us. ‘At least, he is not alive
and
well. Dying, rather.’

‘What I mean,’ I said, ‘is that I had no idea of my uncle’s existence until I got this letter. My father never mentioned he had a brother.’

‘You sound aggrieved, Nick.’

‘I don’t mean to. It’s come as rather a shock. How would you like it if you discovered you had uncles and aunts hidden away by a father who hadn’t bothered to—’

I stopped, noticing the look on Abel’s face and remembering that, quite apart from a lack of uncles and aunts, he possessed no memory at all of his mother and not much of his father. Abel Glaze had gone off to fight in the Dutch wars in the ’80s of the last century when he was scarcely out of boy’s clothing.

‘Anyway,’ said my friend, ‘what are you going to do about it?’

‘I’ll have to go, I suppose.’

‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I am going for a piss, Nick. Get us another while I’m gone.’

He stood up and threaded his way through the crowd of drinkers in the Knight of the Carpet. It wasn’t a particularly salubrious tavern but it was close to our workplace. Or our play-place, I should say perhaps, since both Abel and I were actors in the King’s Men. Our company was based at the Globe Theatre on the Southwark shore of the river.

I drained my tankard and beckoned to the potboy to bring me a couple more. While Abel was outside relieving himself in the stinking alley that ran between the Knight and the brothel next door, I picked up the letter from the tavern table, although I’d read it a dozen times. Once more I scanned the outside of the letter and its simple direction to ‘Nicholas Revill’ at ‘the Theatre, London’. And the mysteries started right here. For the person who had written it knew enough to be familiar with my name and the fact that I was employed in one of the London companies. What they didn’t know was that the Shoreditch playhouse which went by the name of the Theatre had been demolished a few years ago. Some of its timbers had actually been used to build the Globe. It’s possible, of course, that the letter-writer had assumed there was only one playhouse in London and simply called it the Theatre – but, if so, that showed the writer to be very ignorant indeed.

The letter reached me by chance after being delivered by the post rider to the Swan, a rivals’ house which lies a bit further along the river bank. Someone I knew there had been kind enough to walk the few hundred yards from his play-place to mine and give it to me in person. I’d received the letter that very morning and spent the rest of the day puzzling over it. Naturally, I wanted to share my puzzlement with my good friend Abel Glaze.

When I’d exhausted what I could learn from the outside of the letter – which wasn’t much – I turned again to its contents. Although apparently from an unknown uncle, it was written not by him but by his wife. The letter had come from a house in Shipston on Stour. My uncle, who was also called Nicholas Revill, was too ill to write but capable of dictating words to his wife, acting as a secretary. These facts were stated at the beginning.

In brief, the letter claimed that the sender was brother to John Revill, my father and the late priest of the parish of Miching in Somerset. The sender was aware that my father had perished with my mother in an outbreak of plague that struck the country around Miching some time in the final years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. Now Nicholas Revill too was dying and wished to see the nephew who was named after him. That’s what he claimed: that I was named after him.

I say the sender of the letter ‘claimed’ all this because the news of an uncle – to say nothing of a
dying
uncle – had come out of the blue. As I’d said to Abel Glaze, my father never once talked of a brother called Nicholas or any other member of the family living near Shipston on Stour or anywhere else. Nor could I remember my mother ever mentioning a brother-in-law.

But then my father wasn’t very forthcoming. In truth, he could be a fearsome man. He disapproved most strongly of the stage and all the players on it. If he was still alive, my choice of profession would probably have driven him to his grave all over again. As for my mother, she tended to follow her husband’s lead. When a topic displeased him, neither of them referred to it. And if my reverend father had never mentioned his brother, that might be explained by some falling-out in the family. A falling-out lasting several decades. That there could have been some ill feeling between the brothers was suggested by a reference in the letter to an ‘old estrangement’. The writer, Nicholas Revill’s wife, had some difficulty with the long word. She’d crossed it through and then written it exactly the same above.

There was no indication in the letter why I should visit my dying kinsman, but then the dying do not have to give reasons. I could sense my uncle’s frailty in the very shaky signature that was appended to this letter. More pressing than
his
dictated request, though, were two words scrawled beneath the signature. ‘Please come.’ She’d signed it with her own name: Margaret Revill. I visualized my aunt adding that last plea once she’d sanded the letter and taken it out of the sickroom.

At that moment Abel Glaze returned to the table. He wasn’t alone but accompanied by a new associate of ours, or an associate of Abel’s, I ought to say. Thomas Cloke was a fellow around our age or a little older. He was tall, with a large nose and dark hair that poked out from under his cap. My friend Abel was short, but he also had a prominent beak, and there was something about the way he walked, with a bit of a bounce, which was similar to Cloke’s confident stride. So seeing them together making their way across the Knight of the Carpet, you might have thought that one man was imitating the other. If you’d been asked, you would have said that Abel was copying Cloke.

When he caught sight of me at the corner table, Thomas Cloke did a mock bow. ‘Why, if it isn’t Master Revill, the master player.’

Straightening up, he snapped his fingers at the potboy who’d just delivered our refilled tankards to indicate that he’d like one of his own, and best be quick about it. Cloke had this peremptory manner. I knew little about him except that he came from a well-to-do family and that he didn’t seem to do much apart from being a keen attender at the Globe. He was one of those who hang around the taverns frequented by players in the hope that a bit of our magic will rub off on him.

Don’t laugh. There are more than a few individuals like Master Cloke, both male and female. Some of the males want to take up playing themselves. Indeed, I’d spent my first few months in London haunting inns like the Knight in the hope that some playhouse shareholder would discern my talent and offer me a job without my having to ask for one. (It didn’t work for me but you might be luckier.) Then there are other people who may not want to act on stage but whose tastes are so odd that they enjoy the company of actors. We don’t object to them. Especially we don’t object to the women who feel like that.

So now Thomas Cloke eased his gangling frame on to the bench next to me. He mimed a man gasping for breath, he uttered strange noises, and then let his face fall forward until it was grazing the dirty surface of the table. He squinted sideways at me.

‘You were very good, Nicholas.’

I managed to smile for an instant.

‘Tom is praising your death scene,’ said Abel helpfully. He settled himself on the opposite side of the table.

‘Not so sure about the living scenes, mind you,’ said Cloke. ‘But there was plenty of blood when you went.’

‘Only a sheep’s,’ I said, patting the spot on my chest where, on stage, I’d burst the little bladder of sheep’s blood which simulated violent death. I’d just done a turn as an assassin in a piece called
The Melancholy Man
. And as an assassin I’d naturally come to a gory end, giving off the kind of strangulated sounds that Cloke tried to imitate. Dying on stage is not as easy as one might think. Cloke did not do a convincing impression of a dying man.

Abel too had a part in
The Melancholy Man
. He played a corrupt cardinal. We’d finished the afternoon performance and changed in the tire-house, Abel taking off his cardinal’s red while I divested myself of the assassin’s black. We wiped most of the paint off our faces and repaired to the Knight for a tipple. Evidently, Tom Cloke had attended the performance as well.

‘What about me, then, Tom?’ said Abel. ‘No words of praise for me?’

‘Remind me who you were again, Mr Glaze,’ said Tom Cloke in his lordly fashion, taking a fresh tankard of ale from the returning potboy.

‘I played Cardinal Carnale,’ said Abel. ‘You know, the one who smears poison on to the Bible which he gives to his mistress to kiss – oh, I see—’

Tom Cloke was nodding at Abel to show that he knew perfectly well which part my friend had taken. He’d been joking. Or had he? I was surprised at the level stare that Cloke now directed at Abel, level enough to cause him to pause with his tankard halfway to his mouth.

‘I have no praise for your cardinal, no,’ said Cloke.

‘Ah, well, you can’t please ’em all.’