The Tainted Relic (48 page)

‘I want you to recover what one might call a–ah–relic,’ said the playwright.

‘A relic?’

‘I shall explain.’

And so he did, as we paced slowly in the direction of the Goat and Monkey alehouse.

It turned out that in his very early days in London, William Shakespeare had penned a journeyman drama about Domitian, one of the mad emperors of the Romans. Not liking the work–which was packed with rape and dismembered limbs and written in three days to catch a public fashion for sensational drama–he’d put it to one side and forgotten about it.

‘Don’t mistake me, Nick,’ said WS. ‘It wasn’t the subject matter of my
Domitian
which I rejected. Shortly afterwards I wrote a thing called
Titus Andronicus
. That had more than its fair share of horrors and was accounted a success.’

‘I’ve heard of
Titus
,’ I said.

‘It was simply that the piece about Domitian was rough in the wrong way. Crude, crude…I should have destroyed it there and then. Put it in the fire. Sometimes flame is the author’s best friend. But I didn’t destroy it. And at some point in my shift from one set of lodgings to another,
Domitian
went missing. I don’t suppose I’ve thought of it more than twice in the last fifteen years. You see why I call it a relic of my early days. Now I hear that a book vendor has somehow acquired my foul papers.’

(Don’t get the wrong idea about ‘foul papers’, by the way. This is simply the earliest stage of the writer’s finished composition before the material is sent to a scrivener to make fair copies. As the expression suggests, a foul paper is likely to be full of blotches and crossings-out.)

‘Are you sure that it’s in the hands of this book dealer?’ I said. ‘After all, if you haven’t seen it for the past fifteen years…’

‘I have it on good authority,’ said WS. ‘Yes, I’m sure he has my
Domitian
.’

‘I suppose he’s going to sell it,’ I said.

‘Sell it to you, I hope,’ said WS, quickly adding, ‘I want you to buy it, Nick. I don’t want this thing falling into the wrong hands, one of our rival companies, for example, like Henslowe’s. Hatch would go a long way to embarrass me.’

‘Hatch?’

‘This book vendor rejoices in the name of Ulysses Hatch. For the most part he’s a dealer in scurrilous ballads and scald rhymes rather than books. In fact, he will trade in anything that turns a profit. A long time ago he and I had a falling-out over…something. Even after all these years he wouldn’t miss an opportunity to get back at me.’

I didn’t ask WS why this oddly named gent wanted to get back at him. Instead I said, ‘Does it matter if this piece of yours is sold elsewhere? After all, you have such a reputation…’

An eavesdropper might have thought that I was flattering Shakespeare but I was speaking no more than the truth. Nor did he waste our time with false modesty. ‘Yes, I have a reputation now,’ he said, ‘yet I might be struck down tomorrow. No man can see the future. I would be unhappy if I knew that a ragged piece about a mad emperor was resurrected after my death to be staged and laughed at–for the wrong reasons. It was journeyman work, I tell you. Would you like to be remembered for your earliest, halting attempts to speak verse on the stage?’

‘Well, no, I wouldn’t…’

I was about to say that there was no comparison between an obscure actor and the most famous playwright in London. But I stayed silent, slightly surprised–but also touched–that even so notable a man as WS should be concerned about his posthumous reputation. Until quite recently, he’d been seemingly indifferent, and given to statements such as ‘Let them sort it out after we are all dead’. Maybe it was age which was causing him to change his tune.

By this time we’d arrived at the Goat and Monkey. Absorbed in listening to Shakespeare’s story I’d almost forgotten my thirst. But not quite. We paused by the door of the alehouse.

‘I cannot go and see Master Ulysses Hatch myself,’ said WS. ‘We know each other too well, fat Hatch and I. He would most likely refuse to sell it to me out of sheer spite.’

‘But the foul papers are yours,’ I said. ‘You never sold them but mislaid them.’

‘Proving title to a piece is very difficult,’ said WS. ‘He could claim to have come by them honestly, and for all I know he did. Bought them from a landlord perhaps.’

‘What about sending one of the shareholders?’ I said, instinctively reluctant to undertake this task.

‘He would recognize any of my fellows. He is familiar with the stage world.’

‘But he wouldn’t recognize an obscure player?’

‘Obscure? Do not say so. Bitterness isn’t in your repertoire, Nick, for all that you’re a good player. One day, perhaps, a fine player.’

‘Then why me?’ I said. ‘Why are you asking me to recover your old play?’

‘Because you are a straightforward person,’ said WS. ‘No one will suspect you of double dealing.’

In another man one might have suspected flattery, but with WS I chose not to. Instead I strove to hide my smile in the glaring sun of early evening and, almost before I knew it, agreed to visit St Bartholomew’s Fair the following morning. Agreed to track down Ulysses Hatch and, without revealing who had sent me, to obtain the foul-paper manuscript of a play entitled
Domitian
, if it was in his possession. WS authorized me to offer up to to five pounds for the play. This was a hefty price and, if questioned, I was to insinuate that I was a member of a rival company to the King’s Men–one of Henslowe’s men, say–interested in getting hold of an early work by the tyro Shakespeare.

So it was that on this fine morning I found myself at St Bartholomew’s Fair with Jack Wilson and Abel Glaze. I’d met my friends in the Goat and Monkey the previous evening and outlined Shakespeare’s request. I’d no hesitation in doing this since WS himself had suggested I might take some company to give ‘colour’ to the enterprise, as he put it. He gave no other instructions on how to go about getting hold of his
Domitian
foul papers, merely leaving it to my ‘discretion’ and ‘good sense’. Perhaps he was a flatterer after all.

The three of us threaded among the crowds and between the confectioners and horse dealers, the barbers and the pin-makers. At one point Abel said, ‘Isn’t that Tom Gally?’

Crossing the path ahead of us was an individual with unkempt black hair. The man certainly looked like Gally, who acted as a kind of unofficial agent for Philip Henslowe, the owner and promoter of playhouses, bear pits and much else besides. I knew Tom Gally and distrusted him. His long, soft hair was reminiscent of a sheep’s fleece but there was a wolf beneath. I wondered what was his business at St Bartholomew’s Fair and whether he was after the
Domitian
foul papers too.

We came to a relatively quiet little quarter of the fairground, one given over to the vendors of books and pamphlets and printed ballads. We weren’t long in finding our objective. Among the stalls was a more elaborate yellow-and-white-striped tent with its flaps folded back on one side. Hanging from a crossbar above a trestle table scattered with sheets and tatty volumes was a sign announcing the presence of
Ulysses Hatch, Publisher
. Many booksellers are also publishers and prefer to advertise themselves as such. There was no one to be seen at the mouth of the tent.

Like the browsers we were, we idly cast our eyes over Master Hatch’s wares on the table-top. I glanced into the interior of the tent. The sunlight made it difficult to see much of the inside. In any case, there was a curtain slung near the entrance which shielded the interior. The curtain quivered and I had the feeling that we were being observed, probably through some small slit or spyhole. Confirmation that the tent was occupied came from indistinct sounds of talking within.

‘This seller seems to specialize in cony-catching and thief detection,’ said Abel Glaze, picking up a handful of the pamphlets. They were headed by titles such as
A Manifest Detection of Dice-play
or
A Notable Discovery of Cozenage
, this latter adorned with a picture of a rabbit or cony holding up a playing card in each paw.

‘Not altogether,’ said Jack Wilson, pointing to a pile whose topmost title read
The Quickest Way to Heaven
. ‘This should be more up Nick’s street, eh?’

Jack was in the habit of pretending that, since I was a parson’s son, I must have devout tastes. I ignored him and picked up a volume I recognized. It was by a playwright I’d once known, a man called Richard Milford, and this was a piece of his entitled
The World’s Diseas’d
, a play that was performed and published posthumously, as it happened. I knew it well, for I had played the character of Vindice the revenger. Now this book, which couldn’t have been more than three or four years old, looked forlorn and dusty in the summer sun. I already owned a copy but, if I hadn’t, I might have bought it for the sake of Milford’s memory. I hefted the book in my hand. Who else would remember him in a few years’ time? Before I could start on a melancholy train of thought about memory and reputation (the thing that William Shakespeare was so concerned with), my attention was caught by a definite stirring behind the curtain in the tent’s interior.

A man came out from the shadows. If anyone, I expected it to be Ulysses Hatch, proprietor, publisher and bookseller. I’d never seen him before and knew nothing about him, except that he’d once had a falling-out with WS and that he was fat. But the individual who came into the space by the mouth of the tent was small and slight. Furthermore I did recognize him. So did Abel and Jack, for it was the nip or cutpurse who’d been standing near Ben Nightingale the ballad singer. Peter Perkin was still wearing his rustic hat with the tickling straws. With the merest glance at us and the tiniest inclination of his head, he edged round the trestle table and walked off into the crowd.

I was surprised to encounter him. What was
he
doing inside a bookseller’s tent? The last we’d seen of this gent, only a few minutes earlier, he’d been in pursuit of a couple of the more prosperous-looking members of Nightingale’s audience. True, he might have carried out a fistful of thefts in that time (nips can be as quick as lightning), but surely his place was at the ballad singer’s heels, prospecting for new victims? Abel and Jack and I looked at each other, queries on our faces. I put down the volume I was holding.

‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’

Distracted by the appearance of the cutpurse, we hadn’t noticed another man emerging from the tent. He stood behind the table. Or rather he leaned against it, his belly flopping on to the surface as though it was a further object for sale. Ulysses Hatch was one of the fattest men I’d ever seen. Just as the pig’s head on a stake had reminded me of the traitors’ heads on London Bridge, so now Hatch’s visage reminded me of the pig’s. His cheeks bulged, his chin drooped and his eyes were small and reddened. There was a fringe of white hair round his head like a garland of dirty snow. He breathed heavily and there was sweat on his brow as though he’d been running to get to his present position behind the trestle table.

‘Only looking,’ said Jack.

‘I’ve got something stronger back there,’ said the pig-faced seller, peering at the three of us and indicating the inside of the tent with a plump hand. ‘Spicier wares.
The Widow’s Solace
, you know the ballad? Or
Venus Pleasure
? It tells you what Mars did with Venus. There are pictures with that one. I publish them myself so quality is guaranteed.’

We all shrugged or grimaced as if to say ‘no thanks’, but I suspect that if any of us had been by himself he might have permitted the bookseller to show off some of his spicier wares. From the sounds of conversation emanating from the tent, there were others already in there.

‘Shut your gob!’

I started. The voice came from the tent. Ulysses Hatch smiled and jerked his head.

‘Hark at him,’ he said, then, seeing my expression, added ‘Don’t worry, sir. That wasn’t directed at you.’

As if to prove his words, a woman’s voice said something in altercation only to be answered with another ‘Shut your gob!’ in the same tone as before.

Jack was perusing a pamphlet called
Kemp’s Nine Days’ Wonder
. On the front was a picture of a dancing man in motley, with a drummer in the background. Like
The World’s Diseas’d
, this item I was also familiar with, since Will Kemp had been a clown in the Chamberlain’s Men, though before my time. Kemp’s career had dwindled after he’d quit the company, and his most notable feat had been to jig all the way from London to Norwich in nine days. Afterwards he wrote an account of his journey.

‘Ah, Will Kemp,’ said Ulysses Hatch. ‘Those were the glory days. He was a man of rare parts.’

Now, I’m pretty sure that Jack Wilson had known Kemp personally, since he’d been playing onstage longer than either of us. And indeed, both Abel Glaze and I had met the clown once when he was retired, and sick and listless in lodgings in Dow-gate. Nevertheless, our faces gave nothing away. For some reason, we were all on our guard.

‘They were fools to replace Kemp with Bob Armin,’ said Hatch.

Robert Armin was the current clown of the company and
they
were the King’s Men–us, or the shareholders to be precise. I had the sense that this fat man was probing us, testing us. Certainly he was familiar with the big names of the playing companies. None of us responded to his comment about the clowns.

‘Now our stage grows refined,’ continued the bookseller. ‘Audiences want a roof over their heads and carriages to convey them to the playhouse. They want polite clowns. They want cushions under their bums.’

‘You’re in the right there,’ said Abel.

‘You gentlemen are connected to the theatre, then?’ said Hatch, shifting his piggy head from side to side.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ I said.

‘And what manner might that be?’

I shrugged. This wasn’t going how I’d planned it. Or rather I hadn’t planned anything, relying instead on the ‘discretion’ and ‘good sense’ that WS had credited me with. He’d also called me ‘straightforward’, so now I decided that an honest approach might be best. Nevertheless, I paused before I spoke and glanced around. The business and pleasure of Bartholomew Fair trickled past us, rather sluggish in this backwater. No one was paying attention to three men standing at the door of a bookseller’s tent. If anyone had noticed us, they’d most likely assume we were in search of Hatch’s spicy wares.