The Play's the Thing (The Chronicles of Christoval Alvarez Book 7) Read online

  ‘It seems the coroner has ruled that, since this was an unlawful killing, there must be a deodand.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A deodand. It is apparently the law that a fine equivalent to the value of the murder weapon must be paid to the Crown.’

  ‘But there was no murder weapon. Or at least, only the berries of belladonna, which have no monetary value.’

  ‘You and I might think that, but not the Crown. The glass in which the poison was administered is deemed to be the murder weapon.’

  ‘But–‘

  ‘Aye, it seems absurd, but there you are. That’s the law for you.’

  ‘Who is supposed to pay the fine?’

  ‘Normally, it would be the murderer, but as no one knows who the murderer was, the innkeeper, who supplied the glass, is deemed liable.’

  I began to laugh. It was indeed funny, but . . . ‘Poor man,’ I said. ‘They were very fine Venetian goblets. Two were smashed as Wandesford lay dying, and now he must pay for a third. What do you suppose they are worth?’

  ‘As you say, fine Venetian glass. Master Burbage reckons not less than three shillings each. A fortune.’

  ‘The Green Dragon will never want to set eyes on us again,’ I said.

  I saw very little of the players during the following week. I was not even able to attend the performance of Will’s new play concerning the struggles between Lancaster and York, which I had so laboriously copied out. The Dolesby family summoned me, and continued to summon me every day. This was a taste of what was involved in the care of rich private patients. For the poor at St Bartholomew’s or St Thomas’s, the physician is almost a god, someone with healing in his hands, who may end your pain or save your life. He is looked up to and respected. For the rich private patient, the physician is but a servant, of no higher position than the tailor or shoemaker or groom. He may be a professional man, but the patient is paying for his services, and expects to be able to summon him at will.

  Mistress Dolesby declared herself to be monstrously ill, but I soon discovered that she was suffering from no more than a summer cold. I suspect that she was one of those people who enjoy fancying themselves to be ill, for it adds drama to their dull lives. Then the children developed the same cold, but rather worse, with sore throats and headaches. At first Mistress Dolesby would not allow that anyone could be as ill as she was – a characteristic of these hypochondriacs – but when the youngest, four-year-old Jonathan, developed a fever, she became frantic. Twice I was summoned in the middle of the night, Master Dolesby having sent a servant over the river by wherry to fetch me. Dr Nuñez had warned me of some of the perils of private practice, but I had not quite believed that it was as tiresome as he suggested.

  Dosed with febrifuge herbs, given plenty of boiled barley water to drink, and a light diet to eat, the children soon recovered, at which point their mother experienced a relapse, no doubt occasioned by the unpleasant experience of not remaining the centre of attention. I am perhaps being cynical, but having been accustomed to the real and serious illnesses of my hospital patients, I had difficulty in taking her histrionics quite seriously. However, I was prepared to make sympathetic noises and to prescribe some harmless potions, such as a soothing drink tinted with beetroot juice to make it more dramatic for her. At the end of a week I was tired of the Dolesby family and fortunately a visit from her sister, who lived near Lincoln, gave the lady of the house something else to think about. The children had recovered fully and the lady herself was now occupied in setting her sister right on such matters as the latest fashions at Court.

  On the first day when my presence was not demanded in Goldsmiths’ Row, I allowed myself the unaccustomed luxury of rising late from my bed in the morning. The compensation for my frequent visits to Cheapside was additional coins in my purse, so while giving Rikki his morning walk I called in at a decent butcher who kept a clean shop next past the whorehouse and bought half a dozen slices of bacon. Rikki and I had just finished breaking our fast in a most satisfactory manner when Simon pounded on my door, this being the late hour at which the players were accustomed to rise.

  ‘Have you inherited a fortune from a rich benefactor?’ he said, coming in and sniffing like a deer hound on the trail of a promising quarry. He headed toward my fire, which was now dying out.

  ‘I have earned it,’ I said, ‘after a week of Mistress Dolesby.’

  He broke a piece off my loaf and used it to soak up the savoury juices from the pan on my hearth.

  ‘Alas, we poor players feed on nothing but the rich physician’s leavings.’

  ‘You have just eaten the last of Rikki’s breakfast,’ I said. ‘And this rich physician dined on nothing but scraps in the goldsmith’s kitchen last night, like a scullion, while the poor players must have eaten well at an inn.’ I was still feeling aggrieved at my treatment in the Dolesby household.

  ‘Aye, you have several dinners owing you from Master Burbage,’ he said. ‘I have a message for you. Your skills as a copyist are required, if you can be spared from the merchants of Cheapside. Our play book of Tom Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy has all but fallen to pieces. Master Burbage would be grateful if you could make a new book of it before it is lost altogether, and then copy out the separate players’ parts.’

  ‘Aye, I can come with you now. But why do you not take your plays to the printer, so they may not be lost for ever?’

  He stared at me as if I had taken leave of my senses.

  ‘Print them! Why then every fool of a would-be player could stumble through our plays and demand that an audience pay for the joy of it! We should give away our livelihood! Surely you understand that, Kit? Without our play books we are nothing but poor mumbling shadows, aping the substance of life.’

  ‘You are beginning to sound like Will,’ I said. ‘Too much poetising in your cups, I fear.’

  We set off for Shoreditch, bickering amiably as we went. Recently I had begun to think that I had imagined more to that farewell kiss at Wardhouse than was ever meant. If Simon had truly guessed that I was a girl, he had shown no further sign of it.

  ‘How went your second performance of Will’s new play?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps I shall have the chance to watch it one of these fine days.

  ‘It went well,’ he said, tossing a coin to a fruit seller on the Bridge and helping himself to an apple. ‘I enjoy playing the treacherous French dauphin, a part to tear a cat in. I’ll never make a comic like Guy, but it’s good to play a villain from time to time, especially one who is not entirely a blaggard. Will’s clever that way.’

  He took a bite of his apple.

  ‘First fruits. They must be picking Kentish apples early this year. Want a bite?’

  I took a bite and handed the apple back. It was fresh and juicy, unlike the final withered specimens from last year, which had been the only apples generally available this summer until now.

  ‘We must perform while we can,’ he said. ‘Pillings says a break in the weather is coming, and he’s a weatherwise fellow.’

  ‘It needs no Pillings to tell me that,’ I retorted. ‘Look at those clouds.’ I pointed up river, to the west. ‘Those are thunder clouds building.’

  ‘Then you’d best come to the Theatre the day after tomorrow, if you want to see Will’s new play before we are rained out.’

  ‘The Dolesbys permitting, I shall come,’ I promised.

  Only a few of the company had arrived at the playhouse before us. Guy was putting Davy through his acrobatic moves in the open space where the groundlings stood during a performance, while Christopher was sitting on the edge of the stage, kicking his heels.

  ‘Well met, Simon!’ he called. ‘We need to practice our sword play from Act Three. We finished too quickly last time. Our customers expect more thrills for their pennies.’

  ‘I will fetch a foil,’ Simon said.

  He headed for the room where the costumes and properties were kept, while I sought out Master Burbage in his office.

  ‘Ah, Kit,’
he said, ‘you come very timely.’

  He held out to me a bundle of paper, tied together with a bit of frayed ribbon. The edges were ragged and the top page looked as though several dripping ale cups had rested upon it at some time.

  ‘This has not been well treated,’ I said severely. ‘I thought these play books were your life blood.’

  ‘They are, indeed they are, but Tom Kyd is a careless fellow. Last time he took this away to make some changes I had asked for, it came back in that state. He had even lost six sheets from the middle of the second act. Fortunately he managed to find them again, mixed in with some epic poem he was trying to write.’

  His tone was scornful. Clearly he had no great opinion of the higher aspirations of poets. He wanted his play makers to be practical fellows, with an eye to writing what would please an audience. Will had once admitted to me that he often wrote short poems, but kept them well out of Master Burbage’s sight.

  ‘For fear,’ he said, ‘that he will suspect I am frittering away precious hours, when I might be making him a new play. But there you are, one cannot for ever be writing in five acts.’

  ‘Is this now the final version of The Spanish Tragedy?’ I asked. ‘Or will Master Kyd want to make more changes?’

  ‘Not if I can stop him,’ Master Burbage said grimly. ‘He will make no more changes except what I demand, and he will make them here, under my eye.’ He thumped his desk to make his point. ‘I’ll not risk him carrying it off to his lodgings again. Besides, he shares lodgings with Marlowe now, and Marlowe is writing for Henslowe. Kyd’s work for me might find its way into the Rose playhouse.’

  I could never quite understand the relationship between the two great playhouse managers, Burbage and Henslowe. Sometimes they were the best of friends, lending players to each other, bemoaning their lot over a jug of wine, and cursing the censorship of Sir Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels. At other times they were bitter rivals, not speaking to each other, doing their best to poach each other’s audiences.

  ‘When I have copied this out again, must it be signed off by Sir Edmund once more?’ I said. ‘Or since it was passed already–?’

  Master Burbage waved a hand in the air, as if he was swatting flies. ‘If we have any worries on that score, we will simply leave the original final page attached, with Sir Edmund’s signature. Now, there is plenty of paper in the book room. If you require anything else, ask Stoker to fetch it. He can make himself useful, if he wishes to remain with the company.’

  ‘He is not earning his keep?’ I said, gathering up the loose bundle of manuscript. I was little interested in Stoker, and liked him less.

  Burbage shrugged. ‘He is useful when we need to move properties and costumes, but he is no use for anything else.’

  ‘He hardly proved himself a competent copyist.’

  ‘He is even worse as a player. I have used him once or twice to bulk out a crowd, but even then he is as animated as a bedpost.’

  Stoker was hanging about the door to the book room, offering to fetch anything I required, but I told him somewhat curtly that I required nothing. I thought that I caught a venomous look in his eyes, but it was no more than a flash, then his eyelids dropped modestly. It was understandable, I suppose, that he should resent me, employed in the post he had hoped to occupy himself.

  I opened the window shutters to throw some light on my work, and left the door of the room wide, for it was small and stuffy, hardly more than a cupboard. Once I had trimmed several quills, I began my copying, accompanied by the clash of rapiers from where Simon and Christopher were practising their swordplay on stage. Kyd’s writing was vile, even worse than Will’s hasty scrawl, so I made slow progress at first. After a few minutes I looked up to see that Stoker had sidled up behind me and was peering over my shoulder. He was reading the manuscript, for I could hear him faintly speaking the lines, though with poor understanding or expression. Master Burbage’s mention of the bedpost seemed apt.

  ‘Do you want something, Stoker?’ I said. ‘Only I find it unpleasant to have someone reading over my shoulder.’

  ‘I could help you, he said, employing that ingratiating manner which I had noticed before. ‘If I read the lines out to you, then you could work more quickly.’

  ‘I think not,’ I said. ‘I need to see how the lines are laid out on the page.’ I wished the man would go away. I could even feel his hot breath on the back of my neck, and he was not overly clean.

  At last, by speaking quite rudely, I managed to rid myself of him. I was not sure whether he was still attempting to lay some claim to the copyist’s work, or whether he was merely a frustrated player. Whatever the reason, I was thankful when at last he took himself off.

  Perhaps he did still hope to become a player, for while I continued at my work all through the afternoon, the stage was occupied by a performance of another of Will’s plays, the one with all the foolery about twins and mistaken identity. The audience loved it. Even from where I sat I could hear the laughter and applause, which distracted me, I must confess, from my copying. I noticed, moreover, that Stoker stayed just within the tiring room, where he could not be seen by the audience or the players. All the while, he mouthed the lines along with whichever player was speaking. He seemed to be memorising all their parts. A futile exercise, it seemed to me, for clearly Master Burbage would never employ him as a player.

  After the performance, there was a short rehearsal of Friar Bungay, a limping old comedy the players despised, but which Master Burbage insisted on mounting regularly, since it was perennially popular with the less cultured of his customers. While the weather held, he was filling the Theatre as often as he could.

  Over dinner that evening – in the Black Bull this time, for a change of scene – I asked whether there had been anything further in the matter of Master Wandesford’s death, since the day of the inquest.

  ‘We have had the coroner’s sergeants round at the playhouse several times,’ Guy said, ‘asking more questions, trying to discover whether his death benefitted anyone. It seems as inexplicable as ever. He had made a will, but he had few goods – his clothes, a few books. No money was found in his room.’

  ‘But Will said he thought someone had searched his room,’ I said.

  ‘I cannot be certain,’ Will said, ‘but his landlady thought his belongings were thrown about when they were usually neat, and his working papers had gone. Perhaps the intruder thought they were valuable. He may have taken any coin lying around.’

  ‘If Master Wandesford made a will, what could he bequeath?’ I said.

  ‘His possessions are to be sold, by his directions,’ Guy said. ‘His clothes are worth little, but the books will fetch something. However, there are no named beneficiaries. The money from the sale of his goods is to be given to an almshouse in some small town in Yorkshire. His birthplace, perhaps. It seems I was right in my guess that he came from those parts.’

  ‘So no single person would benefit from his death,’ I said slowly. ‘It is hardly likely that the paupers from a Yorkshire almshouse travelled to London to poison him. The whole case becomes stranger by the day.’

  ‘Perhaps it was a mistake,’ Christopher suggested. ‘Someone took Master Wandesford for another man.’

  Will shook his head. ‘That will not do. As Kit has shown, the final dose of poison was given to him during the dinner. Everyone there knew him.’

  ‘Except the servants,’ Christopher said. ‘And Lord Hunsdon and his mistress.’

  ‘But they could not have administered the earlier dose,’ I said. ‘He had certainly ingested some belladonna before that evening.’

  Everyone around the table was looking uncomfortable, for the inescapable conclusion was that the killer must be sitting amongst us. I wished that I had not started the subject. I turned to Master Burbage.

  ‘I am sorry I was not able to attend the funeral, but I was called away to a patient.’

  ‘Far more attended than we had expected,’ he said. ‘Most of the pla
yers of London must have been there.’

  ‘One of our own,’ Guy said. ‘Not a player himself, but still one of our own. And though a quiet, self-effacing man, he was well liked and respected. Without his work, hidden and unseen, we could not have brought our plays to the stage.’

  It was a fitting tribute, although I thought that Wandesford’s name would soon vanish into the dust.

  The Dolesby family must be in good health, or else the sister from Lincolnshire was keeping them occupied, for I was no longer receiving a daily summons and was able to continue my copying work at the Theatre. I was glad of it, for it meant a small but steady income and one good meal a day, with scraps for Rikki, who had developed a look of hungry patience which went down well with the players. They could recognise a good performance when they saw one. And as well, I enjoyed the companionship, a welcome change from moping alone in my lodgings, thinking how my skills and training were being wasted. From time to time I had heard gossip from Tom Read about the discontent at St Thomas’s with the work of my successor, who was reckoned a poor physician and an arrogant fellow. I was not tempted to find any pleasure in this, for I grieved for my Southwark patients.

  At the playhouse I felt myself amongst friends, and although I was there to perform lowly clerical tasks, I also found that I was learning more about this world which was so different from my own. A curious variety of men and boys washed up at the playhouse. Some came because they cared passionately about the work, like Simon and Will. Some were born into it, like Master Burbage’s two sons, Cuthbert and Dick, although their two interests were very different. Some found in the playhouse an outlet for talents learned elsewhere, like Guy with his music and comic turns and young Davy, discovered as a toddler in a ditch and exploited by travelling vagabonds. Some, like a number of the boys, had been found a place here because their families could not buy them an apprenticeship but they could pass well enough in women’s parts until their voices broke. I was not quite sure about Christopher Haigh. He worked hard enough, but I felt that if something better offered, he would be away.