Death of Kings Read online

  Sure enough.

  “Master Nicholas Revill, of the Chamberlain’s Men?”

  “Yes, sir, now of the Chamberlain’s. I have this very evening been at rehearsal with them.”

  “I know,” said the man.

  “We are rehearsing to play before the Queen.”

  “That I know too.”

  Evidently not a man who was easily impressed.

  It was only a matter of weeks since my place in the Company of Masters Shakespeare and Burbage had been confirmed. I was still inordinately proud at securing a position with London’s leading players. Dammit, any young man who has dreamed of a life in the playhouse ever since he was knee-high to a pew-step, to be precise from the moment when as a child I had first heard my parson-father thundering against plays, players and playhouses from the stage of his own pulpit – any youngster, I say, would have struggled to keep his pride within bounds when invited to join our capital’s crowning glory, the Globe theatre.

  “Have you seen us?” I said. “Have you watched the Chamberlain’s?” It’s strange how, in my eagerness to talk about my craft, I mislaid any sense of the danger I might be in, to say nothing of the insult of being lifted from the street and carried off who-knew-where. Or perhaps it was not eagerness but a player’s necessary vanity.

  “I have little time for the playhouse . . .” he began.

  He was a puritan, then, or one of those disapproving city folk who believe that playing is the root of all evil, as well as being bad for business (because it encourages the apprentices to play truant and the common people to spend their pennies on dreams instead of worldly goods). And yet he did not look or sound like a puritan or a priggish cit.

  “But I make an exception for the Chamberlain’s Men.”

  “I am pleased to hear it, sir.”

  “Your Cowley, your Pope and Gough. Let me see . . . Tawyer, Sincklo and Jack Wilson too. Then there’s Rice and Tyler. Fine players all. And now we must add Master Nicholas Revill to this catalogue of men.”

  Delighted as I was that this stranger showed such a fine awareness of our Company, I couldn’t help wondering why he needed to know these things. It did not escape me, either, that the players he had just listed were by no means the best known or the most distinguished in the Chamberlain’s – no mention of Augustine Phillips or Armin the clown or the Burbages or Master WS himself. These latter would be the only names familiar to most attenders of our little entertainments.

  I grew uneasy again.

  “You are asking yourself where all this leads?”

  “Why you had me snatched from the street while I was going about my lawful business.”

  “Lawful business, indeed,” he echoed in a way that suggested he doubted whether I wasn’t the one at fault, and I grew uneasier still. “I must apologise for the way in which you were conveyed here. But there is no need for you to know where you are, precisely where you are, in the metropolis. In fact it is very much to my advantage—”

  Sensing that I was about to interrupt, he opened, palm downward, one of the hands that still perched beneath his chin.

  “—and even more than it is to my advantage, I should say it is very much for your safety’s sake that you are, and remain, in ignorance of your whereabouts.”

  “So that when I leave I shall again be blindfolded, and so on?”

  “I fear so. But if your question, Master Revill, is intended to establish that you shall leave in due course, then be assured that you will.”

  I made some deprecatory gesture, as if such a fear had never crossed my mind. His large, candid gaze rested on me.

  “Not a hair on your head shall be touched. You are much too valuable to us.”

  “A poor player?” I said, thinking of the other man’s comment in the street.

  “Would you help yourself – and me – to some wine? There is a flask on that cupboard by the wall.”

  I did as he directed, noting that he had turned aside the ‘poor player’ remark. Even in the few moments occupied by my pouring the wine, he had returned to his paper-work so that I stood uncertainly above him while he scrawled a few words in the margin of a sheet close-written in another’s hand. There was something strange about him, hunched over his work, but I could not quite put my finger on it. Then he gazed up and motioned for me to put down the glass which I held for him, all the time smiling with a candour that had me, helplessly, smiling in return.

  When I’d resumed my chair, he said, “Master Revill, you are a loyal Englishman?”

  “I hope I have it in me to love my country.”

  “And our sovereign lady, the Queen?”

  “You hardly need to make that a question.”

  “But I do. Oblige me with an answer.”

  “She deserves respect and reverence, sir. I would not dare to talk about love . . .”

  “She is lovable too, provided one be wary about it.”

  In another man I might have suspected that this had been said to establish a personal connection with the sovereign, yet I did not think the man opposite me was seeking to elevate himself through great associations. His comment, rather, had the air of a thrown-off observation, made half to himself. No wonder he hadn’t been impressed by my saying that the Chamberlain’s had just been rehearsing for a royal performance.

  “Like most of our countrymen I have known no other monarch,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, “you’d have to be in your fifth decade to have even a child’s memory of her father.”

  I wondered whether he remembered Henry VIII. The man at the other side of the table seemed ageless – or rather he was like what I had once read of the Roman emperor Justinian, that no man could recall his ever having been young.

  “While she herself is now in her seventh decade,” he pursued.

  Talking of the Queen’s age was, somehow, disrespectful and I wished he would come to the business in hand, whatever it was.

  “I find it hard to conceive that another could reign over us as she does,” I said, meaning a diplomatic compliment.

  “Then you are like the rest of our countrymen in that too.”

  “How so?”

  “Unhappy.”

  “Unhappy?”

  “In having to think of another occupying her place on the throne of England.”

  “I – I suppose so.”

  “Yet it is something that we must think of. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t consider what will happen next, who will come afterwards.”

  “No,” I said.

  These were dark waters and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to set sail on them.

  “Come, Master Revill, let us speak more plain,” he said, sipping at his glass. “The Queen must die.”

  “Sir, I must respectfully ask you to let me go. I did not come here of my own free will. I never asked to be brought to this place. I have no desire to listen to treason.”

  “So it is treason to claim that an old woman will die?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “You think that I am trying to inveigle you into some trap.”

  “No, though . . .”

  I did, and I did not. I didn’t know what I thought.

  “Nicholas, Nicholas, princes are as mortal as the rest of us,” said the man on the far side of the table. In everything, he used a tone of sweet reason. “We know better than to believe with the Romans or the Egyptians that our rulers are gods. Our own sovereign would be the first to cry blasphemy if we did. She is nearly as pious as my own mother.”

  “Well then . . .” I said, for the sake of saying something.

  “If I could extend our Queen’s life by a year – or even a month – by giving her a year of mine in exchange, I truly believe that I would.”

  “Why am I here?” I said, tiring suddenly of this dangerous fiddle-faddle.

  “When a king nears to the end of his reign there is fear among the populace. This is so even in the best run realms, the most orderly states. How much more do men have cause to
fear when the king – or the queen – has no issue. We can’t see our way clear to the future if we do not know who is to rule over us. You follow me?”

  “I do not know where you are headed.”

  “You will soon, Nicholas. I am leading you to no place of treason or disloyalty, be assured of that. As I say, doubt over the succession breeds alarm and despondency. This is natural. With some it does more. They begin to think that it is their business to fill the vacuum which will be left at the top. Not just their business but their right and their duty.”

  “These are matters far above my head, sir.”

  “There is a certain great gentleman of this city who has recently returned from Ireland,” he said, then paused. “You know who I mean?”

  “It is the – the – Earl of Essex.”

  He tapped his forefinger against his lips. “Good. I wanted you to name him for yourself. He returned from Ireland helter-skelter, thinking to save our Queen.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Don’t play ignorant. All of London knows his offences, and half the country besides.”

  True enough. Essex had been sent to that troublesome island (or had badgered the Queen and Council that he should be sent) to deal once and for all with the rebel Tyrone. I had actually seen him as he paraded through the streets with his commanders on his way northwards to embark for Ireland. The air was full of success. Victory was inevitable. But victory proved elusive. Even the expected pitched battle never took place . . . rather a meeting of the two leaders, by a river, alone . . . and rumours of an ‘understanding’ between Tyrone and Essex. Following which, this great gentleman conceived the idea that the Council was plotting against him and his Queen. Accordingly, he raced back to see her at her palace at Nonesuch.

  “For which he was arrested and tried on a charge of treason,” I said.

  “And in her great mercy, our sovereign lady did not demand the extreme forfeit. You see, Nicholas, you are as familiar with the story as any citizen.”

  He paused and rose from the table and made his way to the cupboard against the wall to refill his glass. My drink was almost untouched. When he got up his flickering shadow seemed to swell on the plastered wall and I saw that he was a hunchback. I realised then who he was, and a great gust of fear swept across my soul. I think he understood that I had grasped his identity because he gave me time, after he’d resumed his place, to compose myself. But my hands trembled and my mouth seemed filled with sand.

  “Some men are not apt for mercy,” he continued. “It merely provokes them to greater disobedience. This noble gentleman we are talking of, for example. His sovereign forgave him for his disobedience, his importunacy, etc. All he had to do was to utter an appropriate declaration, to bind himself by a soothing promise, and he would have been allowed to retire to the country to meditate on the Queen’s goodness. He should have struggled to bring himself within the pale. But he chose not to. We have one here who prefers to command an army rather than to command himself.”

  I nodded. Some strangled noise emerged from my throat. I was still too nervous to speak.

  “Come, Nicholas. We are on the same side, you and I.”

  “Yes, Master Secretary,” I managed through a tightened gorge and a sand-filled mouth.

  Sir Robert Cecil, Secretary to the Council, smiled in a pleasant but slightly disdainful manner, as if he were complimenting a not overbright boy on cracking a not particularly difficult riddle.

  “Now you know who I am you can surely understand why it is better that you don’t know precisely where you are. This is one of several secure places that we use when we wish to conduct business away from the Argus eyes of the Court. So our guests are usually brought here as if they were playing at hoodman-blind. Ignorance is safety.”

  “I may not know where I am, but I can’t be any use to you if I remain in ignorance about why I am . . . wherever I am,” I said, neglecting in my urgency to be frightened of this great and powerful man. “Why have you brought me here? I am altogether in a mist.”

  “Well. Let me clear a little of it. I want you, Master Revill, to do some work for your Queen and your country. To the quick of the matter. I have information that, within the next couple of days, the Chamberlain’s Men will be approached to put on a performance of a play.”

  “Saving your reverence, there is nothing special in that.”

  “There will be about this performance. Your Company will soon be requested to stage Master William Shakespeare’s Richard II.”

  Ah, Richard II.

  I began to see through the mist that surrounded me not so much a glimmer of light as a darker shape forming.

  “You are familiar with the play?”

  “It is a fusty piece, not often performed,” I said.

  “With good reason. It deals with the death of kings. It ends with the deposition of the lawful Richard and the triumph of the usurper Henry Bolingbroke. Anybody must see that a presentation of this play now, at this moment, would be—”

  “—a nice question,” I interrupted, forgetting myself.

  “—a dangerous proceeding, I was going to say. But I am glad that you have such a quick apprehension, Nicholas. Yes, dangerous to all, players and spectators alike. To stage this Richard now is to bring fire and powder together.”

  “Only a play,” I said.

  “One spark is enough,” said Sir Robert Cecil. “A fool may fire a forest. Why, you know that he wears a secret note in a little black bag tied round his neck.”

  “Who, sir?”

  “Essex. He wears a note from James of Scotland about his neck and shows it to his intimates. He thinks his treason to be so fine that it must be displayed not once but again and again. Well, he’ll find that the cord holding that bag round his neck will be strong enough to hold up something else.”

  The smooth, even tones had left Sir Robert’s voice. His hands no longer perched neatly under the bearded chin or lay at rest on the paper-strewn table but opened and closed in the candlelight like agitated birds.

  “No matter. Essex is not your concern. He is out of your sphere. He will not be approaching the Chamberlain’s Men with the request for Richard. You are to watch for a man called Cuffe or one called Merrick.”

  “But what do they hope to gain? Forgive me, sir, I cannot see the advantage in asking for an old play to prop up a new cause.”

  “Nicholas, you believe in your craft?”

  “Of course.”

  “In fact, I have heard that you make great claims for it. Let me see—” (and he cast about among the sheets in front of him until he found the one he was looking for) “– What was it you once said? Ah I have it. You were talking of players, I believe. ‘We are the voice of our age. We are the mirror of the times.’ ”

  “No doubt I was – my tongue was carried away by liquor, perhaps.”

  I squirmed on my chair in embarrassment. Were those words mine?

  They had a familiar ring.

  “Those are the very words, the liquor-borne ones I mean, that it is worth paying attention to. In vino Veritas,” said Sir Robert. “This is beside the point. Very recently you were in the habit of making the largest claims for the players and the playhouse. Surely you haven’t changed your mind?”

  “I – no – I still think my profession to be an honest calling.”

  “No more than honest?”

  “Even a noble one if it helps to cast a little light onto the benighted stage which is this world,” I said defensively. “I stand by what I said.”

  “Very good,” said Sir Robert. “Every man should esteem his trade, provided it be lawful.”

  But I hardly heard what he was saying. Those fine utterances about ‘voices’ and ‘mirrors’ were, no doubt, the kind of thing that I was accustomed to say too often, particularly in my early, heady days with the Chamberlain’s Company (I was all of a four-month veteran now and looked back on my unfledged beginnings with amusement), but the sentences he’d quoted were precise
and had the air of being reported from life. Indeed, they were from life. I now remembered a scene at supper with the Eliots, Sir Thomas, Lady Alice and young William Eliot. I remembered myself, a little flushed with drink and with the elevated company, being hoist up on my own rhetoric as I made great pronouncements on the value of plays and playing.1

  But what made the sweat stand out on my brow was the realisation that this great man had before him a document which detailed some – all? – of my heedless words at a supper in a private house the previous autumn. Would you care to have recalled to you what you said last Thursday morning to your wife in the privacy of your chamber? No? Or that wordy dispute with an old school friend in the corner of a tavern? Not that neither?

  Well, you may see how alarmed I began to grow as I understood that the Secretary to the Council had a record of my unconsidered words. I felt also a little anger, but that was easy enough to hold in check. Sir Robert Cecil grasped my discomfort.

  “Nicholas,” he said soothingly, “do not worry that I can quote you to yourself. Some men might be flattered. Anyway it is my business to know what people are thinking and saying. I agree with your words on the value of plays, by the way. I believe that Master Shakespeare has put something not dissimilar into the mouth of one of his characters.”

  I realised how artfully Sir Robert had gone about not only to reassure me but also to put me in my place by demonstrating that the high view which I had expressed of my profession was taken, pretty well wholesale, from our greatest playwright. I saw how quietly, how subtly, he had been able to suggest the frightening extent of his knowledge. Why, his network of informers and agents must be all-encompassing if he received reports on the high-flown words of a poor player at the supper table.

  “But since you share my regard for plays,” he went on, “you hardly need to ask what the value of a performance of Richard II is to these desperate men. They plan to use it as a fingerpost signing the way down their chosen road.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “The road to treason is miry, and it helps to know that others have travelled that route before.”