Ink and Steel

Act II, scene ii

Mercutio:

Oh, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet

The second letter arrived in cold, wet April a week or two before Will schristening-day, after the playhouses were reopened from a lent that Will had hoped and failed to spend in Stratford. It was in Kit’s hand, or a clever forgery, and written with some care: no words were scratched out or blotted, and the ink was black as jet on creamy parchment. The tone was much as the first letter. Gold to dross, Will thought, refolding the letter and examining the seal once more though he was growing late for his meeting with lord Hunsdon. The seal was of brittle green wax, imprinted with an image of a goose feather. All carefully chosen to lead Will to an inevitable conclusion.

Gold to dross.

Will Shakespeare had been a country lad, where the reek of frankincense and superstition of Papism still clung. Even if he hadn’t seen in manuscript a few cantos of Spenser’s poem in praise of England’s own Faerie Queene, he would have known the signs as well as any man, although a rational a properly Protestant mind might reject them. Kit’s with the Faeries. Or he’s mad: there’s always that. But he somehow knows mine acts almost as soon as I perform them. And he repeats his plea that I inform him, through Walsingham, of politics and players, and anything else that might befall.

Easily enough done, and no more risky than reporting to Walsingham himself. Which Will still intended. But

I should burn this letter.

But it would be noticeable to carry it downstairs and slip it into the fire, and there was no hearth in Will’s room. After some consideration and a few false starts, he lifted the ticking off the bed and tucked the letter between the ropes and the frame, where it stuck quite nicely. Completely concealed, even with the ticking off: Will crawled under the frame to be sure. Then he got his arms around the rustling ticking and wrestled it back into place, poking the flannel to settle the straw inside the bag. He sneezed at the dust, wiped watering eyes on his sleeve, and twitched the bedclothes smooth.

Mid-April was still sharp enough that Will layered a leather jerkin over his doublet. He hurried through the streets, mindful of slush in the gutters, and crossed London Bridge with the sun still high in the sky. There was no concealment of this meeting: Will reported to the scowling gray Tower itself. He presented himself to the Yeoman Warder at the main gate, struggling to hide the uncertainty of his glances toward the prison while assuring the guards that he was expected. After showing his letter from the lord Chamberlain, he was ushered through, and walked down the long, rule-straight lane within.

The inside of the massive knobbed stone walls was no more comforting than the exterior had been, and he considered uneasily what the murders and covenants of ravens along the edges of the rooftops dined upon. Legend claimed that should the ravens leave the Tower, England’s fall would not be far behind.

Will was not expecting the lord Chamberlain and the lord Treasurer to be waiting for him, apparently at their leisure, a half-played game of chess set on a small cherrywood table between their chairs along with wine and glasses. The footman who opened the door did not accompany Will into the opulent little chamber. A hearth blazed, and a brazier as well the room dryly hot in deference to old men’s bones. Will spared a glance for the figured leather on the walls as the door clicked shut behind him. Burghley and Hunsdon looked up in unison; Burghley turned a chess piece, a white rook, in one crabbed hand.

“My lords.” Will bowed with a player’s flourish.

“Master Shakespeare,” Burghley said, flicking Will upright with irritable fingers. The hand that pinched the ivory castle indicated a third chair.

“Drag that over, won’t you?” Will obeyed, and sat where he was bid to be seated: a little back from the table, well within the cone of warmth from the hearth. He tugged his mittens off, an excuse to look down at his hands. “My lords. From the summons, I had expected we should all be present for this interview.”

“Ah, yes.” Burghley returned the rook to the little army of white pieces haunting his side of the table. The only indication of Burghley’s deafness was by how close he watched Will’s lips, and a slight tinny loudness when he spoke. “We will speak to Master Burbage individually. Master Shakespeare …” The hesitation in his voice was all the warning Will needed.

“My lord, Will said. Not the Earl of Oxford?”

“No.” Hunsdon leaned forward and picked up his goblet. He refilled it from the bottle, then extended the cup as if not noticing the dignity he did Will. Will accepted it and sipped. It could be poisoned, he thought, too late, as heady fumes filled his senses. The wine was red and sharp, not sweet, but with a tannic richness that made him bold. “If your lordship would have pity …”

“Shakespeare,” Hunsdon said. “Your master, Ferdinando Stanley, lord Strange, is dead.” It was as well that Will had finished the wine in the cup, for it tumbled from his nerveless fingers and bounced off a rich hand-knotted carpet, spilling a few red drops on the dark red wool. “Dead.”

“By poison,” Burghley answered. “Or, some say, sorcery. Ten days to die, in terrible agony, Will.” Hunsdon’s voice, his given name.

Will blinked and realized he was standing, his hands knotted on the relief that covered the gilded arms of his chair.

“My lords.”

“Master Shakespeare, sit.” Will sat. “Good.”

“My lords.””

“There is more.” Will leaned forward to hear Burghley’s weary voice more clearly.

“Our Queenis threatened, Master Shakespeare. I have ordered the Irish aliens to present themselves and make explanation of their presence in England. And Essex has accused the Queen’s own physician of treason and conspiring to poison her.”

“Lopez,” Will said. And then quoted sardonically, “The vile Jew.”

“Lies,” Burghley said flatly. “Essex’s machinations. More and more, I believe Essex and Southampton dupes of the enemy. If anything other than the black half of the Prometheus Club, it was a Papist plot. But Lopez has confessed.”

“Confessed? Topcliffe?” It was the name of the Queen’s torturer, the man who had broken Thomas Kyd, and Will spoke it softly.

“William Wade.” Hunsdon breathed out softly through his nose. “Clerk of the Privy Council. Instrumental in bringing low Mary, Queen of Scots, and exposing her treachery. He … showed Lopez the instruments.”

“Ah.” Will gulped, remembering the sear of a red-hot iron by his face.

“My son Robert attended the hearing,” Burgley said. “He and Essex have been dueling in the Queen’s favor for Lopez for months, you understand. We had a hope of saving Lopez until Strange died. Eight times Essex pressed her to sign the writ, and eight times she refused. But now … Essex will prevail, and Lopez will die. Would that Gloriana were a man, and not turned by a pretty man’s face.”

He stopped, as if hearing himself on the brink of treason. “Lopez has been a valued ally, and preserved Sir Francis when we had thought all hope lost. But it may be that now we must sacrifice him.”

“Like Kit,” Will said. If he had intended the words to cut Burghley, they were futile. The old man only nodded. “After a fashion.”

Will coughed against his hand. “How may I serve Her Majesty?” He thought Burghley smiled behind his beard.

“We’ll have Richard revive The Jew of Malta”

“Is Kit not out of favor?”

“Favor or not, we have no other play that may distract the masses and offer a channel to their wrath. Until you write one.”

“My lord?”

“Master Shakespeare. Give me a play about a Jew. Before there are riots in London. Essex’s plot will see innocent persons lynched, and there is naught we can do to prevent it.” Hunsdon covered his mouth with his hand. “I am not a Jew-lover, but it is not they who must be blamed for this outrage.” Burghley tapped the edge of the chessboard in exasperation. Put your damned hand down, Carey, if you want me to understand what you say.

“My lord, Will said. I have never known a Jew.”

“I have one for you,” Burghley answered. “I must warn you. Like Marley’s—” and Will noticed no reluctance in Burghley’s naming of the forbidden poet’s name,—“ your Zionist may not be charming: the groundlings I think would not understand it, were he. But neither must his enemies be. Lord Strange dead. Murdered. And Lopez to hang for it.”

“As my lord wishes,” Will said, and bent to pick his fallen goblet off the floor.