‘There is something else,’ Stephano said, he looked away, hardly knowing how to tell her. Best to say it straight out. ‘Malvolio has stolen the Holy Relic, the Magi’s Cup, Illyria’s greatest treasure. We all saw him take it. We thought it was destined for San Marco in Venice, or for Rome, but he has it here. He carries it about with him as if it were his own property.’
‘I know,’ Violetta said. ‘Feste and I have followed him. That’s why we are here.’
The two boys looked at each other. That was not what they had expected to hear.
Violetta began to tell them about Master Shakespeare, her plan to get it back.
‘It will not work,’ Guido said. ‘Malvolio has taken over one wing of the Ambassador’s residence as his own. It has a separate entrance from the rest of the house. He has a private chapel there. That’s where he keeps the relic. It’s in a strong box that needs four men to lift it, and the lock on it would defy even Feste. Besides that, he has Jesuits about him. Young warrior priests who see it as their duty to die for their faith. You’d never get near it.’
‘What about you . . . ?’ Violetta began.
Guido shook his head. ‘We wouldn’t either. There might be another way. We will think on it. See how things lie.’
‘Or else we could just leave.’ Stephano had been staring out at the passing craft, boats large and small going up and down the river. ‘Direct the wherryman to take us to Greenwich, take ship from there. Go anywhere. To France. To Italy. To Guido’s father’s court in Pavia.’ He looked at Violetta. ‘At least we would be together.’
‘No.’ Violetta stared down at the water. ‘I will not go without the relic and I can’t go without Feste.’
‘We could get him from the Globe. He’s likely not left yet . . .’
Violetta shook her head. They both knew what he wanted was impossible.
‘Malvolio keeps things close and secret.’ Guido looked across at Violetta. ‘As does His Excellency. There is a reception tonight. Afterwards there will be a private meeting – certain lords and gentlemen invited to His Excellency’s cabinet. We’ll see what we can find out.’
They were approaching the Paris Garden Stairs. Stephano jumped out to help her up to the dock.
‘When will I see you again?’ Violetta asked. To find him against all odds, only to lose him so soon, was a cruelty. She was half minded to go back to his plan, to return to the boat and direct the wherrymen down the river.
‘I’ll find you. Don’t worry. If not at the place you stay, then at the playhouse. We are often there. His Excellency enjoys it hugely. I will see you again. Soon.’ He took her in his arms and smiled down at her. ‘Nothing can come between us – now that we have found each other.’
He kissed her and Violetta felt her emotions tip and tilt. When they settled, the world was different. She realised that her feelings were no longer those of a child for her playfellow, no matter how fond they had been of one another, or the swooning fancies of a young girl. What she felt now were the altogether more powerful stirrings of a woman for the man she would marry. It was their destiny to be together.
Stephano ordered the wherrymen to take them across to the Temple Stairs, and Violetta turned away from the river, wishing, once again, that he had taken her with him. But that could not be. They could not run away together into some unknown future. That was not their destiny. Sebastian was now calling himself Duke of Illyria and Stephano was his son. She was no one. But the time would come. Meanwhile, he could help her. With Guido. They could do it together. They came and went as they pleased. Stephano had the ear of the Venetian Ambassador, was highly placed in his court. They would find a way to regain the relic. Together they would return it to its rightful place and Illyria would be a sovereign state again. She would marry Stephano and they would rule as lord and lady. All would be restored.
Violetta let her hopes grow, just a little. She would no longer need help from Master Shakespeare, but Feste would still act the clown’s part in the play. Illyrians kept their promises. Besides, that is what Feste wanted and she would not deny him. The stage at the Globe was better than a street corner.
She wondered where Feste was now. Getting drunk with the rest of the cast. He deserved it. They had fulfilled their side of a one-sided bargain, she thought as she walked up by the side of the Falcon inn. Feste could get as drunk as he liked.
‘Can’t leave you, can I?’ Suddenly Feste was there beside her. ‘There’s me, thinking you’re safe in the gallery, and what’s the next thing I know? You’re rowing down the river with a pair of handsome young blades, as bold as you like.’
Violetta stopped in astonishment. It was as if she had conjured him.
‘Don’t look so surprised. I know everything, madonna.’ Feste tapped his nose. ‘I saw them coming in. Made enough disturbance. There was gossip backstage about their party. The Venetian Ambassador. Actors always know who’s in of any consequence. Guido and Stephano, I thought. Not many in London wear a yataghan sword. When I have time to look up at the end, they are nowhere to be seen. Neither are you. Master Shakespeare says he’s seen you with two young fellows, walking down to the river. So that’s where I go.’
Violetta laughed. Feste’s face creased into a smile.
‘Haven’t seen you laughing for a while,’ he said. ‘Are you going to tell me about your young lordling? He seems to have landed on his feet.’
‘He’s in the service of the Ambassador. Malvolio found him and . . .’ She stopped. Feste wasn’t listening. He was looking past her, over to the Hollander. ‘What is it?’
‘Hold on.’ Feste took her arm. ‘Hold up. Something’s wrong. Look there!’ Feste pulled her down behind a crumbling wall that enclosed what had once been an orchard. A few fruit trees, just coming into leaf and flower, struggled out of a tangled mass of bramble and briar. ‘To talk of the devil is to conjure him. And look who’s with him? I haven’t seen him for many a year.’
Two men were coming along the road from the Hollander, going towards the river. They were both dressed in black. One tall, and so thin that his scrawny shanks hardly filled his hose. His knees showed like knots in string. The other man was bulkier, with a black cloak wrapped about him and carrying a portmanteau. He walked with a stiff-legged gait that they both knew. It was Malvolio.
‘The other is Sir Andrew Agnew,’ Feste whispered. ‘I’d know those legs anywhere.’ He motioned for her to keep down. ‘I’m going to take a little look.’
He swung himself into a tall pear tree and climbed, hardly stirring the branches, as nimble as a cat.
The two men seemed safely on their way to the river when Sir Andrew turned back. He sniffed the air, as if he could smell their presence. His pale eyes narrowed and his wide nostrils flared; his thin lips drew back, twitching his wispy grey mustachios, his little bristly beard jutting as he looked from one place to another like some bony-browed hound.
The branches above Violetta quivered slightly. A single petal of pear blossom drifted down, landing like a snowflake on her hand. The covering was sparse. The leaves were not fully out yet. Violetta prayed that Sir Andrew wouldn’t look up.
Sir Andrew whistled. Two men joined him, clubs swinging from their wrists. They both wore loose trousers and greasy sleeveless jerkins. One wore a close-fitting leather cap.
‘In there.’ Sir Andrew indicated with a flick of a bony finger, pointing to the garden where Violetta was hiding.
She wriggled deeper into the brambles as the men began thrashing about in the undergrowth. She found a narrow tunnel that reeked of fox and lay still as a vixen as a club landed one side of her, then the other. The blows were hard enough to smash her skull.
Eventually the brambles got the better of them.
‘There’s nothing there, master! They’re at the playhouse, like I told you!’
‘The play ended a good hour ago.’ Sir Andrew’s high-pitched voice was very near, as though he was peering over the wall. ‘I thought I saw them, coming up from the river
. . .’
He had sharp eyes. Violetta cowered in her den, thinking that he would send the men back again, but eventually she heard their footsteps walk away, fading towards the river. When she was sure that they had gone, she crawled out from her hiding place to find Feste waiting for her.
‘You look a sight!’ he said.
Her dress was torn; she was covered in scratches. He picked a shrivelled leaf from her hair.
‘How did they not see you?’ she asked as she tried to tidy herself.
‘They didn’t look up,’ he said simply. ‘People rarely do. Leave the preening till later.’ He took her arm. ‘We’d better see what’s happened at the Hollander.’
Maria was sitting on an upturned bucket. Her little stool was smashed to splinters. It looked as though the beasts from the bear garden had been let loose on the place: boxes overturned, their contents emptied, paper and books ripped up, Maria’s few things strewn about the room, torn and defiled. They did not need to ask who had done it.
Violetta pushed the door to Toby’s room. She did not have to ask about him either. She knew he was dead before she even entered the room. She could tell by Maria’s stricken face.
He lay covered, his chin bound up with a strip of cloth. His head had sunk to one side; already the blood was draining down, staining his cheek the colour of claret. Feste opened one of the old man’s eyes, the white was red and bloodshot. He lifted the covers. His hands were gripped like claws.
Feste stood for the moment at the foot of the bed, head bowed. He made the sign of benediction with two fingers and went out.
Maria looked up at him, ‘He didn’t die natural. He was smothered.’ Her hand fluttered to her mouth. ‘I’ve seen it before in infants and children, not so very different.’
‘Why kill a dying man?’ Violetta asked.
Maria shook her head. ‘Because they could. Who knows why?’
Feste sat next to Maria and took her hand in his. ‘Tell us what happened.’
‘Sir Andrew came with a priest for Toby. I said, “No need, master, I think he’s rallying.” I didn’t want them anywhere near him. He just ignored me and barged straight in here. The one he had with him was all muffled up in a long black cloak. I didn’t know who he was at first. He was different from the usual, more richly dressed. His cloak was good thick wool, his hose silk. They are usually young, plainly dressed, with a look about them as though their eyes are not on this world but the next. He put down his bag and undid his cloak. “Don’t you know me, Maria?” he said. There was a smile on his face – you know that ghastly smile of his? And his eyes were all gloat. He’d waited a long time for this. He sent me out for Toby to make his peace with God. For him to send him to the Devil, more like. I had no choice but to go. When I came back, Toby was dead. His eyes red and bulging; his mouth gaping like a fish. He died fighting. No matter how near death we might be, we struggle to prevent our last breath from being taken from us. They didn’t absolve him!’ Her hand went to her mouth again. ‘He died with his sins still upon him . . .’
‘Hush now!’ Feste put his arm round her as she began to sob into his shoulder. ‘God himself will forgive him. There’s not overmuch laughter in Heaven, I’ll warrant. His presence will be a welcome addition. Toby was a good man.’
‘They know you are here,’ Maria said when she had stopped crying. ‘They questioned me and threatened, said there was no point in denying it, they’d had men watching. After they’d finished –’ her eyes strayed to the room where Toby lay dead – ‘they brought in a pair of ruffians who tore the place apart. I don’t know what they were looking for. There’s nothing here, is there?’ She twisted her handkerchief round and round between her hands. ‘We have to get you away. If they can kill my Toby . . .’ She looked at Violetta as if seeing her for the first time since they came in, noticing her torn dress, the scratches on her. ‘Oh, my Lord, what’s happened to you?’
‘It’s nothing, Maria. I fell into some brambles trying to avoid a cart, that’s all.’
There was a knock at the door.
‘That’ll be Doctor Forman,’ Maria stood up, smoothing her apron. ‘I sent Johane to fetch him. I didn’t know what else to do.’
The doctor went in to Sir Toby.
When he came out his face was grave. ‘That’s no natural death,’ he said.
‘Should tell the constable,’ Johane’s deep voice rumbled.
‘The constable already knows – of the death. Not the cause of it.’ Forman sighed. ‘It has been reported as plague. There have been other deaths, I believe?’
The drunk stretched out on the table had not got up again.
‘Plague? First I’ve heard of it.’ Johane sniffed. ‘That ’un died o’ drink and being poor.’
‘No matter. The constable is on his way here now. He is about to shut this house.’ He turned to Maria, Feste and Violetta. ‘You must leave or you will be shut up in here for forty days.’
‘But where will we go?’ Maria’s eyes were frantic. ‘What shall we do? What will happen to Toby? He’ll be wanting a Christian burial, not to be tipped in a pit. That’s what they do, don’t they, if they think it’s plague?’
Forman tugged at the sides of his long cap, something he did when he was thinking. He was a doctor, and whatever his faults and sins, and they were many, he did not believe that anyone had the right to take a man’s life from him, even at the last. And who had reported this as plague? Toby was his patient; this was his parish. No doubt money had changed hands, influence brought to bear. He did not like that either. He made up his mind quickly. Aside from all those considerations, the girl was pretty, the clown amusing and Mistress Maria might need comforting, once she got over her grief.
‘We must get Sir Toby out of here,’ he said. ‘Get some men,’ he ordered Johane. ‘Take him to my house in Lambeth.’ He turned to Maria and Violetta. ‘You can stay with me, and you, Feste. Gather your things together. There can be no delay. We must remove immediately.’
.
12
‘God give them wisdom that have it’
The next day Will arrived at the Globe to find the place in an uproar. Half the cast for the afternoon’s performance were missing, and those who had managed to drag themselves in had thick heads from the night before. Tempers were short, and Burbage, ever of a choleric disposition, was nearing apoplexy.
The cast assembled as the morning progressed and by the approach of noon they were all there. Except Feste.
‘No clown, then?’ Burbage growled, his temper seething like some foul brew. ‘I blame you for this, Shakespeare, I really do. What were you thinking, hiring someone off the street? Bringing the wretch here, like some performing cur, when you know nothing about him. I could have told you this would happen. And they’ll be baying for him this afternoon. If he doesn’t show, they’ll tear the playhouse down. Well, I’m not going crawling to Moston at the Rose. I’d rather they ripped the place up by the root. You’d better pray he turns up, Shakespeare, because they can start with you . . .’
Will was seated at a rickety table making last-minute changes and did not bother to look up from his script. Like most actors, Burbage was all blow and he relished a good row. He could carry on in a similar vein for hours. It was his way of warming his voice for the afternoon’s performance; he was probably sneaking a look round now, assessing how well he was going down. The clown would turn up any minute. Will had no doubt.
As the time ticked on past noon, even Will felt the sweat prick his armpits. He was cutting it close now.
He slid out from behind his table.
‘I’ll go in search of him,’ he said as he gathered up the sheaf of papers to be posted.
‘You’d better find him,’ Burbage shouted after him, ‘or neither of you need bother coming back!’
The Hollander was shut up. Boards crudely nailed over the door and the downstairs windows. There was a black cross daubed on the lintel and a watchman stationed outside. Will stepped back from the bu
ilding.
‘What’s happened here?’ he asked the watchman.
‘Plague.’
‘Plague?’ Will frowned. ‘I didn’t know there was plague south of the river.’
‘Might be smallpox,’ the watchman said after some thought. ‘Someone dead of summat nasty. That’s all I know. Should have closed this place a long time ago.’
‘Where are the people who were staying here?’
‘Still inside.’ The man looked up at the building. ‘Supposed to be. I ain’t seen no sign of ’em, but be that as it may –’ he slanted his pike – ‘while I’m here, nobody goes in or out.’
He stood square in front of the door. He was not about to let Will into the building or tell him any more. There was nobody around to ask. The few other buildings were little more than hovels and looked as derelict as the Hollander in the bleak morning light. The rutted road led out to fields and countryside or up to the river. It was as if they had all disappeared into thin air. What had become of them? What would become of them now? Forman might know something. If there had been sickness, he would surely have been informed. He could even know what had happened to them. Will would seek him out, but there was no time for that now. He would have to go back without the clown. What was he going to tell Burbage?
Will looked up to the sun over the river. It was well past noon now. He had to get back. He went up to the Paris Garden Stairs and walked to the playhouse along the Thames. Usually he liked being by the water; he liked to see the traffic of different craft moving up and down the busy river and to watch the wherrymen and hear their talk. They had the foulest mouths in England and the inventiveness of their insults spilled into a prurient poetry, a thing to be admired.
Today he had no time to linger and see what was being unloaded at Molestrand Dock, or listen to the wherrymen waiting at Falcon Stairs. He hurried along to Bankside with scarcely a glance at the milky brown flow of the great river. In his mind he was already at the Globe, being buffeted by the full force of Burbage’s fury for returning without the clown. His mouth moved as he muttered Touchstone’s opening lines. The play had to go on, and Burbage would punish him by making him play the part.