Shakespeare's Spy (15 page)

“Aloud, if you will,” said Mr. Shakespeare.

Mr. Heminges unfolded the paper and read its contents in the same way he spoke upon the stage—with no trace of a stutter. “She writes, ‘Father. You will no doubt be astonished to hear anything of any sort from me, least of all a plea for help. However, I have no one else to turn to, and whatever our feelings toward each other, we are bound together by blood. For reasons I cannot go into here, I have had to leave Monsieur Lefèvre’s acting company, and quit my lodgings as well.

“‘I have found a shabby sleeping room that costs only a few francs, and is worth far less, but I have been unable to find any sort of work that is respectable, and the little money I have saved is quickly disappearing.

“‘I know that it is unfair of me, after having nothing to do with you for so long, to ask you now for aid, but if there is any way you can send me three pounds to pay my passage home, I would be most grateful. If you cannot … Well, at the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I honestly do not know what will
become of me.’ “ Mr. Heminges returned the paper to Cogan. “I assume th-that you intend to send her the m-money?”

“O’ course I do! What do you take me for?”

“I m-meant no insult. Three p-pounds is a substantial sum, though. How m-much have you r-raised?”

“Not a gray groat,” Cogan cheerfully admitted. “I’m out of work myself just now, you see. I was hoping you gentlemen might see your way clear to put up the money, considering she was a prentice here, and all.”

Mr. Heminges exchanged glances with Mr. Shakespeare. “We will need to discuss this privately,” said Mr. Shakespeare. “Widge, will you wait outside with Mr. Cogan, please?”

I wanted to ask them what there was to discuss. I wanted to point out that the amount neeeded to rescue Julia was less than half of what Judith had so casually spent on a gown and a pair of shoes. But I said nothing, only showed Tom Cogan into the hallway.

Once he was out of the room, all trace of obsequiousness vanished, and the sullenness took over. “You’d think they’d just hand it over. Three pounds is nothing for the likes of them.”

I was inclined to agree. Though the company was having financial troubles of late, I was certain that most of the sharers were well-off, if not wealthy. Mr. Pope, with all the mouths he had to feed, was the exception.

After only a minute or so, Mr. Heminges called us in. “W-we would like to help J-Julia, of course,” he said. “If she tr-truly is in trouble.”

“What d’you mean
if?
“ Cogan said. “You seen the letter!”

“But how can we be sure it’s genuine?” said Mr. Shakespeare.

Cogan gave a derisive laugh. “D’you suppose I wrote it myself?”

“Of course not. But you might have had someone write it for you.”

“For what purpose?”

“For the purpose of prying money out of us, perhaps.”

Cogan stepped toward him, a threatening look on his face. “Here! Are you calling me a thief?”

“I don’t believe I need to,” Mr. Shakespeare said calmly.
“That
says it plainly enough.” I followed his gaze. The scarf Cogan had kept wrapped so carefully around his neck had loosened, revealing a vivid patch of scar tissue in the shape of a
T
—the mark of a man who has been branded by the law.

Cogan pushed the scarf back into place. “That happened a long while ago. All I took was some bread, to feed my wife and my daughter.”

“Really?” said Mr. Shakespeare. “I’ve never heard of a man being branded for stealing bread.”

“Might I look at the letter?” I put in. “I’ve seen Julia’s hand enough times to recognize it.” Cogan held out the paper. “It’s from her, right enough,” I said.

“There, you see?” said Cogan triumphantly.

“All the same,” said Mr. Shakespeare, “if we turned over three pounds to you, what reason do we have to believe that it would ever reach her?”

“She’s my
daughter
, that’s what reason!”

“You’ve n-never shown m-much concern for her welfare in the p-past,” Mr. Heminges pointed out.

“So you’ll not give me the money, is that it?” Neither man replied. Cogan stared at them fiercely for a moment, as though he were considering demanding the money at the point of a
knife. Then he said disdainfully, “I might have known I’d get no help from you lot. It was you that brought this on her to begin with. If you’d let her stay on here, she’d never have had to go to France.” He strode to the door and flung it open. “You know, if I’d been smart, I wouldn’t have come here; I’d have met you in a dark alley somewhere. You’d have handed over the money then, I’ll wager.”

Dismayed, I watched him leave, then turned to Mr. Shakespeare. “You’re not going to help Julia at all, then?”

“You know as well as I that if we handed the money over to her father, she would never see a penny of it.”

No doubt he was right; Cogan was a thief, after all. But I couldn’t help feeling that the sharers were more concerned about the fate of their money than about Julia’s fate.

“P-perhaps we can f-find some other way of helping her,” Mr. Heminges said. He tried to put a comforting hand on my shoulder, but I pulled away.

“How
can
we, when we don’t even know where to find her?” I hurried out, hoping to catch up with Cogan and learn where Julia could be reached. I scrambled down the stairs, across the courtyard, and into the street. There was no sign of him in any direction. I started walking west at a rapid pace, thinking he might be headed for Alsatia, the foul and fearsome precinct that Was claimed by the city’s criminal class as a sort of sanctuary. I knew that Julia had once lived there; perhaps her father still did.

After a quarter of an hour I was forced to conclude that either he walked far faster than I or he had gone some other way. As I reluctantly headed back to the Cross Keys, I set myself to thinking about how I might help Julia.

It was clear that, for whatever reason, she had not wanted me or the company to know of her plight. Otherwise she would
surely have written to us, not to her father. But now that we did know, we could not sit by and do nothing—or at least I could not. Though she was far off in France, I still considered her my nearest friend. If the sharers would not rescue her, then it was up to me.

The problem was, of course, that I hadn’t three shillings, let alone three pounds. If only I had saved my wages all these months, instead of throwing so much away on things of no consequence. Some of my purchases, such as sweetmeats and stockings for Mr. Pope’s orphan boys, I did not regret. But why had I wasted one penny after another having my future read while Julia’s future hung in the balance?

There must be some way I could raise the money. I could not ask Mr. Pope for it, at least not all of it. The cost of running so large a household left him with little to spare, even in the best of times.

Sam would no doubt advise me to buy a chance in the lottery, but that was about as reliable as one of La Voisin’s predictions. Though there was a slim possibility that I might win something eventually, there was no way of knowing how much, or when. I needed three pounds, and I needed it now.

There were always dishonest means, of course. According to Sam, one costume from the company’s trunks might be worth several pounds. But the tiring-room was closely guarded these days. In any case, however angry I might be at the sharers, I could not have brought myself to steal from them.

I was certain that Tom Cogan had no such scruples. Why had he not simply gotten the money through his usual methods, then, instead of coming to us? Perhaps it was just too large a sum. No ordinary tradesman, and few gentlemen, carried
about a purse that fat. Cogan would have had to hold up the lord mayor himself.

I would gladly have sold everything I owned to help Julia, but there was nothing among my paltry possessions that would fetch more than a farthing. Or was there?

A good play was a fairly valuable commodity. After all, I had been brought to London for the express purpose of stealing one. I wasn’t certain just how much a playwright could expect for his work. Sam once told me that Mr. Shakespeare got twenty pounds per script, but then Sam was known to exaggerate.

In any case, no one in his right mind would pay twenty pounds for a script by an unknown apprentice player, no matter how good it was, unless … unless perhaps I put Mr. Shakespeare’s name on it as coauthor. No, it would be unfair to trade on his reputation that way. But when he gave me the play, he clearly said that I might do with it as I wished. So I could in good conscience claim it as my own. With any luck, I might sell it for a couple of pounds—provided, of course, I could finish it.

As Hamlet would say, “Aye, there’s the rub.” I vowed that I would renew and redouble my efforts that evening, and make as quick work of it as I could. Then all that would remain was to find Cogan. Ah, well; compared to writing a decent play, venturing into a den of desperate criminals and convincing them to reveal the whereabouts of one of their own should be a lark. In the meantime, I was wanted at rehearsal.

To my relief, Judith did not attend. She had not been at our performance the night before, either. Whatever interest the theatre had held for her seemed to be fading.

Though I tried hard to give my full attention to my lines, Julia’s plight weighed heavily on my mind, and I made nearly
as many blunders as I had with Judith watching. The rehearsal seemed interminable.

When Mr. Heminges entered the room, I gave a silent sigh of relief, thinking that he had come to summon us to dinner. Then I saw that he was not alone. Four unfamiliar figures appeared at the top of the stairs. Three of them were guardsmen, clad in metal breastplates and helmets and armed with the combination of ax and spear that is called a halberd. The fourth was a tall, gaunt fellow who wore the garb of a gentleman. The man’s eyes surveyed the room, searching the face of each player in turn, as though he was seeking someone in particular. Clearly, whoever he sought was not among us. He scowled and, turning abruptly, headed back down the stairs with the guards close behind him.

When they were gone, we gathered around Mr. Heminges, who looked uncharacteristically grim. “What did that lot want?” asked Sam.

“They were p-pursuivants,” said Mr. Heminges.

“I beg your pardon?” said Sam.

“Pr-priest hunters.”

Sam laughed. “And they expected to find one in a company of players?”

“Ap-parently so. It would s-seem that the man who calls himself G-Garrett is, in fact, F-Father Gerard—a J-Jesuit priest.”

W
e were all of us momentarily struck dumb by this revelation. Though it had been clear all along that Garrett was hiding something, I doubt that anyone suspected what it was. Neither his appearance nor his behavior was the sort one expected from a priest. There was nothing remotely spiritual about him; on the contrary, he was clearly well versed in the ways of the world. And yet someone must have guessed his secret, in order to give it away.

Sam broke the stunned silence. “God precious potstick!” he breathed: “A priest!”

“Ha’ the priest hunters looked downstairs?” I asked.

Mr. Heminges nodded. “G-Garrett—or sh-should I say Gerard?—has not t-turned up yet. He m-may be on his way, however.”

“We must warn him!” said Sam.

“Why?” put in Sal Pavy. “Let them catch the mass-monger.”

Sam cast him a venomous look. “Do you know what they
do
to priests?”

“I’ll try to head him off,” I said.

“G-good lad. You kn-know where he’s staying?”

“Aye.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?” exclaimed Sam. “Move your bones!”

I slipped down the outer stairs and hurried along Gracechurch Street, toward the river. Mr. Shakespeare had said that Garrett—that is, Gerard—was lodging with Ben Jonson, and I knew that the playwright had lately taken up residence in the palatial house of his patron and fellow Papist, Sir Thomas Townshend, on the Strand.

I was nearly to Sir Thomas’s house when I saw Gerard approaching along the Strand. I called to him and he raised a hand in greeting. Then he reached inside his cloak, produced a sheaf of papers bound with string, and waved it at me. “Jonson’s play. He’s laid up with a cough and a fever, and asked me to—”

“Never mind that! I’ve come to warn you! There’s a band of priest hunters at the Gross Keys!”

He did not seem distressed by this, only resigned, as though he had expected it. “So you know my secret, then?”

“Aye.”

Taking my arm, he led me across the street and down a narrow alley. “We’d best stay out of sight. They may come here looking for me.”

“No one will tell them where to find you.”

“I wouldn’t think so. But then I wouldn’t have thought that anyone would betray me to the pursuivants in the first place.”

“It could not ha’ been one of the Chamberlain’s Men, surely; none of us kenned you were a priest.”

“Judith knew, and she may have let it slip. It’s also possible that Ned Shakespeare knew.”

“How could he?”

“For the past several years I’ve been traveling about the Midlands, saying Mass in secret for those of the old faith and ministering to the dying. One of those to whom I gave the last rites was John Shakespeare—Ned and Will’s father.”

“And Ned was still in Stratford then?”

Father Gerard nodded. “Well, there’s little use in speculating about who’s responsible. I knew I’d be found out sooner or later.”

“Why did you come to London, then? Why did you not stay up north?”

“There are priest hunters there as well. Besides, my superiors felt I was needed here.”

“To do what?”

“I have two missions. One is to convince young men to join the Society of Jesus.” He gave me a sly look. “Interested?”

I laughed. “I mean to be a player, not a priest.”

“Well, you can’t fault me for trying. My other mission is to save the souls of prisoners.”

“You actually go into
prisons?
Isn’t that like sticking your costard i’ the lion’s mouth?”

“It is risky, yes. But I pose as a physician, and I pay the warders enough so they’re willing to look the other way.” He halted and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I want to thank you for coming to warn me. It was a brave thing.”