Free An Ensuing Evil and Others by Peter Tremayne

it.
    A young man crouched inside in the darkness was bent industriously over a rough wooden table. There was nothing on it, yet he appeared to be in the act of writing in the blackness. His right hand held an invisible pen, moving it across unseen sheets of paper.
    The attendant grinned. “There he is, good sirs. He says he’s a famous actor and playwright. Says he is a King’s player from the Globe Theatre. That’s why you were asked here, good Master Burbage, just in case there might be truth in it.”
    The young man heard his voice and raised his matted head, the eyes blazing, the mouth grinning vacuously. He paused in his act of writing.
    It was Toby Teazle.
    “Ah, sirs,” he said quietly, calmly regarding them. “You come not a moment too soon. I have penn’d a wondrous entertainment, a magnificent play. I call it The Friend’s Betrayal . I will allow you to perform it but only if my name should go upon the handbill. My name and no other.” He stared at them, each in turn, and then began to recite.
’Tis ten to one this play can never please
All that are here; some come to take their ease
And sleep an act or two; hut those, we fear ,
We have frightened with our cannon; so, ‘tis clear ,
They’ll say, ‘tis naught… naught…

    He hesitated and frowned. “Is this all it is? Naught?” He stared suddenly at the empty table before him and started to chuckle hysterically.
    As Constable Drew and Master Cuthbert Burbage were walking back toward Bankside, Drew asked: “Were those his own lines which he was quoting with such emotion?”
    Master Burbage shook his head sadly. “No, that was the epilogue from Henry VIII . At least, most of it was. The poor fellow is but a poor lunatic.”
    Master Drew smiled wryly. “Didn’t Will Shakespeare once say that the lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact?”

METHOUGHT YOU SAW A SERPENT

Methought you saw a serpent.
— All’s Well That Ends Well , Act I, Scene iii

    M aster Hardy Drew, the newly appointed deputy to the Constable of the Bankside Watch, gazed from the first floor latticed window onto the street, watching in unconcealed distaste as a group of drunken carousers lurched across the cobbles below. The sounds of their song came plainly to his ears.
Sweet England’s pride is gone!
Welladay! Welladay!
Brave honor graced him still
Gallantly! Gallantly!

    The young man turned abruptly from the window back into the room with an expression of annoyance.
    On the far side, seated at a table, the elderly Constable of the Bankside Watch, Master Edwin Topcliff, had glanced up from his papers and was regarding the young man with a cynical smile. “You have no liking for the popular sympathy then, Master Drew?” the old man observed dryly.
    Hardy Drew flushed and thrust out his chin. “Sir, I am a loyal servant of Her Majesty, may she live a long life.”
    “Bravely said,” replied the constable gravely. “But, God s will be done, it may be that your wish will be a futile one. Tis said that the Queens Majesty is ailing and that she has not stirred from her room since my lord Essex met his nemesis at the executioners hands.”
    It had been scarcely two weeks since the flamboyant young Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, had met his fate in the courtyard of the Tower of London, having been charged and found guilty of high treason. Rumor and disturbances still pervaded the capital, and many of the citizens of London persisted in singing ditties in his praise, for Essex had been a hero to most Londoners, and they might even have followed him in overturning the sour, aging Queen, who now sat in solitary paranoia on the throne in Greenwich Palace.
    It was rumored that the auspices were evident for Elizabeths overthrow, and even the usually conservative Master William Shakespeare and his theatrical company had been persuaded to stage a play on the deposing and killing of King Richard II but a couple of weeks before Essex’s treason was uncovered. It