*
The constable, whose post was along the riverbank near the Inns of Court, was much pleased with his life here. Yes, one could find apple-squires offering gaudy women to men upon the street and cutthroats and pick-purses and cheats and ruffians. But unlike bustling Cheapside, with its stores of shoddy merchandise, or the mad suburbs south of the river, his jurisdiction was populated largely with upstanding gentlemen and ladies and he would often go a day or two without hearing an alarum raised.
This morning, at nine of the clock, the squat man was sitting at a table in his office, arguing with his huge bailiff, Red James, regarding the number of heads currently resting on pikes upon London Bridge.
"It be thirty-two if it be one," Red James muttered.
"Then 'tis one, for thou art wrong, you goose. The number be no more than twenty-five."
"I did count them at dawn, I did, and the tally was thirty-two." Red James lit a candle and produced a deck of cards.
"Leave the tallow be," the constable snapped. "It cost money and must needs come out of our allowance. We shall play by the light of day."
"Faith, sir," Red James grumbled, "if I be a goose, as you claim, then I cannot be a cat and hence have not the skill to see in the dark." He lit another wick.
"What good art thou, sir?" The constable bit his thumb at the bailiff and was about to rise and blow the tapers out when a young man dressed in workman's clothing ran to the window.
"Sirs, I seek the constable at once!" he gasped.
"And thou have found him."
"Sir, I am Henry Rawlings and I am come to raise a hue and cry! A most grievous attack is under way."
"What be thy complaint?" The constable looked over the man and found him to be apparently intact. "Thou seem untouched by bodkin or cudgel."
"Nay, it is not I who am hurt but another who is about to be. And most grievously, I fear. I was walking to a warehouse on the embankment not far from here. And --"
"Get on, man, important business awaits."
"-- and a gentleman pulled me aside and pointed below to Temple wharf, where we did see two men circling with swords. Then I did hear the younger of the two state his intent to kill the other, who cried out for help. Then the dueling did commence."
"An apple-squire fighting with a customer over the price of a woman," Red James said in a tired voice. "Of no interest to us." He began to shuffle the cards.
"Nay, sir, that is not so. One of them -- the older, and the man most disadvantaged -- was a peer of the realm. Robert Murtaugh."
"Sir Murtaugh, friend to the lord mayor and in the duke's favor!" Alarmed, the constable rose to his feet.
"The very same, sir," the lackey said breathlessly. "I come to thee in haste to raise hue and cry."
"Bailiffs!" the constable cried and girded himself with his sword and dagger. "Bailiffs, come forth at once!"
Two men stumbled into the room from quarters next to the den, their senses muddled by the difficult marriage of this mornings sleep and last nights wine.
"Violence is afoot upon Temple wharf. We go forthwith."
Red James picked up a long pike, his weapon of choice.
The men hurried out into the cool morning and turned south toward the Thames, over which smoke and mist hung thick as fleece on a lamb. In five minutes they were at the porch overlooking Temple wharf, where, as the lackey had assured, a dreadful contest was under way.
A young man was fighting vigorously with Sir Murtaugh. The peer fought well but he was dressed in the pompous and cumbersome clothing then fashionable at Court -- a Turkish theme, replete with gilt robe and feathered turban -- and, because of the restrictive garments, was losing ground to the young cutthroat. Just as the ruffian drew back to strike a blow at the knight, the constable shouted, "Cease all combat at once! Put down thy weapons!"
But what might have ended in peace turned to unexpected sorrow as Sir Murtaugh, startled by the constable's shout, lowered his parrying arm and looked up toward the voice.
The attacker continued his lunge and the blade struck the poor knight in the chest. The blow did not pierce his doublet but Sir Murtaugh was knocked back against the rail. The wood gave way and the man fell to the rocks forty feet below. A multitude of swans fled from the disturbance as his body rolled down the embankment and into the water, where it sank beneath the grim surface.
"Arrest him!" cried the constable, and the three bailiffs proceeded to the startled ruffian, whom Red James struck with a cudgel before he could flee. The murderer fell senseless at their feet.
The bailiffs then climbed down a ladder and proceeded to the waters edge. But of Sir Murtaugh, no trace was visible.
"Murder committed this day! And in my jurisdiction," said the constable with a grim face, though in truth he was already reveling in the promise of the reward and celebrity that his expeditious capture of this villain would bring.
*
The Crowns head prosecutor, Jonathan Bolt, an arthritic, bald man of forty, was given the duty of bringing Charles Cooper to justice for the murder of Robert Murtaugh.
Sitting in his drafty office near Whitehall palace, ten of the clock the day after Murtaugh's body was fished from the Thames, Bolt reflected that the crime of murdering an ass like Murtaugh was hardly worth the trouble to pursue. But the nobility desperately needed villains like Murtaugh to save them from their own foolishness and profligacy, so Bolt had been advised to make an example of the vintner Charles Cooper.
However, the prosecutor had also been warned to make certain that he proceed with the case in such a way that Murtaugh's incriminating business affairs not be aired in public. So it was decided that Cooper be tried not in Sessions Court but in the Star Chamber, the private court of justice dating back to His Highness Henry VIII.
The Star Chamber did not have the authority to sentence a man to die. Still, Bolt reflected, an appropriate punishment would be meted out. Upon rendering a verdict of guilt against the cutthroat, the members of the Star Chamber bench would surely order that Cooper's ears be hacked off, that he be branded with a hot iron and then transported -- banished -- probably to the Americas, where he would live as a ruined beggar all his life. His family would forfeit whatever estate he had and be turned out into the street.
The unstated lesson would be clear: Do not trouble those who are the de facto protectors of the nobility.
Having interviewed the constable and the witness in the cases -- a lackey named Henry Rawlings -- Bolt now left his office and proceeded to Westminster, the halls of government.
In an anteroom hidden away in the gizzard of the building, a half dozen lawyers and their clients awaited their turn to go before the bench, but Coopers case had been placed top on the docket and Jonathan Bolt walked past the others and entered the Star Chamber itself.
The dim room, near the Privy Council, was much smaller and less decorous than its notorious reputation imputed. Quite plain, it boasted only candles for light, a likeness of Her Majesty and, upon the ceiling, the painted celestial objects that bestowed upon the room its unjudicial name.
Inside, Bolt observed the prisoner in the dock. Charles Cooper was pale and a bandage covered his temple. Two large sergeants at arms stood behind the prisoner. The public was not allowed into Star Chamber proceedings but the lords, in their leniency, had allowed Margaret Cooper, the prisoner's wife, to be in attendance. A handsome woman otherwise, Bolt observed, her face was as white as her husband's and her eyes red from tears.
At the table for the defense was a man Bolt recognized as a clever lawyer from the Inns of Court and another man in his late thirties, about whom there was something slightly familiar. He was lean, with a balding pate and lengthy brown hair, and dressed in shirt and breeches and short buskin boots. A character witness, perhaps. Bolt knew that, based on the facts of this case, Cooper could not avoid guilt altogether; rather, the defense would concentrate on mitigating the sentence. Bolt's chief challenge would be to make sure such a tactic was not successful.
Bolt took his place beside his own witnesses -- the constable and the lackey, who sat nervously, hands clasped before them.
A door opened and five men, robed and wigged, entered, the members of the Star Chamber bench, which consisted of several members of the Queen's Privy Council -- today, they numbered three -- and two judges from the Queen's Bench, a court of law. The men sat and ordered the papers in front of them.
Bolt was pleased. He knew each of these men and, judging from the look in their eyes, believed that they had in all likelihood already found in the Crown's favor. He wondered how many of them had benefitted from Murtaugh's skills in vanquishing debts. All, perhaps.
The high chancellor, a member of the Privy Council, read from a piece of paper. "This special court of equity, being convened under authority of Her Royal Highness Elizabeth Regina, is now in session. All ye with business before this court come forward and state thy cause. God save the queen." He then fixed his eyes on the prisoner in the dock and continued in a grave voice, "The Crown charges thee, Charles Cooper, with murder in the death of Sir Robert Murtaugh, a knight and peer of the realm, whom thou did without provocation or excuse most grievously assault and cause to die on fifteen June in the forty-second year of the reign of our sovereign, Her Majesty the queen. The Crown's inquisitor will set forth the case to the chancellors of equity and judges of law here assembled."
"May it please this noble assemblage," offered Bolt, "we have here a case of most clear delineation, which shall take but little of thy time. The vintner named Charles Cooper did, before witnesses, assault and murder Sir Robert Murtaugh on Temple wharf for reasons of undiscerned enmity. We have witnesses to this violent and unprovoked event."
"Call them forth."
Bolt nodded to the lackey Henry Rawlings, who rose and, his oath being sworn, gave his deposition, "I, sir, was making my way to the Temple wharf when a man did bid me come running. He said, 'Behold, there is mischief before us, for that is Sir Robert Murtaugh.' Faith, sirs, before our eyes the prisoner there in the dock was challenging Sir Murtaugh with a sword. Then he did leap toward the unfortunate peer and utter words most threatening against him."
"And what, pray, were those words?"
"They were somewhat to this order, sirs: 'Villain, thou diest!' Whereupon the dueling commenced. And Sir Murtaugh cried, 'Help! Help! Murder, murder!'
"I then did run to seek the aid of the constable. We did return, with the advantage of bailiffs, and arrived to see the prisoner strike poor Sir Murtaugh. He fell through the railing to his death. It was a most awful and unpleasant sight."
The court then allowed the defense lawyer to cross-examine the lackey Rawlings but the attorney for Cooper chose not to ask any questions of him.
Bolt then had the constable rise and take the witness's dock and tell much the same story. When he had done, Cooper's lawyer declined to examine this man too.
Bolt said, "I have no more to present by way of the Crown's case, my lords." He sat down.
The lawyer for the defense rose and said, "If it please this noble body, I shall let the prisoner report on the incident, and thy most excellent chancellors and most noble judges will behold, beyond doubt, that this is but a most egregious misunderstanding."
The men on the bench regarded one another with some irony, and the high chancellor administered the oath to Charles Cooper.
One of the judges from the Queen's Bench asked, "What say thou to these charges?"
"That they, my good lord, be erroneous. Sir Murtaugh's death was but a tragic accident."
"Accident?" a privy council member said with a laugh. "How say thou 'accident' when thou attacked a man with thy sword and he fell to his death? Perchance the instrument of his death was the rocks upon the embankment but the instigating force was thy thrust, which sent him headlong to embrace the unyielding stones."
"Aye," offered another, "I warrant to say, had the unfortunate Mr. Murtaugh not fallen, thou would have skewered him like a boar."
"I respectfully submit, lord, that, nay, I would not have harmed him in any way. For we were not fighting; we were practicing."
"Practicing?"
"Yes, my lord. I have aspirations to be a player in the theater. My profession, though, as thou have heard, is that of vintner. I was at Temple wharf to arrange for delivery of some claret from France and, having surplus time, thought I would practice a portion of a theatrical role, which chanced to involve some sword-play. I was so engaged when Sir Murtaugh happened by, on his way to Whitehall palace. He is -- sadly, was, I should say -- quite an accomplished swordsman and he observed me for a moment then reported to me what, alas, is true -- that my talent with a blade be quite lacking. We fell into conversation and I said that if he might deign to show me some authentic thrusts and parries I would inquire about getting him a small part on the stage. This intrigued him greatly and he offered me the benefit of his considerable expertise at dueling." The prisoner cast his eyes toward the constable. "All would have gone well had not that man disturbed us and caused Sir Murtaugh to lose his stride. I merely tapped him on the doublet with my sword, Most High Chancellor, and he stepped back against the rail, which tragically was loose. For my part, I am heartsick at the good man's demise."
There was some logic to this, Prosecutor Bolt thought grimly. He had learned something of Cooper in the hours before the trial and it was true that he frequented the theaters south of the Thames. Nor could he find a true motive for the murder. Cooper was a guildsman, with no need for or inclination toward robbery. Certainly much of London would rejoice at the death of a lout like Murtaugh. But, as the nobles wished the case prosecuted swiftly, Bolt had not had time to make a proper inquiry into any prior relationship between Cooper and Murtaugh.
The knight, for his part, as everyone knew, had been vain as a peacock, and the thought of getting up on a stage and preening before members of the Court would surely have appealed to him.
Yet even if Cooper were telling the truth, the nobles would want Murtaugh's killer punished, whether his death was an accident or not, and indeed the five men on the bench seemed little swayed by the prisoner's words.
Cooper continued. "Those words of anger and threat reported by the lackey there? Sirs, they were not mine."
"And whose be they, then?"
Cooper glanced at his lawyer, who rose and said, "Prithee, sirs, we have a witness whose deposition shall bear on the events. If it please the bench, may we have William Shakespeare step forward."
Ah, yes, Bolt thought, that is who the witness is: the famed playwright and director of the Lord Chamberlain's Men troupe. Bolt himself had seen several of the man's plays at the Rose and the Globe. What was transpiring here? The playwright stepped to the front of the courtroom.
"Master Shakespeare, thou will swear oath to our holy Lord that thy deposition here shall be honest and true?"
"I so confirm, my lord."
"What have thou to say that bears on this case?"
"I pray thee, Lord Chancellor, I am here to add to the deposition thou have previous heard. Some weeks ago, Charles Cooper did come to me and say that he had always been a lover of the player's craft and had hoped to try his hand upon the stage. I bid him attempt some recitation for me and observed that he performed several passages, of my own creation, with exceeding grace.
"I told him I had no place for him just then but I gave him portions of a draft of the play I am presently writing and told him to practice it. When Court returns in the fall, I assured him, I might find a part for him."
"How exactly doth this bear on the case, Master Shakespeare?"
The playwright withdrew from a leather pouch a large sheaf of parchment with writing upon it. He read: "Enter Cassio... RODERIGO: I know his gait, 'tis he. Villain, thou diest!...' Roderigo makes a pass with his blade at Cassio... CASSIO draws his own weapon and wounds Roderigo... RODERIGO: 'O, I am slain!...' Iago from behind wounds Cassio in the leg, and exeunt. CASSIO: 'Iam maim'd for ever. Help, ho! Murder! murder!'"
Shakespeare fell silent and bowed his head. "My lords, so fall my humble words."
"'Villain, thou diest... Help, ho! Murder!' Why those," the high chancellor said, "with some alteration, are the very words that the witness heard the prisoner and Sir Murtaugh exchange. They are from a play of thine?"
"Yes, my lord, they are. It is as yet unperformed and I am presently reworking it." Shakespeare paused for a moment then added, "This shall be the play I did promise Her Highness the queen for her enjoyment when she and the Court return this fall."
A Privy Council member frowned and then asked, "Thou art, if I am not mistaken, much in the queen's favor."
"Humbly, sir, I am but a journeyman playwright. But I can say with little exaggeration that Her Highness hath from time to time offered expressions of pleasure at my work."
Hell's bells, thought the prosecutor. Shakespeare is indeed much in the queen's favor. This fact was well known. It was rumored that Her Highness would name his the sole royal acting company within the next year or two. The course of the case was now clear: To find Cooper guilty would require the judges to disavow Shakespeare's testimony. The queen would hear and there would be consequences. Bolt recalled an expression: "A hundred dukes against a single queen leaves a hundred coffins on the green."
The high chancellor turned to the rest of the Privy Council and they conferred again among themselves. A moment later he pronounced, "In light of the evidence presented, this court of equity rules that the death of Sir Robert Murtaugh was caused by no man's intent and Charles Cooper is herewith free to go forth unfettered, and untainted by any further accusation in this matter." He cast a stern gaze toward the prosecutor. "And, Sir Jonathan, if it be not too taxing in the future, the court would be honored if thou might at least peruse the evidence and consult with the prisoner before thou deign to waste the time of this court."
"I shall do, my noble lord."
One of the judges leaned forward, nodded at the sheaf that the playwright was replacing in his sack and asked, "May I ask, Mr. Shakespeare, what will this play be titled?"
"I know not for certain, my lord, what the final title shall be. I presently call it 'Othello, the Moor of Venice.'"