An Honourable Murderer by Philip Gooden Page A

Bill Inman had said something about preferring a Spanish
piece
to peace with Spain, although both were likely to prove poxy and rotten. He accompanied the remark with a rude gesture. Then he’d caught Mistress Maria More looking reprovingly at him. This was important information, and certainly worth reporting in a despatch to Robert Cecil.
    Martin Barton, the red-headed satirical playwright, was talking about art. He had been boasting to Abel Glaze and Maria about the gratifying reception given to his recent tragedy
The Melancholy Man
. But I think he was doing this to needle Ben Jonson, who was in earshot and whose own late attempt at a court-tragedy had flopped so lamentably in a play called
Sejanus
. Barton was not a player – there was something about his combination of red hair and spindly little legs which would have made him suitable only for clown’s parts – but Jonson had given him a part as Poesy and Drama in the masque. Maybe mischievously, Jonson had written almost no words to go with this role. Barton seemed content, however, drinking up his surroundings. I reckoned he was storing up material for his next satire and thinking how much better he could have managed the whole business. He was one of those people who are happiest feeling superior.
    Giles Cass, the dapper go-between, was also talking about art. He was praising Queen Anne, assuring us that we professional players would find in her a woman of taste who – had destiny not called her to the supreme role in public life as a king’s consort – might have excelled in any of the arts. He dabbed at his mouth while he mentioned the Queen, as if he could only do so with clean lips.
    I enjoyed a chat with Sir Philip Blake which, after he’d cleared his throat, went in its entirety as follows:
    Sir Philip Blake
: Oh, er, Ignorance!
    Nicholas Revill
: Ah, Sir Philip.
    Sir Philip Blake
: Very good.
    In fact I saw and heard nothing of any significance during our time with the Blakes. Nothing except for a couple of exchanges. One was harmless, I think, or at least predictable. And I hardly knew what to make of the other.
    Martin Barton accosted me at one point. He waved his hand about the room and said, “What do you think of all this?”
    â€œThink of it?”
    â€œIs there honesty here?”
    â€œAs much as anywhere,” I said.
    â€œI tell you there is more honour and honesty in the thumb of a single craftsman than there is in all these finely swathed corpses.”
    â€œIf you say so.”
    But Barton wasn’t interested in agreement or disagreement. He’d approached me only in order to unburden himself. Perhaps he’d had enough of being struck virtually dumb as Poesy. I was treated to a rant about the corruption of the court and the age which might have come from one of his plays. Everything was foul and decayed. It might look fine on the surface but poke your finger through, and it was all seething rottenness underneath, food for worms. I nodded politely, not wanting to spoil the satirist’s enjoyment, but eventually I just had to excuse myself. A call of nature, you know.
    I was out of the room for a few moments answering nature’s call. In less grand surroundings I might have pissed in a randomly chosen fireplace, as one would in an inn, but somehow I didn’t think they’d approve of that sort of behaviour in this sort of place. So I dropped in on the servants’ privy in the back quarters of the establishment. Even here the buckets seemed to have an extra sheen, no doubt on account of the reflected nobility of the retainers’ gilded waste. In the main bedrooms upstairs the chamber pots were most likely silver.
    I was making my way back to the principal room where we were rehearsing. A man and a woman were standing just outside the door, deep in conversation. It looked to be one of those discussions at which a third party would not be welcome. I was about to cough to alert