The truth was that Christopher Dole had not really expected to be alive at this moment, approaching Christmas. Convinced of his imminent demise, he gave little thought to the penalties the Privy Council might inflict on him. What could the Council do if he was in his grave? Nothing. Now the question was, what would they do if he was out of it? An ingenious revenge plot was threatening to turn on its creator.
Dole still owed money to George Bruton, and he decided to return to Bride Lane with a promise of the final payment. He’d also take the opportunity to remind George that it was not he, Christopher, who was the creator of The English Brothers. Definitely not.
As soon as Dole entered the ground-floor press in Bride Lane, he was attacked by Bruton. Attacked with words rather than blows, but the corpulent printer looked as though he might be ready to resort to those too. Perhaps it was only the presence of Hans de Worde and John the apprentice that restrained him. The two were on the far side of the room, getting on with their work, but they kept casting covert glances towards their master.
‘You assured me there was nothing dangerous in this,’ said Bruton, holding up a copy of the ill-fated drama. ‘Nothing seditious, you said. But there are lines that are easily construed as mockery of the King.’
‘Not so easily construed, George. You did not spot them when the play was being set up in type.’
‘So you admit it?’
‘Sedition is in the eye of the beholder.’
‘That is a very foolish answer pretending to be a clever one, Christopher Dole. You had better tell that friend of yours, Henry Ashe, to watch out. He will have some questions to answer himself.’
Christopher was surprised, even amazed, to hear that Bruton still believed in the existence of Mr Ashe. He played along.
‘Yes, yes. If the authorities want to know anything, you should direct them to Henry Ashe.’
‘Where does he live?’
Christopher thought fast, though not so fast as when he had plucked Ashe’s name out the air. He named a street at a little distance from his own. This seemed to satisfy the printer, for Bruton then moved on to the more pressing matter of money. Dole promised to pay him the final instalment.
‘And how will you do that?’ said Bruton, scornfully.
‘I’ll call on my brother,’ said Dole.
‘Much good that’ll do you. I saw Alan very recently. He did not have a good word for you. He was still asking me about that Oseney text. Are you sure you don’t have it?’
There was a crash from the other side of the press room. It was Hans de Worde. He had dropped a container full of type. Looking apologetic, he scrabbled around on hands and knees to pick it up.
Leaving Bride Lane, Christopher Dole had a thought. He had not seen his brother for some time, despite surreptitiously depositing a couple of copies of The English Brothers in Alan’s shop. He’d mentioned his brother to Bruton as a way of warding off the printer’s questions. Despite previous refusals, his prosperous sibling might advance him the money, enough to carry him over the next few weeks as well as to pay off his debts. If he should live so long.
He entered Alan’s shop, grateful to get out of the cold. It was situated in Paul’s Yard, where many bookshops and stalls clung to the skirts of the great church. There was no one inside, apart from Alan, who was sitting at a desk near the back of his store and making entries in a ledger. Christopher was glad to find his brother by himself. They were never friends but they had never descended to Cain-and-Abel-like levels of enmity either. Yet Alan greeted him with the same hostility as had George Bruton. Seeing his brother, he grabbed at a book and leaped up. Now he too began waving a copy of The English Brothers, presumably one of the two that Christopher had abandoned there so recently.
Alan Dole was, like his brother, a spare individual. But where Christopher’s thinness seemed to be the result of some undisclosed sickness, Alan’s lank frame was a reflection of his vigour. He was rarely still. He constantly looked for ways to expand his business. He possessed an intense stare. At the moment he was fastening that stare on Christopher. They were standing face to face. Alan Dole started speaking without any welcome or preamble.
‘The word about town is that this was written by Shakespeare.’
‘What is it, Alan?’
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know, Christopher. It is a play. It is called The English Brothers. It appeared among my stock and I have no idea how it got here.’
‘You have many books in your shop.’
‘And I know the provenance and price of each of them,’ said Alan. ‘I know all their shapes and smells – except this one… which smells fishy.’
‘Written by Shakespeare?’ said his brother.
‘That’s the rumour. But we are all aware of the hostility you feel towards Shakespeare.’
‘I wouldn’t know anything about this play.’
‘That is most surprising of all,’ said Alan, ‘because when I look through it, I find your handprint. I mean, the style of Christopher Dole, his tricks and turns of phrase.’
‘Perhaps I have imitators.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself. More conclusive is that within these pages are fragments of an older play, to do with Cain and Abel.’
Christopher grew uneasy. Instinctively, his eyes flicked to the chest, barricaded behind piles of books, from which he had filched the manuscript of The Play of Adam. Alan noticed.
‘Ah-ha. I thought so. Where is the manuscript now?’
Never much good at standing up to his more forceful sibling, Christopher gave a partial version of the truth.
‘I might have borrowed it to have a look at it, just to see how they did things in the old days. Perhaps William Shakespeare also obtained a copy and included portions in that play you’re clutching.’
‘There is only one manuscript,’ said Alan. ‘And I have it. Or rather, I had it. It disappeared some time ago but I never suspected you, Christopher. You bloody fool.’
This seemed an excessive response and the playwright, realising that argument was futile, made to go. Outside flakes of snow were starting to dribble from a low-hanging sky. He wouldn’t get any money from Alan now. He’d be more likely to obtain cash from the falling snow.
‘Just a minute, brother. You do not realise the ill reputation of that old play.’
‘No doubt you’re about to tell me.’
‘There was a seal on it, wasn’t there? An unbroken seal?’
‘Possibly,’ said Christopher.
‘It should not have been broken.’
Christopher was struck by Alan’s tone. In it there was not just anger or indignation but something that sounded close to fear. Alan continued: ‘If you’d examined the outside of the scroll before breaking the seal, you’d have seen a warning.’
‘A warning?’
‘Yes, you parrot, a warning. Written by a prior. If memory serves, it went like this: “In that this scroll contains Holy Writ, you shall not suffer it to be destroyed. Yet neither shall you break the seal upon it, lest fools and knaves make of it swords to slay the innocent and infect man’s reason with the worm of madness.”’
As he was reciting, Alan closed his eyes. Christopher was impressed that his brother recalled the words so exactly. Moreover, he began to feel the first tremors of alarm.