Nick said a little more about his adventures to William Shakespeare, and was gratified at the look of horror that passed across WS’s face and then the mixture of contrition and concern that followed it. But now, some time afterwards, they were talking about performing Dole’s play, despite its connection with The Play of Adam.
‘What about the warning?’ asked Nick. ‘The prior’s words on the scroll about being infected with the worm of madness?’
‘You are superstitious?’ said WS.
‘Well, you can hardly say that this Play of Adam has brought luck to those involved with it: not only the fate of Christopher Dole but those earlier stories of misfortune from Oseney and Ely.’
‘The dangerous lines to do with Cain and Abel shall be removed,’ said WS.
‘While any references that nasty minds might think refer satirically to King James will also be cut,’ added Burbage. ‘There is no sense in offending our royal patron.’
‘Or falling foul of the Council,’ said Nick.
‘I am adding a scene or two of my own,’ said WS, ‘as well as smoothing out some of Dole’s.’
‘I thought you believed him to be an inferior writer,’ said Nick. ‘Besides, it looks as if he wrote The English Brothers mostly as an act of revenge.’
A pained look seemed to pass across Shakespeare’s face. He said: ‘Christopher is dead and de mortuis nihil nisi bonum, you know. Let us speak only good things of the dead, in the hope that others will treat us in a similar style after we have departed. Now that I look more closely at the piece, I think better of it. I am even prepared to overlook the mocking coat of arms on the title page. Perhaps I was too harsh on Dole when he was alive. If so, I shall make up for it now.’
William Shakespeare did make up for it. He tinkered with The English Brothers, and a handful of other dramatists threw in some extra scenes and lines until the play became a strange, mingled affair, the work of several hands but growing out of Christopher Dole’s original conception and advertised as being by the late dramatist.
Burbage’s commercial instinct was correct. Whatever the reason, whether it was the stirring quality of the story, or the melancholy tale of Dole’s end and the hint that he’d left behind him a great work, The English Brothers became a palpable hit for the King’s Men. It was performed several times and revived the following year. It was even published, in the revised form, and sold by Alan Dole, among other booksellers. From beyond the grave, Christopher Dole achieved his dream of being acclaimed – although all he had been seeking was revenge.
Alan Dole treated the returned manuscript of The Play of Adam with great care.
Unlike his brother, he did not study its contents carefully, let alone make use of them. But he did read several times over the warning penned by Alan of Walsingham, the Prior of Ely, wondering how Christopher could have neglected it. The bookseller was sufficiently alarmed to contemplate sealing the document up again. But the broken seal seemed like a broken egg, something that could not be restored to its former state. Nor could he bring himself to destroy the document, however dangerous it might be. He had too much reverence for the word, whether hand-written or printed, sacred or profane. Instead, he caused The Play of Adam to be bound into a book and put away, for good.
It is not quite true to say that Nick Revill gained nothing from the business. He acquired a new friend when he returned to Mrs Atkins’ house, where the unfortunate Christopher Dole had lodged. There he found that Sara Atkins, who was indeed a widow, was happy to salve more than the wounds inflicted by her son. Stephen he could not persuade himself to like, but the attractions of his mother were sufficient to make Nick move north of the river. He did not live up in the garret but in a more spacious chamber close to Mrs Atkins’ own. Sara offered Nick bed and board. The board was at a mutually agreed rate. The bed was free.
Act Four
London, July 1821
Joe Malinferno peered at the lozenge-shaped figure again. The images wobbled in the flickering, yellow light of the single candle set on the surface that doubled as his desk and dining table. His eyes swam and his head ached. What did it mean, this little procession of pictures? He could make out the seated lion, the feather, and the two birds. Even the stylised palm of a hand was discernible. But what were all the other shapes for? And what did they all signify? He wrung out the wet cloth that had been soaking in a bowl of water at his elbow, and applied the cold poultice to his forehead. It eased the fevered ache, but did not bring enlightenment. A warm hand touched his hunched shoulder, and he looked up. It was Doll Pocket, a shawl wrapped around her bare shoulders and partly covering her high-bodiced muslin dress.
‘Time for bed, Joe. You’ll never figure it out, the state you’re in.’
He patted her hand, and sighed deeply. ‘I’ll never figure it out anyway.’
Malinferno had set himself up as an Egyptological expert a number of years ago in the wake of the fashionable fervour for all things to do with that far-off land. Of course, it had been England’s old enemy Napoleon Bonaparte who had started the craze after his expedition to Egypt in 1798. But that mattered not to London society, and soon there was a fashion amongst the wealthy for owning obelisks and statues plundered from the ancient past. Then more recently there grew a vogue for ‘unrolling’ mummies. At aristocratic soirées, Egyptian mummies that had lain untouched by grave-robbers for thousands of years were unceremoniously unravelling from their bindings. Their innermost secrets were exposed to the curious but ignorant stares of English lord and ladies in the name of entertainment. Malinferno had cashed in on the trend by selling his services as an expert ‘unroller’ to the élite. His decision to do so had not been entirely motivated by greed, though he did appropriate for himself some of the gems and scarabs hidden in the bandages wrapped round the mummies. He justified his actions by telling himself that someone less sensitive to the antiquarian value of the unrolling would destroy valuable finds on the altar of gross curiosity. He had recently found, in the process of unrolling three mummies, several small papyrus texts with Egyptian hieroglyphs on them, and salvaged them in the interests of scholarship. These curious symbols were inscribed on papyrus, carved on upright stones, and on walls and tombs all over Egypt. Malinferno, along with many other scholars and savants of the day, was fascinated by their mystery. It had become his fervent wish to be the first to unlock the mystery of these images. But two years of fevered thinking had brought him exactly nowhere.
Doll unwound the cold compress from his head, and stroked his damp and chilly brow.
‘Don’t despair, Joe. You’ll get there.’ She squatted before his hunched figure. ‘Shall we go to Montagu House again, and see the stone?’
Malinferno knew that Doll was referring to the famous stone classified as EA24 – Egyptian Antiquity 24 – that resided in the British Museum. Currently located in Montagu House, the museum had possession of the remarkable stone stolen from the French twenty years earlier. It was otherwise known as the Rosetta Stone. There was a text written in three languages on its broken surface, one of them being Greek, one an unknown language, and one being the mysterious hieroglyphs of the Egyptians. Over the years, many scholars had tried to decipher the pictograms found on Egyptian monuments and papyruses, and the Rosetta Stone was seen as the key. The physician and mathematician Thomas Young was the latest scholar in England to try his luck, but even he was struggling. Now Malinferno was beginning to wonder why he had had the temerity to imagine he could do it.