Martyr by Rory Clements Page A

be something to do with Lady Blanche Howard?
    So you know about that?
    Slide threw up his hands with palms exposed to the ancient beamed ceiling. The whole of London knows about Blanche Howard. He nodded at the broadsheet lying on the tavern table. Have a look at that.
    Shakespeare picked up the paper and felt the prickles rise on his neck.
    The broadsheet was titled The London Informer . Printed on one side, under the heading Horrible Tragedy of Lady Blanche Howard, and the secondary heading Murdered by Foul Priest, it proceeded to give intimate details of her injuries and the manner in which she was found. It then went on with a rambling discourse, referring mischievously to Howard of Effingham’s sisters, Lady Douglass and Lady Frances, suggesting they might not have been so enamored of Blanche as their brother. Friendly reader , the tract concluded, we must tell you, though it pains us so to do, that they may well have just cause for their reluctance to don the drear weeds of mourning. How else could it be, when we know that the Lady Blanche had already hazarded her place in God’s Kingdom by her monstrous associations with lewd Popish beasts, one of which, the notorious Southwell, late of Horsham St. Faith in Norfolk and the traitors’ colleges of France and Rome, had brought her with child and, fearing for his own mortal life, has taken hers with a cruel dagger. This Southwell is thought abroad in London, given solace, food, and lodging by those who wish harm to our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth. He is the foul murderer, with cross and relic and blade, and we beg you all, our fellow English men, if ever you happen upon him or his confederates, to spare no mercy but to bring him to the hangman’s righteous rope .
    Where did you get this, Harry?
    It’s Walstan Glebe’s rag. He had a bundle of them over by Fishmongers’ Hall, selling them a penny each.
    So this was Glebe’s work. Shakespeare knew of him. He was a rat from the sewers, a pedlar of dirt and dissimulation. Before taking up his profession as broadsheet writer, printer, and seller, he had scratched a living stealing the odes of others to sell as his own. Swooning lovers had paid him money for poems to woo their fair ladies, for which he had merely copied out the work of other scribes and poets and handed it over as his. His crime had come to light when a red-faced swain had gone to the magistrate complaining that his intended had laughed at him for reciting to her an ode that was already common currency. For his pains, Glebe had been branded by hot iron on the forehead with an L for Liar . Now he wore his hair low over his forehead and had acquired a reputation for printing the most seditious and salacious broadsheet in the city.
    What do you make of it, Harry?
    Slide’s lips turned down uncertainly. I don’t know, Mr. Shake speare. You tell me. Does the paper speak the truth? I thought you should see it.
    Shakespeare gave it consideration. He had to concede that it was generally accurate, surprisingly so given Walstan Glebe’s history, though he had no way of knowing what Lord Admiral Howard’s sisters, Lady Douglass and Lady Frances, thought of their adoptive sister. Was there bad blood between them? What was interesting was the suggestion that Lady Blanche had got mixed up with the Jesuits. Was this Topcliffe’s voice? Most of the other information certainly could have come from him or, indeed, from the constable or bellman.
    But one thing puzzled Shakespeare: the line that read He is the foul murderer, with cross and relic and blade . The cross and relic had not been discovered until the Searcher of the Dead, Joshua Peace, had extracted them from the corpse. Peace would have told no one, of that Shakespeare was certain. So how did Glebe know about them?
    At last the mournful minstrel took a break from his singing and playing. Harry Slide cheered and clapped with painful irony. Shake speare found himself laughing. Harry did that to you. Shakespeare