The Quality of Mercy. Faye Kellerman

Vomited all over the ground. Good hap that he wore not his costume.

      Harry had turned nearly purple from laughter.

      You want me on stage? was all that Shakespeare had been able to say.

      You’re the only one who’s sober enough to memorize the lines on such short notice.

      More laughter. Whitman’s laughter. It played in Shakespeare’s head. A painful reminder, the sound so hollow now.

      Shakespeare kicked the haunches of his horse, sending it into a gallop. He cursed, wondered where the hell he was.

      So far he’d managed to follow Harry’s path quite closely. But this particular route, although the most direct to the burg of Hemsdale, was full of nature’s detours—hilly rocks and sudden dales, steep crags and crevices that plunged raggedly into the ground, circumscribing the knolls like a moat around a castle.

      He pulled the horse to the left, hoping he’d find a decent inn before dusk. Polished, windswept ledges of sandstone erupted out of rocks and grassland abloom with clumps of purple heather. The summits of the hills reflected the gold of the sun, setting them on fire like a flame on a candle. At least this terrain allowed easy riding—soft, gritty soil that yielded under each beat of the hoof—far more comfortable on the body than the hard slate rock he’d experienced in the extreme northern regions.

      He’d been fortunate. The weather had been accommodating, allowing him to cover much ground in a short time; barely a week since he’d left the walls of London. He’d fallen prey to only a few days of hard rain, and this morning just a thin blanket of haze covered the sky—that already burning away in the afternoon sun. His horse trampled over a heather bush plump with baby grouse. They scampered off in all directions—a delicious feast of tender meat dissipating before his eyes. He groaned, suddenly, realizing how long it had been since he’d taken a stomach. He would eat, but not while the sun was out. No time to be wasted.

      Days of riding with nothing but a sore bum to show for it. So far the trip had illuminated nothing about Harry. Questions had been asked and answered by protestations of ignorance. Shakespeare had spoken to at least two dozen innkeepers. Three hostlers told him that the great actor had indeed blessed their modest hostel with his drunken but amusing presence. They smiled as they told Shakespeare that Harry had entertained the guests with a (cough, cough) randy soliloquy. But beyond that, Whitman had been a gentleman. He had stayed the night, paid his bills, and left early the following morning in fine health. One hostler did recall Harry speaking with excitement about his impending visit to his relatives up North.

      Anything else, Shakespeare asked.

      The innkeeper shook his head no.

      His friend’s last days of life seemed ordinary. What could Harry have possibly done to instill murder in a man’s heart? What nefarious creature had done him in? And the ever nagging question of why.

      Shakespeare had been determined to find answers—for Margaret’s sake as well as his own. But now, after much wasted time, the ardor for truth had cooled. He missed London, his cell, his poetry writings and books.

      But he’d come this far. Might as well finish his task. From the inns Shakespeare learned that Harry had visited his relatives—a first cousin, Viscount Henley and his family.

      And, as Whitman had once mentioned in passing, Lord Henley was genuine peerage. He’d been granted a township in Northumberland. Brithall was the name of his castle, and an impressive pile of bricks it was. Before Shakespeare left, Margaret had told him that all of her husband’s kinsmen were secret Papists, followers of Rome, like many of the northerners. She said that Harry had once confided to her that Brithall held a secret underground chapel where votive candles were kept along with icons of the Virgin. But the boldest act of outrage was a fugitive priest in their hire—a Jesuit who narrowly escaped capture from the authorities by hiding in one of the castle’s priest holes. Harry later recanted his story about the priest, saying it had been a tale told in jest—to scare her. But Margaret felt his denial had been a lie.

      Margaret had always been nervous about Harry’s excursions—the length of the trip, the dangers of the highways—but after the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, with anti-Catholic sentiment running high, she’d actively protested his visit.

      What if that priest were discovered?

      Harry had always taken pains to reassure her. Queen Eliza was a tolerant woman, God sing her praises. Hadn’t it been rumored that Eliza’s private chapel mimicked those of the High Church despite her excommunication from Rome?

      But Margaret hadn’t been easily consoled.

      Who could say that Eliza will always be tolerant, she’d told Harry. Is not the Queen older, more eccentric? Did not she hang six hundred northerners for treason? Papist northerners? Priests—and their followers—had been burned before. They could be burned again.

      But Harry had continued his visits.

      Harry as a Catholic: that had surprised Shakespeare. His friend and mentor had always been irreverent, and religion was his favorite topic of scorn. How he’d mocked the Puritan, ridiculed the pious parish priest. And now to discover that it wasn’t the institution that had offended his sensibilities, but rather the method of worship.

      A side of Harry Shakespeare knew little about.

      Yet he had known a side of Harry that he loved. He knew him as the man who had coached his voice, had taught him how to project over the shouts of the groundlings and the boos of the twopenny rowdies. He knew Harry as the man who instructed him in dance, as the man who had insisted that the fellowship take Shakespeare on as a sharer. He knew Harry as a money lender, the one who paid the enormous sharer’s fee of twenty pounds for his ’prentice, Willy.

      Yes, once Harry had taken care of him. But Shakespeare had loved him deeply even when the roles had reversed. Shakespeare, apologizing to an irate tapster for Harry’s big mouth; Shakespeare, pulling him out of brabbles with younger men ready to kill them both; Shakespeare, patting the back of a stuporous man, hugging him as he cried.

      His love for Harry flowed through his veins as sure as blood. Shakespeare’s quest for Harry’s murderer, for his mentor’s eternal peace, was strong and potent—like the sting in the loins.

      He’d ridden farther, thinking about the different side of Harry—the one which he’d not been privy to know.

      A secret Catholic. Yet Harry had left Brithall alive and well. Or so had said Viscount Henley. Shakespeare had spoken to Henley briefly as they strolled the Brithall’s formal gardens. Shakespeare had asked the lord as many questions as manners would allow, but Henley knew nothing about Harry’s murder. Shakespeare hadn’t broached the subject of the priest. It hadn’t seemed necessary. By the time Shakespeare had departed from Brithall, he was satisfied that Henley had nothing to do with his kinsman’s death.

      Perhaps the murder was as reported. Harry’d been victimized by the scurrilous highwayman and dumped in the sheep’s pen. But perhaps someone—a secret member of some anti-Papist guild—had found out about Harry’s Catholic sentiments, stalked him, and had taken his life in the open countryside, away from alert eyes.

      Guesswork.

      Endless hours of riding, endless hours of nothing.

      The sun was bowing low, readying itself for final exit. Clouds were coalescing into thick gray foam. The ground had become wetter; sparse shrubbery had thickened into wooded copses of cotton grass and bilberry bushes and newly budded gnarled oak.

      Shakespeare realized he was famished. Another night under a coverlet of stars. He found a pocket of fresh water, not much bigger than a puddle but enough to satisfy the thirst of a tired animal. After the horse had drunk his fill, Shakespeare dismounted and tied him to a tree. The winds were gentle, redolent with the pungent aroma of fermenting bilberries. He opened up his leather bag and pulled out a slab of ham, eating it in three bites. His supper was followed by sips of ale from his drinking gourd and fresh bilberries. He lay undisturbed except