Madame Shakespeare

Madame Shakespeare

Copyright 2013 Aliyah Arden Smashwords Edition

For most of history, Anonymous was a woman. Virginia Woolf

Table of Contents

Prologue

Act I Plagues and Freedoms

Act II. Blessings and Curses

Act III Play the Man and Woman

Epilogue

Author note and bio

Social media sites

Reading group book club guide.

Historical background

Timeline.

Glossary of Elizabethan terms

Dramatis personae

Sources used

Recommended reading

A woman author of Shakespeare’s plays?

For a well researched guide to Amelia Bassano’s authorship of Shakespeare plays read Michael Posner’s Unmasking Shakespeare http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1584

Madame Shakespeare is a historical fiction based on the true life story of gifted writer Amelia Bassano, Elizabethan England’s poetess and the daughter of Baptista Bassano, a Jewish Italian court musician brought to England by King Henry VIII. Her mother was Margaret Johnson, a Christian whose brother Robert was also a musician at court. A luminous beauty, Amelia attracts the attention of Lord Hunsdon, cousin of Queen Elizabeth. As master of court entertainment Hunsdon introduces her to the Bohemian life of London’s notorious theatre district and William Shakespeare.

Powerful morality police abhor the lewd licentious theatre and women are strictly prohibited to appear on stage or to write plays. Elizabethan men totally dominate women. Husbands beat wives with impunity. A woman is forbidden to conduct business or even allow a neighbor into the home without her man’s permission. Courageously thwarting convention, the law defying Amelia seeks creative expression at the Globe Theatre. Shakespeare inexplicably begins producing Italian tragedies and comedies, second nature for Amelia who spoke Italian and visited family in Italy.

Though Amelia can’t openly expose herself for fear of death and disgracing her family, she inserts numerous clues in Shakespearean plays for future generations to discover, including: Baptista, the exasperated father of both the headstrong Amelia and the obstinate Kate in The Taming of the Shrew.

But there are more treacherous concealments. Deceitful men betray her trust and entangle Amelia in the Essex Rebellion of 6 February 1601 against Queen Elizabeth, co-led by Shakespeare’s patron the Earl of Southampton, so they can pilfer her talents for their own gold and glory. Driven into a collision with ruthless authorities who will stop at nothing to eliminate a willful woman, Amelia will have to use all her cunning to find fulfillment and freedom as a playwriting poet.

Shakespeare was a grammar school teacher supporting a wife and three children, and burdened by his father’s bankruptcy when he sought fame and fortune in London. He was an unlikely solo author of plays that revealed extensive, intimate first-hand knowledge of royal life and music of which he lacked training --- information available to Amelia whose family were court musicians. With her Mediterranean complexion Amelia was likely the Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The portrayal of the Jew Shylock is strikingly sympathetic for anti-Semitic England where Jews had been banished for three centuries, but logical given Amelia’s paternal heritage.

Though Madame Shakespeare is derived from historical events, it’s a work of fiction. This work is copyrighted. It may not be reproduced, copied, emailed, reverse engineered or otherwise distributed without permission in writing from the author. To do otherwise is to annoy the spirits of the stage.

Resources: Madame Shakespeare includes:

Author’s note and bio

Reading group book club guide.

Glossary of Elizabethan terms.

Timeline.

List of aristocratic titles.

Historical background. Because of Amelia’s family connexion with the Royal Court we know more about her life than we do of William Shakespeare. However there are many unknowns. I’ve tried to remain true to historical events, figures and customs. I borrowed from the Shakespearean plays, invented dialogue and scenes, and altered chronological order. The goal was not to produce a precise portrayal of Amelia's life, but to create a fictional fantasy around actual circumstances. I recommend the sources at the end of the book for more facts about this remarkable woman who overcame terrifying obstacles to write the greatest plays of all time.

Sources. The reader will note many quotes from Shakespeare plays throughout this novel. For writers the world is their resource, oyster, smart phone. We record and remake day-to-day conversations, the catchy turns of a phrase, and put them in the mouths and minds of characters. Shakespeare and his co-authors did the same. Talk of London’s streets found its way to the stage. Dialogue in this work of fiction often imitates Shakespearean plays. A source list for Shakespeare quotes used and other references are provided at the end of the book. Apologies for ones missed, Shakespeare’s phrases (break the ice, heart of gold, naked truth, catch a cold, fancy free) and new words (underdog, puke, pious, bump, bloody, courtship, critical, generous, gloomy, seamy, suspicious, lonely and lapse) are so much of our daily speech.

Social media sites. Join a rollicking social media site with fun and snarky tips on: Facebook, our Website, Twitter and Pinterest. Under Table of Contents above click the book link to Social media sites. Here are some bits and bobs:

* How to curse like an Elizabethan. Before television and the internet, conversation was the entertainment (and plays, more on that later). The three part curse showed off one’s creativity. You foul smelling, pock-marked, pig’s snout. Or Moat scum, sucking, cow-bag. Even worse, You craven, common-kissing canker-blossom. You get the idea.

* How to dress like a pirate. Pirates incorporated ship board material into their dress, such as rope and fishnets, the origin of fishnet stockings. It can take over twenty minutes for full vision to return when moving from a sun bright deck down to a pitch black ship hold. They all had an eye patch to keep one eye dark adjusted. Below deck they would remove the patch. Ten minutes before you go into a dark movie theatre, close one eye. In the darkness open the closed eye. If it doesn’t help you see better, maybe you do need an eye patch because you’re blinkered blind! Of course many pirates lost an eye from a host of causes: stabs, burns, flying debris and finger gouges. Pirates even invented the first worker’s compensation program. Loss of an eye or limb was worth an amount in gold. Pirate ships were a mini-democracy, they elected their captains and bounties were split fairly.

Dedication:

To Dad, a native son from the Heart of England and Shakespeare country,

An Elizabethan in exploration of the New World,

A Shakespearean in personality, how we think and act for the benefit of others is more important than doctrine,

A Falstaffian in lust for life and distaste of pretense,

A Victorian in steadfast loyalty,

A Jacobite in independence, and

May his name be for a blessing.

Prologue

Chorus: O good ladies and fellows, gentles all, imagine a nation set upon by every hazard under heaven. Her brave and tolerant Queen Elizabeth, with no husband or heir, stands alone against a perilous tide of torment. Her vainglorious general, the Earle of Essex, schemes to depose her and unleash an armed rebellion upon the streets of London. Play-maker William Shakespeare and his patron the Earle of Southampton have been implicated in the savage plot. Seizing upon division in England, King Phillip the Pious of Spain, ever jealous for conquests and zealous for souls, unleashes a mighty armada to destroy an unwitting kingdom.

Beset from all quarters Queen Elizabeth’s cause and her people are nigh lost. Amidst this looming conflagration of defeat flickers an ember of hope, a spark from Amelia Bassano. Though cruelly betrayed, the intrigue wise Elizabeth, who can trust no man, sets Amelia on a terrifying mission to defend the great cause of freedom with a ready blade and a mightier pen.

She is fierce. Falcons fly from her fingertips. Her sword is the fastest in the land. She fights for the underdog. If you ever have the chance to see her, she’ll be voguing and strutting because the world is her oyster. William Shakespeare says her words are the greatest of all. She is late to everything, so everyone adjusts their clocks so she is actually early. She can eat an entire skein of herring and lose three pounds. She is the Globe Theatre’s muse of fire.

Act I Plagues and Freedoms

The Hebrews suffered cruel enslavement under the pharaohs for 400 years. When Pharaoh Ramses II commanded that all male Hebrew children be murdered, a mother hid her son Moses in a basket and set it on the River Nile. The babe was found and raised in Pharaoh’s household as one of his own flesh. God heard the cries of the people who were sorely afflicted by Pharaoh’s harsh taskmasters. So God sent Moses to Pharaoh:

If you Pharaoh refuse to let my people go, I will plague your country with---

Blood in the water,

Frogs,

Lice,

Flies,

Pestilence on cattle,

Boils,

Hail and thunderstorms,

Locusts, scorched earth,

Darkness, and terror.

Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. He asked, Who is God, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not God, neither will I let Israel go. Pharaoh commanded the Israelites to work even harder.

So the final plague inflicted death on the first born. Exodus

Act 1 Scene 1 Lice

6 February 1601 Saturday

Three o’clock in the afternoon.

The Globe Theatre.

London

"The difference between comedy and tragedy?

Comedy I get eaten in one gulp by a crocodile.

Tragedy I stub my toe, get blood poisoning and die a slow, flesh-rotting pain-filled death."

Globe Theatre Guide for Play-makers

Will Shakespeare: I, William Shakespeare, winced at the midnight cool steel of the executioner’s axe on my throat. Thirty-seven was too young to die by mutilation.

William Arden Shakespeare, nickname Shake, I arrest thee for high treason. You are to be hung, drawn, quartered, and your severed head stuck on a spike where ravens will peck out your eyes.

It’s only a play, I croaked, my throat suddenly bleached bone dry

Your heinous play has incited rebellion against Her Majestie Queen Elizabeth.

I felt as weak as water. Must say my final prayer, one from the Latin mass, not the reformer’s heresy, Praestet nobis Deus, ignoscant. May God pardon me.

Any last words? My executor pressed so hard on my windpipe I gasped.

I’m . . .

He eased off the pressure.

I’m not the playwright.

Who is? His breath steamed in the freezing air.

Bassano.

Where would I find Mister Bassano?

He’s a she. I mean his, her name is Amelia Bassano.

What’s a court ladybird doing with scum like you?

She writes and I shop the plays.

The lads wondered how you wrote all them plays, but there’s not a single page, letter or poem in your handwriting."

Women deserve a go?

Yet you forbid your two daughters to learn how to read or write. Hypocrite. He leaned into my gullet with his blade.

Lightning pain burst through my neck. Everything turned red with black whizzy spots. I was hurtling through a long tunnel of light. An incandescent spirit held my face in his hands.

Saviour Jesu’ is that you? I asked.

Shake wake up, shouted Jesu’ who slapped me stone hard.

My persecutor let his axe fall away, pulled off his two eyelet black executioner’s hood, and cackled as loud as a coop of chickens. Scared the eyeteeth off you. Spooked you into a faint.

My carousel of eye spots faded. Will Sly! By the comets you gave me a fright.

Sly lent me a hand to upright myself. Except for his bruise blue eyes and pointy beard, unkempt Sly was every inch an ape, wide bent nose, short stooped, long of arm, thick of knuckles and covered with a bristle black mane of hair. Sly’s my best chum. I’m a full foot taller, with matching brown eyes and receding tresses, and an earring on the left lobe.

I covered Sly’s mouth with my hands. You won’t spill my secret?

He pushed me off. Woe betide us, we’ll be roasted on a spit for letting a woman publish! I’d never get back the ten shillings you owe me.

Eight.

You cheating bastid. Sly swung his axe at me.

Sly you frighten me.

Shake, them’s that fright me, fat-kidneyed fools feverish with rebellion, said Sly pointing with his goateed chin through the mildewed threadbare yellow, once green stage curtain at our audience whose wind chapped cheeks were as red as strawberries.

My eyes smarted from the theatre’s reeking cauldron of air tainted by spilled ale, sweat, Indian pipe tobacco and cheap perfume. Three hundred boozing cursing aristocrats, their stewards, and paid for women packed the center sections of our Globe Theatre’s covered, gravid bench seats. Today was their private performance of dreadful Richard the Second. Our Globe was modeled after the circular Coliseum in Rome with its alfresco, open air theatre built as a wooden O with spectators seated in a circle around the stage, except for the backstage section where our musicians played. Further behind the stage platform was the tiring room filled with attire, props and players like us two waiting for a cue to enter. Plays were in the afternoon. None but the King of Spain could afford the thousand candles to light a stage, not to mention the fire hazard to our thatch roof from fluttering flames fanned by our weary winds.

Them’s that paid us forty shillings over the ordinary for this performance, I said. Best tin I ever made for an afternoon’s work. Would wife Anne be satisfied? Likely not.

Sly grinned a wide half moon. His block teeth reminded me of mouldy tombstones in an English churchyard, Cutpurse cudgeling for coin?

Someone’s got to broker plays to keep this good ship Globe afloat.

It’s your trouble and strife Anne that beggars you for a royal barge not a workingman’s boat, said Sly rubbing two fingers together over an imaginary coin.

I rolled my eyeballs and fixed on Sly. Shall we Robin Hood lighten these rich rebels’ purses?

Sly put a woman’s bonnet on, seized two half pound cannonballs that we rolled on the gallery to make thunderstorm sounds and chucked them aloft, Safer plan. I dress up like the Queen, juggle and distract them while you slit their ….

By Jupiter look out! Cannonball One bounced off my shoulder into Sly’s chest, Cannonball Two gimped his foot.

Near murdered myself like Marlowe, said Sly with a struck dead look as he hopped on his uninjured foot as mud scuffed off his buckled shoe.

Without rejoinder I fell back on the Englishman’s ever excuse for conversation, our dreadful weather. God’s teeth, ‘tis cold. Twas the iciest February in memory made meaner by a blinding wind beating sharp white crystals through scarves and gaps in doors and windows. I grieved at the memory of dear departed dangerously talented play-maker Marlowe. He was dagger-stabbed dead through the eye by Her Majestie’s Secret Service for speaking his mind as a freeman should. Like Cato and Socrates he refused to remain silent and paid for it with his life.

Sly tore open his ox hide jerkin exposing his doormat of curled chest hair and screeched in a false falsetto,

What freezings I have felt, what dark days seen,

What old December's bareness everywhere! The icy fang,

And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,

Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,

Even till I shrink with cold, I smile.

No smiles this day, I said. Found a pack of orphans cooking a rat for their supper. Gave them tuppence for some proper snap.

Rats are the only ones fat in Smoke, said Sly with a look of sadness.

I nodded in somber agreement at his use of Smoke, our name for London where smoke from thousands of fires was thick as toffee. A sharper wind hurled cinders off our entrance, a nail file that scraped exposed skin. A grim ice age with unbearable long freeze winters had choked off English crops and lives. Farm failures led to malnutrition that weakened our people when the plague struck. One in three died. The homeless and unemployed filled the streets with vagabonds. Gangs of ravenous orphans sifted rubbish for morsels. Murder and maiming went unchecked. The Constable only investigated crimes committed against aristos. Everyone else had to hire a private and pricy thief-taker, who often was a thief himself.

Duck, I said as dagger-like icicles broke from the cross beams and plunged through halos of tobacco smoke.

I shivered as the ice shattered into sprays of glistening gems on benches and hats and stamped my frozen feet turned to icy blocks inside my boots. My heels had so worn through I’d stuffed them with rags. Hunks of melting snow slid from the overhanging theatre thatch, plopped and muddied the hazelnut littered pit between the stage where we stood and the three tiers of benches for seated spectators. God’s luck this was a private performance. On open admission days poorer patrons paid a penny a play to stand in that sodden pit. An aristo lad might pay six pence to sit on a special chair on our stage. Women patrons were required to wear veils or masks.

Look lively lads, you’re next, piped Richard Burbs Burbage, the tallest, baldest and gangliest in our company. His right eyelid shimmied, a permanent tic. Thirty some years old, he was the majority stockholder of our actor-owned theatre. A renowned portrait artist as well as an actor, Burbs was one of The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the acting company permitted to perform for the Queen.

What belched you up? A pox upon thee, cursed Sly as he pulled the jerkin’s flap over his chilled breast.

Burbs looked down his goose nose at bare-chested Sly, You working or socializing?

Rehearsing. Fie upon you! Donkey years since we’ve done Richard the Second, said Sly.

Enough of your carping or you’ll have a row with me. You’ll be the century’s jackass if’n you aren’t on that stage, said Burbs who turned his back on us and stork walked away knees bowing scissor sideways.

Burbs was our temperamental Vesuvius spewing burning lava and smoky hot air.

Pull your finger out. Bratzzz. Sly blew him a raspberry so hard his baggy breeches fell off. Under all the hair he was famine thin. Never learned knots when I was in the navy. He cinched the trousers tight and re-knotted the drawstring.

Sly teetered on the ice melt slicked boards and thumped backward on head and butt.

Up, I pulled dry sleeve so as not to get water stains on my borrowed costume and offered a hand. I was regally dressed as Richard the Second in a royal purple cloak trimmed in ermine with a matching silk waistcoat, clothing and colours forbidden to commoners, except on stage. My crown of stage jewels graciously concealed my retreating hair.

Ta’ said Sly who rose on his feet, steadied with his executioner’s axe, his backside black with wet.

Oh to get London’s grit out of my lungs. I cleared my nose and throat congested from phlegm due to a damnable winter catarrh, making a cloud of warm breath in the frigid stank air. How I hated the smoky sewage streets of Smoke, chimney blackened London. I missed the sweet aroma of ripening daffodils dafs at my home in rural Warwickshire, the heart of England. Like many I had left my beloved shire to seek my fortune in London, to please the insatiable tastes of wife Anne, and to thumb my nose at those who branded me the no-good son of John, my bankrupt father. Will I ever live down my family's shame?

Sly nudged me with his furry elbow. Shake, you dreaming or acting?

Socializing. The next lines concluded the performance, a story of the moral disintegration of a king overthrown by jealous nobles. The finale came none too soon. The last two days had been a nightmare of rehearsing lines and assembling costumes for a play last performed half a decade ago.

Leastwise every play has an end, said Sly as he sucked a flea from under his thumbnail.

An end that promises a new beginning, I said the players’ creed. You don't have to be asleep to dream.

My best dreams are when I'm in bed.

Our cue Sly.

Fingers crossed, Sly grabbed my arse and goosed me.

If you have to deal with actors all day it will ruin you. I seized him by the ample fur on his neck, opened my mouth to give him what for when he kissed me on my lips.

Wet, said the leering Sly.

Wicked.

Warm, he leaned in.

Just then the curtain parted.

Watching, I pulled off his woman’s bonnet and chucked it at the audience.

One of the full drunk half blind lords caught it and gurgled, Girlie, see you after the show for a bum bump.

The audience laughed too loud. Sly and I gingerly stepped onto the stage wary of ice and on alert for inebriated men prone to violence. The fear of an attack made my heart clamp.

How now! What means death in this rude assault? Villain, thy own hand yields thy death’s instrument, I said, snatched away Sly’s axe and struck a pretend mortal blow to his compact baboon chest.

Sly with trunk protected by his sturdy ox hide undergarment blossomed a red scarf from his breast bone in imitation of bleeding, gurgled, flopped on the stage boards, shook like a sail in a storm and froze. Spectators laughed thinking his off-script improvisation was planned comedy.

Go thou and fill another room in Hell, I said so loud my throat burned.

Sly let loose an exaggerated gasp, grasped the axe handle, moaned and deadpanned, Dead I’m not.

The audience roared.

Dead you’ll be from your bleeding adlibs, I said under my breath.

Sly rose on an elbow, What are the three words a man doesn’t want to hear when he’s making love?

I gave him my sternest stare.

Honey, I’m home.’

More laughter.

Sly cut your swanning, I said. Can’t you play tragedy straight for once?

The best comedies are tragedies. Sly stuck out his folded tongue and crossed his eyes.

By Saint George on whose day I was born, go thou and fill another room in Hell. I yanked the axe away and pounded the butt against the stage boards so hard that anthills of dirt popped from the cracks between the drier planks.

Sly collapsed, and pulled from his tunic a silk death lily that he held upright with both hands on his belly.

Stick the bastid dead if’n he won’t give up, shouted Robert Devereux, the wastrel Second Earle of Essex, who had paid for this private performance. Beardless, blonde and bombastic with a weak chin, of my height and age, he draped his gloved paws over the third level railing like a well fed lion.

Stick him, stick him, stick him dead, egged on the febrile crowd.

Why is there always more than one cockroach in a theatre? I asked.

Essex hurled a balisard, a long dagger with two sharp sides that tumbled end over end as a spoke on a wagon wheel. It sledged into the stage a knuckle’s width from Sly’s face; a splinter stuck into his forehead making him a unicorn. The wound left a red dot bindi as if he were a Hindi married women.

Shove a cork up Essex’s bunghole, muttered Sly with cold eyes. He swiped the wood off his sloped head.

You do it, I said weary of crossing swords with Essex, the bellicose unstable aristocrat, cousin to the Queen. Once he had her favor as general but lost it with his reckless defeats in Ireland. Burbs told me Essex was in a secret league with Hugh O’Neill, Earle of Tyrone the leader of Irish resistance, to eliminate Queen Elizabeth. Others said King Phillip of Spain was his co-conspirator.

Can’t, I’m dead. Sly slam closed his eyes and withdrew into an irritated silence.

I inhaled a long breath, Rude primate.

In times of audience trouble our musicians had been trained to play a distracting tune. Thus they began a pleasant lute and double fife version of London’s favourite Lady Greensleaves:

Alas my love, ye do me wrong to cast me off discourteously:

And I have loved you so long,

Delighting in your companie.

Greensleeves was all my joy,

Greensleeves was my delight:

Greensleeves was my heart of gold,"

And who but my Lady Greensleeves.

I said stick the bastid dead. Essex launched a matching blade then stuck his snout in an ale tankard.

Sly ducked low. The weapon sliced the curtain whose dusty rent edges peeled back as a cleaver through soft cheese. I had a queasy feeling in my stomach.

Sly spit a spray up at Essex, If a low born had thrown knives at you Lord Essex, you’d have him hung. But, you aristo toffs go scot-free.

Better peasant you know your place, said Essex. His truculent voice raised a note.

Humpty Dumpty better be careful we common folk don’t rise up and knock you off your perch, said Sly raising his fists.

The mob threw a hailstorm of spent bottles and food bits on our stage. One missile cart-wheeled into the musicians. Music sheets burst into the air like loose pillow feathers.

Stick ‘em all, said Essex.

Sly’s nostrils flared, What cracker deafens our ears with his abundance of superfluous breath?

Knives and swords flashed as nobles boiled off the benches down the stairs as eager as Romans for gladiator blood. Sly coiled the axe back to strike. The frightened musicians scooped up their fallen lyric scores and packed instruments to take flight.

Musicians play a bawdy song, else we die, I begged.

Two of the five music players raced away.

You lot get their wages if you stay.

One more departed so fast he left his round backed lute and horsehair bow behind. The other two scratched out Watkin’s Ale with wide eyes on the exit. Drinking songs were popular as the only safe beverages in Smoke were alcoholic.

Sly sang, I yelped most horrifically,

That was a maid this other day,

And she must needs go forth to play.

And as she walked, she sighed and said

‘I am afraid to die a maid.

A young man did lift her skirt,

‘When he had done to her his will,

They talked but what I shall not skill.

At last she said,

Spare your tale,

Give me some more of Watkins ale.

Undeterred, a lemming crash of aristos jammed into the stage apron. The ones in front crushed by the shove of bodies behind. Essex’s steward Gelly Meyrick who’d given me his master’s four silver angel coins for the play scrambled up on stage with a boost of his boots from his mates.

Knock Shakespeare’s crown off, yelled Essex.

Gelly snapped my crown off with a slash of his sword blade, and pressed the point at my throat.

I sank to my knees, held my hands together and pleaded, Spare me. I’ve a wife and three children.

This cesspool of rapists dishonors them. He pushed his blade up under my chin. Warm blood leaked down my wattle.

I’ll give back your money. I said. Don’t know how, already spent.

All of it? Gelly asked with a skeptical tilt of his head. A tall rumpled man with a hooked nose and a crooked tooth he looked me over with suspicion.

Hold the ransom. We haven’t finished the chorus, said Sly who waved his axe conductor style.

"Sing along gents and romp your blades to the beat,

When he had done to her his will,

They talked but what I shall not skill.

At last she said,

Spare your tale,

Give me some more of Watkins ale.

The murderous crowd rapped their weapons on benches and boards.

Stay illusion, I thought for life was but illusion. If this mob would stay happy drunk I might end the day with my head still on my neck.

Gelly swatted my face with the flat of his sword and put his grizzled chin to my ear. His wire whiskers burned my skin, Keep the money. I want your flesh. Saw off your nose or an ear? I prefer the earring one.

Take the money. I imagined my face with two wide holes where once had been nose.

I won’t ask twice, he said low from the back of his throat.

Who here will have some free Watkins ale? interrupted Sly.

We will, the rebels’ shouts rang the rafters spooking slumbering seagulls.

I’ll be gobsmacked. If my given name ain’t Will. Two rounds of drinks on the house, announced Sly.

Huzzah, the men replied. As eager as starving pigs to truffles, they invaded the bars on each level.

Gelly re-sheathed his blade and hissed, Next time you’ll meet your maker.

Our Maker is here. The Globe’s our church, I said. After a play’s two hours of murder, mayhem, hatred, hope, lust and love you’ll believe in God.

Gelly departed stage right onto the actor’s private stairs to the bar.

Up, commanded Sly who tied his handkerchief as a bandage around my neck. I noticed you didn’t offer to spare my life.

Down. And disgusted with myself. A play shows us what is real. I rose with a creak of my knees. I’d been ready to sell out a friend who just saved my skin. It was wearily evident that I would never change my corner-cutting cutpurse ways. All my schemes to never be blackened by bankruptcy like Father were for nought. My shoulders sunk over my chest. I wanted to escape this play, this stage, this city and be free of my greed-filled self.

Essex leaned precariously over the balustrade of the Globe’s highest seat and shouted, Our Queen, the grumpy old sod, is too old to become pregnant, has no successor and thus leaves our nation at risk of foreign conquest.

Here, here, said our slurping, petty brutal noblemen abuzz with approval.

Essex continued, What’s needed is a strong hand to assist our Queen and save her from bad counselors.

For the Queen, shouted three hundred voices.

Essex pumped both fists. Just as Richard the Second in our play today stepped aside for the greater good of our nation, so must Elizabeth yield. Tomorrow we march with the strength of England’s best to persuade the Queen from burdens she can no longer safely bear.

For the Queen! shouted the spectators who rose in a wave from their seats as one with ale tankards in hand.

I hit my palm on my forehead. Essex’s choice of play and insertion of a forbidden treasonous scene had been carefully plotted to rally rebels to his mutinous cause. So Essex endeavored to steal the crown from Elizabeth. This was valuable espionage that might earn a pretty penny if I was first to her ear.

The Queen’s womb is barren and she has no heir, continued Essex with a roar. Foreigners threaten by hook, crook and cannon to choose one for us. My good and loyal Englishmen, who should choose?

We should, we should, said the intoxicated lords.

My head suddenly ached. This was treason to usurp a queen’s choice of a successor. Had I taken easy money for a too risky endeavor? I’ve grasped a torch that will burn me alive. When would I learn?

My next words must carefully pivot Essex and his mates back to loyalty else we’re doomed. We love and trust Elizabeth, our own Good Queen Bess to make the best choice for her successor.

Essex twisted with, Our aged Queen has had thirty years to choose and has not. Her indecision threatens us with the terror of a Spanish invasion.

For the Queen! they repeated, louder than the last outcry. Tankards slopping ale were raised high again.

My worst fear was coming true. My finger in the wind said Essex’ goal was to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels in order to promote himself as savior. S’truth the Earle’s outsized personality was suitable for the stage, likely why he chose to rally followers with a theatre performance. The Lord Southampton, my most recent patron, was an enthusiastic contributor to this fool’s errand. I felt a sudden sweat of panic down my spine. I was guilty by association if the Essex rebellion failed. Oh for shame that our stage and play were a mirror of Elizabethan life this day. I’m finished.

Essex emboldened by the accelerated trajectory of the crowd went on, If you love our Queen and England you will join me on the morrow to march on the Royal Tower to persuade Her Highness to parlay.

For the Queen! The Globe’s rafters rang with the cries of the high born, joined by the pounding of their drawn sword pommels against the bench seats and balustrades of the theatre.

Essex drew his sword from its scabbard and held it high. Its fine razor edge glittered. Alea iacta est, the die is cast, he announced.

I remembered those words from Julius Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul when the Roman general and his troops illegally crossed the Rubicon River to seize the throne from Pompeii.

All for the Queen and Essex! bellowed the crowd as they held their swords high, so numerous they shone like silvered wheat in the afternoon sun.

No better friend, no worse enemy, said Essex loudly, repeating the motto of the Roman soldier.

All for Essex! said his followers.

Essex is daft if he thinks he’s a modern Caesar, the master strategist who conquered Gaul and had an army of battle hardened soldiers on his side, I said sideways to Sly. ‘Essex couldn’t even hang on to Ireland. Got to think. How to get out of this trap? I whistled with two fingers and yelled, Time for the interval."

Roused by my announcement of an intermission and Sly’s offer of free ale, drunken lords swayed, stumbled over each other, cursed so fiercely sailors would cover their ears and stampeded in a peevish broil to the booze bars on each of the three levels of the Globe. Risk rushed in like a hundred leagues an hour wind. An alehouse brawl, a looming arrest for treason and Amelia Bassano, a forbidden woman author, darkened my thoughts. I squeezed both eyes shut hoping my premonition of deathly calamity would go away.

Act 1 Scene 2 Blood in the Water

Paris, France

24 August 1572

St Bartholomew’s Day

High Noon

The child Amelia Bassano two decades earlier: Mummy, I’m going to die. The windless summer air was hot as a fireplace; it burned my mouth to breathe and my head ached fierce. Sweat dripped down my forehead stinging my eyes, then dribbled off my nose and splattered making dark spots on the dusty white floorboards of our carriage. The plops looked like black currents on a powdered sugar scone. My stomach grumbled terrible hungry.

Mummy put the back of her smooth white as an uncooked egg hand on my forehead and her other hand, the one with the silver wire entwined wedding ring, on her narrow head set in a picture frame of honey yellow pin curls.

Amelia Bassano you don’t even have a fever.

I’ve the plague like our Auntie Rosalind. Don’t I? Why won’t you tell me I’m going to die? I’m sure to die as Rosie. And I’m only four years old."

You don’t have ring around the rosy spots. So it’s not plague. It’s this miserable hot as blazes French heat. How I wish we were back in England, she said loudly so Pappa could hear. Mummy pulled a swaddling cloth as big as the one on the stained glass Baby Jesus crèche at our church out of her mother’s bag, a collection of potions, kerchiefs and snacks. She soaked it with water from a goatskin flask, sprinkled peppermint oil on it and wrapped it around my forehead.

I am soothed. My head felt better as a lonesome cottage cheese cloud blocked the sun. I finished the plague poem whose first stanza Mummy spoke:

Ring around the rosy.

Pocket full of posies.

Ashes, ashes we all fall down.

I like how poems turn your insides buttery warm. Someday I shall write them. When I’m at court Queen Elizabeth the First says I’m precocious, whatever that means? She calls me Crash, always tripping, bumping my head, skinning a knee because my head’s usually in a story tale. Pappa encourages me to find adventure. Mum is the cautious nurturing one.

Our carriage rolled clackety-clack over a bumpy wooden bridge that made us sway side to side so far I was sure we would tip over into the river below. Lapwings called out pee-wit as they dipped and dove under the bridge tipping their needle black beaks side to side as if stitching the air. Jack Snipes drummed the mud for snails with their wedge bird beaks.

What’s the river’s name? I asked Mummy.

It’s called the River Seine, gasping as if she was pained.

River Sin? Why’s the green water red? Are those people floating?

She covered my face with her mantelet, but I could still see through its thin silk braids and smelled burned bacon. Pappa didn’t let us to eat pork at home, but I’ve snuck plenty from the Saint James Palace’s kitchen when Master Cook wasn’t looking. Mummy’s mantelet made my nose itch. My insides groaned loud and startled a grey heron on the bridge railing that was as tall as a man. The bird squawked at me with his long blood stained beak and flew ahead to the gate of the walled city of Paris.

Does your belly mumble? asked Pappa. We’ll have some fancy viands at the wedding.

A deeper rumble of bells rang from a huge church painted in bright colors. The homes were single and two story with tile roofs and straight walls, not like London where upper floors stuck out and blocked the sun. Loud like that church. What’s its name?

Notre Dame Cathedral. It’s where the wedding is, said Mummy whose face was hound dog sad.

Mummy, why is the river called Sin? Our pastor was always going on and on about sin and sinners. Sinning was so confusing. He said people in Paris burned Huguenots to death because they didn’t pray like everyone else. I thought praying was good. The hot wind shifted and I smelled another stink, burning hair like when my curly locks got too close to a candle flame.

It’s not sin, it’s Seine. The River Seine, said Mummy.

Sin on the Seine?

I’m afraid so. Mummy held my hands tight like she does when she’s sore afraid.

A family of frogs croaked and dove under the water. How do frogs live under water?

They take a big gulp of air and hold it.

Two big red dragonflies with black marble eyes buzzed around my head. I pulled back. Do they bite?

No, said Mummy has she shooed them away. Off they zoomed.

Is it true France has four hundred kinds of cheese?

Yes. It’s why the French are so unruly.

Why is Pappa walking and not in the carriage with us?

Horse Hector has a lame foot, so Pappa walks to lighten his load.

I pulled off her cloth. Can I walk too?

Mummy put her hands on my shoulders and held me down. You wear me down with all your questions. It’s not safe. Especially now.

Pappa stopped us at the Paris city gate guardhouse. Its once red brick was all licorice black mossy on the shady side. Hector stood on his three good feet and nickered until Pappa took a red pippin apple from his waistcoat pocket and gave it to him palm up so his fingers wouldn’t be nipped.

A guard with one shoulder higher than the other, a hunchback, poked a gnarled tree root finger into Pappa’s chest. State your business.

Merriment. Monsieur, I’ve been sent by my employer Queen Elizabeth of England to play the violin this day at the royal wedding of your Crown Prince Henry Navarre, said Pappa in French. Back home in London our neighbors and my playmates were French Huguenots who had escaped from France so I knew the words. Some of their sounds such as bon, good, made my nose tickle when I said them. Pappa and his brothers and my mother’s brother were royal musicians and had lots of practice speaking French at Court.

The guard drew his sword and pushed its tip against Pappa’s forehead making a dent through his thick black brown hair, a match for his eyes. Jew tell the truth or like Saint Peter did when Our Savior was accused I’ll cut off your ear and feed it to ‘em. The guard cocked his head at the heron that stretched out its neck, opened its beak wide and screeched so loud my ears rang like a church bell.

Pappa held his hands up.

Mummy’s pale sky blue eyes widened as big as our cat’s when hunting mice at night. My husband used to be a Jew, said Mummy. He’s been long baptised. We’re all Christians. She held my hands so hard my fingers went numb.

I used to be a hunchback. The guard thwacked the hump on his back with the flat of his sword. A snow storm of lice leapt off his faded indigo blue coat which must have been beautiful when new. He cackled at his own joke and pointed the blade at Mummy. What kind of Christian are you? Not Huguenots, the Devil’s spawn? Worse than Christ-killing Jews. Your husband and daughter are dark, are they Blackamoors?

I have Pappa’s black coiled hair, brunette eyes and skin that keeps its tan even in the winter. I’m often mistaken for a gipsy. My dark amber eyes with flecks of gold are my best feature, the colour of the rising sun Pappa would say.

Mummy’s hands turned calamity cold. Her legs jiggled all nervous. Pappa cleared his throat deep like he always does when he’s antsy-pantsy before a performance. He reached for his hunter’s knife underneath his gherkin.

Words burst out of me like juice from a squashed grape. Monsieur, we are really bad sinning Christians. I can do the Lord’s Prayer in four languages. Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name . . . . Padre Nostro che sei nei cieli

Mummy shushed me to be quiet with a finger to her lips.

What kind of sins mademoiselle? He winked as he lowered his sword. Its point clinked on a cobblestone.

I closed and opened both my eyes wink-like at the same time. I haven’t got the one eye wink skill yet. Pappa let his hand fall away from his knife scabbard.

Loads and loads of sins. I think about fairie stories at church when I should be praying. I give my liver and onions to Hercules our dog when Mummy isn’t looking. She says I’m a monkey because I can talk with my feet. Want to see? I reached for my boots. Mummy gave me a disapproving eye.

My daughter has an extraordinary imagination, said Pappa. S’il vous plait. Please let us pass into Paris. I’m overdue to play for your future king.

The guard snorted like a trumpet and spit bloody snot on the dirt road. Crown Prince Henry Navarre is a Huguenot. He looked all around, and then whispered, A Huguenot will never be king of France unless he kisses the Pope’s ass and thread’s His Holiness’s needle by going to mass. The guard turned his back on us and slammed the heavy crisscrossed by metal wood gate behind him. Dust fell off the hinges. Yells rose from the over-heated travelers around us also waiting to enter the city.

You can’t close Paris over a royal rumpus, said Pappa.

I can to Jews, yelled the guard through the murder hole in the gate.

How’d you know I was a Jew?

Clean hands. The Holy Office of the Inquisition trained us guards that Jews are ducks with water. You wash your hands before you eat and after you shite and your women bathe after their monthly flow.

Pappa cleared his throat again. Our Queen Elizabeth takes a bath every month. She isn’t a Jew.

Proves she’s a witch. He said loudly.

At the word witch the unhappy crowd on the bridge buzzed as angry bees. Several made the sign of the cross and rubbed the protection charms that everyone wore on leather strings around their necks.

Mummy put her head in her hands. Husband take us home, she said through her closed fingers. Mummy travels in an ill temper. In our family we don’t take a trip, the trip takes us.

Pappa wagged his head no. And suffer the wrath of our queen?

Queen Elizabeth had a fearsome Tudor temper she got from her father Henry the Eighth. I’d like numbers after my name. Amelia the First. A shiver seized me. I could hear bad hurtful things inside the guard’s head. I’m bewitched that way. Pappa play, I begged.

Pappa reached into the carriage and pulled his second favorite violin and bow out of his scuffed leather case that had a dimple where I dropped it once. A gray moth flew out of the sound hole leaving dust from its wings on the bridge. His best violin had been stolen on our ship from London to France.

Misplaced said the captain whose son I caught trying to steal my books. Pappa always told me that when all turned dark and scary, that playing the violin cheered him up and freed him from his worries. I felt that way when I made up a story or played make believe. He strummed a single smooth magical note soft then louder. Its sweet sound rose higher and higher like a soaring eagle riding the wind, then swirled back around us and filled our hearts.

Travelers on the bridge became silent. I could hear a conversation of lovely thoughts in their heads. One remembered a first love, another one the birth of a child, a third the return of a long lost friend. Their feelings washed over and through me. Every time this happens the back of my neck goes tingly and I get a feeling of tender warmth. Pappa said I had a gift. He warned me to never tell anyone else or I’d be burned for witchcraft. Why did God give me a gift if it wasn’t safe to use it?

The guard opened the gate slowly; its hinges squealed a scratchy tune. Tears streamed off his dusty sunburned sad face giving him wet tiger stripes. He sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve just like I do when Mummy isn’t looking. Pappa stopped playing.

The guard choked up as he spoke, My uncle played violin at my daughter Nicole’s funeral on Saint Bartholomew’s Day last. Died of the plague. Same age as your wee one.

I gave Mummy a told-you-so look about the plague.

I am most sorely grieved to hear of her death so young, said Pappa. He dabbed at the guard’s moist eyes with a handkerchief the queen gave him. Her initials ER I were stitched in gold. Elizabeth Regina the First. Pappa’s the emotional Italian in our family says Mummy. He promised me that the both of us would someday visit our relations in Italy. I feel like a page in a book torn in half. One side English, the other Italian. One half Christian, the other half Jew.

Do you have a pass? asked the guard who lowered his chin and searched us with his eyes.

Pappa returned his violin and bow to the case and handed him the guard a royal lambskin pass that he scrolled open upside down. Mummy has taught me my letters so I know better. The guard pretended to read.

Bon. Oui. Good. Yes. You may pass. Move your muzzle before I change my mind. To reach the cathedral turn left at the Huguenot church, if it’s still standing. He returned the scroll to Pappa.

As we passed alongside the guard, Hector lifted his tail, farted loud as a trumpet and pooped. The heron shook its head and flapped its long wings. Horseflies were on the smelly mush before it hit the ground. Pappa tried to step over the poop-pile, slipped and got wet green poop kneecaps.

Poopy Pappa, I said and laughed until my sides split. Mummy tossed Pappa a clean cloth. Pappa wiped his pants off, twirled the stained cloth like a bullfighter’s cape, grinned wide and led our naughty horse and carriage into Paris. Pudding thick red streaks colored the muddy brown street. Pappa said the Romans called Paris Lutetia --- Mud City. Dark smoke hung over the city partly blocking the sun. I sniffed that burnt hair smell again. Unlike London at mid-day, all the shops were shut and nobody was around. I heard a plunk sound like meat flopped on a butcher’s cutting table, a baby’s cry, and then silence. What a cries and whispers day.

Mummy softly prayed the psalm, Yea though I walk through the Valley of Death I shall fear no evil.

I heard another psalm sung by many voices from a simple church across the street next to the River Seine. Huguenots, said Pappa. They love to sing psalms.

A red faced man with matching hair and neck veins popped out from lugging a cello, a woman and a young girl close to my age scurried in front of us to the church. The gentleman’s eyes darted back and forth and over his shoulder. One look at Pappa and he froze, then he smiled with teeth too big for his mouth.

Hugo the Huguenot! said Pappa with surprise his eyebrows rising. The best cellist in France.

Husband there’s no time for a chin-wag, pleaded Hugo’s wife wringing her hands. She had dark circles underneath her eyes and was taller than her spouse by a king’s foot.

The young girl’s bonnet strap went undone and her wavy hair the color of orange Dutch tulips fell below her waist. Her large eyes changed colour from mint to lemon grass in the sunlight. Except for her colouring, she could have been my twin.

Just a minute, Hugo said to his wife. Giuseppe the Jew, what brings you to Paris?

I’ve been baptised a Christian. I’m Baptista now, royal musician to Queen Elizabeth sent to play at the wedding.

Shameful a musician of your talent was held back because of his religion. But, a man’s got to do what he’s got to do to make a living. Look how high you’ve risen. The Royal Court! he said with a wide smile.

I’m but a humble violinist playing for my daily bread. Pappa said and introduced us, My dear wife Margaret and my daughter Amelia. We’ve another daughter Angela staying with relations in London.

This is my wife Cordelia and my daughter Desdemona, Desi. I guessed she was my age or a bit older.

I love your ginger hair, I said to Desi.

I hate my hair. Everyone calls me carrot top. Don’t they know the top of a carrot is green? She laughed all tinkle-tinkly like a wind chime.

I decided I liked her. Where are your freckles?

Her faced puckered like a prune. Not all ginger-heads have freckles. Besides, each freckle is a sin. I don’t have any sins do I Mère? She gave her mummy a big missing two teeth smile.

Pardonnez-moi, pardon me, said Cordelia pulling Desdemona towards her. Enough tête-à-tête. We are in danger and seek sanctuary in our church. She pointed ahead to Le Temple. Oh to be free as you are in England. I loved her shiny bright brooch of a lamb with a halo, the sign of Christ, the Lamb of God.

We’ve our problems with Spain threatening to invade, said Pappa.

Our weather is atrocious. England gets one dishwater tepid day and we call it summer. Our contribution to world cuisine is boiled herring, said Mummy.

Why was it polite to slag your own? I thought.

Those who have freedom don’t know how insatiable the thirst for those of us without it, spoke Hugo. The King invited Admiral Coligny, France’s naval hero wounded twice in battle, to his son’s wedding and most treacherously killed him and other Huguenots.

I wondered why do the French make such delicious heavenly pasties, but are so cruel to each other?

Church bells went ding dong dull in the humid hot air.

Church is where we are freest in France. Though our lives are consumed by trials, we find joy with our God, said Cordelia as her chin trembled.

The massacre started the very moment the church bells of the Church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois rang, said Hugo. His eyes were absent of life.

We mustn’t tarry, said Cordelia as she tugged hard at his sleeve. Family Bassano exit Paris whilst still time.

Maybe Mister Hugo you can change religions like Pappa and be safe? I ventured.

The king’s boot will always be on our face even if we go back to the old ways of being told what to believe or not, said Hugo.

They can’t beat down our souls, nodded Cordelia.

Is there anything we can do to help? Your daughter can hide with us, said Mummy.

Exodus Chapter Two, said Cordelia as the three ran to the door of the church and pounded for entry. Unheard by the church singers inside, they scurried around the back of the wooden building.

Just then a mob of shouting men waving pitchforks, clubs and torches spitting sparks appeared down the street.

Hector’s butterscotch eyes fixed on the flaming torches and went wild. Pappa tried to pull us away to safety, but Hector plopped down on his back legs and wouldn’t budge. I buried my head in Mummy’s lap. Bible words were spinning inside my head like a toy top.

Mummy cried out, I begged you to go home; we’re doomed.

I snapped my head up. Exodus Two. Look for a ginger hair Moses floating in the river. The words popped out of me from where I know not. Pappa put his face into Hector’s, eyeball to eyeball and spoke softly in horsey talk. Hector’s long ears turned rearward and his furry neck arched back, but Pappa would have none of that. Hector whinnied surrender, rose up and walked crooked. His rear horseshoe was loose hanging on by one nail. No wonder he was lame. He hobbled snail slow pulling our carriage behind him. I poked my head through the back curtain of the carriage and saw a tall young priest with a kind smooth face and a mop of crow black hair dressed head to toe in a dark cassock step out in front of the mob. He held out his long arms as did Jesu’ on the cross.

The mob’s leader said, Out of the way Father Othello. Trouble’s brewing, go back to your church. Boils covered his hands. A thick scar on his face as long as his jaw turned blood red with each shout.

Captain Medici, I’m not a plaster saint. My work is in the streets, shops and homes. Our church is more than stones and mortar, the church is all of us everywhere.

Beware, there be Huguenots in that church and we mean to get rid of ‘em. Finis.

Captain Medici the pastor and people of that Huguenot church, good Christians all, have fed the hungry, taken in the homeless, cared for orphans. Why do you persecute them? asked Father Othello.

I am innocent of these people’s blood, he said as he washed his hands with water from a goatskin bota. Our mob will do what they will.

Why torches? Isn’t it hot enough? Father Othello said pointing to the merciless sun that poked out through the smoke.

I laughed, though none of the mob did. Same as their captain, they all had lumpy skin leaking rotten egg yolk yellow pus.

We burn the heretic Huguenots as penance to wash away our own sins, answered Medici. Plus we get their stuff. I’ve already picked out some fine Huguenot houses for me women.

Others shouted, Me too.

Othello’s face turned hard. Burn up your sins at confession not with murder. As your parish priest I promise you a few Hail Mary and Our Fathers will suffice for your sins. Isn’t that easier than crucifying your good neighbors?

Father we row in different waters. You speak peace from the safety of your pulpit. We starve in the streets. The Huguenots got what we need, said Medici who beat his chest. B'sides, Huguenots is easy-peasey to kill. They just pray and sing while we roast ‘em. The ones who resist are more amusement.

The captain lets me skin ‘em while still alive, said a beanpole slope shouldered man with a black hood who jumped from one foot to the other. Huguenots read the Bible in French. It’s supposed to be in Latin.

A thin wind spread torch sparks that twirled as a halo around Father Othello who said, Jesu’ spoke Aramaic. The New Testament was first written in Greek, only later translated to Latin. At the Pentecost, the disciples of Jesu’ spoke in many languages, the better to spread His good words. Why not read the Gospel in French?

Several heads nodded in agreement.

Huguenots believe that the Bible isn’t perfect, that it should be studied and interpreted according to the person reading it. Rubbish, said Medici.

Do we have the original Bible? Any time you translate from one language to another, or make a handwritten copy mistakes will happen. Who knows what Jesu’ did for a living before he preached the Gospel?

Carpenter of course, snapped back Medici with a bark of laughter.

The occupation of Jesu’ in the first Bible is tektoon, Greek for day labourer. Carpenter is a mistranslation.

What did he say? asked a puzzled Beanpole.

Vous avez le cerveau d’une baguette fromage. You have the brain of a cheese sandwich, answered Medici.

But, Huguenots teach women to read and lead in church. It’s vile disgusting, said Beanpole.

The Apostle Paul said in the Book of Galatians, ‘Before God there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ.’ Therefore women should be able to read the Bible just like men as we are all one.

They let their priests marry, shouted Beanpole.

So did our Celtic Church until Rome dictated otherwise.

It was harder to hear the farther Hector took our carriage away. I could just make out ---

Father what do you care, you’re always sniffing about for magik stones, said Captain Medici. You should be looking for pieces of the true cross of Christ or nails from the Crucifixion or some saint’s finger so we can show it off in our church and charge admission.

The mob muttered agreement.

Do you know what saint’s day it is today? asked Father Othello.

The day I get a dead Huguenot’s house, answered Captain Medici.

The mob hooted loudly with laughter.

It’s the day of Saint Bartholomew, one of the Twelve Disciples of Christ. How does killing innocent fellow Christians serve Christ’s Holy purpose? If you kill the Huguenots you destroy France’s best hope for a better future. They’re our thinkers, inventors, physicians, artisans, craftsmen, creators --- the only ones who can lead us out of our darkness through peaceful change.

No peace until they’re finished, grumbled Beanpole.

The mob went Huzzah.

Be careful what you ask for. Without the Huguenots there’ll still be rich aristocrats who care only for their privileged life.

Starve us to death they does, said an old