The Book of Air and Shadows - Michael Gruber [62]
THE BRACEGIRDLE LETTER (6)
Thus I began my lyfe as an ordnancer of the Tower 10s. the moneth wage, prentice wages that but beggars cannot be chusers. We took lodgings two mean roomes in Fenchurch St. by Aldgate, verey poore were wee but had liverie from the Tower so saved on my cloathes. One yeare spent thus: in the winter of the second yeare came a chill & my mother sickened & wee had not coales enow to warme her. Methinkes she wase besydes wearied from her sorrowes. Alas to come to this end through no fault of hers: all ways a good, sober, virtuous woman & no papiste neither, as I asked her then, she sayinge no sonne but I did pray for the sowles of my dead babes & for the sowles of my parentes as wee learnt in the olde religion a great sinne I know & wille burn in Hell for it though I praye God not. Soe she died 2nd February AD 1606 & is buried in St Katherine Colemanchurch. Now you know, my Nan, that after that sadde tyme you gave me comfort soe that I wish to marry you but your father sayeth what, nay nay, no man can marry on prentice wages how will you keepe my daughter & I hadde no answer & and left sad & wast sad many daies.
Comes now Thomas Keane saying ho Dick what say you to Flanders? For I am off to-morrow to deliver four cannon royal to the Dutch at Sluys & shoot em too against Spain. Come & be my mate & matrosse: wee will eate cheese & drinke genever & blaste papiste dogges to Hell. I answer him yes by G-d & my hand on’t & the thynge is settled. We must needs goe from the Tower at night for the Kinges majestie had late made peace with Spain so ’twould be thought ille to arme Spaines foes. But some at court (that Prince Henry I think mee who after untimely died) thought it a shame on England to shrink cowardly from warre gainst wicked King Phillipe who pressed so cruel on the reformed faith. Besides the Dutch had payed for the gonnes before this so wase it justice too, for the King would not yield a pennie backe & thus we went for the honour of England besydes.
Wee brought out the cannon & theyre carriages braken all in peeces & all necessaries as: 500 shottes, rammers, worms, port-fyres, &c. by barges & then to the Pool where mariners swayed them into the holte of the ship Groene Draeck a saloop of 6 gonnes belonging to Captain Willem van Brille. Soe with a fair wind wee sayled down river. A three-daye voyage wee had & a goode enough sea for winter not too colde & wee ate fresh: bread & cheeses, pickel-herrynge, ale. At Sluys a flat dreare place to my eye all brick dun or red & verey goode businesse since the Spanish have tooke Ostende these many moneths tis the onlie port in western Flanders. Soe we off-lade the gonnes & placed them on theyre carriages.
Nay I am too longe about my foolishe youth & I fear I have but little tyme. My wound now gripes me more than before & the surgeon saith it is fowle & gives me two daies no more.
7
Yes, ridiculous. Did I give the impression that I am a famous lecher about town? Not true. I seem to keep falling in love, which is not the same thing. Yes, Dr. Freud, I am compensating for withdrawal of maternal affection, and yes, Dr. Jung, I am unable to make peace with my negative anima, and yes, Father, I have sinned through my own fault, in what I have done and what I have failed to do. Yet it is not, I must insist, merely sex. I have never had a better sexual relationship than the one I had with Amalie, but clearly, it was not enough. From very early in our marriage I was in the habit of having one on the side, and as I believe I've already noted, there is no shortage of such opportunities in New York City.
Ingrid, my current girlfriend, is a good example, and the clever and impatient reader may be thinking, Oh, he's avoiding getting to Miranda, he's stalling. This is true, and tough shit. I may die, but I am not actively dying like poor Bracegirdle; perhaps I have all the time in the world.
Ingrid was happily