The Book of Air and Shadows - Michael Gruber [96]
All that befell thereafter you will finde writ in the letteres that I passed to Lord D. viz: my approache to this Shaxspure, what passed between us, the playe he wrought of that wicked queene of Scots, and what became of it, and at laste how wee fayled and so I shalnot repeate here for I feare me I have not more than a few houres & it straineth me to write more. You know well Nan my lyfe thereafter & I am saddened that I can not relate it to hym as I have those yeares before. Say to hym your sire was a gonner in the German warres in the goode Protestant cause: was at White Mountain and vanquished by the papistes & at Breitenfeilde and Luttzen holped vanquishe them: but tyring of warre & sore hurt in the foote by a bullet then returned, my father having since died & your fishmonger dying also (the which I had prayed for & pray you and God forgyve mee for it!) and were married 3rd Aprill 1632 St. Margaret Pattens & yeare after had a son, praise God & maye hee live long and thee.
Some more thinges of import for my time groweth short I can scarce make out the page though it be clare day & I am griped by my mortal agonie you know well my leathern boxe that I keep in my privy closet, in it you shall finde the letteres cypher’d in the fasioun I devized. Doe you keepe them safe and show them to no one. They tell all the tale nearlie of my Lord D. his plot & oure spyeing upon the secret papist Shaxpure. Or so wee thought him although now I am lesse certayne. In that manner & bent of lyfe he wase a Nothinge. But certayne it is hee wrought the playe of Scotch M. I commanded of him in the Kinges name. I find it passing strange that all though I am dead and him also yet the playe lives still, writ in his own hande & lying where onlie I know & there maye it reste for ever.
As to the letteres: if the King should prevail in this present affarye, which God forbid, and his ministers come at you with ill intent, these leaves may holpe to secure your fortune, yours and that of oure son. You know how to worke the cypher and I recollect you the Keye be the Willowe where my mother lieth and if thou’rt able I wish that my bones may lye besyde hers hereafter.
Fare thee well my girl & with Gods grace I hope I shall see you agen in the incorrupt bodie promised us by oure Lord & Saviour Christ Jesus in whose name I sign this yr. husbande
RICHARD BRACEGIRDLE
10
Crosetti sat in his father’s car, a black 1968 Plymouth Fury, and watched 161 Tower Road, feeling stupid. The house was a two-story frame model in need of a coat of paint, set in a weedy lawn behind a low chain-link fence. A row of brownish junipers bordering the house seemed the limits of H. Olerud’s horticulture. This name was displayed on a battered black maibox nailed to a crooked post. In the driveway sat a rust-flecked green Chevy sedan with the hood up and a scatter of tools on a tarp next to it. In the open shedlike garage that adjoined the house, he could see a red tractor and a tangle of shapes that could have been agricultural implements. The place had a tired look, as if it and the people who lived there had been knocked down and were waiting for breath to return. It was a Saturday. Crosetti had left the city at dawn and driven