The Quality of Mercy (63 page)

Like Harry’s voice. Though a dwarf, the Jesuit’s lungs operated at full capacity. Shakespeare said nothing. Silvera drummed his fingers together.

“You are a heretic!” he announced.

Shakespeare remained silent.

“Though I suppose that’s no fault of yours,” Silvera said as an afterthought. “You were raised by heretical parents and brought up in a church riddled with hypocrisy as well as heresy. But know, son, that you are a heretic and will account to God because of it.” Silvera sat down next to Shakespeare. “But I can help you, my son. I can bring you back to the true light and faith. You must rise up against the false faith and its false ruler, the Queen of—”

“Was Harry a heretic?” Shakespeare interrupted. He was not about to engage the Jesuit in a conversation that constituted treason.

Silvera shook his head, tears welled up in his eyes. “Never,” the old man said in a hushed voice.
“Never!”

“He kept his Catholic beliefs well hidden,” Shakespeare said. “His superficial beliefs, the ones that he espoused to the fellowship seemed almost… dare I say it, atheistic.”

“You did not know the true Henry Whitman,” Silvera said. He made it sound like an accusation.

“Then teach me about him,” Shakespeare said.

“Why should I?” answered the priest stubbornly. “Who are you to him? To me?”

“Mayhap I could tell you a side of Harry to which
you
were not privy,” said Shakespeare.

“I was his father,” said Silvera. “I knew all sides of Harry.”

Shakespeare paused. The way Silvera had said
father
made the player wonder whether the monk had meant it spiritually or physically.

“He told me a great deal about you, Shakespeare,” said Silvera. “He said he loved you.”

“I loved him as well.”

“
How
well?” Silvera asked.

Shakespeare didn’t answer right away. Henley had asked a similar question. The meaning of their inquiries slowly came to him. He said, “Our love was purely spiritual, Father.”

Silvera dropped to his knees, crossed himself, and muttered a slew of Latin. Though not fluent in the language, Shakespeare could make out words of thanksgiving to the Almighty for making Harry pure.

Shakespeare had never noticed an Italianate inclination in Whitman. Though Harry drank often at Bull’s with Marlowe, it seemed natural that the most formidable player of the times would discuss topics with the most sought-after bookwriter. Yet Harry was a private man and could have concealed a lover from him.

Studying the Jesuit, Shakespeare pondered the priest’s powerful reaction to the fact that Shakespeare was not Harry’s lover. A reaction of extreme relief, like a wife verifying the faithfulness of her husband. Had Harry been the priest’s lover? Many a Jesuit had been known to bugger a young novice.

Silvera had stopped mumbling to himself. Shakespeare waited for him to speak. A quarter hour must have passed. Finally Shakespeare said,

“Tell me Harry’s history as a boy. Lord Henley seemed to think him rebellious.”

Silvera glared at him with fiery black eyes. He snarled and shouted, “Harry rebellious? Harry was the most sincere of the crop of them.”

“Who’re
them
?” Shakespeare asked.

“Why do you want to know?” Silvera asked again.

“His past may give me a deeply hidden clue that will explain his demise,” Shakespeare said.

“I doubt it,” said the Jesuit. “Still, I am grateful, in a certain aspect, that you’ve returned to Brithall. You’ve eased my mind. As far as I’m concerned, Harry Whitman had not engaged in mortal sin.”

“Buggery?”

“Aye. There had been fiendish rumors about him spread around town.”

“Hemsdale?” Shakespeare asked.

“Yes.”

“Spread by whom?”

“By those who spit in God’s face. By those who knew the Whitmans before the Reformation — knew that they’d been staunch supporters of the true faith! The muck was no doubt flung by the heretics, the followers of Calvin, Ridley, Latimer, and — dare I say such a blasphemous name —
Luther
.”

“Who in specific?” Shakespeare asked.

“I know not,” Silvera said. “Harry told me that certain people thought him a buggerer. He assured me this was not so. In sooth, his problems were just the opposite. He had a weakness for women. But that didn’t bother me. His wife and he were not married in the true faith, so I thought of Harry as being unmarried all his life, his children as bastards. Yet when he spoke of you… the love in his heart… I confess to God that I wavered in my faith of the boy.”

Shakespeare thought of Margaret, how she was suffering to raise Harry’s seven children, the ones Silvera so easily dismissed as bastards. Anger shot through his heart, yet he kept his temper. Calmly, he asked again who had spread the buggery rumors, and again Silvera denied knowing the answer. Shakespeare asked the priest if he knew Edgar Chambers.

“The hostler?” Silvera said. “I know of
his
nature. Twould not surprise me that
he
buggered, the filth! I’ve met the weasel several times when I’ve ventured out to the burg in one of my many disguises.” Silvera laughed. “I’m quite the player myself. I’ve acted the beggar, the baker, a chimney sweep…. Heaven knows, I’m short enough to be one—”

“Did Harry and you ever talk about Chambers?” Shakespeare interrupted.

“Not at all. Harry never mentioned the snake in the grass. Never.”

“What about George Mackering?”

Silvera shook his head.

“How about a whor — a wench who’d been known to dally—”

“I know nothing about Harry’s sport.”

Shakespeare wanted to ask him what the two of them had done every two weeks in May for the last forty years, but restrained himself. The Jesuit greatly misliked being interrogated. Instead he asked the priest to talk about Harry as a child.

“It is impossible to understand Harry unless you understand the family.”

“Tell me about the family, then.”

Silvera shook his head. “They are still among the living, my son.”

“They have trusted me with their deepest secret, namely your presence at Brithall.”

“That was their decision. If it were up to me, I’d shout my existence to that witch of a queen. But Henley is fond of his neck. I hold my peace out of respect for him.”

“I will
never
betray you, Father,” Shakespeare said. “If I am so misinformed about Harry, educate me.”

Silvera stared at the player, his eyes still as hard as flint. “A moment,” he said. “I must pray.” He closed his eyes and lowered his head.

A minute later he said, “I suppose the family history has been gossiped about for years. I’ll tell you what is — or could be — common knowledge.”

“I thank you, Father,” said Shakespeare.

“When I first came to England… twas after fat Henry had cursed himself by marrying that whore Nan Bullen—”

“After the Reformation,” Shakespeare said.

“Have it your way,” Silvera said disgustedly. “You’ll all burn in Hell.”

“My apologies for interrupting you,” said Shakespeare. “I pray you, go on.”

Silvera described for Shakespeare the Whitmans. There had been three brothers, the eldest being George, Viscount Henley, heir to Brithall, Lord Robert’s father. He was the domineering one — shorter than the others, but he made up for his less than overwhelming physical stature by an astute mind and industrious labors.

“Robert Whitman is a tall man,” Shakespeare noted.

The Jesuit nodded as if Shakespeare had just learned catechism. He said, “He resembles Harry’s father — Lord Chesterfield, Isaac Whitman, Baron of Rochbury.”

The priest explained that Chesterfield was the youngest and tallest of the brothers. And he married a very tall, handsome woman, the type of girl that most men would be afraid to touch. But not Isaac Whitman. The girl’s father had been very rich and well connected, a distant relative to the virtuous Queen Mary. Upon Isaac Whitman’s engagement to the lady, the Queen raised him to peerage and he became Lord Chesterfield. Once a lord, Chesterfield dutifully impregnated his wife — and a variety of mistresses.

“A charming man,” Silvera said.

“Harry was very charming,” said Shakespeare.

“Isaac was the most bewitching of Whitman’s sons,” agreed the priest. “In sooth, Chesterfield’s enchantment came back to haunt him in the likes of Harry.”

“What about the middle brother?” Shakespeare asked.

“Ignatius Whitman — the spiritualist of the family. He became Lord Bartley upon his marriage to Beatrice Lennox — a very plain girl but well titled. Bartley was quiet and contemplative. The brothers were superficially staunch supporters of the new faith. King Henry demanded the support of his subjects upon the pain of death. But inside, like many, the brothers remained true Catholics. They raised their children secretly in the ways of the true religion.”

Shakespeare asked about Lord Bartley since Henley had made mention of Bartley’s influence upon him.

“Ah,” said the priest. “My gracious Lord Bartley. He, more than the others, found it intolerable to hide his true beliefs. He is now known as Fra Domingo.”

“He became a Jesuit,” said Shakespeare.

“Twas a most rewarding day for our order!”

Silvera smiled widely, his eyes shone brightly for a moment, then darkened as if a cloud passed over them. Then he told Shakespeare the sad tale. When the boy-king, Edward the Sixth, found out that Bartley had become a Catholic, he confiscated Bartley’s lands and stripped the family of its crest. Bartley’s eldest son was hung for heresy. Five years later some of Bartley’s lands were returned to his wife by the good Queen Mary. The Queen also knighted the second son, but the Bartleys never returned to their former state of wealth and prestige.

Shakespeare digested the history, noting how everything was beginning to piece together. No wonder there was no picture of the Jesuit in the long gallery. To have a portrait of a Catholic priest hung in a public place was to admit a kindredship with a traitor.

He thought a moment, then said, “Yet with all the dishonor, Bartley left a major impression on his nephew — the current Viscount Henley.”

“Bartley left a bigger impression on his grandnephew, Master Harry Whitman.”

Shakespeare asked how so.

The priest said, “Harry was much impressed with Bartley’s integrity, the strength of his conviction, his refusal to submit to hypocrisy. Harry was indeed a child of the true faith. Now, as I’ve stated, Lord Chesterfield, Harry’s father, was overtly a staunch follower of the false faith, a supporter of the Queen and her Church.”

Shakespeare noted the disdain in his voice when he mentioned the Queen.

“But twas Harry who truly felt the calling.”

Shakespeare was baffled. Nothing about Harry had ever suggested a calling.

Silvera continued, “He wanted to become a true priest — a Jesuit priest. Not what the Queen calls priests — men who marry, who scoff at the holy language of Latin, who fornicate with women they call their wives — and
worse,
believe it not to be sin. Harry wanted to be a true Jesuit. Like me. Like his uncle, Lord Bartley.”

The priest put his hand to his heart and continued:

“Harry’s father, Lord Chesterfield, was fearful that what had happened to Bartley would happen to his branch of the family if Harry were sent to Rome. Lord Chesterfield had used his charm wisely. It had earned him lands — rich lands. He wasn’t keen on the idea of being reduced to a pauper. Harry didn’t understand what he saw as sheer hypocrisy, and became a rebellious son, despising his father, I regret to say. Harry was deeply resentful that his father refused to send him to Rome and sought out ways of revenge against him. He spat on his bloodline, he fornicated with his father’s mistresses and other lowly women… marry, he even wed a commoner, the daughter of a false priest, irony of ironies. But the most shameful thing he did was to become a public embarrassment to his family.”

“By becoming an actor,” Shakespeare said.

“Yes,” Silvera said. “Disgraceful!”

“Yet he retained his Papist ties—”

“He retained his ties to the
true
religion,” Silvera corrected. “Yes, in his heart Master Henry Whitman, the prodigal son of Lord Chesterfield, was still a priest.”

Harry had acted anything but priestlike, Shakespeare thought. He closed his eyes and pictured Whitman, carousing with women and drinking with ne’er-do-wells. Then the tortured voice shot through his ears.

My father failed me. My God failed me.

You’re the man I wanted to be… a man of honesty
.

Silvera cleared his throat loudly and Shakespeare opened his eyes.

“Am I boring you to slumber?”

“I apologize, Father,” said Shakespeare. “It’s been a most exhausting day, but that’s no excuse for such unmannerly behavior. I pray you, continue. I’ll be more diligent.”

The Jesuit seemed mollified, and finished up the family history. Viscount Henley, George Whitman, was the richest brother of the clan, since as the eldest son he was the heir to all his father’s lands. After the Catholic uprising of ’sixty-nine, when it was life-threatening to harbor a priest, Henley had decisions to make. The priest could be smuggled back to Rome or stay hidden in England and continue to be the spiritual leader of the three families. Henley decided to hide the Jesuit, and his son Robert — the current Lord Henley — carried on his father’s commitment. Fra Silvera ended by saying that Harry, badly in need of spiritual healing, had seen him for confession, two weeks every year for the last twenty years.

The priest wiped tears from his eyes. “I cannot believe he’s actually gone from the mortal world, Shakespeare. I loved him. My dear, dear son.”

Shakespeare let him weep for a minute, then asked softly, “Your son in spirit alone?”

The Jesuit looked at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Harry told you?”

Shakespeare shook his head. “Simply a well-placed guess.”

Numbly, Silvera said, “I was once a handsome man, my son, not the ancient… skeletal… wretch you witness now. Women found me desirable, more so
because
I was a priest. I committed a very vile sin when I was young, and from sin can only come tragedy. I’ve prayed to God: let my body shrivel, my heinous appetites be gone, so that He would enter my heart forever. And Jesu Cristo, in His infinite mercy, has answered my prayers. He has made me old and weak, molded a shrunken dwarf out of a once strong and able-bodied man. May my body become even more hideous as my spirit fills with enlightenment,
in nomine Patris et Filius et Spiritus Sancti
.”