The School of Night Read online

  “Halldor, I fear, is the only one who thrives in this sort of miasma. Myself, I prefer your highly efficient American air-conditioning. Shall we, Mr. Cavendish?”

  Some of the heat came in with us, and for a second or two the air seemed to be ionizing around us. Halfway down the hall, I could see Lily Pentzler going head-to-head with the caterer. Pausing to reload, she flicked her eyes toward me—and then toward Styles. A crease bisected her forehead, and then she began muttering into her sleeve, like a madwoman.

  “Perhaps we might talk in the theater,” the old man said. “The upper gallery, I think. More private.” His step was sure and even as he climbed the carpeted steps, talking as he went.

  “Such a nice little pastiche. Of course, a true Elizabethan theater wouldn’t have a roof, would it? Or such comfortable chairs. All the same, quite charming. I wonder what play they’re putting on now.”

  “Oh, it’s … Love’s Labour’s Lost.”

  “Well, isn’t that apropos?”

  “Is it?”

  “I wonder if it’s modern-dress. No, I don’t wonder at all. On that particular question, I have been quite driven from the field. Everywhere one goes now it’s Uzis at Agincourt, Imogen in jeans, the Thane of Cawdor in a three-button suit. Next thing you know, Romeo and Juliet will simply text each other. Damn the balcony. OMG, Romeo. LOL. ILY 24–7. Oh, chacun à son goût, that’s what I hear you saying, but does it rise even to the level of goût? I consider it, on the contrary, mere squeamishness. I have seen far more fearful things in my life than a doublet and hose. The sooner we inoculate our children against these terrors, the stronger we will make them.”

  Seating himself in the gallery’s front row, he raised his eyes to the ceiling, where a blue Elizabethan sky had been meticulously painted—far lovelier than the sky outside. A dusky silence fell over him. He laced his hands over the balcony rail.

  “You’ve known Alonzo quite a long time,” he said at last.

  “Knew him, yes.”

  “I believe you also have the honor of being his executor.”

  I looked at him.

  “Apparently so,” I said.

  “In that case, I think you might be of great use in resolving a little problem I have.”

  “That would depend on the problem.”

  Wrinkles fanned out from his eyes and mouth as he began to polish the balcony rail.

  “A document,” he said, “recently left my possession.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s a document I’m rather keen on recovering.”

  “All right.”

  Silence grew around us until at last, in my politest tone, I asked:

  “And you’re coming to me because…?”

  “Oh! Because Alonzo was the one who borrowed it, you see.”

  I stared at him. “Borrowed it?”

  “Well, generally speaking, I prefer to take charitable constructions of men’s acts. I’m sure that poor Alonzo, had he lived, would have returned the document to me in due time. Now, of course, he’s shuffled off this mortal coil.” He waved softly at the ceiling. “Such a loss.”

  “Was the document valuable?” I asked.

  “Only to an old sentimentalist like me. Although it does have a certain historical piquancy. As you might appreciate better than most, Mr. Cavendish.” He leaned over and, in a conspiratorial tone, added, “You were a redoubtable Elizabethan scholar in your day, were you not?”

  The air grew significantly cooler in that moment, or maybe my face was just getting warmer.

  “I’m flattered you think so,” I said. “I’m flattered you even remember my name.”

  “Confound the man’s modesty! How could I fail to recall the paper you read at Oriel College back in ’ninety-two? ‘Empire and the Silver Poet.’”

  “You were there?”

  “Oh, yes, I found it quite a welcome blow against the idea of Ralegh as dabbler. And chauvinist that I am, I was surprised that an American such as yourself could grasp the true Englishness of Ralegh’s character. Only Shakespeare, I think, was more English.” He clucked his tongue. “All in all, a charming—a comprehensive lecture. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in expecting great things of you.”

  “Then I’m sorry to have disappointed you.”

  “Oh, but you haven’t,” he answered. “Not yet, anyway. But given your background and your long friendship with Alonzo—well, I can’t think of a fellow better suited to help me find my little document.”

  Still he kept polishing that rail. Back and forth, back and forth.

  “But what is it?” I asked. “A deed? A tradesman’s bill?”

  “A letter, that’s all.”

  “Who received it?”

  “Unclear. Only the second page survives.”

  “Okay, who wrote it?”

  He said nothing at first. Only a slight trembling in his hands showed he had even heard the question. He turned to me at last with a smile broad as a river.

  “Oh, God,” I murmured. “Ralegh.”

  “The very man!” he said, clapping his hands in delight. “And imagine. The letter turned up just nine months ago. A solicitor’s office in Gray’s Inn Road was clearing out its archives—several centuries’ worth; you know how far back these things can go. Having heard something of my reputation, they called me in to appraise its contents and to see if I might be willing to offer them anything for it. Of course, they had no inkling of what they had, so I was able to acquire the letter for quite a reasonable sum.”

  No mistaking the satisfaction in his voice. Some collectors spend money like oxygen—Alonzo was one. Others hoard every last atom.

  “Mr. Styles,” I said. “You’ll forgive me, but I’ve learned to distrust any document with Ralegh’s name on it. Having been burned before…”

  “I should be wary, too, if I were you. In this case, I can assure you it’s authentic.”

  “And you can assure me Alonzo took it?”

  “Oh, yes.” A slow bobbing of his silver head. “He hid his tracks beautifully, I’ll give him that. For several weeks, we didn’t even know the thing was missing. And then, when we spotted the substitution, we had to dig very deeply into our security archives before we found the—the exculpatory evidence.” He smiled. “Even on grainy security video, there’s no mistaking such a distinct figure as Alonzo’s.”

  “But there are other Ralegh letters already in circulation. Why would Alonzo go to such trouble to steal this one?”

  “I would guess he was intrigued by this particular letter’s content.”

  Styles let that settle in for a while and then, in a fit of mock astonishment, smacked his brow.

  “Oh, but I quite forgot! I’ve a copy to show you.”

  The barest flutter of his fingers, and Halldor was standing over us, paper in one hand, flashlight in the other.

  “When I first acquired the document, I took the precaution of having it digitized. I assume, Mr. Cavendish, you have no objection to reading it yourself?”

  “None.”

  “Then by all means,” said Bernard Styles, unfolding the paper.

  It was absolutely quiet in that balcony, and yet everything around me registered with the force of sound. The poplarlike altitude of Halldor. The slight inclination that Styles’s head made toward mine. My own hand, bathed in the flashlight’s puddle. The words themselves, which seemed to be scratching across the paper as I read them.

  Hee wold not be the first louer so to be served by Kit, who wold burn Hotte and Cold in the space of but one breth and who cold conjure up proofs for the Deuil or our Savior, howsoever the winde tourned him. Many was the time Chapman grew most greeued at some heresie, only to bee asured that Kit spoke but in jeste, as was his wont.

  Yew will excuse mee, I trust, for laboring in this veyne. I cold faynde noe bettere plaster for my woundes than memorie. In parlous Times, it is grete joye to thincke vppon our homelie Schoole, where wee were glad to gathere, and where your tvtelarie Genius out
svnned ever Star.

  Accompanyed with my best wishes, from

  And even before I got to the closing, I could see that all-too familiar signature:

  Your most asured frinde and humbell sarvant,

  W Rawley

  Derum Howse

  This 27 of March

  “Walter Ralegh,” I said faintly.

  I looked up. In the half-light, the old man’s eyes glittered like fish scales.

  “Oh, it’s much more, Mr. Cavendish. It’s what you and Alonzo have been searching for all your lives.”

  “Ah, well, as to that—”

  “My dear boy, there’s no need to take that air with me. I’ve just shown you definitive proof that the School of Night existed.”

  “So it would seem,” I allowed. “On first inspection.”

  “And tenth and twentieth inspection, too, I assure you. Say what you like, Mr. Cavendish, this is an exceptional historical find. I suspect it might form the springboard for quite a—quite a splendid academic treatise. Such as might restore a man’s career.”

  He paused, before carrying on in a breezier vein.

  “Unfortunately, neither you nor I can restore anything with a mere digitized copy. A nine-year-old could produce the same thing on his family’s computer. No, to forward our joint purposes, we will, I’m afraid, require the original.”

  I stared down at that paper, checkered with creases. The digitized words rose up once more: Our homelie Schoole, where wee were glad to gathere.

  And then again I remembered Alonzo’s last message to me.

  “May I keep this?” I asked faintly.

  “Of course.”

  It went straight into the pocket of my jacket. I gave it two quick pats; I almost thought I heard it coo.

  “Well, Mr. Styles, I can promise you this. Over the next few days, as you know, I’ll be sorting through Alonzo’s papers. If your document is there—well, let’s just say I’ll keep a weather eye out. How does that sound?”

  “Weather eye,” he said, musingly. “That’s a lovely expression. To my ear, it lacks urgency.”

  “I could be more urgent,” I said. “If the situation called for it.”

  A brief pause. And then a laugh, bounding across the Tudor beams.

  “With the right incentive, is that what you mean, Mr. Cavendish? I should have thought an entrée back into academia was incentive enough.”

  “Who says I want to go back?”

  He grinned at me, frankly admiring. “So academia’s loss is commerce’s gain. Very well, I shall offer you a retainer of ten thousand dollars. Another ninety thousand dollars when you return the document to me. Or perhaps, in light of the prevailing exchange rates, you’d prefer euros?”

  But once I heard those numbers, I was beyond considering exchange rates—or even Walter Ralegh. In no particular order, I was thinking about the rather terse letter from my landlord’s attorney; my ’95 Toyota Corolla, which needed a new belt transponder and which was not strictly speaking mine; the glove compartment of said car, currently crammed with overdraft notices. (In certain moods, I used them for Kleenex.)

  “Dollars will do,” I said.

  He leaned toward me.

  “And you’re sure you don’t have weightier projects to command your attention?”

  This was my first taste of Bernard Styles’s savagery.

  “Nothing that won’t keep,” I said.

  Another fluttering of his fingers, and Halldor was there with a leatherbound checkbook and a Cross pen. The greater you are, they say, the smaller your signature. The old man’s, at any rate, was a couple of Japanese strokes. In the very next moment, the check was resting in my hand.

  “Chemical Bank,” he told me, rising to his feet. “It should clear instantly. The rest, as I’ve said, will be yours when you deliver the document. In person.”

  “Where will you be staying?”

  “With friends,” he said simply, “for another week or so. I assume that will give you sufficient time to finish the job.”

  “How do I reach you?”

  He tucked his umbrella under his arm. “I’ll reach you. And now I must be off, I’m afraid. I’ve been promised a private tour of the archives. If it’s not too much trouble, please do convey my deepest sympathies to Alonzo’s family. Such a loss to the world. And now”—he rose in a straight line—“at the risk of sounding tasteless, Mr. Cavendish, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”

  “And with you,” I said.

  No final handshake. He sealed our compact with a nod and an almost bashful smile. Only in the act of leaving did a new thought strike him.

  “Do you know, I’ve carried off some of my best transactions at funerals? From death springs life, I always say.”

  3

  MY INTRODUCTION TO the School of Night I owe to Alonzo Wax’s elbow.

  It came at me in the winter of our freshman year, about two hours and twenty minutes into a student production of Love’s Labour’s Lost, which he and I were attending for entirely different reasons. Alonzo was testing his theory that the American dialect was better suited to Shakespearean English. (“Elizabethans loved their consonants, Henry.”) I was warm for the junior playing the Princess of France. Once, in the act of asking me for my Chaucer notes, she had smiled at me, and in this smile lay such a world of promise that I honestly wasn’t listening to the King of Navarre confess his love for the Princess. I was just waiting for the Princess to come back.

  For this reason, I missed the crucial moment altogether. And would never have known what I’d missed had it not been for Alonzo’s elbow, gouging out a uniquely tender spot between my fourth and fifth ribs.

  “What the fuck?” I gasped back.

  There was a pause of maybe two or three seconds, in which all my unworthiness gathered and mounted toward the heavens.

  “Never mind,” he muttered.

  Through the rest of the play he was silent, and for a good time afterward. But later that night, over gimlets at the Annex, he agreed to give me another chance. Walking his fingers across the sticky tabletop, he re-created the exact moment in Act IV, Scene 3, when the King’s men, having sworn off the company of women, must now confess themselves foresworn. They are men in love.

  Having made a clean breast of it, they are now free to criticize one another’s taste—which they do, with a will. The King, in particular, taunts his buddy Berowne for craving dark-haired Rosaline. Black as ebony, the King calls her. No face is fair that is not full so black, Berowne retorts. To which the King replies—and here you must imagine every last beer mug in the Annex buzzing with Alonzo’s declamation:

  O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,

  The hue of dungeons and the SCHOOL … OF … NIGHT.…

  Ellipses, his. Capital letters, too.

  “So what?” I answered. “It’s a passing metaphor. The sonnets are full of them. The dark lady—my mistress’s eyes—nothing like the sun…”

  Cheap gin always made Alonzo magnanimous. Which is why he just fussed with his napkin.

  “I can’t really blame you, Henry, for missing it. The audiences of 1594 or ’95 or whenever it was, they would have missed it, too. Only a handful of spectators, I think, would have known what was going on. And in that moment, Henry!” He smiled blearily. “I like to think their gasps would have carried all the way to Shakespeare himself. Waiting in the wings.”

  Alonzo began to massage the air around us until I began to feel, yes, something like a stir along my hairline.

  “Why were they so shocked?” I asked.

  “Because this little northern upstart, this son of a Stratford glover, was mocking some of the greatest men England had ever known. No, it’s true. Walter Ralegh. Christopher Marlowe. A good half dozen others. Love’s Labour’s Lost is nothing more than a satire of these great men and their pretensions. With that one phrase—the School of Night—Shakespeare was hauling them into the light of day, leaving them naked for all to see.”

  �
��And for evidence you have…?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, read Bradbrook. Read Tannenbaum. Read Shakespeare’s goddamned plays, if you don’t believe me. The King of Navarre and his court. The Duke of Arden and his court. Prospero. Hamlet! Again and again, Shakespeare came back to that same theme. Scholars—men of real originality, Henry—working in isolation from the world. Banished, basically, for their very thoughts. And they’re all just variations on Ralegh’s original school.”

  Here was one of the differences between us. Alcohol made him more expansive. The cheaper the booze, the louder he grew.

  “I still don’t get it,” I said. “What was this school?”

  “Only the most secretive, the most brilliant—God, the most daring—of all Elizabethan societies.”

  He lowered his head toward the table, eyeing me as though I were a cue ball.

  “Are you ready, Henry?”

  Without any more preamble, he took me back. To 1592.

  Walter Ralegh, the great courtier of his time, has incurred the queen’s wrath for secretly marrying one of her attendants. Exiled to his estate in Dorset, he comes up with a characteristically ambitious way of passing the time. He will gather the greatest intellects of his generation and give them the freedom they have been seeking all their lives, the freedom to speak their minds.

  “It was going to be—Christ, how did Shakespeare put it? In the play we just saw? A little academe—”

  “Still and contemplative in living art.”

  “Just so.”

  Well, who could turn down such an invitation? Not Marlowe.

  Not Henry Percy, the “Wizard Earl” of Northumberland.

  Not George Chapman or his fellow poets Matthew Roydon and William Warner. One by one, they flocked to Dorset.

  From the start, the school’s members understood the risks they ran. They met exclusively in private, exclusively at night. As far as we know, they kept no record of their conversations. They published none of their findings. Until Shakespeare gave them a name, they had none.

  “And yet”—Alonzo’s index finger dug into the table like an awl—“they were one of the greatest threats to the Elizabethan establishment.”