The Bookman's Tale Read Online Free PDF

and finally making his way to London where his success in the book business had brought him to such lofty literary circles. He had won money off Marlowe cheating at cards. He had even won whores off Marlowe cheating at cards. He, whose long-forgotten family scraped out a living on a scrap of farmland, had cheerfully romped with bawds paid for by the greatest English writer who ever lived.
    “So all the poets are out of work,” said Bartholomew. “Even the glove-maker’s son?”
    “Will Shakespeare?” said Peele. “Not out of work exactly. That is, he’s not writing plays.”
    “What is he writing?” asked Bartholomew, knowing that bashing the upstart Shakespeare, who had come not from Oxford or Cambridge but from a grammar school in someplace called Stratford, was a favorite pastime of the wits.
    Peele looked around the table, waiting until every eye was on him before delivering his punch line. “The glove-maker’s son is writing sonnets!” A wave of laughter swept the room. “Sonnets, can you imagine. See how many of those you can sell, Barty.”
    “But you must tell us of Winchester,” said Lyly. “I judge by the fineness of your new doublet that your trip was not without its rewards.”
    “Gentlemen,” said Bartholomew, leaning back in his seat. “I have today made more money as a bookseller than in all the past twelve months. I have made enough that not only shall I buy the next round of ale while I tell you the tale, but for anyone who wishes to adjourn upstairs afterward, I shall buy a round of fleshly entertainment as well.” He soaked in the cheers of his friends, blew the froth off another mug of ale, and began his story.
    He told of how he had met Robert Cotton, a young collector of books and manuscripts, at a meeting of the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries. Barely a week later he had been drinking with a canon from Winchester when the reverend let slip a local legend that sent Bartholomew packing for Hampshire.
    “It took me nearly two months to lay my plan, but one can’t rush these sorts of things. I needed, after all, a brawny imbecile and a senile verger and they both needed an affection for drink. The verger proved an easy matter. I had only to drink a few nights in the taverns near the cathedral. The imbecile was more of a challenge. I finally found a farmhand who fit my requirements perfectly. He wasn’t too trusting at first, but after a week or two of my paying for his ale every night, and a couple of visits to a brothel, he was ready to follow me anywhere. I chose a Tuesday night when everything in the precincts was quiet.” Bartholomew took two greedy gulps of ale and continued.
    “As you know, my family is from Wickham.”
    “They’re from no such place,” said Peele.
    “Yes, but that’s hardly common knowledge in Winchester. When I knocked on the door of my old verger, whom I had gotten good and drunk earlier in the evening, I was a poor pilgrim from Wickham come to pray for my father’s health at the tomb of our town’s most famous bishop.”
    “William of Wykeham,” said Lyly.
    “None other. You see, according to the canon I entertained here in this very inn, a little-known legend in Winchester holds that Wykeham was buried with an ancient book in his arms.”
    “The sort of book that might appeal to young Robert Cotton?” asked Nashe.
    “Exactly,” said Bartholomew, smiling. “The verger didn’t seem concerned that, despite the warmth of the summer night, both my ‘brother’ and myself were clad in heavy cloaks. He let us in the south transept and tottered back to his lodgings.”
    “And under the cloaks?” asked Marlowe.
    “Well, I had prayed to Bishop William before, you see. I’d spent long afternoons in his chantry chapel sizing up his tomb, measuring every dimension. It took some time to find a good carpenter who could be trusted, but eventually I found one who made me something resembling the trestle of a large table. It was in parts so the