'It's a sign,' thinks John Shakespeare to himself. 'It's a secret sign between them that they want to go to bed. She must have known this rogue before I married her, when she was Mary Arden.'
He sits furiously in the chimney corner. He is still and passionate, nursing his grief.
Now if Mr John Shakespeare had met a former lover of his wife's on the road or in the tavern, he could have cut him dead or knocked him down. But this elegant fellow with the raven locks and pink mouth has come to him cunningly, in search of sanctuary from the storm, and is now a guest within his house. You can't cut guests, and neither can you throttle them.
They eat their venison pie, the three of them, with gravy, by the hissing fire, with little speech, and none of it from John. He sits sullen. He looks sunken in his skin.
When the stranger has disappeared upstairs with his candle (and out of this book), John Shakespeare goes to the old sea-chest and takes from it a hank of hempen rope. His wife he gathers by the wrist. 'Come,' he commands. And he leads her out into the dark.
Mary is frightened. Going out through the door she has thrown on her cloak, but it's small enough protection against the storm.
'What is it?' she cries. 'What is it you're wanting with me?'
'Love,' shouts mad John Shakespeare. 'I want love, and I want the simple truth.'
'But you have them both,' cries Mary. 'My dear, you have always had them.'
'And I mean to keep them,' promises her husband. 'I mean to keep you true, madam, which means not opening your legs for that old flame of yours who's up in the house.'
His wife holds up her hand in the wind and the rain. 'I swear to you,' she cries, 'by my own hope of heaven, I am innocent of this sin which you say is mine. I never saw that man before in my life!'
'Strumpet!' roars Mr John Shakespeare. 'If that's true, then weren't you the quick one to be making the signs of lust - smiling between your fingers, yawning when he yawned, and all the wicked rest of it.'
He's in a fury now, our Mr Shakespeare's father, the bold butcher and whittawer. His fingers burn as he fashions a noose in the end of the rough hempen rope. His wife cannot believe what her eyes are seeing. He drops that noose about her neck, and pulls.
John leads Mary through the dark towards the Forest of Arden.
The wind is dropping but it still blows hard enough. They are bent in their struggle to reach the ragged trees.
As they go, John and Mary Shakespeare, a noise of wild wings goes with them. It's a flock of small birds, fluttering against the ends of the storm, whirling above their heads where they bend into the wind.
And the moon rides out. There's a pool of moonlight now for them to move through, like people underwater, as they reach the first tree of the forest. John Shakespeare throws his rope over the lowest bough.
Up goes the rope, and it crosses the branch, but it does not lodge there.
The birds are there first, you see, hopping and dancing, and the rope slides when it hits their beating wings, and it snakes away, and it falls back to his hand.
John Shakespeare curses. Then he tries again.
Up goes the rope, the birds' wings beat once more, down falls the rope without purchase.
They're beating off his rope with their small wings.
'We will go,' proclaims William Shakespeare's father, 'to the next tree in the forest. It's an oak, if my memory serves me right, which will be the more suitable.'
With a tug at the rope, he leads his wife on by the neck.
Mary weeps as she walks there behind him.
But when they reach the great oak, the two Shakespeares, the same thing happens that has gone before. The birds are there. The rope is repulsed by the beating of their wings.
John Shakespeare drags his wife from tree to tree.
But it's the same scene at every tree he tries. The birds are there before him. They fly through the night, in the howling storm, and their wings repulse the rope each time he throws it.
His face black with anger, Mr John Shakespeare shouts: 'Madam, I know one tree where your friends the birds can't save you!'
What he means is the gallows. That hanging tree stands at the dark heart of the forest, where all the ways meet to make a crossroads.
Mary Shakespeare's weeping without ceasing now. Mary Shakespeare knows he means the gallows.
Her husband drags her on through the black wood.
When they reach the gallows John Shakespeare coils the end of the rope and then hurls it. It goes up. It seeks purchase on the crosstree. But even as the rope is snaking and looping through the air, the air is suddenly full of wings and the moon spills on them. And the moon spills on the gallows too, and on the man hanging there, and John Shakespeare sees the flock of little birds fly down once more in a bright cloud, and settle on the crosstree, so that his rope won't rest there. And this time there are more birds than ever, scores of them, hundreds, centuries of birds, the air's all birds, and birds all over the dead man too, sitting on his skull and on his twisted shoulders, swallows mostly, but fieldfares and martens as well, and blackbirds and thrushes, rooks and red-legged crows, throstles and bunting larks and ouzel cocks, pigeons and turtle doves, crows, sparrows, choughs, finches, blue wings and black wings in the swing of the moon, birds falling off and hanging in the air, birds fighting for places, birds perched on every spar and splinter of the gallows, birds, birds, birds, their small bright wings aflicker in the night, so that it might as well be water the rope is trying to hold, it might as well be the Avon or the sea.
John Shakespeare was a fool, but he's not an idiot. He knows a miracle when he's witnessed one.
He lets loose the rope from round about Mary's neck. He falls down on his knees. He kneels before her and the gallows in the moonlight.
'Forgive me,' said John Shakespeare. 'Forgive me, wife. It is I who have sinned against you.'
Nine months later, to that very night, the poet William Shakespeare came into the world.
Chapter Seven All the facts about Mr Shakespeare
It has been said that all the facts about Mr Shakespeare's life could be written on a single page. Here they are then:
Known facts about WS
26th April, 1564: Christened. 'C. Gulielmus filius Johannes Stiakspere.' 27th November, 1582: Granted licence to marry. 'Item eodem die similis emanavit licencia inter Willelmum Shaxpere et Annam Whateley de Temple Grafton.' 26th May, 1583: Christening of his daughter Susanna. 'C. Susanna daughter to William Shakespeare.' 2nd February, 1585: Christening of his twin son and daughter, Hamlet & Judith. 'C. Hamnet & Judeth sonne and daughter to William Shakspere.' 11th August, 1596: Burial of Hamlet Shakespeare. 'B. Hamnet filius William Shakspere.' 8th September, 1601: Burial of his father, John. 'B. Mr Johannes Shakspeare.' 5th June, 1607: Marriage of his daughter Susanna. 'M. John Hall gentleman & Susanna Shaxspere.' 9th September, 1608: Burial of his mother, Mary. 'B. Mayry Shaxspere, wydowe.' 10th February, 1616: Marriage of his daughter Judith. 'M. Tho Queeny tow Judith Shakspere.' 25th March, 1616: Signed his will. 23rd April, 1616: Died. 25th April, 1616: Buried. 'B. Will. Shakspere, gent.'