License to Quill by Jacopo della Quercia Read Free Book Online Page B

south-southeast from Walsingham’s Seething Lane mansion, Shakespeare was assaulted by the sights and smells of the most magnificent yet menacing structure in London. There, jutting out of the city with all the majesty of a massive tombstone, standing strong as rock and white as bone, was the great and terrible Tower of London.
    Erected by William the Conqueror atop the ruins of an ancient Roman settlement, the Tower served as stronghold to five centuries of English monarchs and despots. Located on London’s easternmost perimeter along the Thames, the sprawling fortress was the city’s best defense against an invasion. Its eponymous keep, the White Tower, stretched nearly one hundred feet in each direction and was crowned with four tall turrets atop its four corners. This enormous, boxlike stronghold was reinforced with Caen stone, Kentish ragstone, and local mudstone, and stood in the center of a grassy ward encompassing more than twelve acres of gardens, workshops, and palace buildings. This ward, or ballium, was enclosed by an inner wall fifty feet high and thirteen feet thick with thirteen towers for defense, an outer wall guarded by six more towers and twenty-eight feet thick, a reeking moat that bobbed with centuries of carcasses and human excrement, and a heavily guarded wharf along the Thames riverbank to its south. When viewed in full, the Tower of London was a fortified pentagon that served as the English government’s administrative center: a royal palace, mint, menagerie, armory, treasury, prison, and torture chamber in one.
    This particular afternoon, William Shakespeare had business with the Tower’s Ordnance Office.
    Colloquially known as the “Double-O,” the Office of Ordnance was tasked by King Henry VIII in 1543 to serve as quartermaster to all the arms and wares in his military. They were the keepers of all the weapons, all the armor, all the gear, and all the gunpowder for the entire English army and navy. Due to the war with Spain and the subsequent surge in military spending, this body was expanded under Elizabeth I into a permanent defense board in 1597. Now empowered with new responsibilities such as research and development, this body remained headquartered at the Tower of London’s Ordnance Office. It was this facility, the Double-O, which occupied the enormous complex of armories, workshops, and laboratories honeycombed throughout the Tower’s inner ward. A scientific revolution was underway within these walls in 1604, and England’s greatest genius was leading it. Francis Bacon, the first scientist in history to receive a knighthood, was now the Double-O’s chief researcher, and his arrival was heralded by the clamor of ravens flying throughout the Tower.
    Bacon was in his lab examining astronomical data when Shakespeare interrupted him. “Master Bacon,” the bard greeted.
    The scientist looked up from his parchment to see his least-favorite man in the hemisphere. “You…” Sir Francis Bacon gasped from behind his pointy beard. The scientist jumped up from his chair as his piercing eyes bored into the bard. “What are you doing here? This is a laboratory, not a drinking den! Get out of here!”
    “He forced his way in,” one of the Tower guards escorting Shakespeare explained.
    “Then force him out!” Bacon shouted as he filled his arms with documents and threw a sheet over the enormous blackboard behind him. “This is a government facility, not a bawdyhouse! I will not tolerate this presumptuous pimp! He—”
    “He has a letter,” the guard interrupted. “He’s refusing to show it to us.”
    “My apologies, Master Bacon, but something tells me this message was intended for your eyes only.” Shakespeare produced Walsingham’s letter from his shirt and offered it with a welcoming hand.
    Bacon recognized the seal. “Where did you get that?” he muttered.
    Shakespeare smiled at the disbelieving scientist. “From W.”
    Bacon dropped his papers and snatched the letter