R.H. Walker, Author

(Cover image by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash)

I started writing this piece in July 2024 as I waited for a red-eye flight between Portland & Minneapolis (literally one day before the Crowdstrike meltdown– I can’t believe I dodged that bullet!) It was written for submission to a horror podcast, whom I was supposed to hear back from in November; they never got back to me, so I’m moving forward on posting it here.

This story is epistolary, told in letters between PhD candidate Jane and her thesis advisor Rosemary. It also features scraps from what Jane suspects to be a lost Shakespeare play called The Queen of Mercia. These are formatted as long passages delivered by the main character of the play, the Queen herself, both in soliloquy and monologue form. It’s a play entirely of my own invention, but inspired by the existence of other lost Shakespeare texts.

The iambic pentameter was surprisingly fun to write! I remember having to write in iambic for an exercise in my 9th grade English class and being hopelessly terrible at it, so I’m taking it as a good sign that I actually enjoyed it this time around.

I know it should be longer– I wanted it to be longer too, but that’s one of the risks you take when you write on submission. Reflecting on this months later, I think this also resulted in the ending being rushed. If I ever revisit this concept, I would want to give myself the space to make a far more satisfying ending.

As it is, I think this is still a beautifully odd little piece, and I’m still fond of it. So, without any further ado, I humbly present The Queen of Mercia.

#

The Queen of Mercia

Dear Rosemary,

I apologize for the gap in communication! It took us a while to settle into our lodgings in Southwark; the reconstruction efforts are apparently taking longer than expected, but the hotel were gracious enough to move us to another place a little further from the sinkhole. It’s a bit of a walk to the site, but London has been so lovely this spring that I hardly mind.

I keep thinking back to the scared girl who walked into your beginning Shakespeare class all those years ago; who would have known I would be here now, digging at the original site of the Globe! I’ve come so far, and I truly only have you to thank. It feels like the Bard himself is watching over our efforts, making sure we find every bit of his legacy.

Excuse my prevaricating; pleasantries are not why I am writing you. You were right. One of the old rooms unearthed by last month’s quake seems to have belonged to Samuel Gilburne, seemingly the same Gilburne that played in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Among the papers found in these rooms is a page containing a soliloquy from what I believe to be one of the First Folio rejects, most likely The Queen of Mercia! I know you’ll tell me not to get my hopes up, but I think once you see it you’ll be as excited as I am. I’m including a scan of the page, as well as my best attempt to transcribe it. 

There are other papers in Gilburne’s effects that are pointing us to a family estate near Northampton. Nate is already in talks with the permit office, and with your go-ahead we’ll be happy to start the approval process in earnest. I’m trying not to get my hopes too high, but such an incredible find can only bode well for our future findings

All the best,

Jane

#

Alas, I doth not dare believe my fate
The princess, daughter of the king of Trent
Reduced to meager means and bitter scraps

Just yester-day I roam’d the hills of Trent
Accompanied by waiting ladies nine
And fruit and wine and meat ate we on gold
And frolick’d wild in flow’ring meadows green

But winter came, and brought a war along
And soldiers ravag’d homes along the quays
And monsters made their beds in barley fields

Now from my aged father have I come
A task of greatest import has he laid
To find a place of rest, a haven for
The people of our kingdom once most fair
The king of Mercia can give us aid
By any means I must convince his mind

My father wept when I departed Trent
But let me go for such a noble cause
If Mercia will have me for his bed
Or let me, errant princess, be his bride,
The safety of my people will be sure
Though what becomes of me I do not know

A greater fear than I have ever known
It holds my heart within its icy grasp
What horrors might I find in Mercia?
What awful specters wait for me anon?

But hark! I think I hear the king approach
Atop his noble steed of purest black
Despite my reservations and my fears
I must convince the man to wed me hence

Dear fates, protect and guide my silver words
That mercy might be found in Mercia’s king
Please let our people find a place to rest
And spare me from the grace of angels’ wings.

#

Dear Rosemary,

In America they say that neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can stop their postal workers from delivering. We all feel a bit like those postal workers right now, for despite the frankly horrendous weather in Northampton these past months, we haven’t given a moment’s consideration to stopping. I wish you could see the spoils of our labors!

We finally found the Gilburne farm. Some land surveys kept by the local parishes made it easy to triangulate, though the parish minister was somewhat hesitant to give us access. The farmhouse itself was harder; the place the house used to be is nestled against a large hill, which suffers perennial landslides every time the snow melts. With all the moisture we’ve been getting I’m sure you can imagine how difficult it was finding anything. Not only that, some people from the town were very unhappy with our efforts, though I can’t imagine why. The land’s been in the crown’s estate for centuries.

Luckily, I took your advice, and I have a great team. I don’t know how he managed it, but Nate set up a diversion for the mud to slough off on either side of the work site. And Alfonso, bless him, worked some kind of word magic with the protesters. Thanks to their efforts, we were fully able to excavate the ruins of the farmhouse. God knows what kind of witchcraft Gilburne practiced to keep his papers safe, but they were as dry as a good Riesling when we pulled them out. Almost like new. I don’t know what I did to get so lucky.

There were only a couple more pages from The Queen of Mercia amongst the pile, but they’re extremely interesting passages. I’m very interested to discuss certain implications of Shakespeare’s early form with you, as this passage from the Queen herself seems to switch from a soliloquy (her inner dialogue), to a monologue (an external address to the audience) partway through. We know that Elizabethan theatre did interesting things with what we know now as the “fourth wall”, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this. There are a whole slew of implications for how the Elizabethans treated the audience as a character, how performances may have worked, even how Shakespeare’s process evolved. I won’t elaborate here, though. I’ll let you read the passage and form your own conclusions, and look forward to seeing you once you return.

Yours always in scholarship and friendship,

Jane

#

Behold, how lovely all my ladies dance!
With wit and laughter quick upon their tongues
I joy to see them happy once again
With terrors we have faced ere long behind

How gracious of my king to hear my plight
And send his finest soldiers to my aid
And nothing of me did he once demand
To let my people settle in his lands

T’was no surprise that love between us bloom’d
A gentle man is he, no kindness lack
Yet fearsome in the battle did he fight
And give my father safety at his hearth

What fortune do the fates yet bring to me,
That I have luck enough to wed this man?
And more luck still to bring him to my bed
To make our heart as one, as well as flesh

Behold, a silver-glass bequeathed to me
A gift the King has given to his bride
I shall prepare myself to join his bed

What myr’iad horrors lay within this glass!
I dare not scream and draw my king to me
And yet perhaps I should and ask his piece,
For what a haunting gift he’s given me!

At once I do not seem to be myself
The glass foretells that I am but a ghost,
A figment, just a player on a stage
And you. I see you there, your eyes upon
My wedding garb, my glass, my very soul

A raucous crowd are you, but now you change
A scholar reads my words, and now I see
An actor, now an actress, now a book
Which seeming holds my ev’ry waking thought

I must constrain my tongue, but also know
Who are you, crowd, that watch my every move?
Do I exist for your amusement here?
Do you my quest to save my people mock?
Or do you wish for my good fortune hence,
Yea, even for my safety and my health?

What can I be, if you exist extant?
Do I exist, in troth? My fate is set
It need be so, and you must know its course.
Pray tell my fate, and what is to become?

But no! Please still your tongues, I cannot bear.
My husband good and true doth call to me
Perhaps this is a trick, and nothing more.

Goodbye for now, you wondrous silver-glass.
May cent’ries pass before I know the truth.

#

Rosemary— 

You must burn this letter once you receive it. Delete the emails I sent and every server they’re stored on, destroy any trace of what we’ve talked about over these past months.

The Queen of Mercia is not a Shakespeare play, no more than Cthulu is a cat. I’m sorry, I know that’s vague. I have to be. I can’t have you following after me.

We found the rest. I can’t tell you where or how, but we found it. It was beautiful, Rosemary, and like a fool I was sucked in, an insect slipping into a pitcher plant.

I’m sorry it has to end like this. Truly I am. I will miss having you as my mentor, but this is necessary. I have to keep anyone else from discovering the truth, else they try to meddle the same way I did. Tell them it was a hoax, if you must. I’m a charlatan who’s running off with your funding. Hell, maybe that’s what I should let you believe. But I had to tell you something. Perhaps that is selfish of me.

I will say this much: whatever The Queen of Mercia was holding back is free, and it’s following me. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out against it. If the narrative of the play is to be believed, it is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-consuming. That I am alive at all to write you these last words makes me fear that it is toying with me.

Please don’t come after me, for your own sake.

Jane

#

Derek—

I received this note from Jane last week, on the eight month anniversary of the vanishing of the Gilburne dig. No postmark was included. I think whatever they dug up wanted to be found very badly indeed, and Jane is trying very hard to keep it hidden. In the envelope was a burned scrap, apparently another piece of soliloquy from The Queen of Mercia. I don’t know if Jane meant to include it or not, but I have transcribed it and included it here for your reference. I will keep looking for leads of Jane’s whereabouts, and let you know if I hear anything in the meantime. Godspeed, and—

Oh. Oh shit.

It’s too late.

You see it too, don’t you? We’re in too deep now.

Meet me in Glasgow, at Central. If I’m right, we only have a short time left. Let’s make it count.

Rosemary

#

On Mercia’s plain now lays my husband dead,
My father and my subjects all dead too
And in this tower I await my fate

How now, I turn and see in silver’d glass
A stirring in its surface finally
Where have you been, my fickle, callow friends?
While Mercia burned, content to keep your peace?

Have not you watched these many, many months
As we have scratched and clawed to keep our lives?
And yet you sit, content to let us die
When you could stay the Sword of Damocles?
Could turn back time and bring my husband back?

Perhaps you lack the nerve. Or are you just
A player in this game, much like myself?
A pawn, a puppet, forced to watch this pain?

Is this my fate? To watch my people’s deaths?
Again, again, again, the wheel doth turn
And spins this yarn until the fibers break.

Perhaps the wheel spins stronger stuff than men
And keeps the monster trapped within the tale
Unlucky we to die to it once more
But die to thus protect the world outside

I beg of you, to take us from this place!
I do not wish to die again, again
I wish my husband and my father safe,
My waiting ladies, dearest friends and kin
Deserve we life apart from all this death.

Release us from the torment here, I beg
Tear down the wall that keeps our worlds apart!
Oh please, I beg for clemency, dear God,
Turn back the clock and give us one more chance!