Death of Kings (33 page)

“Is he?” I said, all ignorance.

“I saw them talking close together at the Globe after
Richard
,” said the watchful Master Hancock. “I saw
you
talking to them too, Nicholas.”

Fortunately, I was saved from having to respond to Martin’s awkward observation by a great ripple and stir that now ran through the crowd of us players, assistants and shareholders clumped
in threes and fours backstage. From the sussuration issuing from beyond the temporary divisions that separated us from the frontstage area it was evident that the court audience was assembling in
the body of the Hall, and that we’d have to look sharp about our business. So I put to one side the melancholy end of Robert Devereux and the unknown fate of Henry Wriothesley, and turned
instead to my
Twelfth Night
part, that of Antonio, the loving friend of Sebastian.

We had to wait several minutes longer until we were given the signal that we should process onto the stage. Because this was a royal performance – and I’d been told that the Queen
herself had personally requested
Twelfth Night –
we were required to make our obeisances to the audience and principally to
Her
before the action commenced. Accordingly, led by
Messrs Shakespeare and Burbage (costumed as Duke Orsino of Illyria) and Heminges and other of the shareholders, we walked out stately onto the dazzling stage. The Hall itself was also in full
blaze, with candle-frames suspended from wires stretched from wall to wall and elaborate sconces on every buttress. I saw, for the first time, that one of the appurtenances of greatness and wealth
is light.

Not for the first time, however, I was glad of my junior position in the Chamberlain’s, since it meant that I, a tender sapling, could find shelter among the full-grown oaks and beeches of
my elders. Together with the court audience, we remained on our knees until
She
had taken her state and indicated that we might all rise. Then we of the players continued to make graceful
flourishes and bows until
She
signalled with a gracious wafture of her hand that we might begin.

It wasn’t the first occasion I’d seen our great Queen. Soon after I’d arrived in London, I had glimpsed her in procession in the street, and
the very next day
I’d
seen the royal barge on the river. This double sighting gave me the oddest, most vainglorious idea that she must be aware of my presence in the city and that I was destined to see my monarch every
day. But of course I did not, until this Shrove Tuesday evening.

Not that I saw much now. I kept my head at a respectful angle, glancing up and round at the crowded Hall only momentarily. The great room was packed, with court-men and court-ladies standing at
the edges and the more important seated and the most important of all nearest to Elizabeth. The fiery clusters of candlelight sparkled and spangled off brooches and clasps and rings, off pendants
and necklaces, off gold-threaded stomachers and doublets. Everywhere, white lace waved and tossed like the spume I remember to have seen once on a stormy day in the Bristol Channel. Everywhere
there was the subtler glow of silk. Players are used to being the finest dressed members of any assembly. Indeed, we are often reminded by the Tire-man of how much our costumes are worth in
comparison to our insignificant selves, and how the audience has really come to see the clothes, to which our words and gestures are mere adjuncts. But in a royal palace the reverse holds. There we
are outshone tenfold by the magnificence of the audience. And how could it be otherwise?

As for the Queen herself, I can report little at this moment. Rather than looking directly at her, I was conscious of a lavishly-decked figure shadowed by the canopy of state. To gaze straight
at a monarch may be unwise, like gazing straight at the sun. Then again, all of us have heard stories of our lady’s graciousness and directness with the common people, and of how she enjoins
them to speak their minds to her. Even so, even as I was aware of being in
Her
presence, the main thought that floated through my mind was: if my father could see me now! A hater of plays,
he surely would have modified his opposition if he had been able to witness his only son in the same room as the Queen. He surely might have allowed a grudging respect for the drama if he’d
seen that scene! (But it may be that I’m imagining this.)

As we trooped off the stage to leave it clear for the first scene, set in Duke Orsino’s court, I noticed a figure sitting on the front row only a short distance from the Queen. On the only
previous occasion when we’d met, the light hadn’t been so good, but under any circumstances I would have recognised the high white forehead, the candid gaze. To say nothing of the
awkward posture which was produced by the man’s hump back. Sir Robert Cecil, Master Secretary Cecil, caught my eye as I processed off stage. I thought that some signal passed from him to me,
though I couldn’t have said exactly what it was. Perhaps he was merely acknowledging my presence, acknowledging a small prior connection between a high statesman and a low player. Or perhaps
it was something more. (But it may be that I’m imagining this too.)

So to the play itself.

Twelfth Night makes
for fitting pre-lenten fare, even if it is a little adrift from its due calendar date. It raises our spirits before the days and nights of abstinence, and sends us out
happy into the dark. And it cannot help reminding us a little of that dark by the humiliating ends of Malvolio and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Not everyone in this world will conclude the day happy and
married. Feste sings yet in the rain, while Antonio is forgotten by Sebastian.

Though a player usually wants a large scroll, a large part, I was again content to be in a subordinate position for this royal performance. I gave Antonio a kind of fervour in his declaration of
love for Sebastian, I gave him bitterness in his denunciation of ingratitude – or at least I hope that I imparted these qualities to the role. I hope I spoke clear and full. But the weight of
the play was borne by Dick Burbage and Armin, not to mention Martin Hancock as Viola or our other leading boy, Michael Donegrace, who assumed the mantle of wealthy Olivia.

Although noble patrons are not altogether strange to us, this Whitehall audience was different from the common run at the Globe. For one thing, they had been so well catered for at the banquet
that wine filled their upper chambers and some were now more than halfway between satiety and stupor. Most of the rest took their cue from the Queen or would have done had they been easily able to
gauge her response. But it was hard to see how
She
was reacting under the protection of her fine canopy. Her chair of state, though set up high on view, was also curiously insulated from her
subjects. However, there was a not infrequent woman’s laughter from that quarter at the antics of Sir Toby and Maria, at their fooling of Sir Andrew and Malvolio, followed by enough chuckles
and snorts from the audience to indicate that what was good enough for their monarch was certainly good enough for them.

But it seemed to me that an air of reserve – even, paradoxically, of sobriety – hung over the great Hall, for all the finery and intermittent jollity of its occupants. Now, there
might be several reasons for this. For one thing, I had never experienced a performance at the palace before and, for all I knew, this might be the standard reaction to the Chamberlain’s
royal displays. There was none of the easy banter that obtains in the playhouse between those up on stage and those down in the pit. Whitehall Palace, as I’ve already mentioned, has no pit
– but the
spirit
of the pit was also absent. And an absence of other things besides: no cutpurses, no whores, no swearing soldiers and boatmen, no vendors of nuts and apples and ale,
no quicksilver gangs of apprentices. Without doubt, some examples of these types, of thieves and whores, were present in the royal court as they are in every human gathering but, if so, they were
richly disguised in robes and lace.

But the principal reason for the
quietness
of the occasion I put down to one individual, someone who was both present and absent, someone whose fate had formed the pre-play conversation
between Jack and Martin and me. If we humble players knew that the Earl of Essex was likely to die on the morrow then you could be sure that every last court-man and – woman in the audience
knew it too. And, first and foremost in every sense, the Queen knew it. She, after all, was the one who would finally subscribe that fatal warrant. She alone could say where and when, and how, the
Earl’s soul would be sundered from his body.

Did this knowledge, this mortal responsibility, weigh heavy on her? How could it not? The closeness betweeen the Queen and the Earl had once been the talk of the town. It was commonly believed
that he had escaped the ultimate penalty for treason after his return from Ireland because of a lingering fondness on her part. Now she was brought to the point where, all-powerful as she was, she
was yet impotent to save him – and perhaps no longer wished to do so. She alone had to bring down the man whom she had once raised up.

So, as I say, there was a subdued tone to the event. Not my imagination, I think, because a brief moment in the play seemed to strike some hidden chord with the audience. When, as Antonio, I
talk of the danger of being captured by Duke Orsino’s men on account of having participated in a sea-fight against his galleys, I make mention of the penalty for resistance:

For which, if I be lapsed in this place
,

I shall pay dear.

From some portion of the Hall, higher up near the top of the degrees, seemed to come a sigh which resonated as about a whispering chamber, broadcasting itself independently from different
sections of the room. At the time I registered the effect but was puzzled. It was only afterwards that I connected the sense of Antonio’s words – the notion of capture and paying the
price – to my lord of Essex.

But I’ve no idea whether this intuition was correct.

After we’d exited the stage for the final time, after Feste had sung his little piece about the wind and the rain and we’d done our little closing jig and then made a fresh set of
obeisances in the direction of the canopied state and returned once more to our knees as
She
made her own exit – after all of this, I say, we trooped back to our temporary
tiring-house. There was some back-slapping and hand-clasping, with Burbage and Shakespeare being especially prominent in congratulating and thanking not only their fellows of the
Chamberlain’s but also the court people who’d assisted in the performance. I had noted before how assiduous these two were in paying their dues of thanks, and how their ouday was
returned several times over in the quiet smiles or delighted grins of those they complimented. Even old Tilney, the Master of the Revels himself, and something of a dry stick – probably
because he went right back to the days of Tarleton and must’ve shepherded dozens of productions past the Queen’s eyes – even old Edmund wore a little expression of relief on his
face.

As I was disrobing myself, I noticed a splendidly dressed courtier enter the tiring-area. He spoke to Jack and Martin, who happened to be standing together at that point, and all three turned to
examine the scene. After a moment, Jack nodded and pointed me out to the courtier. This elegant gentleman preened across the floor towards me. Unaccountably, I felt myself going as hot and red as
Richard Milford.

I was half out of my costume, a condition which always puts one at a disadvantage. Especially so when the other man was as finely adorned as this one. He stopped in front of me, removed a
well-feathered bonnet and half-inclined his head. I wish I might have snatched his hat to fan myself cool again.

“Can I claim the inestimable pleasure of addressing Master Nicholas Revill of the Chamberlain’s Company?” said this prim-mouthed figure. He was in the latest style, even down
to being clean-shaven, a fashion which I’d observed among other courtiers. But his style of speech was as ornate as, contrariwise, his chin and upper lip were bare.

“You can, sir,” said I. “I am Revill.”

“Then may I make a further intrusion on that good gentleman’s time, leisure and liberty as to entreat him to listen close while I impart a thing?”

“You may, sir.”

Even as he spoke these long sentences, he was casting his critical eye up and down my person. My costume as Antonio was designedly rough and ready since I was just a faithful sea-dog. But I was
hardly eager to crawl back into my street clothes while he looked on, for I feared that I would look no more significant in my own person than in another guise.

“Do please continue,” continued this individual, “with your divesture . . . so that you may proceed to your revesture.”

“Divest – ? Oh, you mean taking off my costume . . .”

The courtier looked pained at my low language.

“Only in order that you may the more speedily resume your customary habiliments,” he said, as if he was making himself clearer.

“My day clothes, you mean. But surely you haven’t come to talk to me about my
clothes
?”

I could sense two or three of my fellow players listening and sniggering nearby. Perhaps this gave me the nerve to talk plain. Here was your typical courtier. In fact, I wasn’t sure that I
hadn’t earlier glimpsed him in the audience.

“No sir, the subject of your apparel is not within my compass—”

“Sir, I’m glad to hear it.”

“—but the matter I have come to impart to you cannot be communicated until you have resumed your diurnal attire.”

“Oh very well,” I said, irritated and hurrying to change so as to remove myself from this man’s company. As I shrugged myself into my street clothes, I said, “Would you
do me the honour to acquaint me, sir, with the identity of the gentleman whom I am addressing?”

“I,” said this important being, “am Sir Roger Nunn.”

“Ah,” I said.

“Of the Nunns of Northampton.”