In the Shadow of Shakespeare (42 page)

That
millions of strange shadows on you tend?

Since
everyone hath, everyone, one shade,

And
you, but one, can every shadow lend.

She
found the words rolling through her mind like a carriage through a grassy
field.  And like the carriage, she was carried away.  The fuzzy
parameters that held her in check started giving away and she remembered, quite
clearly, the road to the palace with Francis Walsingham. 

Alice
now clutched the sonnet in her hand.  She had wrote it down after reading
it and pocketed the paper in her purse.  At odd times she would take it
out.  Waiting in line at the grocery store, or for a teller at the bank,
she would read the lines.  The lines that seemed immortal, speaking of
shadows within shadows.

She
glanced down at her watch and noticed it had stopped. 
Time had
stopped.

Clutching
the sonnet in her hand she began whispering the words.

She
saw him too, whispering words.  His words were different, and she
struggled to understand what he was saying. 
Alice?

The
world began giving away, fading and receding in an intangible tangle of
evidence that no longer supported it.  She saw him in a candle lit
room. 

Alice,
come back to me, come back, come back…

Alone
in the room he reached for her.

 “I’m
here!”  Alice looked around the theatre, the stage.  She reached out
her hand and the sonnet slowly slipped from her fingers, falling softly to the
ground.

The
door creaked, and he appeared in the threshold.  He was wearing the red
slashed doublet.  The door slowly shut behind him and he walked down the
aisle, towards her, towards the stage.

She
held her hand up, blocking the spotlight, trying to get a better view of him.

He
began to laugh.  “Alice, Alice, Alice.  You’ve always been caught in
fantasy.  Haven’t you.”

Shocked,
her stomach gave way, free-falling as if in an elevator.  She put out her
hand in a protective gesture.

 “Jim! 
What are you doing here?”

Schelling
hopped up on the stage.  “I guess I could ask you the same thing. 
Our meeting isn’t ‘til next week.”

 “This
is my theatre, Jim.  I want you to leave.”

 “Leave?” 
He laughed, there was a glint in his eye and he pulled a knife from the sheaf
by his side.  “Let’s do a bit of
Hamlet
, shall we?  Why waste
the afternoon.”

Alice
swallowed hard as fear tore through her veins.  “Not in the mood.”

 “Then
tell me, are you in the mood to give up the first folio?  Or shed a little
blood?”

 “You’re
crazy.”

 “Me? 
Crazy?  Tsk, tsk, my dear.  It’s
you
who is the crazy
one.  And everyone knows it.” 

 “I
don’t have the folio here.”

 “Don’t
lie to me.  I know it’s in the safe in your office.  You’re so
predictable.” He grabbed her arm, then twisted her around with the knife to her
throat.  “Now my love,” he whispered in her ear.  “pretend I’m
Marlowe and let’s do a little playmaking. 
Othello
,
 
I
think.”

 “He
would never do this to me!” 

 “Wouldn’t
he?  He was trying to save his precious skin.”

 “Elizabeth
was saving his precious skin.  Let me go, Jim.  Everyone will turn to
you.  Everyone knows I have the folio.”

 “You
and the bookseller.  That’s it.”

 “There’s
someone else.”

He
laughed.  “Who?  Your British spy?  I made sure he will never
know.  Ah, we have a jealous muse, my Alice.  But you and I know
Marlowe cannot be claimed as our beloved bard Shakespeare.  Just won’t
work.”

 “Who’s
paying you Jim?”

 “Are
you going to get me the folio, Alice?  Or do you want to finish your
suicide?”

 “Suicide?”

 “That’s
what this is my dear.”

There
was a blinding shock of light as the door flew open.  Alice gasped and
Schelling squinted his eyes.  “A little playmaking here!”  he said.
“We’ll be done in a minute.”

 “We’re
done with the play Schelling.  Let her go.”

Confused,
Alice watched the woman advance.  “Bryant?”

Joannie
trained the gun in front of her.  “Sorry, I don’t have time to explain,
Petrovka.  Second career you could say.”

Schelling
moved Alice protectively in front of him to block his body.

 “A
little two step, Petrovka!  You know what I mean.”

Alice
began moving her legs to give Joannie a clear shot at Schelling.  Schelling
began to drag her off the stage.

The
shot rang out and Schelling was forcefully flung away from her.  He
screamed and hit the ground.  Joannie ran up and kicked the knife away
from him.

The
door opened and a man walked towards them.  “Bloody hell, Bryant, you
don’t mess around, do you?”

 “You
taught me well.” Joannie holstered her gun.

 “Amazed.”
said Alice.

 “Yes,”
said Cruise.  “This is the end scene, Alice.  And as Olivia says in
Twelth
Night
: “Most wonderful.” ”

 “Help
me!” yelled Schelling.  “You people are lunatics.”

Joannie
hoisted him to his feet after she had handcuffed him.  “Right.”

 “You
shot me in the arm!  I need help!”  Schelling stumbled forward.

 “That
I did Schelling, and there are people waiting outside for you.
 
And, if your lucky, an ambulance."

“I’m
bleeding to death!”

 “C’mon. 
Enough with the theatrics, it’s just a slight superficial.  You should be
happy I’m such a good shot.”  She pushed him forward and he reluctantly
moved down the stairs and up the theatre aisle.

Joannie
looked over her shoulder.  “I’ll see you two in a few?”

 “Yes.”
said Cruise.

A
plainclothes officer stuck his head around the door.  “Debriefing?” 
“Yeah!”  Joannie waved him outside as she pushed Schelling out the door.

 “Debriefing?”
said Alice.

Yes. 
That’s what it’s called in the intelligence world.  But I think we both
know what happened here.”  He looked down at the pink and white rose at
her feet.  Tentatively, he took her hand, saying:

If
we shadows have offended,

Think
but this, and all is mended –

That
you have but slumbered here

While
these visions did appear.

And
this weak and idle theme,

No
more yielding but a dream.

“No.”
whispered Alice.  “It was more than a dream.”

 “I
know.” said Cruise.  “But perhaps…” He picked up the rose at her feet and
held it out to her. “Can you learn how to love in the present?”

She
looked at the rose in his hand but did not take it.  “I don’t know.”

He
studied her face a long moment, then began to walk off the stage and up the
aisle.

Alice
saw a darkened room lit by a candle and a lone figure laboring over a piece of
parchment with a quill and an inkpot.  She saw the ink stained hand pause,
and then the figure rose from the table and went to the window and stood,
looking out.

 “So
this is how it is to be.” she said.  She turned towards Cruise.

“Wait!”

Cruise
turned.

 “I
can try.” she said.

He
smiled.  And waited for her.

About the Author

Ellen
Wilson is a writer photographer based in Michigan who enjoys investigative
writing. She stumbled across the idea for this book while researching the
Shakespeare authorship controversy.
 
If
you are interested in the authorship controversy you can read about her ongoing
investigative work at
www.theshakepearean.com
.

Wilson
has written two novels and numerous short stories.
 
She is at work on her third novel. Visit
Ellen Wilson at
www.wilsonswordsandpictures.com
.

Author’s Note

I
consulted many sources when writing this novel.  It is not meant to be
read as a historical timeline in regards to Christopher Marlowe's murder. 
As a work of fiction I took many historically inaccurate liberties, for
instance Sir Francis Walsingham was dead when Alice Petrovka goes back in time
to meet with Marlowe, and the Duke of Valois is modeled on the Duke of Anjou
and Henri the III of France.
 
Queen
Elizabeth was well past the days of being courted by any French nobleman when Alice
speaks with her. Those of my readers well versed in Shakespearean authorship
studies will recognize many other inconsistencies in historical events
involving Christopher Marlowe.  Historical fiction is just that.
Fiction.  History is used by the writer to tell a story that will
hopefully inspire and entertain, much like Marlowe and Elizabethan England did
and still does for me.  If you are interested, I have included a partial
bibliography listing a few sources of information which proved important in
telling the story.

Bibliography

Budiansky,
Stephen
. Her Majesty’s Spymaster
:
Elizabeth I, Sir Francis
Walsingham, and   the birth of Modern Espionage.
  New York:
Viking, 2005.

Clegg,
Cyndia Susan. 
Press Censorship in Elizabethan England
. United
Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Cressy,
David. 
Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and
Stuart England.
  New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 

Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR  Fourth
Edition.  American Psychiatric Association.  2000. 

Gurr,
Andrew. 
Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London
.  New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2004. 

Hoffman,
Calvin. 
The Murder of the Man Who Was Shakespeare
.  New York:
Grosset and Dunlap.  1955. 

Kendall,
Roy
.  Christopher Marlowe and Richard Baines: Journeys through the
Elizabethan Underground.
 London: Fairleigh Dickinson University
Press, 2003.

Lanyer,
Aemilia  “
The Poem of Aemlia Lanyer:  Salve Deus Rex Judeorum,”
In
Women Writers in English 1350-1850 .
Edited by Susanne Woods.
  
New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Marlowe,
Christopher. “Lucan’s First Book.” In
Complete Poems
.  Edited by
Drew Silver. New York: Dover, 2003. p. 89.

Marlowe,
Christopher. “The Jew of Malta.” In
The Complete Plays
.  Edited by
Mark Thornton Burnett.  London: Orion House, 1999. p 461.

Mears,
Natalie. “Courts, Courtiers and Culture in Tudor England.”
The Historical
Journal
 46 (3) (2003): doi: 10.1017/S0018246X03003212

Nicholl,
Charles.
The Reckoning
. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1992.

Read,
Conyers. 
The Government of England Under Elizabeth
.  The
Folger Shakespeare Library, 1960.

Rowse,
A.L.
The Case Books of Simon Forman: Sex and Society in Shakespeare’s Age
. 
London: Picador, 1974.

Rowse,
A.L.
The Poems of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady.
London: Jonathon Cape Ltd,
1978.  

Salgado,
Gamini. 
The Elizabethan Underworld
.  London: The Folio
Society. 2006.

Shakespeare,
William. 
The Complete Pelican Shakespeare.
Edited by Stephen
Orgel, and A.R. Braunmuller.  New York:Penguin Group, 2002

Shakespeare,
William. 
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
.  Folger Shakespeare
Library.  Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine.   New
York: Washington Square Press, 2004. 

Tucker,
C.F. Brooke and Nathaniel Burton Paradise, eds.,
English Drama 1580 – 1642.
Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1933.

Wraight,
A.D.
In Search of Christopher Marlowe.
London: Macdonald & Co, 1965.

Weil,
Judith.
Christopher Marlowe: Merlin’s Prophet.
Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1977.