Ink and Steel (31 page)

Frances washed her father's body with sponges and warm water, the valet and the gardener assisting. White linen lay at her feet, neatly folded, for the winding sheets. Will sat forward on a bench in the corner, his elbows on his knees, and rested his face in his hands. “Richard. Thou sawst nothing?”

Burbage sighed, back on his heels. He held in his hands the cup that Will had refused to take. “I saw you talk at nothing and then nearly faint into frothing fit upon the floor, Will. I'm taking you to a doctor on the morrow—Simon Forman, if he'll see us—and you'll not be playing for Gloriana today.”

Will shook his head. Sir Francis dead, on Her Majesty's critical birthday. Will felt the power—
stirring
—in London's bones as he had not since that long-ago Twelfth Night. “I'm in that play. I must be in that play, Richard. Can't
you
feel it?”

He must be there, to bring his strength to bear directly on the enemy. No intermediaries this time. His urgency must have informed his voice. Burbage gave him a curious glance, and nodded slowly. “It's like
that?
”

“It is.”

“What play?” Tom asked in what could have been innocent curiosity, but Will rather thought was shock.

“
Richard III
.”

“Wilt thou be seeing visions on the stage before Her Majesty?”

“Tom—” Will turned to Walsingham.

Tom scratched behind his ear, dark hair sliding across his high forehead. “I saw it. Him. As well. The Devil was in this room, Richard. And he spoke to Will and I, passing polite, and pinched my cousin's soul out between his fingers like a ring.”

Will and Burbage exchanged a long stare. Will nodded. Burbage swallowed once, his Adam's apple bobbing under his pointed blond beard. “He—
spoke
to thee?”

“He said he'd seen
Faustus
in Exeter. God have mercy.”

“We need a priest,” Burbage said, but Will shook his head, glancing to Tom for permission.

Tom nodded.

“Richard, what would we tell him? We were at the deathbed of the Queen's spymaster, buried these five years, and Lucifer Morningstar showed up to drag him like Faustus to Hell?”

“Ah.”

Tom turned Sir Francis' signet between his fingers. “I wonder why Will and I saw him, and you and Cousin Frances did not.” Silence followed, heavy with the thin scent of morning, broken as a cock's crow was answered by rivals.

“We can discuss it later.” Will heaved himself to his feet. “I wish householders would leave the chickens in the countryside. They're overloud when a man sleeps of a morning.”

Burbage laughed, then looked at Sir Francis' corpse, abashed. “But what would you do for eggs?”

“There's swans on the Thames,” Will answered. “They're tolerably silent.”

“They're also,” Burbage reminded, “the Queen's.”

“Then let
her
charge tuppence an egg.”

Will managed scarce three dream-torn hours before the nones bell dragged him from under his prickly woolen blanket. He pissed, washed, and dressed for court with a fussy, practiced care that would have amused his wife.

Tightening the points on loose breeches, Will resolved to gain weight if he had to subsist on possets and cream. His hand trembled with exhaustion; he glared at it until the tremors subsided enough to get his sleeve buttoned, then poured ale and broke bread for his breakfast. The bread caught in his throat; he crumbled it into the ale and choked the mess down, grimacing. His shoulders ached. He swore under his breath and left by the garden gate, in a vile enough mood that he wanted a walk to calm himself before he had to face company.

Winding Lane bustled. Will stepped around a woman whose dark orange skirts swayed over a farthingale, his left shoulder almost brushing the dark wood frontage of shops and houses under the overhang. Pale scars from that summer's violent hailstorms marked the facade; they might take years to fade.

He at last turned westward on Leadenhall Street, following it out Aldgate and then south outside of the city wall so he would not have to walk within sight of the Tower gallows and its somber-feathered attendants. The Queen was not at Westminster, but rather at her favorite palace in Greenwich. Will sought the barge that would carry the Lord Chamberlain's Men and their carts of props and costumes down the Thames; it was docked above the city, as convenient to the Theatre some two miles north as possible without hauling carts through London.

Burbage was aboard, eyes red-rimmed, hair damp. He eyed Will critically, a corner of his expressive mouth twitching upward, as Will came up the gangway. Will smiled at how Burbage found his frame between the pilings and the upturned poles at the front of the cart: a master player's unconscious authority of whatever stage he trod.

“Slept?” Burbage asked.

“We'll sleep in the grave,” Will answered.

Burbage coughed. “So long as we don't die tonight.”

“On the stage?”

“Or after it.”

“The company is aboard?”

“But Kemp is late.”

“Kemp is drunk, you mean—”

“Kemp is late,” William Kemp called from the dockside. “Some of us hold our liquor better than others, sweet William. Now, Burbage drunk, I'd believe it. And you not drinking; 'tis put about that you're unfriendly. Step aside and let your betters in the boat.”

“Not so much unfriendly as unhumored for it.” Will moved three steps toward the heavy-necked Suffolk who dozed at the center of the barge. These were the horses he grew up with, placid liver mares with flaxen manes braided over the brands at their crests.

Kemp danced up the gangplank backward, his sack thrown carelessly over his shoulder, looking at any moment as if he might fall. He never did, of course, and Will laughed. “I will write a clown as hero one of these plays, Will.”

“I will you to it, Will.” Kemp grinned and folded himself onto a pile of well-stuffed woolbags. Wherries and skiffs flitted across the sunlit surface of the Thames behind him. “Wake me in Greenwich.”

The barge slipped with the current between green muddy banks scattered with half-timbered or brick or stone houses that swam into view and subsided behind. The tide was with them, but Will's belly rumbled for dinner before Greenwich Palace's riverside face appeared, pink-red and white, leaden roofs gleaming obscurely. Towers and chimneys stood bravely against a blue September sky and the rich green of the trees. The horror of the night before could have been but another pageant; devils and men dying in their own rot had no place in the same world as
this
concrete dignity.

The players' barge passed through the water gate just as the Queen's might, and Burbage clapped Will on the arm and grinned. Will pushed a hand through his hair and walked forward past the dozing mare, holding a rail, to watch as the barge bobbed up to the stair that ran down the bank to the landing.

“Lovely,” Kemp said over Will's shoulder. “How do we get the mare and the cart up
that
?”

With difficulty, it proved, but they had made the river passage with hours to spare before the performance, and Will helped haul trunks with a light heart. His hands didn't shake and his balance didn't fail, although he was aware of Burbage's supervision.
In case I should glimpse a Devil, doubtlesss.

Will punched his thigh with a fist, stilling a shiver.
We're here to play a play.

Servants showed them within, through tapestried halls whose floors were covered like any housewife's with a scatter of herbed rushes. The presence chamber was large, Queen Elizabeth's chair already in place and identifiable by its weight of gilt and crimson cushions. Burbage, son of a carpenter, got down on one knee among the rushes and poked his head under the stage as soon as their escort withdrew. “Will, a light—”

Will looked up, and Kemp did too, but Kemp was the first one to go in search of a candle and spark. Will simply mounted the stair and tested the boards with his weight, so that Burbage pulled back cursing and brushing sawdust out of his blond-red hair. “Seems sturdy,” Will said, hiding a hesitation in his right leg that wanted to become a limp.

Burbage opened his mouth to curse and sneezed instead, his eyes screwing into slits. Edward—well bearded now and beyond playing girls—hauled rolls of painted cloth, stifling a laugh.

“As sturdy as thee, thou beggar.” Burbage levered himself up against the stage. “ 'Twill serve. If thou dost not stomp like a carthorse. What's the hour?”

“Two of the clock.”

“Her Majesty will enter after six.” Burbage brushed fragments of rush from his knee. “So let us make haste.”

The sets were less even than what they used on the bare boards of the Theatre, but the rig to hold the painted backdrop took three cursing players to erect. Will stayed back, knowing he hadn't the remaining strength to be more than an annoyance. Instead he sorted through trunks and laid out costumes and changes in the order they would be needed, taking advantage of a trestle that had been provided for the players' convenience and concealed behind a red-and-green tapestry.

By the time servants came with lamps to augment the failing light from the windows, the whole improbable structure was cobbled together and stood up to Edward swinging on the crossbeam to test its strength. The players tidied themselves and dressed and hastily ate, beer and bread and a bit of cold meat.
We'LL have an appetite for our suppers,
Will thought, pinning gold lace with his fingers while Will Sly basted it.

They were just finishing when the Lord Chamberlain arrived, his starched ruff standing high under a gray fringe of beard. Lord Hunsdon wore a black doublet fretted with golden stitchery, a sapphire glinting almost black on the little finger of his broad left hand. He drew up a few steps short of Burbage, who hopped quickly down from the stage and bowed. Will thrust the mended costume at Sly and moved to flank Burbage, bowing also.

“Master Burbage, Master Shakespeare. Is all in order?”

“My lord.” Burbage glanced at Will, who nodded. “All is well.”

“Expect Her Majesty within the hour. The court will be admitted first: the players may stand at the back of the reception line. Where are your liveries?”

“Ready, my lord.”

Lord Hunsdon nodded. His eye caught Will's. “Master Shakespeare. ”

“Yes, my lord?”

“I must speak with you a moment.” His gesture made it plain he meant for Will to follow him, so Will fell in behind. Hunsdon lowered his voice as they walked to the center of the presence chamber, far from the tapestried walls. He paused beside a heap of jewel-toned cushions intended to provide comfort to the Queen's ladies-in-waiting as they sat upon the floor. “Tell me what you saw last night, William.”

Will looked up, surprised. “My lord, how did you hear?”

Hunsdon just smiled.

“I believe I saw the Prince of Darkness. My lord.”

“Well, I cannot say Sir Francis lived in a good expectation of God's eternal grace, but that is unsettling. And a bad omen on top of ill auguries, and Dee's horoscope for the coming year—” Hunsdon rubbed his chin one-handed, hard enough that Will heard the wiry rasp of threads of beard against his skin. “This is the Queen's nine-times-seventh birth day, and Dr. Dee's charts indicate that it will be an auspicious night to bring forces to bear against her such as we have not yet encountered.”

“Worse than the plague?”

No answer but a level look, and Will swallowed and glanced up at the beamed ceiling, far overhead.

“Yes. What think you of Tom Walsingham?” A level look from the Lord Chamberlain.

Kit trusted him.
But that wasn't what Hunsdon asked. Will closed his eyes, feeling in a pocket for the slick outline of his now-habitual shilling. He turned it in his fingers, staring down in thought. “Mine impression of him is—very fair, my lord. Quick to act. Protective of those around him.”

“Could he serve his Queen?”

“As well as any man, I warrant, although I'm not sure he has his cousin's . . .”

Hunsdon, inimitably plainspoken, smiled. “Ruthlessness?”

“Yes.”

“That can be achieved. You may find yourself opposed tonight.”

“My lord, how does one oppose a play?”

Hunsdon's elaborate doublet, covered by a gown, rose and fell over the narrow old-man's shoulders it padded. He knotted his fingers to control their palsied trembling; Will looked away. “On a day when devils arise from Hell to pull down our allies, anything is possible.” He stepped away, turned back, the pointed tip of his beard quivering. “Long live the Queen.”

“Long live the Queen,” Will replied.