Love Disguised (9 page)

Not wanting to seem unfriendly, Will gave the stranger his hand—but not his name. “I was nowhere near Chipping Norton.” He had never heard of the place. “I came from Stratford-upon-Avon, by way of Towcester.”

“Forgive my mistake,” said Treadwell politely. “Perhaps
I
had drunk too much.” He bowed to Will and continued on his way.

Dazzled by new sights, Will instantly forgot the fellow. He peered down the many streets that fed into Cheapside like tributaries into a great river: Wood Street, Milk Street, Candlewick Street, and Ironmonger Lane. Now he knew where to buy wood, milk, wicks, and a cooking pot if the need arose. He stepped aside to avoid a band of roaring boys swaggering and swearing oaths that he would have been flogged for uttering. At Cornhill he was watching a tumbler perform his stunts when he was accosted again.

“Hail and well met! Upon my life, I know you,” said a
pleasant fellow about Will's age. He appeared to be a gentleman's son, for his doublet and boots were of satin and he wore a porringer topped with a plume.

Will shook his head. “I do not know you, sir.”

“By this hand, I have seen you in Stratford. It was a market day and you were about your business.”

Will was astonished. He had expected to be invisible in London, but here was a man who had seen him selling gloves in Stratford!

“What was your business there?” asked Will, trying to recall seeing the young man.

“My horse had a broken shoe and your father shod him.” He tapped his forehead, thinking. “Your name is John, like his!”

Will laughed. “Nay, my name is Will. Indeed my father's name is John, but he is a glover by trade, not a blacksmith.”

“Then come with me, Will Glover—”

“No, it's Shakespeare. My forebears were soldiers of the king.”

“A proud calling! I'll buy you a pot of ale if you'll share with me tidings of my friend the blacksmith and the good folk of Stratford. Ah, many times I have supped at the White Swan there.”

“You must mean the Black Swan,” said Will. Embarrassed at correcting the good fellow's memory, he added, “I shall be glad to sup with you.”

The young man introduced himself and smiled, showing a gap in his front teeth that somewhat marred his appearance. As Will fell into step with him, he noticed a stroller holding up a sign.

THE TRAGEDY OF PYRAMUS. TODAY AT THE BOAR'S HEAD INN, WHITECHAPEL
.

“Davy, show me the way to the Boar's Head and I will buy you all the sack you can drink,” said Will on an impulse. He was afraid he sounded like an overeager bumpkin.

His new companion hesitated but obliged him. On the way they happened to meet an acquaintance of Davy's. In his silver-hued doublet, Peter Flick reminded Will of a colorful fish darting through the crowded streets.

“Peter's a trusty fellow. But his wit's not so sharp since a robber struck him in the head with a stave,” said Davy. He glanced sideways at Will. “A man has to judge well whom he takes for a friend.”

“Have no doubts about me. I intend no harm to any man,” Will assured him.

Davy clapped Will's shoulder as they passed through Aldgate and into Whitechapel Lane. At once Will saw the sign of a boar's head. He was pleased with himself for finding two friends
and
a play on his first day in London. At the gate he paid two pennies for the privilege of viewing the play from a bench and received a token. In the yard a man and a boy hammered a stage together. As the performance would not begin for another hour, Will and his friends went inside for some victuals. Davy and Peter showed a keen interest in his well-being, pouring him such a quantity of sweet sack that he in turn poured out all his troubles, confessing he had come to the city to repay a debt and to escape “two vile vixens.”

“As my name is Will Shakespeare, I love no woman!” he declared to them.

A few moments later Will heard a crash, smelled ale, and
realized that a serving wench had dashed her pitcher to the floor beside his table. Why would she do such a wasteful thing? He blinked up at her. He had never seen so tall a girl. Her body was as slender as a sapling. With her crown of gold hair and fierce aspect she resembled a god of thunder and lightning. The sight so startled Will that he choked, spewing ale from his nose. No wonder she looked so angry. He must have been swearing like a shipman or pounding on the table. It was the sack making him rowdy. But it tasted so sweet! He knew he must stop.

“O you mortal goddess, why look you so wrathful?” He heard the words tumble thickly from his mouth. He bestowed on the goddess a smile designed to free him from the hook of his own misdeeds. But she wasn't even looking at him. Another wench, however, the short one who had been waiting on them, tilted her head and smiled at him. Faith, she was a pretty one! And she fancied him already.

“You are not welcome here, Davy Dapper,” the goddess was saying. “Nor you with your filching fingers, Peter Flick.”

“'Sblood, she knows me,” said Davy, preening like a peacock. “Do I know you, maypole?”

“You should, knave. I am Long Meg. And I know how you cursed cuffins plan to gull this innocent yokel.”

Will tried to stand up and found it difficult. “I'm neither innocent nor local but a sinful man from Stratford,” he protested.

“My quarrel is not with you, sirrah, but with these two milk-livered villains.”

Davy and Peter exchanged looks. Peter stood up and put his arm around Will to keep him upright.

“You insult my new friends?” Will said. “You, a woman!”

“Do you have your purse about you?” the giantess asked him.

Will smiled. He made a great show of patting his sides. He shook out his arms, looking puzzled when nothing fell from his sleeves. He reached into his pockets and pulled them inside out. “Have I been robbed?” he said, looking about with feigned horror.

“You are right; he must be a performer of some kind,” the little serving maid said to the one called Long Meg.

Will put his finger to his forehead. “Aha!” he said and reached into the front of his trousers. He pulled out a purse and shook it. Coins clinked inside.

“Behold, I am in possession of my wealth. These men are not robbersh.” Will heard himself slurring his words. He leaned over and chucked the little maid on the chin. “Fill our cups that we may drink to friendship.”

Peter said something to Long Meg and sneered at her.

“Maypole, we'll go about you in a circle and tie you up, beshrew me if I lie,” said Davy, getting to his feet.

Will blinked rapidly. Were his new friends now threatening this Long Meg? She did not seem daunted by them.

“Hear me, sirrah,” she said to Will. “If you count these churls your friends, though you have a full purse you are a poor man.”

“This tall woman has a tall wit, does she not?” Will said. Peter and Davy only scowled.

“You still don't know me, do you?” Meg said to them. “Your memories are as short as your mettle, cowards. You can't run from me again.”

Davy and Peter started to bolt. The little maid shoved the bench into the backs of their knees, throwing them off balance. Before Will could react, Long Meg had seized Davy by his hair and Peter by his collar and haled them through the public room. Will watched his new friends shout and flail their arms, crash into tables, and upset alepots and platters of food. Cheers rose up from the other guests, men and women alike. “Huzzah! Huzzah for Long Meg!” Fists pounded on tables and heels drummed on the floor.
What a jolly tumult!
thought Will. It was almost better than a play.

When Long Meg returned, Will saw that she was flushed and her sleeves were torn. The uproar continued. Someone began a tune that everyone took up like a hymn.

Here's to our hero, Long Meg
.

She of the mile-long leg
.

Sing high, sing low, heigh-ho!

To the Boar's Head we go
.

“More ale!” they demanded. The little wench whirled from table to table like a hurricane. Cups, bottles, and tankards were lifted to Long Meg. The host and his wife looked pleased at the happy riot she had caused, while the celebrated maid went about her work as if nothing had happened.

What exactly
had
happened? A giantess had dropped her pitcher, called his companions cowards and cheats, and thrown them out with her bare hands. But why? Will wanted to go after Davy and Peter and question them, but he wanted even more to see the play. So he picked himself up, went into the yard, and found a seat at the end of a crowded bench.

Will knew the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe from his favorite Latin book,
Metamorphoses
. It was a lamentable tragedy, but this play was more like a comedy. The actor playing Thisbe lost his false hair and with it, all pretense of being a woman. Fat Pyramus, his face aflame with whelks, was more suited to be a devil than a lover. When he stabbed himself and died the audience only laughed. Will joined in the hooting and hissing. He had seen better plays in Stratford.

When the play was concluded, Will looked up to find Long Meg standing over him.

“You owe four shillings and two pence for all that you and those rogues ate and drank,” she said.

Will counted out the coins. He was sober and quite vexed. “I protest being forced to pay their reckoning, when you caused the commotion for no reason but to sell more drink.”

She looked offended. “Sirrah, those two coney-catchers would have had all your money ere long. Shall I tell you how you were snared?” Without waiting for a reply she sat down. “A stranger accosted you on the street and claimed to know you.”

“Yes,” admitted Will, surprised. “But he went away again.”

Long Meg nodded. “He is the barnacle, in thieves' cant. He relays the information he has gleaned to his confederates. A short time later the setter moves in. That was Davy Dapper. He compounds the barnacle's bit of knowledge with flattery and general truths, thereby drawing you into his acquaintance.”

This was exactly what occurred, Will realized. First Treadwell, then Davy had by artful means persuaded him to disclose his town, his name, and his business. “What, are you
a demigoddess, all-knowing?” Will said, suspicious. “Or are you in their fellowship?”

Long Meg's wide blue eyes narrowed into a frown. “You flatter me and then you insult me. Rather, you should thank me.”

Will knew he had been careless but was loath to credit Meg for rescuing him. “I thank myself that they could not trick me out of my money. I kept a few coins in my purse and hid my real wealth close about me—”

“Stop! If you reveal that, you are a greater fool than they took you for.”

But Will's hand was already creeping down his leg to the top of his boot. He wanted to be sure. His fingers probed inside, touched his right ankle. The purse with the twenty-five crowns was not there! Because it was in the other boot. He thrust his hand down his left boot. Nothing. A wild pounding started behind his ribs, reached to his head, and made his hands shake. Peter and Davy had been sitting on either side of him on the bench. Their knees and feet had jostled his beneath the table. Peter had helped him stand …

Will tugged off his boots, held them upside down, shook them, and threw them aside. He pulled off his stockings and stared at his bare, pale feet.

“Oh, fie upon the devil and his fiddlesticks!” he cried. “I
have
been robbed!”

Meg was surprised that neither Peter nor Davy had recognized her. Then again, she was no longer disguised as a boy, and in the two years since she consorted with them she had grown almost twelve inches, judging by the chalk marks on her door. She watched Will Shake-his-beard as he watched the play. She wanted to tell him that she had also been innocent, desirous of companionship, and easily betrayed by those same false friends. This awareness of what they shared drew her to him. Moreover she sensed in him a generous spirit. In his amazement at the sight of her he had not, like most men, teased or mocked her. Instead he had called her a mortal goddess, which made her stand up straighter, proud of her height.

When Will discovered he had been robbed after all, Meg did not doubt that Davy and Peter were the culprits. And it was her fault they had escaped.

“I wish I'd shaken them down before driving them off,” she lamented.

“Let's go after those devil's minions, Long Meg,” Will said,
pulling on his boots again. “We'll catch them and get my money back. Rather, my father's money. It was to settle a debt.”

Meg could not believe her ears. Will was enlisting her aid as if her sex were no disadvantage at all.

“I would gladly bash their brainpans,” she said. “But they are long gone.”

He gave her a searching look. “Why are you so willing to avenge my loss?”

“It was you who asked for my help,” she said. But she knew that a host could be held liable if his guests were robbed. Master Overby, being weak-limbed, had assigned to Meg the task of keeping riffraff away from the inn.

Will was scratching his head. “Why did they run from you? Should they know you?”

Meg was taken aback. “They are afraid of me because …” She tried to think quickly. “They once betrayed my twin brother, Mack, as they did you.”
A brother? Where had this idea come from?

“A twin! How propitious!” exclaimed Will. “He must be a god in strength as you are a goddess.”

Again he called her a goddess. She couldn't help but blush. “Your praise is undeserved,” she murmured. After all, she had let Davy and Peter escape with his money.

“I must meet your brother,” Will was saying. “And the three of us will overcome those paltry villains!”

“It would be unseemly for me to accompany you, for I am not a man,” said Meg, beginning to regret her hasty invention of a brother.