Love's Will (11 page)

“I
have to thank you,” Southampton continued, “for three hours’ delight. And more than three hours, in the past, and I hope more than three hours again. A brilliant play.”

William
bowed his thanks, staring at the Earl. As well he might, thought Anne, for Southampton was very, very beautiful. Close-to like this, one saw the face of a very young man – eighteen? less? – still with the epicene beauty of adolescence; but for all that it was a man’s face. He was tall and slim in the way that said he hadn’t finished growing. The long hair falling over his shoulders was a gleaming auburn gold, his eyes the colour of cornflowers, thickly, silkily lashed. His clothes were dove-grey and tawny velvet, studded with jewels and laced with gold no brighter than his hair. A pearl and gold brooch starred his hat and a pearl drop hung in his ear. He smelt of sandalwood and chypre, and when he smiled, as he did now at William, his teeth showed white and even as more pearls.

“Will,
get that costume off,” said Dick Burbage Then, “Oh, my Lord Southampton. My pardon, I did not see you at first. Good day to Your Worship.” True actor, he added, “You saw our play today? Did you enjoy it?”

“Greatly,
Master Burbage. Your performance was beyond praise. They say King Richard was a wicked man but tell me, do you believe a hunchback could ride into battle and fight as manfully as the records tell us he did?”

“My
lord, speaking after three hours laced into that hunchback costume, I doubt it. But then, I doubt he really was a hunchback. People still remember him, you know. Perhaps Will should give him some different deformity to prove his mind’s wickedness?”

“What
do you want of me, Dick? A good play or a history lesson?

“A
good play every time, Will; drama. And that costume, thank you.” Grumpily William peeled it off and stuffed it into Burbage’s arms. Anne handed him his own shirt. Someone shouted to Burbage to hurry up, the alehouse would be drunk dry by the time they got there.

“Are
you,” Southampton wistfully asked, “going to the tavern?”

“Yes?”

“Then may I come too?”

Flabbergasted,
William said, “But my lord, we go to a common place. It’s all players and common folk. It’s not fit for you.”

“I’ve
been in taverns before. I’m not a schoolboy. I would like it.”

And
now, thought Anne, who had smacked just such lordly sulks out of Hamnet, you’ll stamp your foot and shout that you will have your way.

Caught
between caution and the need to please a nobleman William said, “My lord, you are Lord Burghley’s ward, and I have my way to make. I don’t want to explain to the most powerful man in England that I let his ward be robbed or murdered in a London alehouse.”

“When
I went before I did have my tutor – my secretary – with me,” Southampton admitted, the sulks clearing, “and he soon took me away. I should not have asked you, should I? You’ll want to be alone with your fellows.”

He
looked so downcast that William said, “You are most welcome to bear us company. But not to the tavern, I think. My lodgings are humble, but I would be honoured to receive you there.”

Southampton
blushed. “If you mean it, the honour is mine.”

“Then
come along.” But William dropped back to murmur to Anne, “Is the place tidy enough?”

Somehow
regaining her breath she said, “It is, but Will, how can you invite the Earl of Southampton there? Think who he is!”

“He’s
a boy, and stage-struck, and he admires my work. A possible patron, Anne. God knows I could do with one.”

“Ah,”
said Anne, and snapped her fingers to the boy Nol, silently trailing them. “Here’s some money; go buy good ale and the best wine you can, Malmsey or Canary wine, French claret; no rot-gut, mind, his lordship is used to the best. And some Ginevers and brandy.”

“Tell
Sarfampton to keep ’is ’and on ’is purse.” The boy scampered away. Reminded, Will and Anne closed in on the Earl. Kit Marlowe, shuffling moodily along behind, filled and lit his tobacco pipe and, in a cloud of smoke, they finished the short journey to William’s lodgings.

Anne
had seen Southampton House up on High Holborn; no doubt its smallest chamber was bigger than her entire home. She wondered what the Earl had expected. But the rooms were, if plain, clean and tidy and they had the grace notes of a Turkey carpet, some silver plate, brocade and velvet cushions. And books. Last winter William had paid the theatre carpenter to nail up shelves for him wherever there was room, and the books had been busily breeding ever since. After one interested glance about, Southampton doffed his hat and cloak and began to inspect the books. Once or twice his brows rose in surprise; occasionally he took down a favourite.

“You
have wide interests, Master Shakspere.”

“Here
in my home, my lord, call me Will, everyone does. I’ve a magpie’s tastes, I read anything and everything. London’s booksellers all know me and they keep books for me. Wine, your lordship?”

“Harry.
If you are Will, then I am Harry.” As he took the glass from William he gave him such a sweet and piercing smile that Anne felt as if the world had for a moment spun in reverse.

She
was glad when Southampton moved on to look down at the papers to William’s writing table. “Have you a new work in preparation? Could I hear some of it?”

“That’s
an appeal that never fails,” Anne said drily. She could have added, “Nor does flattery, to a writer”. Aloud, she said, “Read him your
Lover’s Complaint
, Will.”

“It’s
not finished.”

“But
it’s good,” Kit said. “You’re fast overtaking me, Will my friend. Read it.”

Three
hours later the boy Nol was asleep on cushions in the corner, the room was hot from the fire and clouded with Kit’s tobacco smoke. Most of the wine had been drunk, and all of the ale; crusts and bones on platters showed that they must have eaten, though none of them could remember doing so. The men were all in their shirtsleeves. Anne sat with her head on William’s shoulder and his arm around her; Harry sat literally at William’s feet, curled up on a cushion before the fire. They had heard
The Lover’s Complaint
, Kit’s half-written
Hero and Leander
, sonnets, parts of William’s and Kit’s new plays. None of them was drunk, except on words, but an intimacy had sprung up among them that had something of drink’s enchantment to it.

“They
want me to marry,” Southampton said reflectively into the silence. “They nag, they cozen, they beguile, they order me. You must marry and beget an heir, is all I hear. My mother, Lord Burghley, my friends. Burghley wants me to wed his granddaughter.”

“Then
why not do it?”

“I’m
only nineteen.”

“I
was married at eighteen,” William said, “and a father at nineteen.”

“But
you married for love. Didn’t you? People like you can, you see. And you’re happy in your marriage, I can see that.”

“Yes,”
said William, and stroked Anne’s cheek. “Yes I married for love, and we are happy.”

Now
why, wondered Anne, does he say that as if it’s a prayer, an invocation, rather than a statement of fact? Yet it’s the first time he has said it.

“Then
there’s your answer!” cried the Earl. “I will not marry where I do not love. I will not be sold into marriage to make Burghley’s granddaughter a countess. And I’ve no reason to think well of marriage.”

“Yet
rank has its obligations,” William said gently. “And when you hold your newborn child in your arms, everything, anything, is worthwhile, for then you know the meaning of love.”

“Even
a child begotten in dislike? For cold duty?”

“Now
there I can’t answer you from personal experience. But yes, I suspect so.”

Southampton
swivelled around to look at Marlowe. “And you? What do you say in this debate?”

“I?
I’m not qualified to speak. Marriage is not for me.” At Southampton’s uncertain glance towards Anne he said, “Oh, our lovely Anne knows what I am. A ganymede; a sodomite; a practitioner of the Greek vice.”

“Sweet
Hellene, make me immortal with a kiss,” murmured William, and Southampton laughed until he cried.

“So
marriage is not for me,” Kit went on, “but I agree that a man of your standing and rank will have to wed, and soon; also, Burghley will have his way. He is the most powerful man in England. Have a care for those around you who may be… vulnerable.”

“Yes,
yes. But I will not be sold.” As if in comment, outside a clock struck nine. Reluctantly Harry Southampton rose to his feet. “I must go. I am expected at home, where I have never enjoyed myself so much as here. This has been the best of times. Thank you. Mrs Shakspere – Anne – I trust we will meet again.” To her pleasure he kissed her hand. “It has been a delight to meet you. Will, Kit, I bid you goodnight.”

“But
you can’t go alone through London,” William exclaimed. “Not after dark. I’ll come with you. Kit, you will bear Anne company for half an hour?”

“With
pleasure.”

“Then
it’s settled. Where’s my cloak?” William gave Anne a hasty kiss and ushered Southampton out.

Anne
opened a window, not that London’s night air was the perfumed exhalation of the gods, and stirred up the fire. When she went to check on the sleeping children their tabby cat rushed in to the warmth, paraded around the hearthrug then tucked itself up, purring.

“Kit,”
said Anne, “you know all the London gossip. What do you know of Lord Southampton?”

“I’ve
met him a time or two. I like him. A sweet-tempered boy, although spoilt. Clever, learned, educated.”

“I
could surmise so much for myself. What else do you know? Why did he say he’s no reason to think well of marriage?”

“Ah.
His parents married young. Not a successful marriage. By the time Harry was, oh, four, his parents were at odds. His father accused his mother of adultery, she accused him of being under the thumb of one of his servants; perhaps under a little more than that. They parted, Harry was sent to live with his father, and both he and his sister, Lady Mary, were forbidden to see their mother. I heard that in his will Harry’s father left ludicrous signs of favour to his servant and stated that his daughter was not so much as to be in the same house as her mother.”

“A
hard man, then. Unforgiving. Spiteful, even.”

“Perhaps.
He died when Harry was eight. Left enormous debts, I believe. Lands, of course, because the Wriothesleys own half England, and castles, houses. But the old earl had lived past his income. Harry’s wardship was sold to one of the Howards, I believe, then Burghley snapped it up. Let’s be fair; Burghley’s keen for money and to marry his jumped-up family into the nobility, but he’s a good man, and he takes good care of his wards. Harry had the best education, first at Burghley’s own school then St John’s at Cambridge and Gray’s Inn. Probably he had a happy home life with the Burghleys. But when you’ve spent the first eight years of your life as a pawn in your parents’ quarrels, never seeing your mother and being taught to think her an adulterous shrew, no, you would not think well of marriage.”

“I
daresay not,” Anne agreed. “Poor boy.”

“Yes.
My family’s nothing. My father’s a shoemaker, there’s no money, there were all the usual troubles and quarrels, but I had a happy enough childhood. My parents are proud of me, so far as they can understand.” He stroked the cat with his foot, and it looked up at him, its eyes half-closed. There was something cat-like about Kit himself, Anne mused. His face was triangular or heart-shaped, wide across the eyes and slanting down to a small chin. His hair was black and very silky, like a cat’s fur, and his eyes a feline green. He could claw on occasions, too, and purr.

“For
all that,” Kit went on, “Harry Wriothesley is a beautiful boy who one day should be rich, he’s been an earl since he was eight and he’s been petted and flattered all his life.”

“Spoilt.”

“It’s to his credit that he’s not, or not more than tolerably so. I daresay he’s vain, but who wouldn’t be if they’ve been compared all their life to Adonis, Apollo, Narcissus, called beautiful, been courted for their influence and favour? The nobility of England, Anne, are a law unto themselves. They are, or would like to be, soldiers and statesmen, advisers to the Queen. They are, or would like to be, poets and word-spinners. They go to plays, they discuss books, they are familiar with the classics and the new sciences, they toss recondite allusions about and cap one another’s quotations. They like to have a pet poet or playwright.”

“Like
you. Or Will.”

“Yes,
indeed. We too are courted and petted and flattered. We reflect glory on our friends and patrons.”