The Playmaker (23 page)

The tale ended sadly. Mercer had made enough enemies in the city to come to a violent end any number of times, but finally crossed swords—literally—with a London gentleman in a private quarrel. It was put about that they were rivals in love, but Jonson suspected that the matter was money. The two met at Finsbury Fields early one morning, but only one walked away. Owen Mercer, gravely wounded, was carried to his poor lodgings and buried the next day in a pauper's grave. All this happened … here Ben Jonson took another gulp of ale and rubbed his forehead trying to remember. 'Twas sometime touching Robert Greene's untimely end, he thought. Not during the plague summer of 1592, for the theaters
were closed all that year, and Mercer's death caused a stir because his latest play had been performed that season. It was about a titled young rogue who dabbled in the theater, lost huge sums of money, and eventually received his just deserts in a duel over a woman.
The Fortunes of a Fool
was the title my informant remembered, a work remarkable solely for the way it seemed to foretell the author's fate. That was probably some time in 1593, then. A few of Mercer's better plays were still performed, “although they must needs be oiled, to get the screech out of them.
Fawnia and Dorastus
is a crime against poetry, but I did what I could with it, and only because the Admiral's Men dangled a purse before my eyes.”

“Please, sir,” I asked, after a long pause. “Could you tell me what he looked like?”

“At this distance? 'Twas over four years ago, lad, and I hardly knew him.”

“But … anything at all.”

The man shrugged his heavy shoulders. “A gingery beard. Not a large man, nor a handsome one, for all that the ladies seemed to like him. Good teeth, a fetching smile. Now you must break with me, lad—you hang upon my words as though they were drops of wine. What is your interest in this ne'er-do-well?”

“I … cannot say, sir.” This was strictly true. A line from
The Winter's Tale
came to me: “I cannot speak, nor think, nor dare to know that which I know.”

For I did know. I knew the four lines of verse were written by a
young schoolmaster in Lincolnshire, years before Owen Mercer appeared in London.

“By my guess,” prodded Master Jonson, not ungently, “he was something akin to you?” I said nothing. “Not to fear, lad; thy secret goes no further than these four walls.”

“I am beholden to you, Master Jonson.” The stuffy room seemed to swallow up words. It took effort to speak again. “One thing more. Do you remember who killed him?”

“Easily. The man still lives under that cloud. An attorney, you see. What lawyer would get himself in such a broil? Name of Martin Feather.”

The remainder of that day slips my memory. I went about, as Robin put it, with my head in a bucket. The few words I spoke upon stage echoed back at me and I missed one cue. Midway through the performance, Will Sly gave me a sharp jab in the ribs with his thumb. All actors have their bad days, but are expected to leave their woes behind the stage and carry nothing on but the part assigned them. I still had much to learn about acting. My tongue, which had felt thick and clumsy all day, locked up entire after the performance and soon even Starling gave up her attempts to get anything out of me.

This was grief, or close kin to it. I had felt much like this on my journey to London, numbed by my mother's death. Strangers on the road had tried to talk to me and I could not answer. So it was with me now, only what had died was not a man but a hope. In a sense, my father had died to me long ago, but I had sought to resurrect
something good from the bones: some noble purpose, some redeeming grace that might make it easier to forgive him, as Leontes is forgiven. Ben Jonson's tale planted a dagger in that fond wish. And yet …

The lines of a poem kept running through my head: “My secret wounds enbalmed, my hidden hurts healed.” That was my father also. The self-seeking, dissolute rogue Ben Jonson remembered could not have thought those thoughts or penned those lines or won my mother's honest heart. It was that man who would not let me rest until I had found him. The facts of his death might be known, but the truth still lay hidden. And so my search was not yet over. There was no help for it; I must have another try at Martin Feather.

Later that week the north wind blew in a cold autumn rain and the white silk flag did not rise over the Theater. After leaving the Condell house on a made-up errand, I spent a long afternoon at Middle Temple, huddled under the thatched eaves of a sausage vendor's stall opposite Martin Feather's chambers. The vendor was glad of my company; his trade was slow and we had time to strike up a little friendship as greasy steam from his brazier oiled my flesh and bones until I could have slipped through a keyhole. He showed no curiosity as to why a boy of my appearance was not in school or occupied in some trade. Like many people, he filled his own world, noticed little outside it, and enjoyed talking of what he knew.

“Master Feather? A goodly gentleman. Courteous to all,
though he's not the sort you can ask about the wife and children. Come to think, I believe he hasn't any. I'll point him out if he appears, but likely he won't. We've not seen him much since the riots.”

“The July riots?” I asked. “Was there trouble here, too?”

“Trouble! They took that steward at the Lion and Lamb because he was receiving secret messages from France. Papist plot, mind you. I hear they racked all his bones out of joint but all he could say was who he got the messages from and who he passed them on to. Next we know, here come the Yeomen of the Guard all but rolling up the street in search of this Kenton fellow and Master Beecham.”

“You know them?”

“Used to know John Beecham—we all did. A right amiable man, though he's used up all his credit here. Owes me a sixpence yet.”

I bought a sausage from him and paid promptly to remain on his good side. “What was his position?”

The vendor scratched his stubbly chin and screwed up his eyes. “Truth, I never knew for sure. He was much in company with Master Feather at one time. A partner or some such.”

“How long ago was that?” “Oh, two or three years. It's been some time since he's showed himself.”

“No wonder,” I said, “if he's a sneaking plotter.”

“Aye. I'd never have thought it of him, though. A fair shell can hide a black heart, eh?”

I nodded sagely and wondered where to go next. “Was Master Feather suspect, too, do you think?”

“By the Lord's sweet mercy, you'd think we was all suspect the way the Guard nabbed everybody in sight. Even questioned me. They did spend a deal of time in Master Feather's chambers, though there was no one to question but the clerk.”

I cleared my throat. “Master Merry, you mean?”

“Aye.” The vendor's lip curled. “Matthew Merry. Know him?”

“I met him once. He seems somewhat other than merry.”

This primed the pump, so to speak, and for some time I heard many examples of the clerk's insufferable attitude toward all the vendors of Middle Temple. While listening with half a mind, I watched a stocky, red-faced man in brown wool carrying a ceremonial pike—an official of some sort—huffily ascend the stair. No more than five minutes later he huffily descended.

“Is Master Feather in some sort of trouble?” I asked, when the recital of his clerk's obnoxious behavior came to a pause.

“Just money, such as besets every gentleman from time to time. That fellow, with the face like a radish—he's a collector.”

Small wonder the attorney had money trouble, as I had seen nothing like a client approach the stairway all afternoon. This opened an avenue for my last question, which I made to sound indifferent: “I hear that money was the issue when he killed a man, some years back.”

“Old news, that. Some poet, I recall—but soft!” I looked in the direction of his gaze and immediately shrank back against the
wall. The odious Matthew Merry had emerged and was now descending the stairway. I felt a dreadful chill, a reminder of that moment when I recognized his high-boned face, eerily lit by the quayside fire, and I knew him for the one who had held a knife to my throat. Hiking up my cloak, I leaned out far enough to see him pause at the corner of the building and glance in both directions before proceeding toward Ludgate.

“Aye,” said my companion, too loud. “Off he goes, to worry widows and kick dogs.” Shortly thereafter a customer approached, and I made a fateful decision. It had been at the back of my mind, and Merry's departure made it seem a God-given opportunity. While the vendor was occupied, I pulled my cap lower, wrapped my cloak higher, and crossed the street. I mounted the steps two at a time, fearing my nerve would fail if I gave it pause, pushed open the door to the outer chamber, and demanded, “I must speak with Martin Feather!” Then my nerve faltered indeed.

I had expected to deal with the cherub-faced Samuel, who could be tricked into betraying information. But it was not Samuel who occupied the scrivener's desk.

I had never seen him before: a gangly youth with carrot-red hair. Startled by my sudden appearance, he swept a handful of Paris wafers into his copy desk. “The master's gone to the country for the week,” he mumbled, wiping his mouth. His shiny chin glared with pimples.

The cloak slipped away from my face as I repeated stupidly, “The country?”

“It's a place outlying from the city. With trees and ponds”—he paused to swallow—“and pigs. Do you have a case, or do you like standing about with your mouth open?”

How these chambers managed to contain two such upstarts as this fellow and Matthew Merry was beyond me. Like the Lady Constance, I felt continually out-maneuvered. I borrowed a saucy lip from her and a sentiment from
The Winter's Tale
. “Aye, a case. Something lost, that must be found.”

“Shall I tell him that?” He was watching me, his hazel eyes very keen, and I guessed that for all the wafer crumbs about his desk and on his chin, this was no fool. He was older than the general run of scrivener—upwards of eighteen perhaps, while the displaced Samuel was close to my own age.

“Tell him that,” I said boldly. “And tell him I mean to keep looking.” I backed away on these words.

“And who are you?” he asked, rising from his desk.

But I was already out the door. Pulling an edge of my cloak over my head, I stalked down Fleet Street, dodging the puddles and despairing that I would ever meet Martin Feather. I had begun to doubt that such a man existed. He was like a phantom, who haunted every pathway but disappeared when I whirled around for a plain look at him.

At that thought, I stopped dead just outside Ludgate and turned completely around.

The youth was clever and almost too quick for me. He stepped behind a brewer's booth so smoothly I could have missed that
flash of carrot-red sticking out from a cap. A little more thought may have caused me to doubt my own eyes, but instinct took over: I ran through the gate, cut across the south common of St. Paul's, and doubled back down Watling Street. After weaving through enough lanes and alleys to confuse even me, I headed back to Cheapside and took the lane behind Aldermanbury Street. By then I was winded, but satisfied that I had shaken off the scrivener.

In between regular performances, the Lord Chamberlain's Men knocked together
The Winter's Tale,
which was to be the first new play of the season. Its story presented a few difficulties to the tiring master, who had to outfit twelve “men of hair”—that is, shepherds who perform a satyr's dance in Act IV dressed in animal skins. To make it worse, the costumer had also to devise a passable bear. Rather than run one up from scratch, it was thought that the Company might fall heir to a real bearskin, which, tanned and dressed, would suit out a player. Perhaps Master Will's imagination misled him when he was inspired to write such a beast into the play: bears are no longer easy to come by in England. Most of the pit champions are imported from Germany, and all seemed to be enjoying wonderful longevity that season. The tiring master was nearly at his wit's end when Brutus, a favorite at the Bear Garden, met his end at a most fortunate moment for us. John Heminges, grumbling all the while over the expense, bid for the hide and won it.

“Now the question is, who shall wear it?” asked Master Condell. The hide had been delivered, dressed out according to instruction, only two days before the performance. It was constructed with a long opening in the belly through which an actor could step into the creature's hind legs, slide his arms into the forelegs, and set the head upon his own. The costumer had padded it out to resemble a well-made beast, but once on, it could suffocate a well-made man. It was not only hot but ripe, as the tanners had not time to do their job properly. One by one, players began to explain why they could not double as the bear, but the excuses ran thin; none of them
wanted
to play the bear, and none of them would have to. The job would fall to an apprentice—me, I feared, except that as Perdita I would be called upon stage shortly after Antigonus, the bear's bait, was chased off it. Gregory and Dick, playing shepherd maids in the same act, had the same excuse. That left Robin, who was too short, and Kit, who as Hermione would feign death in plenty of time to outfit himself. Kit it would be, then. I saw him smoldering over the Company's decision, and it did me good to see him put in his place by the men who indulged him overmuch, but I caught him glaring at me as if his misfortune were my fault.

On the first Wednesday in October, a white flag went up from the Theater at noon. “Now God guide the issue,” said good John Heminges, as he always did when a new play was afoot. All week, agents of the Company had tacked up playbills about
The Winter's Tale
. From the hut, shortly after noon, I observed a dark stream of
humankind flowing up Shoreditch Road. “Full house, fat purse,” remarked Harry Smithton, scanning the sky for clouds. He penned up the two cannonballs so they would not get loose before it was time for the thunderstorm, gave an affectionate pat to the cannon, which he would have no chance to fire this performance, and ordered me out of the hut.

I slowly climbed down to the tiring room with apprehension lying like a rock in my stomach. Even now, I was never so easy about going on the stage as Robin or some of the others appeared to be, and Perdita handed me my greatest challenge yet. Sweet-tempered maidens are more difficult to play than strong-minded women such as Constance, for it is harder to charm than it is to command.