The Shakespeare Stealer (11 page)

T
he others turned to see who was approaching. “It's only Mr. Shakespeare,” Julian said. I gave a sigh of relief. “Who did you think it was?”

“I was afeared it was—it was me master.”

“He must be a harsh one, for you to fear him so.”

“Aye. He is that.” So pensive and self-absorbed was Mr. Shakespeare that he walked by without even noting our presence. “Should we not at least greet him?” I asked.

Julian shook his head. “Better not. If he's mulling over some problem in a play, he won't welcome the interruption.”

“Why is 'a so glum and gloomy, do you think?”

Julian slid closer to me and said confidentially, “I've heard it said he's brooding on a thwarted love affair.”

Sander gave him an indignant look. “The man has a wife and two daughters in Stratford.”

Julian grinned. “When did that ever prevent a man from having a love affair?”

“You clod. If you want to know what I think, I think it's his son that's the cause of it.”

“I didn't know he had a son.”

“He doesn't, any longer. The boy grew ill and died while Mr. Shakespeare was here in London. I doubt that he's ever forgiven himself.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “'a's simply ruled by a melancholy humour.”

“A what?” said Sander.

“Me old master says we're all ruled by the four humours, and when we're ill or out of sorts, it's because we ha' too much of one. Now, Nick, 'a's choleric—hot and dry. Dr. Bright would prescribe something cold and wet, to offset it.”

“All the beer he drinks doesn't seem to help much.”

“Perhaps Julian had it right,” I said. “'A should take a walk in the Thames.”

Julian laughed. “What would your master make of me?”

“Sanguine, I'd say.”

“And me?” said Sander.

I considered a moment. “For you, they would ha' to think up a whole new category.”

Sander aimed a good-natured swat at me, which I dodged. He grabbed me, and laughing, we rolled about in the grass like two pups. “You're daft, the both of you,” Julian said. Then, apparently feeling left out, he pulled up tufts of grass and flung them at us.

Sander spat out a few blades and whispered, “Let's get him!”

“Aye!” We sprang for Julian. He backed up against the tree, calling “No! No!” between fits of laughter. But when we took hold of his arms and tried to drag him down, he turned suddenly serious, indeed angry. “No! I don't want to wrestle!”

We teased him a moment longer, but he remained stiff and stern, so we left off. For some time afterward, a melancholy humour seemed to rule us as well. A gloominess was cast over our day, as though a cloud had come across the sun. But gradually we warmed to one another again and spent several hours poking about a stagnant pond and playing a game of nineholes with stones, and in other pursuits too trivial to recount. When we heard the bells in Southwark ringing vespers, we were reluctant to return—not just the country boy, I think, but all of us.

The week that followed was mostly uneventful, if days which begin with two hours of manual labor, proceed to four hours of lessons and rehearsals, and conclude with performing in or assisting with a different play each afternoon can be called uneventful. Compared to the preceding perilous weeks, this was a veritable holiday. I was not locked in any rooms, nor were any daggers held to my throat. I did not wander into any dangerous parts of the city, nor risk my life crossing the Thames.

Though I was never quite able to put Falconer out of my mind, I saw no sign of him. Surely, I thought, even he must have given up by now. I did not even quarrel with Nick, for he no longer took lessons with us mere prentices. He still played a few of his old parts, but most of the time he was downstairs, rehearsing men's roles.

Or at least he was supposed to be. In truth, he was still up to his old tricks, throwing his money away on dice and drink all night long, then coming to rehearsal half-drunk or late, or both. It was as though he had taken on a role he was not prepared to play, not only on stage but in life, and was looking for someone who would tell him what to do next. Yet, though he received advice from all quarters, he heeded none of it.

Before his second week was out, the part in
Love's Labour's
was given to Chris Beeston, and Nick was back upstairs with us, practicing his swordsmanship. “What he needs,” Julian said, “is not fencing lessons but lessons in manners.”

“Would you like to be the one to learn them to him?” I said.

Julian rolled his eyes. “And you could use a few lessons in grammar.”

Nick's attitude toward us was even more hostile than before, especially toward Sander, who had taken over several of Nick's roles. With the demotion of Nick to our ranks, the peaceful interlude began to slip away, and my life once more became complicated, filled with anxiety and finally danger.

The first complication cropped up soon after Nick's return. The moment we arrived at the Globe that morning, we sensed that something was in the air. The sharers were in the property room, discussing some matter so intently that none of them so much as raised a hand to greet us. Halfway through the morning, we discovered what the matter was.

For a change, Nick was on time for fencing practice, and Mr. Armin was late. When he finally arrived, he beckoned to us, cleared his throat comically, and proclaimed with exaggerated formality, “Oyez, oyez! Be it known that the Lord Chamberlain's Men have been asked, or commanded if you will, to present the play
The Tragedy of Hamlet
at Whitehall a fortnight from this day!”

The other prentices looked at one another in surprise—or was it alarm? “What is Whitehall?” I whispered to Julian.

“The royal court.”

“You mean the palace? Where the queen lives?”

“No,” he said sarcastically, “the royal
tennis
court, you sot.”

Two weeks seemed to me ample time to prepare, but the company behaved as though Judgment Day were almost upon them and they must put not only their parts but their entire lives in order. Our property men spent most of their day at the office of the queen's master of revels, preparing elaborate scenery for the great event, so the task of seeing to the properties for the regular performances fell to us prentices. It was not unusual in those next weeks for a player to cry “Behold!” and open the curtains of the rear alcove to reveal two frantic prentices struggling with some unwieldy piece of scenery or furniture. Our tire man, too, deserted us, leaving us to clean our costumes and hold our split seams together as best we might.

The principal players, meantime, rehearsed
Hamlet
endlessly, employing a slightly different version each day, as Mr. Shakespeare deleted or added passages to suit the fancy of the master of revels.

Even Julian and Sander, who ordinarily took things as they came, seemed to breathe in the air of anxiety that hung about the place. “Why is everyone in such a dither?” I asked Julian. “You've played at the court before, ha' you not?”

“Not I. The company has, many times. But this time is different. I don't know quite all that's behind it, but I do know the company got on Her Majesty's bad side a few months ago by giving a private performance of
Richard III
for the earl of Essex.”

“What's wrong in that?”

“The queen had said that no one should perform the play, because it shows a ruler being deposed. I suppose she didn't want it giving anyone any ideas. But apparently that's just what Essex meant to do, for the day after the performance, he tried to gather an army to storm the palace.”

“What happened?”

Julian shrugged. “She made him king.” He let me puzzle over that a moment, then laughed. “He didn't succeed, of course, you ninny. The queen's guard threw him in the Tower, and a few days later they chopped off his head. Because of the play, the queen suspected our players of being in league with Essex. They weren't, of course. But they're all walking very carefully now, to avoid treading on the queen's toes.”

“I can see why,” I said. “If Essex was the queen's favorite and she chopped his costard off, who kens what she might do to someone she doesn't care for?”

Julian nodded soberly, as thought contemplating what dreadful fate the queen might devise if she were truly displeased.

Our lessons were all but suspended for a time, but Mr. Armin insisted on an hour's fencing practice each day. We worked frequently with blunted rapiers and protective plates. We were even permitted one day to strap on a bag of sheep's blood, which gave an added luster to our mock death throes.

Nick and Julian were again paired. Julian wore the protective plate and the bladder of blood. Nick wielded a blunted rapier. He was having trouble piercing the blood bag with the dull point and, growing angry, he thrust harder than was necessary and without the necessary control. His point struck the bag high and, deflected by the metal plate, caught Julian squarely in the center of the chest.

Julian gave a sharp gasp and went down on one knee, holding his chest and biting his lip against the pain. Sander laughed, obviously thinking it was all a sham. “Good acting!”

“He's not acting.” Mr. Armin strode over to Julian. “What is it? What's happened?”

Nick stood white-faced, his sword hanging at his side. “I—it was an accident. I—I stuck him—”

Mr. Armin supported Julian with one arm and helped him sit on the floor. “Let me see,” he said, and began unhooking the front of Julian's doublet.

“No, no,” Julian protested. “It's nothing.” But his strained voice and drawn face gave the lie to this.

“I'll decide that,” Mr. Armin said.

“I didn't mean to do it,” Nick put in, sullenly. When Mr. Armin ignored him, he turned away and began pacing irritably back and forth.

Mr. Armin tried to pull open the doublet, but Julian pushed his hand away and struggled to rise. “I'm all right, I tell you.”

“Stop fighting me. This is not time for false pride or false courage.” When Mr. Armin yanked the doublet open, I could see the red stain on Julian's linen shirt. “You see, you're bleeding.” He drew out the kerchief from his sleeve.

“Please,” Julian begged, pulling at the gaping front of his doublet. “I'll see to it myself.”

“Yes, and bleed to death by yourself, most like.” Mr. Armin forced Julian's hands away and pulled at the neck of the shirt, laying Julian's torso bare.

In truth, though, it was not bare. A cloth was wound tightly about his chest. “What is this?” Mr. Armin demanded. Then his puzzled scowl transformed into a look of disbelief. “The devil take me!” he breathed.

Julian was fairly frantic now, clutching at the front of his shirt, while tears streamed down his cheeks. “Let me alone! Please, let me alone!”

Mr. Armin recovered and shook his head. “We have to stop the bleeding. Just let me put this on the wound, and you can hold it in place. All right?”

Julian nodded shortly and turned his head aside in an attempt to hide his tears. Sharing his embarrassment, we hung our heads and moved back a few paces.

“Come, now.” Mr. Armin lifted Julian's slight body easily in his arms. “We'll get you downstairs where you can lie down, and then we'll find someone who can bandage that properly.”

“But why—?” Nick started to ask. Mr. Armin shot him a warning glance, and carried Julian from the room.

When they were gone, Nick said, “Why can't he bandage it himself? Surely it's not so bad as to require a doctor. Though from the way the boy carried on, you'd think I'd gutted him. It couldn't be that bad. Could it?”

I glanced at Sander and knew from the stunned look on his face that, like me, he had guessed the truth that Nick was either too slow-witted or too unobservant to see. “I don't believe the wound is what concerns Mr. Armin, or Julian,” Sander said.

“What, then?”

Sander looked to me and shrugged. “It may as well be said. It'll be no secret soon.”

I shook my head. “I'll not be the one to tell it.”

“Tell
what
?” Nick demanded.

Sander gave a sigh of resignation. “It would seem,” he said, “that Julian is a girl.”

I
had rarely seen Nick at a loss for words, but he was now. He gaped at us, then at the door through which Julian had been carried. “A girl,” he said finally, as though unsure of the meaning of the word. “That's impossible.”

Certainly it seemed impossible that such a fact could have escaped our notice all this time. But of course, looking backward, I could see a dozen clues that, had I bothered to add them together, would have led me to that very conclusion.

“Impossible or not,” Sander said, “I'm afraid it's true.”

Nick's astonishment gave way to anger. “It can't be true! You can't tell me I've been fencing with a girl for most of a year, and never knew it!”

“I won't tell you, then, but it's so all the same.”

Nick stalked back and forth, scowling and slicing the air with his blade, as though to fend off the truth that was attempting to seize him. At last he cried, “God's blood! A girl!” and, flinging the sword aside, stormed out of the room.

Sander clucked his tongue in sympathy. “It's a hard morsel for him to swallow. But even harder for Julian. They'll never let him go on performing.”

“Her,”
I reminded him.

“Yes,” he said. “Her.”

Mr. Phillips's wife was sent for to bandage the wound, which was not so grave, aside from the damage it had done to Julian's pride and to her future as a player. Julia, I should now call her, for that was her given name.

Mistress Phillips tried to coax Julia to come home with her, but Julia refused. “I have never yet missed a performance, and I do not intend to miss this one.”

After much discussion, the sharers concluded that it was better to let a girl play the part than to assign it to a prentice who would have to read the lines from a side.

Besides, it began to look as though one of us might be needed to take Nick's place. He had left the theatre and not returned, and there was little more than an hour until performance. “We could go seek him out,” Sander suggested to Mr. Heminges. “No doubt we'll find him in his usual haunts.”

“M-meaning an ale house,” Mr. Heminges said sourly. “Perhaps you'd b-best do that. Just be sure the t-two of you are b-back in time, else I'll be out there m-myself, clean-shaven and speaking f-falsetto.”

Despite the circumstances, we could not help laughing at the picture this conjured up. “You may well laugh,” Mr. Heminges said, “but I served my t-time in skirts, and by all accounts I was quite f-fetching. More so than N-Nick, certainly. But though Nick may not be fetching, still he must be f-fetched.”

“And though 'a be not comely, yet 'a must come,” I added, drawing an appreciative laugh from the others.

“Very good, Widge,” said Mr. Heminges. “You've the wit of a true p-player.”

As Sander and I walked toward the river, I said, “Do you think that I could actually be a player?”

He gave me a puzzled look. “You say that as though the idea had just struck you. Isn't that what you came here for?”

“Oh. Aye, of course it is.” Once again, I was sorely tempted to tell him the truth. I was weary of carrying the baggage of that secret about with me, always having to be careful not to let it slip. I tried to imagine how Julia must have felt, guarding her secret for years, wanting so badly to belong to the company of players that she would risk such a desperate device and yet, because of that very device, never being able to truly belong.

We were, as she had said, birds of a feather, for I had never belonged anywhere, either. Now there was a chance that I might, and I could not bring myself to endanger that chance by revealing my original purpose here, even though I had abandoned that purpose and, to all appearances, so had Falconer.

The south bank of the Thames was like a poor reflection of the north bank, a sort of lesser London. Across the river the great houses of great gentlemen lined the embankment. Here on the lower ground the buildings were nearly as imposing in size but housed a separate family behind each of their many grimy windows. Scattered among these tenements were smaller dwellings that had given over their ground floors to some business, usually a tavern.

“How in heaven's name will we ken which one Nick is in?”

“Any which looks prosperous or reputable,” Sander said, “we can surely pass by.”

We found him in a place with a sagging roof and the customary ivy growing up the front wall. Nick sat at one of the stained, scarred tables, in the company of two fellows I took to be university students, a species we all knew well, as they had more money and leisure for playgoing than the working class.

Sander and I stood just inside the door and tried to attract Nick's attention, but he was too absorbed in his ale, or had absorbed too much of it, to notice. Finally we approached his table. “Nick,” Sander said.

Nick glanced up. “What are you doing here? They don't serve boys.”

“Oh, they serve them occasionally,” one of the students put in. “Well roasted, with an apple in their mouth.”

Nick laughed harder than the jest deserved. Sander said, “They're wanting you back at the Globe. It's nearly performance time.”

“I don't need you to tell me that. I'll be along—when it suits me.”

“I thought you'd want to know, too, that Julian isn't badly hurt.”

“What's this?” the student said eagerly. “You've been dueling?”

“A trifle,” Nick said with a pale smile, then turned on us. “Out of here with you now, before I give the same to you, and worse!”

Sander backed away. “I just thought perhaps you were…well, reluctant to come back and face her.” I could tell as soon as the final word left his mouth that he would have liked to call it back. But the student had already seized upon it.

“Her?”
he echoed, laughing. “Don't tell me you've taken to fighting women, Nick?”

Nick clapped his mug on the table so fiercely that it cracked the earthenware. “I take that as an insult!”

“Take it however you like,” the student said casually. “It was offered as a jest, nothing more.” He gave his companion a sidelong glance of amusement. “Unless of course it's true.”

Nick got unsteadily to his feet and reached across to tap the student on the front of his embroidered doublet. “Be careful what you say, or I'll show you that steel is true.”

“Quite a boast for a man without a sword,” the student said.

“Swords are easily come by, as are university asses.”

The student leaped up to face him, knocking his chair to the floor. “Your jest has the bitter taste of an insult!”

“Here now, here now!” the tavern keeper called. “No quarreling inside! Take your dispute into the street!”

Sander snatched at Nick's sleeve. “Let's go, Nick, before it comes to blows.”

Nick pushed him away. “I've no fear of blows. They're braver than words.” But I could see how his hand trembled.

“No more do I fear them,” the student replied, though his face had gone white as
Hamlet
's ghost.

“I'll give you cause to, then!” Nick raised a hand as if to strike the other.

The student's hand went to the hilt of his rapier. “I am no woman, to be silenced with a slap!”

This was more than Nick's pride could bear. He lunged across the table, seized the weapon of the second student, and yanked it free of its hanger. “Enough of words!”

The student sprang away from the table and drew his sword as well. The tavern keeper shouted a curse, and Sander called out, “No!” but both protests were lost in the sudden clash of steel upon steel.

It was obvious at once that Nick was overmatched, and I believe he recognized it. The look on his face was that of a man who has stepped into a stream and found that the water is over his head.

He beat away the student's first two blows, but the third stung his leg and made him shuffle backward. The student followed step for step, like his partner in a deadly dance.

All the techniques Nick had learned at Mr. Armin's hands seemed to desert him. He hardly tried to strike an offensive blow; it was all he could do to ward off those of his opponent. In desperation, he drew his dagger and held it before him as an added defense. The student did the same.

As much as I disliked Nick, I felt something like sympathy for him. Though he was no friend, yet he was a fellow prentice, and I had no desire to see him run through. “What will we do?” I asked Sander above the din.

He shook his head despondently. “There's nothing we can do. It's a matter of honor.”

“Honor? 'A'll be spitted like a pigeon an we don't help him. Where's the honor in that?”

“It's his fight, not ours.”

“Then I'll make it ours!” I hoisted a three-legged stool, meaning to launch it at Nick's opponent. Before I could, the student moved in and feinted an edge blow at Nick's legs. When Nick lowered his dagger to ward it, the student delivered a quick
stocatta
to Nick's throat.

Nick gave a strangled cry and staggered backward. Both his weapons fell from his grasp as he clutched at the wound. He collided with a bench and toppled to the floor.

“The devil take you!” I shouted at the student. “You've killed him!”