The True Prince (21 page)

Sure enough, a body was floating facedown near a bed of reeds. But when Sir Biscuit's boatman rowed closer, the “corpse” rose up, grabbed the oarlocks, and turned over the wherry, spilling both knight and boatman into the river. Robin, in black and gold, sprang out from behind the tree and offered to throw a line to Sir Biscuit (who couldn't swim) at the price of his ruby cuff pins—and his purse.

So Robin, corpse, and decoy made off with the money, tra-la.

I returned to the stall where the boy was still crying the ballad and selling one copy after another. “Look you,” I
demanded. “Is this all true?”

“Of course it's true,” he said indignantly. “We sell nothing untrue.”

“Who is this ‘Sir Biscuit,' then?”

“I dunno—some gentleman at court.”

“When did it happen?”

“Dunno that either— Thank you, good sir.” He took another penny for another ballad. “'Twas only printed up last night. My master kept us at the press until near dawn.”

“Who wrote it? How did your master come by it?”

“Do I look like an oracle?” Turning his back on me, he raised his throaty voice again. “What do you lack, sirs! Here's news of the latest exploit of the new Robin Hood—!”

I read the lines over and over while making my way down the narrow aisle. If the ballad was a disguise for a real event, why had Bartlemy not mentioned it the night before? Might it have happened so recently even he had not learned of it? If so, these robberies seemed to be occurring at intervals of about one per month. And who had played the part of drowned corpse—Kit, or another accomplice? The quilted satin doublet taken from our wardrobe seemed to be still in use, but a costly gown for a little girl might be harder to come by, unless …

At this point, I pulled rein on my galloping thoughts. “Here.” I thrust the ballad at the nearest passerby, a young 'prentice with his maid. “The latest deeds of Robin Hood.” I shouldered my way through the crowd, angry with myself for
wasting a penny on what I had decided was not my affair. With the little money I had left, all I could buy for Starling was a pair of ribbons.

Robin Bowle returned from Kent later that day, more than glad (he said) to be home. The holiday with his mother was marred by his stepfather, who (he said) could not abide him. His arrival made an incomplete set of three apprentices, and I devoutly hoped the Welsh Boy would not be the one to round our number to four. My feelings about him clashed too violently for comfort, even though I could hardly blame him for the fault of being himself. So I could not suppress a groan, Monday morning, when Gregory came back to the tiring room to tell me that the streaky-bearded uncle had brought Davy to the Curtain and left directly after, like a cuckoo depositing her young in another bird's nest.

A brief audition showed Davy's reading had improved and his delivery too—not greatly, but enough to keep his place for the present. On the previous Saturday evening, the chief players had met to set a schedule for September and shuffle apprentices to fill the gap left by Kit. They had lost lead boys before and managed to survive, but this loss might prove difficult to cover. Our first play, revived from the previous spring, featured a scheming queen whose part was clearly written with Kit in mind. As our most experienced boy player, Robin took it, but he lacked a certain snap and fire. He had grown
almost two inches taller over the summer and gained more weight too, which he seemed unsure what to do with. His voice still rang pure and unbroken, but there was a threat in it. Some boys' voices changed without obvious cracks or drops—mine had, even before I came to the stage. But one never knew. Robin's might play him false when the time came. That fear, and his disappointing holiday, and missing Kit, all combined to set him off balance at the start of the season.

As for me, I found another reason to bless the summer tour: I walked back onto the stage of the Curtain with scarcely a ripple in my confidence, as though I had never been off. Gregory had gained in assurance, too, and the Company seemed to think that, for now at least, the three of us could make up for Kit until one emerged as the leader.

Meanwhile, Davy seemed less inclined to hang on me, except for one morning when he sought me out, sniffling and wide-eyed. He said that a tall, ugly, red-headed man had come to Thomas Pope's house and asked him some hard questions about Kit. “I know naught, but he kept asking and asking and went away mad. Will the Queen's Men come for me, Richard? Will they take me away?”

I assured him that this would not happen, taking a measure of satisfaction that Bartlemy had stubbed his toe on this particular stone. But then the stone fell on us.

In the middle of the second week we performed a comedy, followed by a Morris dance. The dance had just concluded and
we players were capering off the stage with bells jingling, when a sharp cry from the second gallery stopped us in our tracks. After a heartbeat of silence a clamor arose from that quarter, informing us that a cutpurse had been caught there, like a weasel in a trap.

Will Kempe marched to the corner of the stage. Or perhaps I should say he pranced, since he was dressed as the hobbyhorse rider, with the head and body of a stuffed horse around his middle. “Order in the house!” he called. “Order, I say!” But the shouts continued until Richard Burbage strode forward with his powerful voice.

“We'll not abide a thief. Pass him forward, good people!”

In a moment we saw the culprit being lowered from the second gallery to the first, and thence passed along over the heads of the groundlings. All participated willingly. No one likes a cutpurse, who is as apt to prey on a poor laborer as a rich gentleman—all he requires in his victim is a money-pouch hanging from a belt. The Company could not tolerate nips and pickpockets during their performances, lest word get out that they ran an unsafe theater. But the next moment they were stunned to silence when the thief was heaved upon the stage, and rolled over, and turned out to be the Welsh Boy.

Davy lay so still he might have been dead, except for the quick rise and fall of his thin chest. Master Kempe was the first to recover his wits. Betraying no hint that he knew the boy, he turned to the crowd and raised his hands, crying, “Safely
delivered, God be praised! We will deal with him—may all evil- doers take heed! Justice awaits all who harbor such—”

In the midst of the sermon Davy came to himself. He blinked once, then jumped to his feet and screamed out a few words in his own language, directed at the Company. I shall never forget the sound: the soft burbling syllables were twisted into spiked metal by his screeching voice, and I needed no Welsh to know it was a curse.

Then, quick as a cat, he disappeared through the discovery space at the back of the stage. Gregory bolted after him, followed closely by me. Just as we reached the tiring room we caught sight of a curly head disappearing from the ledge of a narrow window. Since neither of us was small enough to take the same route, we circled around to the door. But by then he had vanished among the rows of dikes and irrigation channels that lay to the north.

A search by many dozen self-appointed scourges of justice failed to turn him up, which did not surprise me—why would such an accomplished thief not be an accomplished escape artist as well? “That settles it,” Gregory remarked dryly, as we trudged back to the Curtain. “The boy has no future with this Company.”

Davy had left behind the bag that held his personal belongings. When we returned, I took it off the hook and drew aside to spill the contents. I found a spoon and a needle, a fox's paw, and a broken arrow fletched with black feathers. There was
also a vial of some powdered herb which, when I shook a little in my hand, made me sneeze for a good five minutes and itch for the rest of the day.

But one object stopped my breath for an instant. I recalled it clearly: a small black velvet pouch with a golden cord—the one given to Kit by someone who had “certain expectations” of him. My hands trembled as I opened it and shook out a silver brooch, of the kind that gentlemen use to fasten their cloaks. It was in the shape of a crescent moon within a circle, set with a single pearl.

Apparently the boy was not scrupulous about stealing from his fellow players, either.

THE PRINCE RETURNS

here had Davy come from? the men of the Company wished to know. Who brought him in? By piling all their memories together, they recalled only that the boy was first presented at the Mermaid Tavern by his uncle, who asked that he be taken in trial. All who were present at the Mermaid remembered that the uncle lived outside London, but could not agree if he had said where, or even given his name. He never lingered long enough for chat. So the boy's appearance was as mysterious as his departure, though not so dramatic. Richard Burbage was all but gnawing stage timbers in his wrath at being cozened: “Suppose he's been robbing patrons all along, directly under our noses?”

“Sure we would have heard some complaint,” Cuthbert said reasonably. “Though he must be a better cutpurse than a player, else he'd be hanged by now.”

For myself, I felt a little sick, recalling the time Starling and I had taken him to the Rose, and he stood us for a boat ride afterward. The money for that had doubtless come from some unsuspecting theater patron. Now knowing Davy's true vocation, I could see his brief stage career in a new light: his steady watching while he sized our character with the instincts of an animal, his tricks of winning sympathy, his skill at pitting Kit and me against each other. The uncontrollable itching, the needle in the corset, and the tripping behind the stage—he had done those things to himself. And I had fallen in perfectly with his schemes. He'd played me like a flute.

But that was nothing to what he had done to Kit. Stealing the crescent brooch was only the final outrage; it might have been one reason why Kit had attacked him so furiously. At any rate, Davy was the proven thief; suppose
he
had taken the costumes?

Starling agreed with me that an injustice had been done, but was not ready to absolve Kit of blame. “We know he consorts with thieves—even helps pull in victims for them.”

“True, but—” I sighed; it was such a muddle. “Oh well, we're rid of both now, so perhaps it doesn't matter. Except I don't know what to do with the brooch.”

“I would just hold on to it and wait,” she advised. “If it's worth anything to Kit, he'll claim it somehow.”

The episode of the Welsh Boy left a sour smell in the air, but a sweeter wind blew the following week. Master Will
announced that the Revels Office had approved Part Two of
Henry IV
, and we might proceed with casting. The Swan was already pledged to us for the second week in October, and filling it with this play would build up the treasury again. An air of expectation lightened our mood when we gathered on the stage of the Curtain after Saturday's performance. Casting sessions usually occurred at the Mermaid Tavern, but such was the fame surrounding Part Two that it was decided to keep its outcome private until the play opened. Master Cuthbert ordered up a joint of beef and two kegs of ale, and the Company lay about on cushions and stools like outlaws in the forest, eating with their fingers.