The True Prince (36 page)

“Wait,” I interrupted hoarsely. This story was moving too fast for me, although I understood the gist of it. Peter Street and his crew had chosen to break into the Theater, like a band of blundering angels, at the very moment Penny held me in his grasp. For which I was extremely grateful to them,
and to God, but— “Was this legal? Can the landlord still bring suit against us?”

“We already told you that,” Robin complained. “Your brains must be running out of your nose. Here, take my hand- kerchief—and
use
it.”

Gregory explained slowly, as though to a half-wit. “According to the terms of the original agreement, the Burbages have the right to take down and carry away any of the materials of the building at any time, up to one and twenty years after signing the lease.”

My head was not up to calculating. “I forgot—when does the one and twenty years expire?”

“Last April,” said Robin.

“Oh.”

“But never fear,” Gregory hastened to say. “The deed's done. The old Theater is a stack of boards and beams and Peter Street is even now carting them down to his warehouse on the river.”

“And as soon as the weather breaks,” Robin continued, “he'll barge them to the spot of land in Southwark that the Company men leased a month ago. It's not far from the Rose— fancy being within spitting distance of the Admiral's Men!”

“How long is this lease?” I asked.

“Thirty-one years! We'll all be old men by that time.”

Gregory sniggered. “As old and tottering as Richard Burbage is now.”

“Well, you'll agree—our troubles are ended for a while yet.”

“Our landlord troubles, at least.”

“And Master Street thinks he may have the new theater built by this coming spring. Fancy it! Our own stage again—”

“With a bright new coat of paint—”

“A new name, a new start—”

A new birth. I listened to them, and smiled on cue, and tried to catch their high spirits. Here was a change even Robin could rejoice in—a most satisfying conclusion. Yet I felt about it the same way I had felt about the end of Part Two: sad. I was already missing Kit.

His fate was not general knowledge yet. Of the Company, I alone knew that Kit had been indicted that very morning on charges of accessory to theft and was now in Fleet Prison awaiting his trial. Bartlemy had sent word of the hearing, and since I could not risk being absent when the Company departed for Whitehall, Starling contrived to go. She returned home while Master Condell was laying down instructions for the servants and pulled me up to the stair landing to tell me what had happened.

She and Bartlemy had sat behind the bar in the magistrate's chamber while a clerk read the charges against the defendant. The murder charge had been dismissed, but what remained was enough to hang him, if he were prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law—a recommendation read by the clerk with no change in voice or expression.

Kit pleaded benefit of clergy, a privilege more often claimed by those accused of murder or manslaughter. Ben Jonson had done the same last month, which was why he was serving time in Newgate Prison rather than moldering in a criminal's grave. Kit was allowed to choose his text and turned to the Gospel of John: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born anew, he cannot enter the kingdom of God….”

“He read it so well even the clerk was wiping tears away,” Starling said. “I think the magistrate was persuaded to deal gently with him. Kit seemed to be speaking those words from his heart. I hope so: his poor mother sobbed the whole time, while his father sat there looking more stricken and guilty than the prisoner. But at the end, when they were leading him away, Master Glover stood up and walked to the bar and held out both his hands. Kit hesitated, but he took them. So perhaps he's making amends.”

“What of the Tewkesburys?” I asked her. “Any mention of them?”

Her smile popped out, as though it had been waiting for this very question. “Not by name. But wait until you hear. The charges against Kit allowed that a certain person or persons unnamed had set the scheme in motion. There was an elderly servant in blue livery present, and the justice seemed to regard him as a proxy for the unnamed. I've seen him, Richard. He was the one who used to accompany Mistress Critic to the theater—the one whose ear she used to bend with her opinions.

Lady Tewkesbury has been attending our plays all along!”

I could not share her pleasure in the discovery. “‘Persons unnamed.' What sort of penalty gets dealt out to phantoms?”

“Oh, they'll pay, though perhaps not in a court of law. Bartlemy says Lord Philip has thrown himself on the mercy of Essex. He'll be banned from court, sure, and they'll have to sell off more property to pay their debts. The House of Maximus is fallen indeed.”

“And what's to become of Captain Penny?”

“He will hang, belike. So Bartlemy says. But he thinks Kit will serve no more than two years in Newgate.”

Two years. It wasn't so bad, in a way. Ben Jonson was said to be writing another play in his prison cell; if Jonson could resume his career, then so perhaps could a young man formerly known as the best boy player of London. Still, my face must have reflected my dismay, for Starling suddenly wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tight, a comfort I had not recognized I needed. “You helped him, after all,” she said.

I returned the squeeze. “He helped me.”

“Sometimes it amounts to the same thing.”

“What cheer, Richard?” Gregory slapped me on the back. “The landlord is beat and old Cobham's resting in peace and we're on our way to see the Queen! I've not heard you laugh all day.”

“He's too busy sniffling,” Robin said. “He's blown a whole bucket of slime into my handkerchief.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “D'you want it back?”

“Nay! Keep it, with my regards. The Queen will shower us with handkerchiefs. Money too, let's hope.”

“Hotspur will fetch the handkerchiefs,” Gregory predicted, “and Falstaff the money.”

“What about Hal?” I asked.

“Hal?” Gregory frowned. “I never liked him—a conniver and a cold heart.”

Somewhat more than that, I thought. “He's to become a great king.”

Gregory shrugged. “So the histories say.” He turned his attention to the riverbank, as Robin pointed out landmarks. It was Gregory's first time to play at Whitehall, and anticipation consumed his thoughts.

But I was already thinking of our return. Once back in London, I meant to visit Newgate, where I would tell Kit that acting noble can indeed make one noble and perhaps even inspire nobility in others. That honor is more than a word or a prize to be plucked from the pale-faced moon. That he had found the best in himself and been true to it, in spite of the cost—and
that
made his reputation, as far as I was concerned.

“Here we are!” cried Robin, as Whitehall gardens swept into view. “God guide the issue, as Master Heminges says.”

Gregory laughed. “Die all, die merrily, as Hotspur says.”

Robin turned to me. “What does Richard say?”

I could no longer resist their joy and goodwill. The grip of
sorrow loosened, its cold memory trailing behind in the waters of the Thames. I raised a fist, croaking,
“Esperance!”

They glanced at each other, then raised their hands likewise, clasping mine.
“Esperance!”

The major events affecting Shakespeare's Company that I have presented in this story are all true: the change in the Company's name, their landlord problems, Henry Brooke's complaint against the portrayal of Sir John Oldcastle, and the midnight dismantling of the Burbages' Theater.

The new theater to come would be called the Globe. Giles Allen, who was not one to live and let live, sued the Company for “stealing” his building, and the case dragged on in court for years. Meanwhile, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, Will Kempe, Thomas Pope, William Shakespeare, and the Burbage brothers set up a management arrangement that was unusual for its time: they divided the business into ten shares, with five of the players taking one share each and the Burbages taking five. The sharers took all responsibility for expenses, profits, and ownership of the building. Peter Street completed the Globe in the spring of 1599, at a cost of about 400 pounds—much less than the price tag would have been if he had used all new lumber. One of the first plays performed at the Globe was
Henry V
, continuing the adventures of “Royal Hal,” but without Falstaff. Sir John dies offstage early in the
play, and it's implied that he lost heart after Hal cut him off so abruptly. But the public, or perhaps the Queen herself, could not let Falstaff go that quietly, so Shakespeare wrote him into a comedy called
The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Court rivalry in Elizabeth's time was every bit as vicious as presented here. The elderly Queen was not expected to live more than a few years, and ambitious men and women were maneuvering to win fame and fortune while they could. Younger nobles flocked to the Earl of Essex, who was handsome and dashing and something of a military hero. The Queen showered favors on him, but relied more on her Secretary of State, Lord Burghley. Cliques tended to form around these two men. Intrigue at court affected the theater companies of London, who depended on their noble patrons both for status and for protection from the city's mayor and aldermen (who generally didn't approve of the theater). For Shakespeare's Company to lose the title of Lord Chamberlain's Men was a drop in prestige for them, but their fortunes improved when William Brooke died and the Queen appointed their patron, Lord Hunsdon, as the new Lord Chamberlain.

Philip Tewkesbury is fictional, and so is the “Putrid Play,” but the Epilogue of
Henry IV
, Part Two contains this reference: “Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to promise you a better [one].” No one has been able to identify this displeasing play, so I invented one of my own.

While most of the events are true, I've nudged a few dates together to tell this particular story. We know (thanks to the legal proceedings initiated by Giles Allen) that the Theater was dismantled in the dark of night in late December of 1598. However, William Brooke held the office of Lord Chamberlain from 1596 until his death in 1597, so the Company's brief stint as the Lord Hunsdon's Men would have happened earlier than represented here. It is most likely that the first performances of the Henry IV plays took place a year or two earlier as well. But the plays' themes of honor and reputation fit so well with the story I wanted to tell, and the parallels to the renaming of Shakespeare's Company and the dismantling of their Theater were so interesting, that I couldn't resist bringing them all together. I like to think that Shakespeare, who frequently did the same sort of thing himself, wouldn't mind.