Shakespeare's Spy (10 page)

“I believe you neglected to clean all the rouge off your cheeks, my boy,” he said mischievously. “Either that, or the frost has nipped them a bit.”

I ducked my head sheepishly. “Aye, I expect that’s it.”

“I’ve met Will’s daughters a time or two. Judith is the fair one, is she?”

“Aye.”

“She is a pretty thing. I’m not surprised that you’d be smitten with her.”

“I never said I was.”

Mr. Pope laughed. “There’s no need to say it. It’s written all over your face.” His smile slowly faded then, to be replaced by a look of concern, and he leaned forward in his chair. “Widge. I hope you don’t mind my saying this. I know you haven’t asked for my advice, but … well, I think of you almost as a … as a son, and … while I don’t wish to meddle, or to say anything against Judith, I think you’d do well to be … careful.”

“Careful?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t like to see you hurt.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that … On occasion Will has spoken to me about … about his family, and from what he’s told me, I gather that Judith is …” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “How shall I put it? Well, you recall the duke’s description of his daughter in
Two Gentlemen?

I stared at him, unable to quite grasp what he was getting at. “Aye?”

Mr. Pope sighed. “Never mind, Widge. You’re tired. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

“Aye, all right.” On the last word, my weary voice broke.

Mr. Pope winced. “It sounds as though your pipes can’t decide which octave to play in. Has that been happening often?”

I nodded despondently. “No one i’ the company has mentioned it yet—except Sam and Sal Pavy, of course—but I’m certain they’ve noticed.”

“Well, don’t let it worry you. It doesn’t mean you’re through playing girls’ parts; it just means we’ll have to work a bit more to keep you sounding sweet. We’ll get some oil of almond for you to gargle with daily, and I’ll show you some vocal exercises that will keep your throat strings in tune. For now, go on to bed.”

I got to my feet. “Before I do, can I fetch aught for you?”

“No, no.” He lifted the blanket to reveal a thick book wedged in next to him. “I’ve a cup of clary and a volume of Rabelais. What more could a man want?”

My brain was not so befogged that I failed to hear the wistful tone behind his words. What he wanted, I suspected, was not to sit before a fire with a book in his lap, but to strut before an audience with a speech in his mouth. In the doorway of the library, I turned back. “Mr. Pope?”

“Yes, lad?”

“Ha’ you ever tried writing a play?”

“Me?” He laughed heartily, as though the notion were ludicrous. “No, I’m happy to leave that task to Will. What makes you ask such a thing?”

“I—I only thought it might gi’ you something to do,” I lied.

“Thank you, but I believe I’d prefer to dig a ditch. Dirt is far more agreeable to work with than words.”

As I started up the stairs, I discovered Tetty sitting halfway up them, clad only in her nightshirt, her thin arms wrapped about her knees. “Tetty!” I whispered. “Why are you sitting here? You’ll catch a chill!”

“I was waiting for you to tuck me into bed.”

“And not eavesdropping at all on me conversation wi’ Mr. Pope, I suppose?” I led her down the hall to the room she shared with Goody Willingson, who was still cleaning up in the kitchen.

“Only a little,” she said. “Who’s Judith?”

Here it was dark enough to hide my blushes. “Mr. Shakespeare’s daughter.” I turned back the covers, and when she was done snuggling into her spot, I tucked them around her.

“Is she very beautiful?”

If neglecting to tell the whole truth counts as a lie, I was guilty once more. Instead of confessing that Judith was the most comely creature I had ever set eyes upon, I simply said, “I suppose so.”

“Are you going to marry her?” Clearly Tetty was no more fooled by my show of indifference than Mr. Pope had been.

“Marry her? I’ve kenned her but a single afternoon!”

“After Romeo talks to Juliet for only five minutes they’re exchanging their love’s faithful vows.”

“How is it you ken so much about Romeo and Juliet?”

“Mr. Pope told me. He acted out all the parts.” She gave a soft, sleepy giggle. “He doesn’t make a very good Juliet.”

“No, I expect not.”

Tetty yawned. “You mustn’t marry her, you know.” Her voice was growing drowsy now.

“Why not?”

“Because,” she murmured, “you must wait for me.”

D
espite my exhaustion, I spent a restless night. I woke well before dawn, and as I could not force myself back to sleep, I rose and lit a candle. Then, wrapping my blankets about me, I sat at the small table by my bed and took up my plumbago pencil, determined to write something resembling a play—or at any rate enough of one to make the lie I had told Judith seem more credible.

It was more than just a matter of making good my boast, though. I wished desperately to do something that would impress her favorably. Heaven knew I had done little enough in that line thus far. I was very much afraid that if I remained in her eyes—her bright blue eyes—nothing more than Widge, the quaint prentice, she would have little time for me. If, on the other hand, I were Widge, the quaint playwright …

Well, she had said herself that she was more than willing to spend time with me in order to hear my play. The main problem, as I saw it, was that I had no play, not even the ghost of an
idea for one—nothing more than a title, in fact, and a rather stupid one at that.

The
ghost
of an idea … Well, there was a possibility. The groundlings went wild over anything with a ghost in it. The only thing they relished more—as the undying popularity of
The Spanish Tragedy
attested—was revenge. Something about a ghost who demands revenge, then? It wasn’t exactly clear where the Mad Men of Gotham would fit in, but I could always tell Judith I had decided to change the title. After all, it was a practice her father routinely indulged in;
All’s Well That Ends Well
, for example, had begun life as
Love’s Labour’s Won
. I could redub mine something on the order of
The Madman’s Revenge
. I rolled the title on my tongue:
The Madman’s Revenge
. That wasn’t bad; in fact it was quite good. Using my swift writing, I scribbled it down on the back of a broadsheet.

I rubbed my hands together, partly in anticipation, partly to warm them up a bit. This was beginning to look less like a chore and more like a lark. All right; I had a ghost. Whose ghost was it, then? Someone who had been foully and treacherously murdered, no doubt, since it was demanding revenge. A prince, perhaps, or a king—the penny payers liked to see royalty up there on the stage, not dull, ordinary wights like themselves. So, let us say that this prince—or king, if you will—is poisoned by some villain who covets the throne, only the prince’s ghost—or king’s, if you will—comes back, all mangled and bloody—let’s have him hacked to death, then, instead of poisoned—and torments his brother, or his son, or someone, and …

I stopped scribbling. Wait a moment, I thought. This all sounds awfully familiar. It sounded, in fact, very much like
Hamlet
. Disgusted, I held the broadsheet over the candle flame
and watched it burn. Then I snatched up another sheet of paper and smoothed it out before me.

What else would the stinkards flock to see, then? A rollicking comedy, of course, full of puns and pratfalls, misunderstandings and mistaken identities. But, though I knew next to nothing about composing a play, I knew enough to realize that a script of that sort would demand a wit keener than mine; even worse, it would require an involved and intricate story. I was better off sticking with something simple and straightforward, like death. Or perhaps love. If there was anything that appealed to the general playgoer as much as a tragic tale of murder and revenge, it was a tragic tale of star-crossed lovers.

Again, it was best if they were royalty, or at least nobility. What maiden in her right mind, after all, would waste her time pining away after a cob carrier, or a rat catcher—or an apprentice player? If the romance was to end tragically, there must be some obstacle, something to keep them apart. If they were both of noble birth, it could not be a difference in station. Or could it? What if one of the lovers—the boy, let us say—discovers that the man and woman he believes to be his parents are, in fact, not? What if they reveal to him that he was a foundling whom they took in and raised as their own? What if his true parents were, say, a cowherd and a milkmaid?

I groaned. That was not tragic; it was merely pathetic. What about the other way ‘round, then? The lovers are simple country lobs—the groundlings might not mind that; they always cheered the rustics in
Midsummer Night’s Dream
, and besides, I knew far more about rustics than I did about royalty—but then one of them—the girl, let’s say—discovers somehow that she’s actually the daughter of a duke or earl or something, who gave her to this cowherd and this milkmaid to raise, and …

As Sam was fond of saying: “Much!” What reason in the world would a duke or an earl have to hand his daughter over to a couple of poor peasants that way? Our audiences were often asked to accept the unlikely, but there were limits to what one could ask of them. When I was growing up in the orphanage, I imagined—as did most of my fellow orphans, I am certain—that I had been sent there by mistake, that someday my parents would come and claim me, and they would prove to be wealthy folk of high degree—or at least wealthy. But that was a child’s dream, not the sort of thing that ever actually occurred.

The second sheet of paper went the way of the first. Though as a premise for a play it was hopeless, at least it served to warm my hands a little. I took up a third sheet and stared at it. There was something intimidating, almost mocking, about its blankness, as though it were daring me to fill the void with something of consequence. I was tempted to burn it as well, just for spite. Instead I pinned it roughly to the table with one hand and with the other held my pencil poised over it. Now. What else might keep these hypothetical lovers apart? Money? Religion?

When I first met Jamie Redshaw he told me a touching tale of how my mother’s parents had forbidden her to have anything to do with him because they were Protestants and his family were Catholics. Though I now suspected that the whole thing had been a fabrication, a ploy to win my trust, at the time I had been utterly convinced by it. Might it not, then, convince an audience as well?

I had the page nearly covered with scribbled notes—names for the characters, possible titles (
The Mad Monk of Gotham; The Revenge of the Rosary
), thoughts on how I might work in a ghost of some sort—before it occurred to me how foolish,
even dangerous, it would be to compose a play in which one of the protagonists was a flagrant Papist.

As I sat watching yet another idea go up in smoke, the bells of St. Bennet, directly across the river from us, began to ring prime. I sprang to my feet and flung off the blankets. I was due at the Cross Keys in half an hour. I pulled on my clothing as quickly as I could and sprinted downstairs. Before I had taken two bites of my porridge, Sam came to call for me.

As I hurried out the door, Goodwife Willingson snatched me by the cloak and thrust into my hand two thick slabs of bread with slices of cold beef packed between them.

“Overslept, did you?” said Sam, casting an envious eye at the bread and beef.

I broke it in two and handed half to him. “Nay, as a matter of fact I’ve been up for hours.”

“Doing what?” he asked around a monstrous mouthful of food.

I was not about to tell him what I had truly been up to; then I would have two people pestering me for a look at my nonexistent play—and very likely far more than that, for Sam was not known for keeping his tongue in his purse, as they say. So, to avoid compounding the trouble my first lie had gotten me into, I was forced to come up with a totally new one. Was there no end to it? “I was working on improving me charactery.”

“Improving your character? I don’t see that getting up a bit early is all that virtuous.”

“Nay, nay, not me
character;
me
charactery
—you ken, me swift writing.” Well, that was not altogether untrue. Dr. Bright’s system was, to put it kindly, imperfect. There were times when I grew so frustrated with its shortcomings that I swore I would devise my own set of symbols. One day I might
even get around to it—when I was finished writing my play, perhaps, or at the last Lammas, whichever came first.

At the start of each day, it was the job of us prentices to put the tiring-room and property room in order again, after the two hours of disorder they had suffered the night before. When Sam and I arrived in the property room, Sal Pavy was already hard at work—at least until he saw that it was only us and not one of the sharers who had entered, at which point he reverted to his normal practice of doing as little as possible.

Sam cast him a look of disgust. A moment later, as he was putting a leather breastplate into its proper trunk, Sam suddenly stood stock-still, his eyes squeezed shut as though in concentration, a hand clapped to his forehead. “I’ve just had a vision of the future,” he intoned, in a voice very like Madame La Voisin’s. “I predict … I predict that Master Pavy is about to say—” He switched to a wicked imitation of Sal Pavy’s rather nasal tenor. “‘At Blackfriahs we were not obliged to pick up propahteeahs.’”

It was Sal Pavy’s turn to express disgust. “If I sounded remotely the way your parody of me sounds, I’d quit the stage at once and become a hermit.”

“Promise?” Sam said.

“Stop it, you two,” I said. “We’ve work to do.”

Sam picked up the rope ladder used by Valentine in
Two Gentlemen
and began winding it into a neat bundle. “I mean no offense, Sal, but if you had it so easy at Blackfriars, why didn’t you stay there?”