Shakespeare's Spy (3 page)

“Neither,” I said sourly. “I’m—I’m coming down wi’ something, I wis.” To support my contention, I coughed a few times,
the same pitiful cough I sometimes used on the stage when dying of a chest wound.

“A likely tale,” put in Sal Pavy. “I can spot a cracked voice as easily as a cracked coin.” He directed an aside to Sam. “Have you noticed he has little hairs sprouting from his chin as well?”

“Nay!” I protested, feeling my jaw. “I got them all, I’m sure—”

Sam snickered. “So, you’ve been doing a bit of plucking, have you?” He reached out and gave my face a pat in supposed sympathy. “Poor babby. Did it hurt?”

I knocked his hand aside. “You two striplings are envious of me manliness, that’s all.”

“Envious, is it?” Sam said. “Much!”

“Striplings, is it?” Sal Pavy stood next to me and pulled himself up to his maximum height. “I’m nearer to fully grown than you by a good three inches!”

“Oh, aye,” I replied. “Only most of it is hair.” Sam and I had taken to cropping our costards closely so that the wigs we donned for our female roles would go on and off more easily. But Sal Pavy refused to part with his golden locks, which were so abundant that he could scarcely contain them beneath his woolen prentice’s cap.

“You know, I do believe Widge is gaining on you, though,” said Sam. “And small wonder. Did you notice how many helpings of beans he shoveled in last night at supper?”

“No,” said Sal Pavy, “but I noticed them later.” He pinched his nose and made a face.

I gave him a look of mock reproach and clucked my tongue. “Master Pavy, I seem to recall when you were too refined to speak of such vulgar matters.”

His cheeks, already ruddy from the cold, turned a brighter shade of red. “That was before I fell under such bad influences,” he murmured.

“Talking of food,” I said, “I’m hungry as a hawk. Let’s find a sweetmeat seller.”

Sam rubbed his gloveless hands together. “A roasted-potato seller, more like. Anyway, you’ve got to wait until we’ve seen the cunning woman.”

As we continued along Fleet Street and passed through Ludgate, Sam and Sal Pavy went on talking, but I was occupied with my own thoughts. Though I had managed to brush off their jests concerning my chin hairs and my uncertain voice, secretly I considered them no laughing matter. Rather, they seemed to me an unsettling omen, a reminder that I could not go on playing girls’ parts forever.

In terms of physical development, I had always lagged well behind most boys my age—thanks, no doubt, to a lack of proper nourishment. Now that I was provided with good food and all I cared to eat of it, my body seemed bent on making up for lost time. For an ordinary wight, this was a source of pride, a sign of approaching manhood. But I was no ordinary wight; I was a player, and any pride I felt was overshadowed by a sense of apprehension.

I had been assured by other members of the company—and even by the queen herself—that I was a capable actor. In most of the parts I was praised for, though, I was impersonating a girl. It wasn’t that I minded doing female roles; I was only acting, after all. But I could not shake the nagging fear that once my voice deepened and my beard began to show, the company might no longer have any use for me.

I half hoped that the cunning woman truly could see into
the future. Perhaps she could give me some hint of what lay in store for me so that I might either put my mind at ease or else prepare for the worst—and I could not imagine a fate much worse than being turned out of the only family I knew, or had ever known.

Sal Pavy was asking Sam what he meant to do with the five thousand pounds he had been assured of winning. Sam ignored the snide quality of the question. “Actually,” he said, “I’ve given that a good deal of thought. I believe I’ll buy a ship.”

“A
ship?
“ I said.

He nodded smugly. “A big three-master. I’ll sail her to India and return with a hold full of spices and silk. I’ve always wanted to go to sea.”

“Oh, aye,” I said. “That’s why you prenticed to an acting company.”

“Well, I wasn’t old enough to be a sailor, and it seemed like more fun than sweeping chimneys or tanning hides.”

Sal Pavy gave him a disparaging look. “What a good reason to go into the theatre.”

“Is there a better reason?”

I thought of Julia, and how desperate she had been to be a player. “Because you love it?” I suggested.

He shrugged. “It’s all right. But doesn’t it ever strike you that there’s something a bit odd about what we’re doing? I mean, if you think about it, we’re not really
doing
anything, are we? We’re just
pretending
to do things. Sometimes I could do with a bit less acting and a bit more action, that’s all.”

We crossed the stone bridge that spanned Fleet Ditch. Though it lay outside the walls, Salisbury Court was still part of the city proper, and it had its share of legitimate businesses—
taverns, printers, booksellers. But it was also headquarters for a considerable number of less respectable concerns—bawdy puppet shows, sleight-of-hand artists, palm readers, astrologers, and the like.

Sam led us to a tattered, grimy tent set back a few yards from the edge of the road. Before it stood a folding wooden sign that bore no words, only a crude and rather unsettling painting of a huge eye, with rays of what was presumably meant to be light shooting out from it in all directions.

I had rarely seen Sam appear anything but cheerful and cocky, even in those moments when we stood behind the stage waiting to go on, and when I was trying hard to hold down my dinner. But now he was clearly a bit out of square. He seemed to find it necessary to screw up his courage a bit before he called, in a voice that might have been more steady, “Madame La Voisin?”

There was no reply. Sam glanced at us rather sheepishly, shrugged, and called out more loudly, “Madame La Voisin?”

A low, hoarse voice from within commanded, “Be silent, fool!”

Clearly startled, Sam took a step backward, treading on my foot. “Sorry. She—she must be in the midst of a reading already.”

“Perhaps we should just go,” I suggested, feeling not a little uneasy myself now.

“No, no!” Sam said heartily, and then, glancing toward the tent, spoke more softly. “It’s all right. It’ll be worth the wait, you’ll see.”

W
e stood shivering in the cold for several minutes before the flap of the tent lifted and a woman emerged. She looked utterly out of place here, with her richly embroidered gown, her starched neck ruff, and her elegantly coiffured hair. Lifting her skirts a little, she brushed past us, leaving a sweet scent from her pomander hanging in her wake.

“I take it,” said Sal Pavy, “that was not Madame La Voisin.”

“No.” Sam lifted the flap and motioned us inside. The interior of the tent was dim, and so thick with acrid smoke that I could scarcely see, let alone breathe.

“Be seated,” said the same rasping voice we had heard before. Stifling a cough, I eased myself onto a rickety three-legged stool. Sam sat on the one remaining stool. Sal Pavy stood just inside the tent flap, shifting about restlessly, as though ready to make a run for it if necessary.

When my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I could make out a hunched figure whose head was swathed in a number of dirty,
moth-eaten scarves. On her hands were a pair of equally soiled kid gloves with the fingertips cut off, allowing the ends of her fingers to protrude. When I wiped my stinging eyes, I could see that her knuckles were clustered with a multitude of small warts.

On the wooden table before her, cradled between her palms, was a surprisingly clean cloth that concealed something spherical. On the ground next to her sat a black iron kettle—the source of the smoke that threatened to suffocate me. I leaned forward and peered into the cauldron, half expecting to find some eldritch brew of newts’ eyes and adders’ tongues, but saw only glowing chunks of Newcastle coal, with no purpose more sinister than to warm the tent.

La Voisin’s hoarse voice issued again from the folds of her several scarves. “And what do you young ladies wish of me?”

Sam gave a feeble laugh. “Ladies? We’re no ladies, madame.”

“Perhaps not today,” she replied slyly. “But sometimes, yes?”

Sam glanced my way and lifted his eyebrows slightly. “How did you know?”

“It is my business to know things.”

“Could you—could you tell our futures, then?” When La Voisin made no answer, Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat and seemed about to repeat the question. Then the soothsayer laid one of her hands on the table, palm up. “Oh.” Sam dug in his purse for a penny, which he dropped into her worn glove.

“I have told your fate before,” La Voisin said. Then she pointed a finger in my direction. “I will tell
his
.” She laid aside the cloth, revealing a globe perhaps six inches across, fashioned from some substance that was black as coal; it had been polished until it gleamed darkly, like the pupil of an enormous eye.

She stared into the ball for a long while. Finally she spoke, in a tone so bleak and ominous that it made me shudder. “I see,” she said, “that you will come into a fortune.”

Sam’s face took on a look of surprise and indignation. “That’s the same thing you told
me!
”

“Not so,” said La Voisin. “What I said was, ‘You will receive more money than you imagine.’”

“That’s the same thing, isn’t it?” When the cunning woman made no reply, he fished out another coin and clapped it into her palm. “Tell mine again.”

“As you wish.” While she peered into the ball, I sat weighing the words she had directed at me. A fortune? How could I possibly come into a fortune? I could hardly inherit it. My mother had died in the poorhouse, and I had no notion who my father was. Perhaps, as Sam implied, the cunning woman gave more or less the same prediction to everyone. After all, folk were more likely to come back, and to bring their friends, if she told them what they wanted to hear.

La Voisin lifted her head but said nothing. “Well?” Sam prompted her.

“You are certain you wish to hear it?”

“Of course. What is it? What did you see?”

The cunning woman turned toward him, and I caught for the first time a glimpse of her visage. The skin of her face was as thickly covered with warts as a pox victim’s is with scars. “I see that you will turn traitor.”

Sam gaped at her for a moment before he found his voice. “That’s not a prediction! That’s an accusation!”

“You said you wished to hear it.”

“And now I wish to have my penny back! I didn’t pay good money to be insulted!”

“I am not responsible for what the future holds; I merely say what I see.”

Sam got to his feet, grumbling under his breath, “Yes, well, if you ask me, you need spectacles.” He waved Sal Pavy toward the stool. “It’s your turn.”

“I—I don’t believe I—” Sal Pavy started to say.

Sam cut him off. “Come, now, stop your whingeing and take it like a man. Your future couldn’t possibly be any worse than mine.” Reluctantly, Sal Pavy perched on the edge of the stool. “You’ve got to give her a penny,” Sam reminded him. “Though perhaps you’d do well to make it tuppence; you might get a better reading.” He turned to me. “Not to forget, you owe me a penny. You can well afford it,” he added, with a secret wink, “seeing as how you’re coming into a fortune, and all.”

“Silence!” hissed La Voisin. She gazed into the ball even longer than before. I nearly strangled, trying to keep from coughing as the coal smoke wafted about me. When the cunning woman spoke at last, she sounded puzzled. “I see … I see
nothing
.”

Sal Pavy laughed. “What does that mean? That I have no future?”

La Voisin gave him a look that erased his skeptical smile. “Perhaps,” she said. “I will look again.”

“That’s not necessary.” Sal Pavy started to rise. “You may keep the penny.”

“
Sit
,” said the woman. Sal Pavy’s knees seemed to bend of their own accord. “I will look again.” She hunched over the ball, her nose nearly pressed against it. After a long minute or two, her voice broke the silence, but only barely. She seemed to breathe the words, rather than speak them, as though they came forth without her willing them to, or even wishing them
to. “I see … a rough hand gripping you … a knife … at your neck … “She sat back abruptly and, snatching up the cloth, draped it over the globe. “It has gone dark.”

“But … what did all that mean?” Sal Pavy demanded.

“I do not interpret. I only see.”

Sal Pavy got to his feet, obviously angry, but just as obviously shaken. “What a lot of bilk! I know what you’re trying to do! You believe that if you make only half a prediction, I’II give you money to hear the rest! Well, you’re not as good at seeing the future as you imagine for, by my troth, you’ll have not so much as a brass farthing from me!” He spun about and pushed through the tent flap.

Sam cleared his throat and, with uncharacteristic meekness, said, “I—um—I’d like to apologize for our friend’s behavior. He’s a bit of a hothead, is all. While I’m at it, I apologize for anything I might have said that … that might have …”

“You need not bother with your false contrition,” said La Voisin. “I am not going to call down a curse upon your heads. That is Fate’s task, not mine.” She pointed toward the flap of the tent. “Go now.”

We did not need to be told twice. There was no sign of Sal Pavy outside. “Now, where do you suppose ’a’s got to?” I said as we walked back toward Ludgate.

“If I was him, I’d go find another soothsayer, and get a second opinion.”

“So should you, I wis. What could she have meant by that—turning traitor?”

Sam waved a hand dismissively. “Who knows? Who cares? Obviously she’s just making it all up.”

“When she predicted you’d win the lottery, you believed her.”

“Well, wouldn’t you like to believe that you’re going to come into a fortune, the way she said? Speaking of which, where’s my penny?”

I gave him a hurt look. “Don’t you trust me to pay you back? I thought we were friends.”

Sam hung his head. “Of course we are,” he said. “That’s why I’d really hate to have to pound you to a pudding if you don’t give me the bleeding penny.”