Fools and Mortals

  ‘He’s bald,’ I said, guessing at her meaning. He’s also the clever one, the bastard. No, probably not a bastard, but maybe I am because I look nothing like my three brothers.

  ‘You should speak English,’ Greasy Harold frowned at Marie, ‘like a Christian.’

  ‘I can speak English,’ she said, ‘and I am Christian.’

  ‘You’re French,’ Harold said, ‘not the same, is it?’

  ‘You think Jesus didn’t die for the French too?’ Margaret challenged him.

  ‘Not if he had any bleeding sense, he didn’t.’

  ‘I was surprised,’ Dick said. ‘His hat blew off in the street and he was bald!’

  ‘Like some others I know,’ Margaret added, looking at her husband, who scowled. Greasy Harold was fat as a hog and had a head like a baby’s bum; white, hairless, and full of shit.

  ‘He’s not very old, is he?’ Dick asked.

  ‘Thirty-one,’ I said.

  ‘That’s not old, not really. I’m forty-seven!’

  ‘He’s in his prime,’ Margaret said. ‘Make another humptey, Harold.’

  ‘If he pays,’ Harold responded sullenly.

  ‘I’ll pay,’ I said.

  ‘Bald!’ Dick said, trying to revive a conversation that seemed to have exhausted itself because the room stayed silent except for the sound of the wind and the crackle of pine logs in the fire. Dick was a scavenger, one of the men paid by the parish to clean the streets, and he considered himself an expert on fires, perhaps because they burned the collected rubbish in the Spital Field, and he was constantly warning Harold about burning pine. ‘You’ll have a fire in your chimney, and then it will be goodbye to the house,’ he liked to say, but Harold liked cheap wood as much as he liked warmth.

  Margaret brought me the second humptey. ‘I knew there was something I meant to tell you,’ she said, ‘the Percies were here again today.’

  ‘Not again,’ I said.

  ‘This forenoon,’ she said. ‘Poor old Father Laurence, they should leave him alone. He doesn’t do nobody no harm.’

  ‘He’s a bloody Catholic,’ her husband said.

  ‘He’s a harmless old soul,’ Margaret said, ‘and I’m sure he loves the Queen as much as the rest of us.’

  I doubted that, but said nothing.

  ‘I love the Queen,’ Marie said.

  ‘God bless her,’ Dick said, knowing that if he said anything bad about the Queen then Margaret would make sure he never drank in the Chicken again.

  ‘They were in the Theatre too,’ Harold said.

  ‘The Queen was?’ Dick asked.

  Everyone ignored him. I turned to look at Harold. ‘The Percies? In the Theatre?’

  ‘I saw them. Saw their bloody great horses in the yard.’

  Lord Hunsdon had promised he would speak to the Pursuivants and warn them against searching the Theatre again, yet if Harold was right they had returned, and at a time when we were all in Blackfriars. ‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course I’m bleeding sure,’ Harold said, enjoying my discomfort. ‘There were five of the bastards, it was just before noon, and they went from the widow’s house to the Theatre. I saw them!’

  ‘The silly fools,’ Margaret said happily, ‘they won’t find any Jesuits in the Theatre. You don’t keep Jesuits there, do you, Richard?’

  ‘Not even one,’ I said.

  But we did keep our scripts there. Our precious scripts.

  That someone wanted to steal.

  My brother hit me next morning. He was surprisingly strong, and the blow hurt. It was an open-handed slap across my head and made my ears ring. ‘Go,’ he snarled, ‘just go and don’t ever come back! You gross lout! You piece of shit!’ He hit me again.

  ‘Will!’ John Heminges said, then louder, ‘Will! Stop it!’

  I had arrived at Blackfriars late. The morning had dawned bright and cold, and London was layered with a few inches of snow that glittered in the sun. The church bells told me I should hurry if I was to reach Blackfriars on time, but instead of heading for the Bishopsgate I had gone to the Theatre. My boots crunched in the snow as I walked. I headed down the alley, past the frozen horse pond, and turned into the Theatre’s outer yard where I saw that the door to the tiring house was open and the hasp that had held the padlock was broken.

  I climbed the three steps into the tiring room. Snow had blown through the open door and lay on the floor. Nothing appeared to be missing. Cloaks, doublets, dresses, gowns, and shirts hung thick on their usual wooden pegs, and the big chests were still filled with hose, boots, and skirts. I climbed the stairs and threw open the balcony doors to let in the snow-brightened morning light.

  The big tabours were still there, along with the candlesticks, the harp that needed strings, the goblets and dishes, and all the other properties that were used onstage. At first glance it seemed nothing had been touched, but then I noticed the door that led into the box office, so called because the boxes that took the playgoers’ pennies was emptied on the table inside. The lock of the door had been forced, and I could see splintered wood around the keyhole. I pushed the door open. It was dark inside, but I could see the two boxes still standing on the table. There would have been no money in either of them, so no coins could have been stolen. Then I saw the chest in the small room’s far corner. Like the door, it had been forced, the lock broken and the lid prised open. I crossed the room, and, with dread, looked into the chest.

  It was empty.

  ‘Who’s there?’ a wary voice called from the tiring room.

  ‘Jeremiah?’ I called. ‘It’s me, Richard.’

  Jeremiah, the one-eyed soldier whose job was to guard the Theatre, climbed the stairs. He was holding a pistol. ‘Only hemp seed,’ he said, meaning that the gun was charged with seeds that would sting and not kill. He crossed to the box office, stopped in the doorway, and stared at the chest’s opened lid. ‘Jesus in Jewry,’ he said, aghast.

  ‘You’ll need His help,’ I said grimly.

  He laid the pistol on the table and cautiously approached the chest. He gazed into it as if hoping that the missing contents would miraculously reappear. Then he swore. ‘They got them all?’

  ‘Every last one,’ I said.

  ‘All the scripts?’ He was having trouble understanding the disaster that had befallen us.

  ‘Everything,’ I said, ‘and the Sharers won’t be happy.’ That was an understatement. The chest had contained all our plays, all the parts, all the scripts. I was not sure whether my brother had locked a copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream or of his new Italian play into the heavy chest, but everything else had been there. ‘You weren’t here?’ I asked Jeremiah.

  ‘It was too cold yesterday,’ he explained. He was usually gruff and even sullen, but the sight of the ravished chest had driven the bluster from him. ‘And the snow was coming down,’ he went on, ‘and I reckoned no Christian would be out and about in a goddamned blizzard, so I went home. There’s a fire at home, you see? There’s no fire here.’ His voice tailed away. He knew he would lose his job because of this.

  ‘Greasy Harold said it was the Percies,’ I said.

  ‘The Percies!’ he looked indignant. ‘What do those bastards want with plays?’

  ‘God knows.’

  He picked up the pistol. It was a German weapon, its powder ignited by a wheel lock, its barrel chased with silver, and the heavy pommel on the hilt made of the same metal. It belonged to the Theatre, one of the guns we used to make a noise offstage during battle scenes. ‘If it was the Percies,’ Jeremiah said slyly, ‘then I couldn’t have stopped them, could I?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The bloody Percies can do what they bleeding like. This wouldn’t have helped, would it?’ He hefted the pistol. ‘They’d have just killed me!’

  ‘They would, yes.’

  ‘So it isn’t my fault!’ He glared at me, wanting my agreement, but I just shrugged. ‘So what do we do?’ he asked.

  ‘You stay here,’ I s
uggested. ‘I have to go to Blackfriars, and I’ll tell the Sharers. They’ll send someone to mend the doors.’

  ‘Tell them it wasn’t my fault. Tell them I was here,’ he pleaded. ‘Tell them I couldn’t stop them. They’re Percies!’

  ‘I’ll tell them you couldn’t stop the Percies,’ I promised him.

  ‘Tell them I was here,’ he said again. ‘Jesus, Mary, and Joseph couldn’t have stopped those buggers. It’s not my fault!’

  I left him still pleading with me, then hurried towards the Bishopsgate. The visit to the Theatre had made me late, as did the snow in the streets, which was already turning to a grey sludge. I slipped on ice in Water Lane, landing painfully on my hip and skinning my right hand. I was shivering. The beggars who usually gathered outside the big houses were all gone, sheltering God knows where. I could see that the Thames was part frozen, the channel running grey between sheets of ice. The watermen had broken a channel through to the Paris Garden Stairs, but few boats were waiting for customers. The usual guard who stood at the gates of the Lord Chamberlain’s stable yard was missing, but I found him inside, where he was watching the yard’s entrance from the small shelter of a horse stall.

  I had expected to find the company rehearsing, but instead they were gathered around the fire in the great hall. They were arguing loudly, interrupting each other, plainly angered, but as I arrived, they immediately went silent and watched me. I saw a half-dozen bearded faces, all grim, all staring at me, along with the boys, who stood apart and just looked scared. I was too cold to sense the antagonism. I only wanted to reach the fire and give them my news. ‘I’ve just come from the Theatre,’ I said. ‘The Percies were there yesterday, and they took all the play scripts. All of them! They …’

  ‘They took nothing!’ my brother interrupted me.

  ‘I was there this morning,’ I insisted. ‘They were there yesterday, and broke the door of the box office.’

  It was at that moment he strode to meet me, and, without warning, hit me across the face. Simon Willoughby, standing with the other boys, gasped. I was relieved to see Simon. Whatever adventure had prompted him to leave the mansion before the rest of us the previous evening had plainly ended.

  ‘They took nothing!’ my brother repeated, and hit me again. ‘Whereas you …’

  ‘Will, no!’ John Heminges came to intervene.

  ‘You goddamned thief!’ my brother spat into my face. ‘Go! Just go, and don’t ever come back! Go!’ He tried to turn me around and push me towards the door, and, when I resisted, he hit me a third time. ‘You gross lout! You piece of shit!’ He hit me again.

  ‘Will!’ John Heminges said, then louder, ‘Will! Stop it!’

  My brother drew his arm back to hit me again, but I got my blow in first, punching him in the chest. It was not a hard punch, but enough to drive him back a pace. ‘Will!’ John Heminges shouted, and seized my brother’s arm, ‘Will! Stop it!’ He held onto my brother. ‘He did not take them.’

  ‘We only have your word for that,’ my brother snarled.

  ‘And my word isn’t good enough?’ Heminges, normally a mild man, was now angry himself.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!’ Alan Rust bellowed as he hurried towards us.

  ‘Don’t stop it!’ Will Kemp called. He was grinning, enjoying the scene. ‘Hit the bastard again, Will! Hit him harder! Punch his pretty face! Let’s see blood!’

  ‘Enough!’ Rust shouted. He pushed between me and my brother, then thrust me hard against the big table. ‘What did you see at the Theatre?’ he demanded.

  I described what I had seen, the forced doors, and the opened chest in the box office. ‘The chest was empty,’ I said, ‘and all the scripts were gone.’

  ‘Where was Jeremiah?’ Henry Condell demanded angrily.

  ‘They were Percies,’ I said. ‘Jeremiah couldn’t stop them. He had a pistol charged with hemp seed, but if he’d used it he’d probably be dead now.’ I had decided to lie for Jeremiah and not reveal that he had abandoned the Theatre before the Pursuivants arrived. The truth was that he could not have stopped them because they carried the royal warrant, and his presence or absence made not the slightest difference.

  ‘Nothing else was taken?’ Rust demanded.

  ‘Nothing I could see.’

  ‘Then they took nothing,’ my brother said, still angry.

  ‘They took all the …’ I began.

  ‘I took the valuable scripts out of the Theatre,’ he snarled, ‘and just left the dross. They got the pages for The Seven Deadly Sins, and a dozen other pieces of crap.’

  ‘You took them out?’ I asked weakly.

  ‘Because it was obvious they might return,’ he said, ‘despite his lordship’s help. Somebody hates us, somebody is trying to destroy us. You!’ He lunged towards me again, but Alan Rust stopped him.

  ‘The valuable scripts,’ Rust explained to me, ‘were brought here. They were locked away,’ he nodded to the big chest beside the hearth, ‘and last night someone stole the pages of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Romeo and Juliet.’

  That shocked me. I stammered for a moment as the bearded faces glowered at me. ‘It was not me!’ I protested.

  ‘You went to Langley’s new playhouse,’ my brother accused me. ‘You think I don’t know? Francis Langley is a friend!’

  ‘Because you’re a Sharer in his brothels?’ I retorted.

  ‘Are you, Will?’ Kemp asked eagerly.

  ‘Is it true?’ Alan Rust ignored Will Kemp and looked at me. ‘Did you visit Langley’s new playhouse?’

  I hesitated a heartbeat, then nodded. ‘I did go. I was curious. And they offered me gold, and I turned it down. I said no!’

  ‘They offered you gold?’

  ‘They wanted the pages of A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ I said, ‘because they don’t have any plays.’

  ‘They do now,’ my brother said bitterly.

  ‘And how could I have stolen the two plays last night?’ I demanded. ‘I left with the rest of you.’

  ‘He did,’ John Heminges said.

  ‘And you say the scripts were locked here,’ I said to my brother, ‘but you didn’t take the key?’

  ‘It’s not our chest. The household uses it. I can’t take the key away.’

  ‘So anyone could have stolen them,’ I said, ‘but it wasn’t me.’

  ‘Perhaps someone in the household just borrowed them?’ John Heminges suggested nervously.

  ‘No one borrowed them,’ my brother snapped. ‘I asked Harrison.’ Harrison was his lordship’s steward. ‘He says only he knows where the key is hidden. It was one of us, and the plays are stolen. And you could easily have returned here last night.’

  ‘In that snowstorm? No!’

  ‘You still talked to Langley,’ he accused me sourly.

  ‘And you haven’t visited the new playhouse yet?’ I asked him, and saw, from his expression, that I was right. ‘And how many others here have gone to see what they’re building?’

  No one answered. No one would even meet another man’s eyes.

  ‘I went there, yes,’ I admitted, ‘and I talked to Langley, and to a man called deValle, and he offered me the Earl of Lechlade’s money. He offered me gold! And he said he’d pay me a wage if I joined the company. Langley was there, I’m sure he told you what happened.’ I paused, and my brother did not respond, which meant he had indeed been told. ‘And he would have told you,’ I went on, ‘that I said no.’ I spoke the last four words very slowly and distinctly.

  ‘The Earl of Lechlade?’ Henry Condell asked.

  ‘It’s his money,’ I said, ‘and they’ll call the new playhouse the Swan.’

  ‘It wasn’t Richard,’ John Heminges stood beside me. ‘He was with me when we left last night. I walked with him almost as far as Ludgate, and it was just minutes before the curfew.’

  They were convinced now, I could see it, though my brother, resentful and hurt, would not meet my eye. ‘Then who?’ he asked sullenly.

  ‘Wh
o didn’t leave with us last night?’ I asked.

  I heard John Heminges gasp. He turned and looked at the hearth where the boys, all of them frightened by the argument, still stood. I looked too, catching Simon Willoughby’s eye. He stared at me, then at his master, and I saw the panic come to his face. He was a player, but at that moment all his skills deserted him. He should have pretended, he should have played the innocent, but instead he fled. He sprinted across the room, leaped onto the half built stage, jumped down at the back, and vanished into the scullery passage.

  ‘Simon!’ Heminges called, but his apprentice had already disappeared.

  We all followed, but we were much too slow. Men were clambering onto the stage and crowding at the further door, while Simon Willoughby was long gone.

  ‘This way!’ Alan Rust set off down the scullery passage towards the stable yard, but I knew Simon Willoughby would have used the other corridor, the one I had shown him that led to the river alley. He had gone into wintry London. And our two new plays were gone with him.

  It was a subdued rehearsal that morning, and no wonder. Titania was gone, and Oberon, her master, felt both betrayed and ashamed. Peter Quince was bitterly angry. Nick Bottom could not resist making jokes, which finally provoked my usually calm brother to another fit of rage. ‘The play is lost, you bastard! That’s our money lost!’

  ‘There was no proper part for me,’ Will Kemp snarled, ‘so what does it matter?’

  ‘Not every play has a fool in it.’

  ‘The plays that make money do. Who gives a dog’s fart for a pair of Italian lovers?’

  ‘Masters!’ Alan Rust intervened. Both Williams fell silent, content to glower at each other.

  John Heminges, lost in misery because of his apprentice’s treachery, sat hunched on a chair. ‘I didn’t know,’ he said for the hundredth time.

  ‘None of us knew,’ Rust said brusquely.

  ‘He’s a traitor,’ John Heminges said bitterly, ‘but I don’t understand why.’

  ‘For money,’ my brother said sourly.

  ‘He was unhappy,’ I said, ‘because he wasn’t chosen to play Juliet.’

  ‘You knew that?’ My brother turned on me savagely.