Fools and Mortals

  There was a roar of welcome when Simon Willoughby joined the jig, still costumed as Queen Hester, but the roar was twice as loud when I danced onto the stage. I played to the grinning faces, whirling around at the stage’s front, lifting my skirts and winking at some red-faced butcher who was gazing raptly up at me. This jig was called Jeremiah and the Milk Cow, and it had been written by Will Kemp, who played a soldier who had been blinded in the wars and had returned home and was searching for his wife, who had run off with a farmer played by my brother. The farmer kept offering other girls to the soldier. Jeremiah, though blind, realised none of the offered girls was his missing wife, until, in the end, my brother offered Bessie the cow, who was played by me. I made horns with my fingers, and mooed, and ran away from Will Kemp, who finally caught me by the hips, turned me about and gave a massive jerk of his loins, which got the crowd cheering again. ‘I’d know this arse anywhere!’ Will Kemp roared, I bellowed as he jerked again, the crowd was laughing, and Will slammed his body into mine time after time and kept shouting that he had found his wife at last. He finally let go of me and rattled off a string of bawdy jokes as I went back to join the dance with the other players. I managed to step on Simon’s cloak, which made him miss his step and half fall. The playhouse does have its compensations.

  ‘You were, you were,’ the Reverend Venables had come to the tiring room after the play and now waved his hands as if he could not find the words he wanted. He was talking to all the half-undressed players. ‘You were magnificent!’ he said. ‘Quite magnificent! Richard, my dear,’ he darted at me, and, before I could evade, put his hands on my cheeks and kissed my lips, ‘the best I have ever seen you! And you, dear sweet Simon,’ off he went to buss Willoughby, ‘I shall tell Her Majesty of your loyalty,’ the reverend said, beaming at us, then looked to my brother. ‘I’ve written another piece. Judith and Holofernes.’

  There was a beat before my brother responded. ‘I am replete with happiness,’ he said drily.

  ‘And young Richard,’ the reverend’s fingers brushed my shoulder, ‘would be superb as Judith. While dear Simon can play her sister.’

  ‘Judith had a sister?’ my brother asked, evidently puzzled.

  ‘She doesn’t in the Vulgate,’ Venables said coyly, ‘but in my play? One cannot have too many darlings, can one?’ He smiled at Simon, who duly wriggled and smiled back.

  My brother just looked tired. ‘Doesn’t Judith cut off Holofernes’s head?’ he asked.

  ‘With a sword!’

  ‘Beheadings,’ my brother warned, ‘are monstrous difficult to do onstage.’

  ‘But you can do it!’ Venables exclaimed. ‘You are all magicians. You are all …’ he hesitated, looking pained as if he could not find the right word to do us justice, ‘you are all sorcerers!’

  What is it about the playhouse that turns men and women into quivering puppies? All we do is pretend. We tell stories. Yet after the play the audience lingers at the tiring-house door wanting to see us, wanting to talk to us as if we are saints whose very touch could cure their sickness. But what sickness? Dullness? Boredom? The Most Reverend William Venables was evidently entranced by us, by the playhouse, and by what he believed was some kind of benign magic. He touched my elbow. ‘Dear Richard,’ he murmured, ‘a word?’ He gripped my upper arm and pulled me towards the stage door. I resisted for a heartbeat, but for a small, thin man he was surprisingly strong, and he dragged me away as Simon Willoughby smirked and my brother looked surprised.

  The reverend took me through the left-hand door onto the stage, where he stopped and gazed into the courtyard where Jeremiah was sweeping hazelnut and oyster shells from the cobbles. Pickles the cat lay in a patch of weak sunlight and began licking a battered paw. ‘I hear you might leave the company,’ the reverend said, ‘is that true?’

  The sudden question confused me. ‘I might,’ I muttered. In truth I had no plans, no offers of other employment, and no future. My threat to walk away from the Lord Chamberlain’s Men was nothing but pique, an attempt to gain some sympathy from my brother in hopes that he would give me men’s parts and a larger wage. ‘I don’t know, sir,’ I added sullenly.

  ‘Why would you leave?’ he asked sharply.

  I hesitated. ‘I want to grow a beard,’ I finally said.

  He laughed at that. ‘What a shame that would be! But I do understand.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Oh, dear boy, isn’t it obvious? You’re getting too old. Your voice is just passable for an older woman, but how long will that endure? And what men’s parts are there for you? Richard and Henry won’t make way for you, will they? They are our young and handsome heroes, are they not? And Alexander and Simon are snapping at your heels, and they’re both so exquisitely talented.’ He gave me a pitying smile. ‘Perhaps you can run away to sea?’

  ‘I’m no sailor,’ I said. I had seen the sea once, and that once was enough.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Venables said forcefully, ‘you’re a player and a very good one.’

  ‘Am I?’ I asked, sounding like Simon Willoughby.

  ‘You have grace onstage, you have been blessed with beauty, you speak clearly.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said in Uashti’s voice, ‘but I have no beard.’

  ‘You don’t need a beard,’ he said, and took my arm again, steering me towards the front of the stage.

  ‘I can’t grow one yet,’ I said, ‘because I still have to play the women’s parts. But James has promised me a man’s part soon.’

  He let go of my arm. ‘James Burbage has promised you a man’s part?’ his tone was surprisingly harsh.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What part?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And in what play?’

  He still spoke harshly, and I remembered my brother saying that it was easy to underestimate the Reverend William Venables. ‘He might appear a light fool,’ my brother had said, ‘but he keeps his place in the royal court, and Her Majesty likes neither clergymen nor fools.’

  ‘She doesn’t like clergymen?’ I had asked, surprised.

  ‘After the way her sister’s bishops treated her? She despises them. She believes churchmen stir up unnecessary trouble, and she hates unnecessary trouble. But she likes Venables. He amuses her.’

  The Very Reverend William Venables was not amusing me. He was gripping my elbow again and leaning too close. I tried to pull away, but he kept hold of me. ‘What play?’ he demanded a second time.

  ‘It’s a wedding play,’ I told him, ‘for the Lord Chamberlain’s granddaughter.’

  ‘Ah! Of course.’ He relaxed his grip and smiled at me. ‘A new play, how exciting! Do you know who is writing it?’

  ‘My brother, sir.’

  ‘Of course he is,’ he said, still smiling. ‘Tell me, Richard. Have you heard of Lancelot Torrens?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Lancelot Torrens is the third Earl of Lechlade and a quite remarkable young man.’ I sensed that this was why he had drawn me out onto the empty stage where no one could overhear what we said, and that impression was intensified when Venables lowered his voice. ‘His grand-daddy became rich under gross Henry, gave the fat king money, and suddenly a leather merchant from Bristol is translated into an earl. Almighty God moves in a stupefying way sometimes, but I must confess young Lancelot graces the rank, and young Lancelot also has money.’ He paused, smiling slyly at me. ‘Do you like money, young Richard?’

  ‘Who doesn’t?’

  ‘Your brother tells me you’re a thief.’

  I blushed at that. ‘It’s not true, sir,’ I said, too forcefully.

  ‘What young man isn’t? And onstage you steal our hearts!’ He smiled brightly. ‘You are good.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said awkwardly.

  ‘And Lancelot Torrens, third Earl of Lechlade, would like to possess a company of actors, and the young man has money, a great deal of money. He would, I think, regard you as a most valued member of any company t
hat was fortunate enough to boast of his patronage.’ He watched me, waiting for me to speak, but I had no idea what to say. ‘He knows of you,’ he added coyly.

  I laughed at that. ‘I’m sure he doesn’t, sir.’

  ‘And I assure you he does, or rather his man of business knows of you. I supplied him with a list of players fit for his new playhouse.’

  ‘He has a playhouse?’

  ‘Of course! A company needs a playhouse, and only the finest will satisfy young Lancelot. Who do you think is paying for that monstrosity on Bankside?’

  I tried to remember the name of the man building the new playhouse, the one James Burbage had been worried I might have talked to. ‘Francis Langley?’

  ‘Langley has money, but if he owned every brothel in Southwark it wouldn’t be sufficient. The little earl is paying.’

  ‘Little?’ I asked.

  ‘He has beauty, but lacks stature,’ the reverend explained, ‘while you, my dear, have both.’

  I had a sudden memory of Simon Willoughby being pinned against the palace courtyard wall as the rain fell. ‘The earl,’ I said, then hesitated.

  ‘Richard?’

  ‘Is he fair-haired?’

  ‘Fair-haired?’ The Reverend William Venables smiled seraphically. ‘I should rather say that his locks were spun from the palest gold on the distaff of an angel.’ So it was the Earl of Lechlade who had accosted Simon that night? I could not be sure, of course, but it seemed most likely. ‘Why do you ask?’ the reverend demanded.

  ‘I wondered if I’d seen him, that’s all.’

  ‘You’d remember him if you had.’

  ‘Are you writing for him?’ I asked.

  Venables looked hurt. ‘Your brother won’t stage any more plays of mine. Hester brings in the crowds, but will he perform Susannah and the Elders? No! Or David and Bathsheba? No!’

  ‘And Langley will?’ I asked.

  ‘Francis and the earl recognise quality,’ he said stiffly, ‘but they need other plays.’ He turned to look me straight in the eyes. ‘If you were to take Langley your brother’s new play I think you would find that you never need steal again!’

  I just stared at him, too shocked to speak.

  ‘You should talk to Langley,’ the reverend said.

  I did not know what to say. His proposal was so dishonest, so shocking, that I could not find the words. A playhouse’s scripts are among its most precious possessions because if another company could find a copy of a play then that company could present that play. Sometimes, when plague closed the playhouses, a company would publish one of its scripts to make some money, and then that play became the property of anyone who wanted it. That was how we had secured The Seven Deadly Sins. We needed to pay no money to its author, we just performed it when we liked, though too many performances would soon see an empty playhouse. If the Earl of Lechlade’s company came by a copy of the wedding play, or of the new play set in Verona that my brother was still writing, they could perform the plays and so steal our audience. A play script is precious, worth eight, nine, or ten pounds each, and so they are locked safely away. To steal one would be to betray the company, and so I hesitated, stammered, and finally evaded an answer by saying I had promised to stay with my brother’s company through the winter.

  ‘Promises in playhouses,’ the Reverend William Venables said airily, ‘are like kisses on May Day. They don’t count. Go and talk to Langley.’

  Because the earl had money.

  And I had none.

  I did not go to find Francis Langley. London might be a mighty city, but the players in the playhouses all know each other. I feared that if James Burbage or my brother discovered I had been talking with Langley, then their promise of a man’s part in the new play might vanish like a summer mist. I was tempted, but for once I did not yield to temptation.

  Then the Percies came on Monday.

  We call them the Percies, but they are really Her Majesty’s Pursuivants, black-dressed retainers whose job is to hunt down and root out those Roman Catholics who would slaughter the Queen and take England back to the Roman church. Their prize quarry are the Jesuits, but any Roman priest or anyone who shelters such a priest can expect the Percies to come calling and on the Monday they came to the Theatre.

  We were rehearsing the Comedy, or, to give the play its full title, The Comedy of Errors. We knew the play well, but on Sunday George Bryan had tripped over the lintel of Saint Leonard’s church and broken his nose. ‘We are cursed,’ my brother had said, delivering the news, ‘first Augustine, now George.’

  The rehearsal was not going well. A hired man called Robert Pallant had to take George’s part. Pallant was a middle-aged man with a paunch, a spade beard, and a hangdog face. He was nervous because he was playing Egeon, a merchant, who opened the play with an immensely long speech that Pallant had memorised, but kept mangling. Everyone else was just bad-tempered. ‘Let’s start again,’ my brother had suggested, after Pallant stammered to a halt for the fourth or fifth time.

  The six players all went to the back of the stage as if they had just come through the doors from the tiring room. ‘The trumpet sounds,’ Alan Rust said, ‘it ends, and you enter.’

  Pallant walked towards the front of the stage. ‘Proceed,’ he began and got no further.

  ‘Jesu! You walk as if you’ve got a bone up your arse!’ Alan Rust bellowed. Pallant stopped and looked astonished.

  ‘What?’ he began.

  ‘What’s your first line?’ Rust growled.

  ‘Um …’

  ‘Christ on his silver-painted cross! If I ever hear the word “um” on this stage I will kill! I will kill! What’s your goddamned line?’

  ‘“Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall and by the doom of death end woes and all.”’

  ‘End our woes. Christ grant us that blessing! And to whom are you speaking? Pray tell me?’

  ‘The duke.’

  ‘The duke! So why are you wandering like a constipated goose to the front of the goddamned stage? The duke is there!’ He pointed to my brother, who was standing on the right-hand side of the stage.

  ‘The speech …’ Pallant began weakly.

  ‘I’ve read the goddamned speech,’ Rust snarled. ‘It took a week of my life, but I read it! God in His feather-stuffed bed, man! There isn’t time to watch you waddle as well as listen to the endless stuff. Say the words to the duke! This is a goddamned play, not a bleeding sermon in Saint Paul’s. It needs life, man, life! Start again.’

  Alan Rust was new to the company. He had been playing with Lord Pembroke’s men, and James Burbage and my brother had persuaded the other Sharers to let Rust join us. ‘He’s very good,’ my brother had explained to the company, ‘and the audiences like him. He’s also very good at staging. Have you noticed?’

  ‘No,’ Will Kemp said. He alone among the Sharers had opposed Rust, suspecting that the newcomer had a character as forceful as his own. Kemp had been out-voted, and so Rust was here to tell us what to do on the stage; where to move, how to say the words, how to do all the things that previously the Sharers had squabbled about. They still squabbled, of course, but Rust had imposed some order on the chaos.

  ‘Jesus on his jakes,’ Rust now shouted at Robert Pallant, ‘what in Christ’s name are you doing?’

  ‘Going towards the duke,’ Pallant said hopefully.

  ‘You move like a constipated nun! If you’re moving,’ Rust spoke from the yard where the groundlings stood to watch the plays, ‘then for Christ’s sake move! And talk at the same time! You can do that, can’t you? Go back to the duke’s last line. What is it?’ he demanded of my brother, who played Duke Solinus.

  ‘“Well, Syracusian, say in brief …”’ my brother began.

  ‘In brief? Jesus in a rainstorm! Brief? The speech is longer than the book of Genesis! And you,’ he pointed at me, ‘what are you smiling at?’

  ‘Simon Willoughby just farted,’ I said.

  ‘At least that’s more interesting than Egeon?
??s speech,’ Rust said.

  ‘I did not fart!’ Simon squealed. The rest of us wore our usual clothes, but little Simon had put on a long skirt for the rehearsal. He flounced towards the front of the stage. ‘I did not!’

  ‘Can we proceed, gentlemen?’ Rust asked sourly.

  So we did, but slowly. I was sitting at the edge of the stage because I would not be needed for some time. I was playing Emilia, wife to Egeon. It was not a large part, my words scarcely filled a sheet of paper, but we had not performed the Comedy for some weeks, and I had forgotten many of the lines. ‘“Most mighty duke,”’ I kept saying to myself, trying to relearn the words, ‘“behold a man much wronged!”’

  ‘Go and mutter somewhere else,’ Rust snarled at me, ‘somewhere I can’t hear you.’

  I went to the lower gallery, where I had talked with James Burbage. There were at least a score of people already in the gallery because the Sharers never minded folk watching the rehearsals. There were the girlfriends of some of the players, two boyfriends, and a happy gaggle of girls from the Dolphin. The Dolphin is a fine tavern which sells ale, food, and whores, and the girls earned a few pence more by selling hazelnuts to the groundlings before each performance, and then earned shillings by climbing to the galleries and selling themselves. Three of them were now giggling on the front bench, and they gave me coy looks as I settled just behind and above them. Jeremiah, the sour old soldier who guarded the front door, was fond of the girls, and had given them each a small bag of hazelnuts that they cracked under their heels while Robert Pallant laboriously told the story of his shipwreck.