Fools and Mortals

  ‘We do what, my lord?’ my brother asked in amazement.

  We are players. We pretend, and by pretending, we persuade. If a man were to ask me whether I had stolen his purse I would give him a look of such shocked innocence that even before I offered a reply he would know the answer, and all the while his purse would be concealed in my doublet.

  Yet at that moment we had no need to pretend. I doubt many of us knew what his lordship meant by ‘A Conference’, and so most of us just looked puzzled or worried. My brother plainly knew, but he also looked puzzled, even disbelieving. If we had been pretending at that moment then it would have been the most convincing performance ever given at the Theatre, more than sufficient to persuade the Lord Chamberlain that we were innocent of whatever sin he had levelled at us. My brother, frowning, shook his head. ‘My lord,’ he bowed low, ‘we do no such thing!’

  James Burbage must have known what ‘A Conference’ was because he also bowed, and then, as he straightened, spread his hands. ‘Search the playhouse, my lord.’

  ‘Ha!’ Lord Hunsdon treated that invitation with the derision it deserved. ‘You’ll have hidden the copies by now. You take me for a fool?’

  My brother spoke earnestly. ‘We do not possess a copy, my lord, nor have we ever possessed one.’

  His lordship smiled suddenly. ‘Master Shakespeare, I don’t give the quills off a duck’s arse if you do have one. Just hide the damned thing well. Have you read it?’

  My brother hesitated, then nodded. ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘So have I. But if Piggy Price’s men do find a copy here, you’ll all end up in the Marshalsea. All of you! My cousin,’ he meant the Queen, ‘will tolerate much, but she cannot abide that book.’

  The Marshalsea is a prison south of the Thames, not far from the Rose playhouse, which is home to the Lord Admiral’s men with whom our company have a friendly rivalry. ‘My lord,’ my brother still spoke slowly and carefully, ‘we have never harboured a copy.’

  ‘I can’t see why you should.’ Lord Hunsdon was suddenly cheerful again. ‘It’s none of your damned business, is it? Fairies and lovers are your business, eh?’

  ‘Indeed they are, my lord.’

  Lord Hunsdon clicked his fingers, and the thin retainer unbuckled his satchel and took out a sheaf of papers. ‘I like it,’ Lord Hunsdon said, though not entirely convincingly.

  ‘Thank you, my lord,’ my brother responded cautiously.

  ‘I didn’t read it all,’ his lordship said, taking the papers from the thin man, ‘but I liked what I read. Especially that business at the end. Pyramid and Thimble. Very good!’

  ‘Thank you,’ my brother said faintly.

  ‘But my wife read it. She says it’s a marvel. A marvel!’

  My brother looked lost for words.

  ‘And it’s her ladyship’s opinion that counts,’ Lord Hunsdon went on. ‘I’d have preferred a few fights myself, maybe a stabbing or two, a slit throat perhaps? But I suppose blood and weddings don’t mix?’

  ‘They are ill-suited, my lord,’ my brother managed to say, taking the offered pages from his lordship.

  ‘But there is one thing. My wife noticed that it doesn’t have a title yet.’

  ‘I was thinking …’ my brother began, then hesitated.

  ‘Yes? Well?’

  ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream, my lord.’

  ‘A midsummer night’s what?’ Lord Hunsdon asked, frowning. ‘But the bloody wedding will be in midwinter. In February!’

  ‘Precisely so, my lord.’

  There was a pause, then Lord Hunsdon burst out laughing. ‘I like it! Upon my soul, I do. It’s all bloody nonsense, isn’t it?’

  ‘Nonsense, my lord?’ my brother enquired delicately.

  ‘Fairies! Pyramids and thimbles! That fellow turning into a donkey!’

  ‘Oh yes, all nonsense, my lord,’ my brother said. ‘Of course.’ He bowed again.

  ‘But the womenfolk like nonsense, so it’s fit for a wedding. Fit for a wedding! If that bloody man Price troubles you again without cause, let me know. I’ll happily strangle the bastard.’ His lordship waved genially, then turned and walked from the playhouse, followed by his retainers.

  And my brother was laughing.

  ‘It is nonsense,’ my brother said. As ever, when he talked to me, he sounded distant. When I had run away from home and had first found him in London, he had greeted me with a bitter chill that had not changed over the years. ‘His lordship was right. What we do is nonsense,’ he said now.

  ‘Nonsense?’

  ‘We do not work, we play. We are players. We have a playhouse.’ He spoke to me as if I were a small child who had annoyed him with my question. It was the day after Lord Hunsdon’s visit to the Theatre, and my brother had sent me a message asking me to go to his lodgings, which were then in Wormwood Street, just inside the Bishopsgate. He was sitting at his table beneath the window, writing; his quill scratching swiftly across a piece of paper. ‘Other people,’ he went on, though he did not look at me, ‘other people work. They dig ditches, they saw wood, they lay stone, they plough fields. They hedge, they sew, they milk, they churn, they spin, they draw water, they work. Even Lord Hunsdon works. He was a soldier. Now he has heavy responsibilities to the Queen. Almost every-one works, brother, except us. We play.’ He slid one piece of paper aside and took a clean sheet from a pile beside his table. I tried to see what he was writing, but he hunched forward and hid it with his shoulder.

  I waited for him to tell me why I had been summoned, but he went on writing, saying nothing. ‘So what’s a conference?’ I asked him.

  ‘A conference is commonly an occasion where people confer together.’

  ‘I mean the one Lord Hunsdon mentioned.’

  He sighed in exasperation, then reached over and took the top volume from a small pile of books. The book had no cover, it was just pages sewn together. ‘That,’ he said, holding it towards me, ‘is A Conference.’

  I carried the book to the second window, where the light would allow me to read. The book’s title was A Conference About the Next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland, and the date was printed as MDXCIIII. ‘It’s new,’ I said.

  ‘Recent,’ he corrected me pedantically.

  ‘Published by R. Doleman,’ I read aloud.

  ‘Of whom no one has heard,’ my brother said, writing again, ‘but he is undoubtedly a Roman Catholic.’

  ‘So it’s seditious?’

  ‘It suggests,’ he paused to dip the quill into his inkpot, drained the nib on the pot’s rim, then started writing again, ‘it suggests that we, the people of England, have the right to choose our own monarch, and that we should choose Princess Isabella of Spain, who, naturally, would insist that England again becomes a Roman Catholic country.’

  ‘We should choose a monarch?’ I asked, astonished at the thought.

  ‘The writer is provocative,’ he said, ‘and the Queen is enraged. She has not named any successor, and all talk of the succession turns her into a shrieking fury. That book is banned. Give it back.’

  I dutifully gave it back. ‘And you’d go to jail if they found the book?’

  ‘By “they”,’ he said acidly, ‘I assume you mean the Pursuivants. Yes. That would please you, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am touched, brother,’ he said acidly, ‘touched.’

  ‘Why would someone lie and say we had copies of the book at the Theatre?’ I asked.

  He turned and gave me a look of exasperation, as if my question was stupid. ‘We have enemies,’ he said, looking back to the page he was writing. ‘The Puritans preach against us, the city council would like to close the playhouse, and our own landlord hates us.’

  ‘He hates us?’

  ‘Gyles Allen has seen the light. He has become a Puritan. He now regrets leasing the land for use as a playhouse and wishes to evict us. He cannot, because the law is on our side for once. But either he, or one of our other enemies, informed against us.?
??

  ‘But it wasn’t true!’

  ‘Of course the accusation wasn’t true. Truth does not matter in matters of faith, only belief. We are being harassed.’

  I thought he would say more, but he went back to his writing. A red kite sailed past the window and settled on the ridge of a nearby tiled roof. I watched the bird, but it did not move. My brother’s quill scratched. ‘What are you writing?’ I asked.

  ‘A letter.’

  ‘So the new play is finished?’ I asked.

  ‘You heard as much from Lord Hunsdon.’ Scratch scratch.

  ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream?’

  ‘Your memory works. Good.’

  ‘In which I’ll play a man?’ I asked suspiciously.

  His answer was to sigh again, then look through a heap of paper to find one sheet, which he wordlessly passed to me. Then he started writing again.

  The page was a list of parts and players. Peter Quince was written at the top, and next to it was my brother’s name. The rest looked like this:

  Theseus George Bryan, if well

  Hippolita Tom Belte

  Lisander Richard Burbage

  Demetrius Henry Condell

  Helena Christopher Beeston, if well

  Hermia Kit Saunders

  Oberon John Heminges

  Tytania Simon Willoughby

  Pucke Alan Rust

  Egeus Thomas Pope

  Philostrate Robert Pallant

  Nick Bottome Will Kemp

  Snout Richard Cowley

  Snug John Duke

  Starveling John Sinklo

  Francis Flute Richard Shakspere

  Pease-blossome

  Moth

  Cobweb

  Mustard-seede

  The last four names had no actors assigned to them, and they intrigued me. Pease-Blossome … Cobweb … I assumed they were fairies, but all I really cared about was that I was to play a man! ‘Francis Flute is a man?’ I asked, just to be sure.

  ‘Indeed he is,’ my brother wrote a few words, ‘so you will have to cut your hair. But not till just before the performance. Till then you must play your usual parts.’

  ‘Cut my hair?’

  ‘You want to play a man? You must appear as a man.’ He paused, nib poised above the paper. ‘Bellows menders do not wear their hair long.’

  ‘Francis Flute is a bellows mender?’ I asked, and could not keep the disappointment from my voice.

  ‘What did you expect him to be? A wandering knight? A tyrant?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘no. I just want to play a man.’

  ‘And you shall,’ he said, ‘you shall.’

  ‘Can I see the part?’ I asked eagerly.

  ‘Isaiah is copying it, so no.’

  ‘What’s the play about?’

  He scratched a few more words. ‘Love.’

  ‘Because it’s a wedding?’

  ‘Because it’s a wedding.’

  ‘And I mend bellows at a wedding?’

  ‘I would not recommend it. I merely indicated your trade so you will know your place in society, as must we all.’

  ‘So what does Francis Flute do in the play?’

  He paused to select a new sheet of paper. ‘You fall in love. You are a lover.’

  For a moment I almost liked him. A lover! Onstage it is the lovers who strut, who draw swords, who make impassioned speeches, who have the audience’s sympathy, and who send folk back to their ordinary lives with an assurance that fate can triumph. A lover! ‘Who do I love?’ I asked.

  He paused to dip the quill in his inkpot again, drained the nib carefully, and began writing on the new page. ‘What did the Reverend Venables want of you?’ he asked.

  ‘Venables?’ I was taken aback by the question.

  ‘Some weeks ago,’ he said, ‘after we performed his piece of dross, the Reverend Venables had words with you. What did he want?’

  ‘He thought I played Uashti well,’ I stammered.

  ‘Now tell me the truth.’

  I paused, trying to gather my thoughts. ‘He’d heard that I might leave the company.’

  ‘Indeed. I told him so. And?’

  ‘He wanted me to stay,’ I lied.

  The pen scratched. ‘He didn’t suggest you join the Earl of Lechlade’s new company?’ I said nothing, and that silence was eloquence enough. My brother smiled, or perhaps he sneered. ‘He did. Yet you have promised me to stay with the company through the winter.’

  ‘I did promise that.’

  He nodded, then laid the quill down and sifted through the pile of papers. ‘You are always complaining that you lack money.’ He found the sheets he wanted, and, without looking at me, held them towards me. ‘Copy the part of Titania. I will pay you two shillings, and I want it done by Monday. Pray ensure it is legible.’

  I took the sheets. ‘By Monday?’

  ‘We will begin rehearsing on Monday. At Blackfriars.’

  ‘Blackfriars?’

  ‘There’s an echo in the room,’ he said, handing me some clean sheets of paper. ‘Lord Hunsdon and his family are wintering in their Blackfriars mansion. We shall perform the play in their great hall.’

  I felt another surge of happiness. Silvia was there! And there was a second pulse of joy at the thought of playing a man at last. ‘Who is Titania?’ I asked, wondering if she would end up in my arms.

  ‘The fairy queen. Do not lose those pages.’

  ‘So the play is about fairies?’

  ‘All plays are about fairies. Now go.’

  I went.

  I enjoyed copying. Not everyone likes the task, but I never resented it. I usually copied a part I would play, and writing the lines helped me to memorise them, but I was happy to copy other actors’ parts too.

  Every actor received his part, and no other, which meant that for this wedding play there would be fifteen or so copied parts, which, if they were joined together, would make the whole play. Isaiah Humble, the bookkeeper, would have a complete copy, and usually another would be sent to the Master of the Revels, so he could ensure that no treason would be spoken onstage, though as our play would be a private performance in a noble house that permission was probably unnecessary. Besides, Sir Edmund Tilney, the Master of the Revels, was appointed by the Lord Chamberlain, who had already approved the play.

  I worked in Father Laurence’s room. He lived just beneath my attic in the Widow Morrison’s house. His room had a large table beneath a north-facing window. The room was also much warmer than mine. He had a hearth in which a sea-coal fire was burning, and beside which he sat wrapped in a woollen blanket, so that, with just his bald head showing, he looked like some aged tortoise. ‘Say it aloud, Richard,’ he encouraged me.

  ‘I’m only just starting, father.’

  ‘Aloud!’ he said again.

  I had written down the words immediately before Titania’s entrance, the last two lines that Puck said, followed by a line from a fairy whose name was not given. Then came a stage direction which brought Oberon and Titania onstage. ‘“Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,”’ I said aloud.

  ‘Who says that?’

  ‘Oberon, King of the Fairies.’

  ‘Titania! A lovely name,’ Father Laurence said, ‘your brother took it from Ovid, didn’t he?’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘From the Metamorphoses, of course. And Oberon, Oberon?’ he frowned, thinking. ‘Ah! I remember, I had a copy of that book once.’

  ‘A copy of what, father?’

  ‘It’s an old French tale,’ he chuckled, ‘Huon of Bordeaux had to fulfil some dreadful errands, rather like the labours of Hercules, and he was helped by the King of the Fairies, who was called Oberon. Read on, Richard, read on!’

  ‘“What, jealous Oberon?”’ I read, ‘“Fairy skip hence, I have forsworn his bed and company.”’

  I worked in Father Laurence’s room because the window gave good light and because the Percies, whatever else they stole, had left the old man his ink and a sheaf of quil
ls. Besides, I liked Father Laurence. He was ancient, gentle, wise, and had long ceased to struggle against the enmity of Protestants. ‘I just want to die in peace,’ he would say, ‘and I’d prefer not to be dragged to the scaffold on a wicker hurdle to have my belly ripped open by some Smithfield butcher.’ He was crippled, and could scarcely walk without the help of a companion. The Widow Morrison, I think, let him live rent-free, and I suspected she made confession to him too, but it was best not to ask about things like that, yet most days I would hear footsteps on the lower stairs and the creak of his door and the mutter of voices, and suspect that some person had come to confess their sins and receive absolution. The parish constables must have known too, they were not fools, but he was a harmless old man, and well loved. The new minister of the parish was a fierce young zealot from Oxford who cursed all things of Rome, but when a parishioner lay dying it was often Father Laurence who was summoned, and he would limp down the street in his ancient, threadbare cassock, and local people greeted him with a smile, all but the Puritans, who were more likely to spit as he passed. When I had money I would take him food, coal, or firewood, and I always helped tidy his room after the Percies had ransacked it. ‘Read more to me,’ he said now. ‘Read more to me!’

  ‘“These are the forgeries of jealousy,”’ I read aloud,

  ‘And never since the middle summer’s spring

  Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,

  By pavéd fountain or by rushy brook,

  Or in the beachéd margent by the sea,

  To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind.’

  Father Laurence sighed, a small noise. I looked across the room to see his head had fallen against the high back of his chair, his eyes were closed, and his mouth open. He did not move, made no more sound, and I half started to my feet, thinking he had died. Then he spoke. ‘“To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind”!’ he said very softly. ‘“To dance our ringlets”! Oh, how perfect.’

  ‘Perfect?’

  ‘I remember, when I was a very young priest, seeing a girl dance. She had ringlets too, and her name was Jess.’ He sounded sad. ‘She danced beside a stream did my Jess, and I watched as she danced her ringlets to the whistling wind.’ He opened his eyes and smiled at me. ‘Your brother is so clever!’