Fools and Mortals

  So Nell was another creature of Satan, but I had liked her instantly. More than liked her, I had hoped she would stay in my brother’s bed one more night, in which hope I was disappointed, though she did feed me bread, pease pudding, and ale that afternoon. ‘Isn’t he a pretty one?’ she asked Meg, another of the girls who lived and worked in the Dolphin. ‘You should keep your teeth white, Richard,’ she added to me.

  ‘I clean them,’ I mumbled.

  ‘How? By licking them? No, darling, grind up cuttlefish bones and mix them with salt and vinegar.’

  ‘Or soot,’ Meg said, showing me her white teeth. ‘Soot cleans teeth.’

  ‘Tastes like shit,’ Nell said.

  ‘It works though!’ Meg said.

  ‘Cuttlefish bones, salt and vinegar is better,’ Nell said. ‘Mix it up then rub it in. Rub it hard! I expect you know how to rub, don’t you?’ Both girls burst out laughing, and I, of course, blushed.

  My brother returned the next day. I heard his footsteps on the stairs, then the door was thrown open, and he just stopped and frowned at me. ‘God in His holy heaven,’ he finally said. ‘What in Christ’s name are you doing here?’ He dropped a heavy bag onto the floor, threw his hat on the bed, and strode to the window, which he threw wide open. ‘It stinks like a tannery in here. Did you empty the stool?’

  ‘No,’ I backed away from his anger, ‘I didn’t know where.’

  ‘Downstairs, take the passage to the back, go into the yard and follow your nose. Rinse the bucket with water from the horse trough, then come back here and explain yourself.’

  I did as he ordered, then, haltingly, nervously, explained myself. He sat at the table looking through his papers as I spoke. He had not looked at me once as I told my tale, and still he did not turn from his papers. ‘You can’t stay here,’ he finally said, still reading.

  I did not know what to say, so blurted out, ‘I met Nell.’

  ‘Nell has nothing to do with it, and when you’re back in Stratford, you’ll not mention her name.’

  ‘I’m not going back!’

  ‘You’re not staying here, and you insist you’re not going home,’ he at last turned to look at me, ‘so what are you going to do?’

  ‘I thought you’d help me …’

  ‘Don’t start crying, for Jesu’s sake.’ He slapped his hand onto the table. ‘You can’t stay here. I won’t abide it. You need somewhere to sleep, somewhere to eat, somewhere to learn a trade.’

  ‘I won’t be a carpenter,’ I said sullenly.

  ‘What then?’ he asked, but the question seemed addressed to himself rather than to me. He gazed at me, frowning, and I thought how he had changed in the last few years. He was broader in the shoulders, his face was harder, his hair thinner, and his manner harshly decisive. ‘What do you want to do?’ he demanded.

  ‘Be a player,’ I muttered, ‘like you.’

  He laughed. ‘Sweet Christ, half the idle youth in London want to be players! Are you good at it? Can you speak clearly? Dance? Fence? Tumble?’

  ‘I can learn,’ I said.

  ‘You should have started learning eight years ago.’ He turned back to his papers, then suddenly paused. ‘Sir Godfrey,’ he said.

  ‘Sir Godfrey?’

  He looked back at me. ‘You can’t stay here,’ he said, ‘and you insist you will not go home. So I will give you one chance. That chance is called Sir Godfrey. Do you have any baggage?’

  ‘Who’s Sir Godfrey?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you have baggage?’ he asked again, irritably. I had none. ‘Then follow me,’ he said, and led me through the streets of London.

  Chaos! That had been my impression when Ned had driven me through the crowded streets, edging his wagon past carriages and carts, and now, following my brother, who resolutely strode ahead of me, I was terrified. People! More people than I had ever seen, and the noise, as hawkers bellowed, horses neighed, and dogs howled. There were women wearing pattens that kept their shoes out of the shit, and small boys scooping up the dog turds that they would sell to the tanners who worked alongside the River Fleet. A church bell tolled for a funeral. Apprentices wearing their blue caps stood at the doors of their masters’ shops and watched the passers-by, accosting any who looked wealthy enough to buy their wares. They carried cudgels. Other men, wealthier, wore swords, and people made way for them. We turned down alleys, threaded streets, and my brother did not speak to me once until we reached Cheapside, a broader street, where a black-robed preacher stood on the steps of a tall stone cross and bellowed at the crowd. ‘This is a mark of Satan!’ he shouted. ‘Papist excrement! Repent your sins and pull down this cross!’

  My brother, his broad hat pulled low, stood and listened to the harangue. He seemed amused. I stood beside him, timid, listening as the angry preacher denounced all crosses as images of the devil. ‘London is cursed!’ the man spat. ‘It allows crosses, whorehouses, and playhouses! It must be cleansed! We must be washed in the blood of the lamb.’

  ‘Dear sweet God,’ my brother said, then acknowledged my company. ‘Come on, don’t dawdle.’ He paced on ahead of me, and I followed, not knowing where he took me, nor why. He did not speak again till we reached a tall stone house next to a small church. The house had a heavy, studded door. ‘We’re in Blackfriars,’ he said, as if that explained everything, then rapped on the door.

  A huge man, built like a bull, opened the door. He had a broad, flat face with a broken nose and scars around his eyes. He scowled at us. ‘What is it?’ he growled.

  ‘Is Sir Godfrey home, Buttercup?’ my brother asked.

  Buttercup? I could not believe my ears, but my brother’s use of the name made the huge man pause. ‘I know you,’ he said uncertainly.

  ‘You do indeed,’ my brother said brusquely, ‘and we wish to see Sir Godfrey.’

  The big man looked at me. He frowned. ‘You’d better come in,’ he said, pulling the heavy door wide.

  Two minutes later I was standing in front of Sir Godfrey.

  And two days later I wished I had stayed with Thomas Butler.

  ‘You haven’t written a word since Saint Leonard’s struck ten,’ Father Laurence chided me, ‘and that must be ten minutes ago.’

  ‘I was thinking,’ I said, and dipped the pen’s nib into the ink.

  ‘I could see that. What was the last line you copied?’

  ‘“The seasons alter,”’ I read aloud, ‘“hoary-headed frosts fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose.”’

  ‘Oh dear, that is a little florid,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Florid, rose,’ he explained the joke, then sighed when I did not smile. ‘So what would you do, Richard, if you left the company?’

  ‘Join another?’

  ‘The Admiral’s men?’

  I shook my head. ‘They don’t need players. But I hear a new company is forming.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The Earl of Lechlade.’

  ‘That must be the new earl,’ Father Laurence said, ‘and I trust the son is not like the father.’

  I turned to look at him. ‘You knew his father?’

  ‘I knew about him, and he was a very nasty man.’ His claw-like hand appeared from inside the blanket and sketched the sign of the cross on his breast. ‘Sins of the flesh,’ he said bleakly.

  ‘He liked women, father?’ I asked with a smile.

  ‘Women, boys, girls, children. Did he like them? He liked to hurt them. It’s just rumour, of course. Perhaps I do the man wrong, but the rumours were very persistent, and the Queen banished him from court. So the son is starting a company?’

  ‘I’m told so.’

  ‘I wish him well. I wonder who will write his plays?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘They say he’s rich. His father was. Indeed, his father purchased himself out of trouble time and again, or so it was said. He’s currying favour, isn’t he?’

  ‘Currying favour?’

  ‘The new earl. The Queen loves her plays, how better to please her
than by offering her a new company and new plays. Perhaps it’s an opportunity for you?’

  ‘I’ve promised to stay at the Theatre a few more weeks, father,’ I told him, and felt a pulse of pleasure that, at last, I would play a man’s part. ‘And maybe I’ll stay after that.’

  Then I remembered that we would start our rehearsals on Monday, and those rehearsals would be in the Lord Chamberlain’s great hall at Blackfriars. And my pleasure turned into excitement as I thought of Silvia, the maid. I turned the pages I still had to copy and saw a couplet that made me smile.

  And thy fair virtue’s force doth move me

  On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee!

  On Monday, I swore, the world would begin anew. I would play a man.

  And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  Act III, Scene 1, line 138

  FOUR

  I PREPARED CAREFULLY on Monday. I woke early and felt a shiver of anticipation, not just because I was at last to start rehearsals for a man’s part, but because we would be rehearsing at the Lord Chamberlain’s mansion in Blackfriars, and that was where Silvia worked. I tried to summon a picture of her in my imagination, but though I could remember her grey eyes, her wide mouth, her light brown hair, and her mischievous smile, I could not see the whole face. My mind would not make the picture, yet today I might see her again. Silvia!

  I washed with a damp cloth, then cleaned my teeth, rubbing the cuttlefish bone paste so hard that my gums bled. I wore clean linen, newly washed by Agnes the maid, who blushed every time she met me on the stairs or in the kitchen at the back of the Widow Morrison’s house. Agnes was a year or two older than me, with pock-marked skin, scrawny brown hair, and a limp. I sometimes helped her carry water from the parish pump, and she would stutter thanks and blush scarlet.

  I wore my cleanest stockings, dark grey, gartered with ribbons of white silk, and over them a pair of black padded breeches that I had borrowed from the Theatre’s tiring room. All black clothes were expensive because of the dye, and my breeches were handsome, though they had been much mended and sometimes patched with a dark blue cloth which was almost black. I wore a clean white linen shirt, and over it a doublet of grey and yellow stripes, the sleeves laced to the shoulders with white string, tipped with silver points. Silver aiglets! I smiled as I remembered Ned the carrier telling my mother about my brother’s silver aiglets, though doubtless his points had been honestly bought, while mine were stolen from the tiring room. The doublet, like the hose, belonged to the Theatre, and I hoped the Sharers had forgotten all about the garments, just as I hoped they had forgotten about the sleeveless mustard-coloured jerkin, decorated with a row of silver buttons, which I wore over the doublet. The buttons were purely for show because the jerkin was worn loose, and above it I laced a white falling band instead of a ruff. I brushed dust from a wide-brimmed hat of dark grey felt, buckled a black leather belt about my waist, and hung my sheathed knife beside the buckle, then pulled on my best boots, which were knee-high to keep the mud from the hose.

  ‘Good Lord above!’ the Widow Morrison said when she saw me in the kitchen. ‘Look what the cat threw up! Are you off to a wedding, Richard?’ She reached out and straightened the falling band. ‘Getting married, are you?’

  I put a shilling on the table. ‘I know I owe you more,’ I said.

  ‘You do.’ The shilling vanished like magic. ‘You could pawn those clothes, Richard.’

  ‘He looks nice,’ Agnes muttered.

  ‘I don’t know how he can afford to look nice,’ the widow said. ‘He can’t pay his rent, but he can dress up. I suppose you want a crust too?’ she said to me. ‘Wouldn’t want you dying of starvation before you’ve paid me, would I?’

  ‘Please,’ I said humbly.

  The widow cut a piece of bread. ‘You rehearsing today?’

  ‘At the Lord Chamberlain’s house,’ I said casually, as though I rehearsed there every day. ‘At his mansion in Blackfriars.’

  ‘Oh!’ She brightened. Any mention of the aristocracy got the widow’s attention, while an account of a performance before the Queen was worth a whole week’s rent. ‘That’s nice, dear,’ she said, and rewarded me by slathering some dripping onto the bread. ‘You’ll have to tell me all about it.’

  ‘He’s the Queen’s cousin,’ I said, pushing my advantage.

  ‘I know that, dear,’ she said. The Widow Morrison is a striking-looking woman, black-haired, and brusque, who had been married to a player. ‘I met his lordship,’ she said, ‘when my husband was alive, God rest his soul.’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘A very gracious man, he was.’

  ‘Your husband?’

  ‘Of course he was gracious. Goodness, I look at these new players and wish to God my Mister Morrison was still alive. He could set the stage on fire with a gesture.’ She sniffed. ‘And his voice! He could summon an angel from heaven with that voice. None of this shuffling and mumbling that passes for playing these days. And his lordship was gracious too. And thank you for the rent, dear.’

  I had delivered the copied part of Titania to my brother the day before, and, to my surprise, he had given me the promised two shillings without needing to be asked. He had leafed through my work first and had grunted approval. ‘You copy well,’ he had said, and then, surprisingly, he had asked whether I had liked what I had copied. I doubt he truly cared about my opinion, but had just wanted to hear something complimentary.

  ‘I did,’ I said, then remembered Father Laurence’s advice to be kinder to my brother. ‘I especially liked …’ I began, but faltered.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘“To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,”’ I quoted.

  He had smiled at that. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘the words come and you have no idea where they come from. I like that line too.’ He added my copied pages to the stack of papers on his table. ‘Thank you, and I shall see you tomorrow.’

  I had pointed at the papers. ‘Is Francis Flute’s part there?’

  ‘All the parts are there.’

  ‘Please, can I see it?’

  ‘You can see it tomorrow,’ he had said, and his voice was back to its usual curt tone, ‘and don’t be late.’

  Be late? With Silvia at Blackfriars? If I could, I would have walked to Blackfriars on Sunday and waited all night for another glimpse of Silvia, but instead I was up early on Monday, and now, dressed to impress, I thanked the widow, took the offered bread and dripping, swallowed some weak ale, and hurried out. I jumped the sewer ditch without falling in, then followed the path beaten by playgoers across Finsbury Fields, where the windmills creaked to a small southerly wind. The day was cold, but the sun was shining, and that seemed a good omen. Laundresses had draped heavy flax sheets across the ground to dry, the sheets guarded by small boys with big dogs. There was a thick haze of smoke above the city, as there always was, but the sun still cast sharp shadows from the Moorgate’s battlements. Once through the gate I had to walk more slowly because the streets were crowded. My borrowed finery made me look wealthy, and apprentices shouted at me, offering me silver plate, linen, saddlery, gloves, or fine French lace. I ignored them, walking the city confidently, but always remembering my constant fear when I had first arrived. No one accosted me now, no one threatened me, because after seven years I had become a Londoner. I had a Londoner’s eye for the newcomers, who clutched their purses too tightly and looked around with nervous eyes. They shrank from the beggars, many of whom were grievously wounded from the wars in Ireland or the Low Country, and almost all of them starving.

  It was a long walk. The Theatre lay to the north of the city on its eastern side, while Blackfriars was on the river close to the western walls. I hated Blackfriars, and, after skirting the looming bulk of Saint Paul’s, I walked down to Carter Lane and spat towards Addle Hill. That was where Sir Godfrey lived, in his great stone house next to Saint Benet’s church. One day, I dreamed, I woul
d have the pleasure of sliding a blade into his belly. I thought of that often, thought of watching his terrified eyes as I ripped the blade upwards, thought of him begging me for forgiveness, and of my smile as I refused to spare him. Then I forgot all about Sir Godfrey as I turned down Saint Andrew’s Hill to where the Lord Chamberlain had his city mansion. The great house had once been a monastery, and stood on the western side of the street, just above the river. I had not been to the house before, but it was not difficult to find because a great stone rose, painted white, was carved above the main gate that was crowded with petitioners and guarded by two liveried men carrying halberds. One of the guards accosted me after I had made my way through the clutching hands of the beggars. ‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.

  ‘I am …’ I began.

  ‘Are you one of the players?’ he interrupted me. He was a grim-looking beast, his bearded face framed by a close-fitting helmet.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then go round the back, lad.’ He sneered as he looked me up and down, plainly unimpressed by my fine clothes. ‘Round the back,’ he said again, very slowly. He shifted his weight, and the halberd’s blade reflected the sunlight. ‘There’s a servants’ entrance in Water Lane,’ he added, jerking his helmeted head, ‘and that’s where you’re going.’

  I turned, but was again interrupted. ‘We are his lordship’s retainers!’ a voice boomed. ‘We enter his lordship’s house as we wish, where we wish, and by what gate we wish.’ It was Alan Rust, who now seized my arm and turned me back towards the imposing archway.

  ‘You will …’ the grim guard began.

  ‘Inform his lordship of your impudence,’ Rust finished the sentence for the guard. ‘Your name, fellow?’ Both guards looked confused. ‘We are summoned, fellow,’ Rust said to the man who had turned me away, ‘we are summoned by his lordship, who will not be best pleased when he hears you have detained us. The gate, if you please!’ He pointed to a small wicket gate set in one of the two massive leaves. ‘Now, fellow! Now!’ He used his tyrant king voice, and the grim-faced guard hurried to open the wicket gate rather than argue. ‘Go ahead, Master Flute,’ Rust ordered me.