Borrowed Time (26 page)

Large, soft eyes looked upward, heavy nose seeming to droop over the bushy mustache. “I am. God’s Breath, man, hast thou not heard that all my worldly debts have been these last few days discharged? I owe no man in this cluttered dung heap more.”

“I’m not here to collect on a debt. I . . . merely wished to discuss your work.”

Shakespeare’s eyes lost their weariness, lighting with sudden enthusiasm. “My sonnets and poems?
Venus and Adonis
?
Lucrece
?”

“No,” Gallatin quickly protested. “Not your poetry. I, uh, admire your plays.”

The playwright frowned. “The plays? The comedies, histories and tragedies? Thou art oddly garbed, and thine accents are outlandish. I did never know my feeblest works were widely hailed. Whence comest thou?”

Gallatin paused, then gestured vaguely. “Oh, from out west.”

“West? Thou are not of Devonshire, surely.”

“No. Further west. The, uh, New World.”

“The New World? Art thou then an Indian such as those the Virginia Company gives report of?”

“You might say that. Yes.”

“Fine apparition! I had never thought to meet the like! Yet, thou resemblest not those Indians of my knowledge, and thou sayest thou hast heard of my plays.”

“Well . . . ” Gallatin cast about frantically for a story to explain himself, then smiled politely at Shakespeare as clichéd inspiration struck. “I was born to English parents, but our ship was wrecked on the wild coast of the New World, and I was left an orphan, then raised by the Indians there. I heard about your works from the Virginia Company settlers who discovered me.”

“A remarkable tale. Come, then, good fellow, and share my table.”

“Thank you.” Gallatin sat, casting about for a means to direct the subject away from Indians and back to Shakespeare’s alleged plays. “I hope to see one of your performances while I’m in London.”

His words seemed to amuse the playwright. “Thou hast come fair late for such. On occasion in time past did I prance upon stage, but no more. Two nights hence Stratford-bound I shall be.”

“What? Ivanovich’s machine didn’t get the right year?”

“I know not -“

“I’m sorry. I got here when you’re leaving London? Your theatrical career is over? What about your plays?”

“What of them? My rough tales profited me well enough to earn a goodly life in Stratford if well-husbanded, but I hold no desire for further labor in similar manner.” Shakespeare’s mouth worked in mild aggravation. “Best thou should ask of my true art, such as found great favor with the Earl of Southampton.”

“You mean your poems?” Gallatin forced a false smile. “They’re, uh, very good.” Shakespeare brightened again. “But that’s too bad about your not writing plays anymore. How does the Earl of Oxford feel about that?” he added with forced nonchalance.

“I assume it matters not to him and his. The old Earl is dead some years gone, and with the younger I have but small acquaintance. Art thou Oxford’s agent?”

“He’d like to see your plays,” Gallatin suggested casually. “In manuscript. He doesn’t have any.”

William Shakespeare shrugged. “Manuscript? If thou seekest plays, thou wilt find foul papers in plenty at the Globe Theater amongst the other tools of my theatrical company of old.”

“Foul papers? But those are just rough drafts, right? Drafts that many actors have written on? What about a complete, finished play? I haven’t been able to find one of those.”

Shakespeare shrugged again, his eyes revealing more than a hint of disinterest. “I cannot claim surprise in that. Nor do I know of such Oxford might purchase, nor why he should care.”

“Such a manuscript would be valuable,” Gallatin protested.

“Of value? Thou again speakest of manuscripts where I labored on plays only. Such are not art. They brought profit, but I care little for their fates now.”

Gallatin couldn’t hide his surprise this time. “You don’t care about the rights to your plays? You don’t own any of them any longer?”

“Own? The foul papers rest with my theatrical company. I have no claim there. My sonnets and poems hold my art. Hast thou read
Lucrece
?”

“Yes. Of course. A while ago.”

“Many have done the same,” Shakespeare noted proudly. “Though,” he muttered, “much criticism I gained for
Venus and Adonis
. Too popular with the masses, ‘tis said. Is this so ill?
Lucrece
proved a graver labor yet found favor as well, so happy result met my perseverance in the face of sneers. But I have tired of the labor, the eternal endeavor to please both critic and reader, and so made shift to sell the drafts of those fine works, my sonnets and poems.” Shakespeare drained his tankard of ale before fixing a hard look on Paul Gallatin. “Hast thou never despaired or been in sore need?”

“No. Not at all. I’m a writer myself, in my own land.” Gallatin thought desperately, all his preconceptions thrown off balance. “I’m sorry you’ve decided to stop writing, but I’d be very grateful if I knew where to find a copy of your plays, in your own hand.”

Shakespeare laughed suddenly. “Mine own hand? Thou art indeed new to London!” His mirth changed, becoming tinged with embarrassment as he looked away. “Unlettered at birth was I and even now I write but little.” One finger tapped his balding head. “Herein lies the baseless fabric of my pageantry. Others scribed the words, midwives even as to Minerva from Jove’s brow.”

“You didn’t write down your own plays, not even the foul papers?”

“Is this so remarkable? I spent my youth at labor, and in similar fashion my adulthood. Such leaves little time for simple labor such as placing word upon page. A man must eat, and work dawn to days-end to earn that meal, unless fortune grants leisure for more.”

“But writing was your job!” Gallatin protested suspiciously. “Why couldn’t you find time to draft plays?”

Shakespeare flushed, making as if to rise, then collapsed as if deflated. “Rough are thy manners, son of shipwreck, but tell truth and shame the devil, ‘tis said. I depart this city and this old accustomed life, wherefore it mattereth not an thou knowest this truth I tell thee, as few others know but good Ben Jonson could confirm of his certain knowledge. I cannot read nor write well, but only with greatest labor, for the words and letters swim before mine eyes in disorder. God Himself hath willed this, it seems, that I should speak fine words but never see them in form I can grasp with comfort.”

“There’s no surviving copies of your written manuscripts because you couldn’t write easily? The signatures are poorly scrawled and mis-spelled for the same reason? Why didn’t I ever think of that?” Gallatin faltered, momentarily at a loss for words. “You’re dyslexic.”

“I like not this, for I know not this word, and had not known this matter concerned others,” the playwright muttered angrily.

“No, I’m sorry,” Gallatin offered hastily. “Very sorry. The evidence was there, I just didn’t consider all of the possible explanations. I just believed what I wanted to believe.”

Shakespeare smiled softly, mollified. “In that thou art but one with all of humankind. True knowledge of past or present is oft of less merit than that history which we desire to be so.”

Gallatin looked down before glancing at the playwright again. “I was also jealous, I suppose. Your writing is so . . . so unparalleled.”

“Ha!” Shakespeare laughed with obvious delight. “Too rare is such praise, even from those guided by wishes unknown.”

“You must have heard that kind of praise a million times.”

“I say again, stranger to London thou art, and despite your claims unaware of the artist’s lot, it seems.” Shakespeare made an angry face, rubbing spilled ale into the table surface before him. “My praises come too rarely, and then in main from those groundlings who flock to my plays. Plays! Works of no merit. I care for such fantasies not at all. Yet for my sonnets, art in truth, the self-anointed judges of great art oft time care but little. Not an artist of grave subject am I, they say, looking to
Venus and Adonis
. Upstart crow, said Greene, the fine University man.”

“But that last was only one criticism, years ago.”

“So thee, who claims status as an artist, forgets the words of those who flay thine art?”

“Ummm, no,” Gallatin admitted. “No matter how small or how long ago, I tend to remember criticism more than praise.”

“Just so. Yet in mine heart, I oft wonder if I am a true artist, or if here sits a mere dreamer of speculations.”

Gallatin froze, his mouth open, then snapped it shut. “Speculations? Critics look down on you, and you question your own merit, because you write speculative fiction?”

“Fiction? If such is the like of mine plays, then this is well known man!”

“What sort of speculations are you talking about? All the plays? But there’s brilliant work in them. A lot of brilliant work.”

Shakespeare eyed Gallatin with slight suspicion, then shrugged again, smiling briefly. “It seems thou hast some sympathy as an artist, after all. In truth, I have imagined tales both strange and wonderful. Tales of magicks, tales of wondrous strange creatures trafficking with men and women like unto ourselves, of other lands far removed in time and place from this our own. I have given words to heroes of legend, and recast legends to suit my fancies.”
“Yet the histories are looked down upon, too?”

“Ah, yes,” Shakespeare nodded. “Even there I framed events in such wise as to make them mine own, adding figures to the stage historical, all uttering such words as I wished them to speak. Yet this is not writing of worth, ‘tis said. Not like my sonnets. In truth, some such plays met with the pleasure of the Court for obvious reason, but any writer must toil at commerce to earn the means to art.”

“Yes, yes, I understand all that. Better than you know. But why haven’t all your works been published?” Gallatin pressed. “Surely your critics don’t control the presses.”

“Why this question? Folios I have commissioned of
Lucrece
, and of
Venus and Adonis
. Both have seen several editions.”

“I’m sorry. I mean your plays. Why haven’t they been published?”

Shakespeare shook his head wearily. “Thou still thinks my plays deserve folios? Who would make purchase of such low art? Yea, with the masses, as I said, my plays find favor, and money enough in measure, but such labors possess little merit in the world’s eyes. Why, the world would mock me should I commission folios of plays, and little profit would it avail me if attempted. Too few moneyed followers of low art have I to inspire printers to work on such speculation, too little chance of earning them the large sums they seek in return for their labors.”

“You’re a mid-list author?” Gallatin grabbed at a passing tray, lifting a brimming tankard of ale and hastily drinking the bitter, warm fluid. “They won’t publish play folios for you because they wouldn’t sell enough copies?”

“Mid-list? More outlandish words, sir? But as for the rest, yea, even in my finest poems I am no Edmund Spenser nor Philip Sidney, men blest far more than I by those who claim to weigh artistic merit. So the gentlemen and their ladies make purpose to purchase their works, and so those authors prosper in relation.”

“I didn’t understand anything,” Gallatin noted bleakly. “Only a few centuries past, in a similar society which even spoke basically the same language, and I didn’t understand what happened, or why, or what it was like. I depended on secondary sources, popular accounts and my own preconceptions.”

“In like manner I understand nothing of your speech,” the playwright noted archly. “Have done, or tell in what wise thy words claim interest.”

“Because I write about the future. I imagine what may happen in years to come. I’m wondering, though, if I didn’t really know about the past, just how good were my speculations on the future?”

“A man need not know from whence he came to see whence he goes, but he hath no knowledge of the meanings of his travels if he sees not the whole.”

“Damn.” Paul Gallatin stood, shaking his head. “You do say things better than I do. Thank you, William Shakespeare. My old English teacher was right; you do have a lot to teach a writer. Of course, I don’t think she ever expected me to get a personal lesson.”

Shakespeare smiled as if amused. “If so, such is the last lesson for any soul from my tongue. As I have told thee, my poet’s life is done, my foul papers left to whatever fate time may grant.”

“Because you don’t think of your plays as art, and don’t consider them your property? And because you’ve sold the drafts of your poems and sonnets? So of course you won’t mention any of it in your will. Thank you for your time and your words, sir.”

“Words I have in plenty, though hence they’ll bring me no more profit than any other man, nor more aggravation.” Shakespeare laughed again as if sharing a joke with Gallatin. “Mayhap in some far future such as thou dreamest the fate of an artist will differ. How sayest thou?”

“I sayest thou shouldn’t bet on it.”

#

Ivan’s grin didn’t seem to have shifted during whatever time the journey had required. “Did you get what we need?”

“I’m afraid not.” Paul Gallatin shook some foul-smelling London mud from his shoes, still wet with centuries-old damp. “Shakespeare’s not a fake.”

“The hell you say. Is there a best-seller in that?”

“There ought to be, but probably not.”

The physicist smiled in commiseration. “Sorry it was a waste of time.”

“Not at all.” Gallatin smiled back. “Very inspiring, truth to tell, not to mention instructive. I’ve got a lot of reading and a lot of work to do.”

“Reading? You’re going to read Shakespeare?”

“Him and a lot of other old stuff I hadn’t thought worth the trouble. I just learned they may have something to tell me after all.”

“Ah, well.” Ivanovich patted his machine. “I’m sure we can think up some other subject that’ll generate a wildly popular book. Have you ever been to the Middle East?”

“The Middle East?” Gallatin questioned suspiciously. “Let me see those coins in your hand. They look . . . hell, they are Roman. That’s Augustus. Augustus?” He fixed Ivanovich with a hard look. “You want one of us to visit the Middle East during the reign of Emperor Augustus?”