The Playmaker (17 page)

“Never mind that!” Neither of us believed she was simple, and I cared not to waste time. “What did he want?”

“The most wondrous thing—he had a message for Richard Malory!”

I stared, wondering what this might mean. By now my name was no secret in the household, for Susanna had sent me two letters under it, but it was seldom used. The only others who knew it would be Motheby and Southern (if they happened to remember) and my aunt in Southwark. “I offered to fetch you, but he forbade me. ‘Just tell him this,' said he. ‘On no account is he to go to Martin Feather's chambers or lodging. His friend Beecham will not be there and Feather is a dangerous man to know.'”

It was too much to take in at once. “Describe him.”

She did: a man of middling height with a golden beard and a proud manner. He wore a fine cape of dark orange velvet and a
square-crowned hat with a partridge feather sweeping off one side. The brim shaded his eyes so she could not make out their color. “And he didn't linger. As soon as the message was out, he turned on his heel.”

I glanced at the opposite corner, where Betty the kitchen maid, a market basket on her arm, was passing the time with a young man. Little Ned Condell, who had accompanied her to market, tugged impatiently at her apron. I thought of asking Betty if she had noticed where the stranger turned next, but her attention was obviously taken. I must follow blind, and sort the matter on the way. I struck east then, walking very fast, with Starling at my elbow. “Suppose it was not Peter Kenton at all,” I mused. “We've never seen him.”

“I think it was, most like. This man answers to the description they gave at—” Starling broke off, and I whirled around to meet her face, now wide open with alarm at what she had given away.

“You went down to the warehouse, didn't you?”

“I did. And asked for him.”

“Why should they mind the demands of a housemaid?”

“Because the housemaid stuffed a cushion under her gown and let her condition be known.”

I blew out an explosive sigh. “When was this?”

“Two weeks ago, just after the Company left on tour.”

“What were the words you used to describe my visit to Master Feather's chambers?” I demanded. “Did you not say it was ‘ill thought' to show my face there?”

“We said nothing about showing
my
face. And you seemed not to mind when I played the same ruse on your aunt.”

“We agreed on that. Whereas this you've undertaken on your own with no leave from me—”

“You are not my master.”

“But this is
my affair
. What have you to do with it, when all's done?”

Her fingers had pleated up the edges of her apron like a ruff; she stared down at them. “I am your friend.”

This was obvious enough, but seemed to leave us both at a loss for words. Then she looked up briskly. “I must get back, or they will miss me. Here is what happened: I spoke to Southern, the stout one. I asked for a description of Peter Kenton first. When he gave it, I wrung my hands and cried, ‘Oh! 'Tis he!' and asked when they hoped to see him next. It seems he usually comes around the beginning of each month to discuss business and add up accounts, but sometimes he skips a month. Master Southern said he would pass along my message, and wanted my name and house, but I refused to give it. He was amused—easy for a man to laugh! But this is the fifth of July, so Master Kenton must have made his usual stop at the warehouse and heard of me. The question is, How did he know where to find us?”

I shrugged—more of a shiver, though the day was warm. “It's probably hopeless now, but I'll try to catch him. We'll shake it out later.”

So we parted, she returning to the house and I continuing on
to Cheapside, watching all the while for a strolling gentleman in a velvet cape. Of course he was nowhere to be seen, but it helped me to walk, pacing out what had happened and what it might mean.

That Masters Kenton and Beecham shared each other's confidence was not strange; the so-called clerk had allowed from the first that they knew each other, when he sent me to the quay in Kenton's name. The true mystery, as Star said, was how the latter had known where to find me. One of us may have been followed— either I, from Middle Temple, or Starling from the docks. Or John Beecham could have asked about my whereabouts after discovering me among the Lord Chamberlain's Men. And what of the warning, which I had now from each of them—avoid Martin Feather? The advice (at least, as I myself had it from Beecham) sounded sincere and well-meant, but the man had lied to me at least once. Suppose they were in league with my aunt, and Master Feather was my true friend?

Such questions only tangled up my thoughts. I envied King Leontes of
The Winter's Tale,
who could at least inquire of the Oracle, even if he chose not to listen to it.

The streets were less crowded than usual, for during July those who can afford it remove themselves from the steaming city and head to the country. But as always, music spilled from tavern doors and street corners. That was the divided character of London—to sound like heaven and stink like hell. Trade was slow, leaving the laboring public with time on their hands and none but low amusements to occupy them: bear baits and cock
fights, roving fire eaters, sword swallowers, clowns in motley.

One of these independent performers had set up at the forks of Cheapside. He was a man of multiple gifts: first he juggled flaming torches with consummate skill, then yelped in mock pain as he flipped them between his legs, then doused them one by one in a mouth so wide it could have swallowed a cabbage whole. Something about his clever face and pale hair seemed familiar; I watched to the end of the performance, when he got a smattering of laughter and a few farthings tossed into a straw hat. When the coins had ceased, he picked up the hat and swept it toward the onlookers in a bow that took his head a whisker's width from the street. On his way upright, his bright blue eyes snagged me. “Hey! Little brother!”

As I stared, he beckoned me near. “Fear not. We're comrades, you and I. Dost recall?”

Then it hit me. “Wait—my first play, at the Theater. We made our entrances together—”

“Aye. I went by way of breakin' you in, and it was good work I did. When we played together in
King John,
you should've thanked me.”

“I don't remember you in that one.”

“I was, though. Marchin' and shoutin' with the armies, and spoke one line as the Prophet Peter. But well I remember you. ‘O death! Thou odiferous, rottenous death, pluck the eyeballs from this barren skull and come smack me with a big slobbery kiss!'” This was a mangling of Constance's “mad” scene, delivered with
such reckless abandon he might have been arrested as a public hazard had he gone on with it. After one startled moment I found myself laughing, and it felt as though the laughter had built up for weeks and burst like a thundercloud. He dropped his tragical manner and joined me, throwing back his head to show all his remaining teeth. He put me in mind of Autolycus, the amiable scoundrel in
Winter's Tale
(a character I had thought to be exaggerated). “But truth, little brother,” he went on, judge-sober now, “‘twas a fine performance. Made me as proud as your own dad.” He shook out a loud red handkerchief and blew his nose. “Need a bit of work?”

The man changed tack so often it was like being jerked upon a catherine wheel. “How's that?”

“Got a job for the morrow. Lord Hurleigh's funeral at Westminster. There's a call out for mourners.”

“Oh.” Lord Hurleigh, I recalled, was the nobleman who wished Master Will to write an ode for him. I had heard of such “calls” for players to walk behind a funeral hearse with mournful garb and expressions to match. It reeked of hypocrisy—the very sort of thing Mistress Condell had warned me against. “I think not. …”

“Mayest think again. They're paying double, I hear, plus the funeral feast. Mourners are scarce in summer and the gentleman hasn't many to weep for him of their own accord.”

“Why is that?” We were strolling away from the Exchange now, while he took a penknife from his motley garb and idly dug under his fingernails.

“Oh, a widower, with no remaining heir. Under a papist cloud
to boot. A Catholic, they say. Poor Philip Shackleford! All his gold won't buy him a proper funeral. But he's the Queen's kinsman and can't be stuck in the ground without some ceremony.”

“Will she attend?”

“Nah, she's on progress.”

Of course, I knew that. The Queen and her court were “progressing” through the northern provinces, a system by which they descended upon some hapless nobleman's estate and stayed for a fortnight or more, draining his larder and stretching his devices to come up with entertainment. “So,” said my companion, “if you change your mind, come to the north common of St. Paul's an hour before noon and ask for me—Zachary of the quick hand.”

He touched the knife to his forehead in salute, turned, and disappeared down the nearest side street. Something in his look, a meaningful flicker of his eyes, made me glance down at my side. The small canvas pouch that tied to my belt was now decorated with a neat slice, about two inches long, and felt lighter by threepence.

Autolycus was a cutpurse, too. I would never again consider one of Master Will's characters to be overdrawn.

In low spirits I turned toward home. Threepence was all I had left from a bonus paid by the Company at season's end. Most had gone to Susanna, but I was keeping this much for myself alone. The money that came to me did not stick; it was the same with John Beecham's shilling, mysteriously given and just as mysteriously lost. Perhaps I should attend the funeral after all, if only to
get my threepence back from Zachary the light-fingered. It might be a worthy act of charity besides, if the deceased had so few to mourn him. Poor Philip … what had the clown called him? Something with a ford. …

I stopped dead at the corner of Coleman and Cattle streets, seeing as clear as day a paper picked up from the road muck, and scrawled on its lower edge a line reading, By order of Philip—

“Shackleford!”

Starling's eyes went wide when I told her. “You must go to the funeral. There's no argument.”

“But now the stakes are higher. Master Feather's clerk, and probably Feather himself, and Beecham and Kenton—they all know me. Should I show my face in this setting?”

“If you enlist in the first rank of mourners, they'll give you a robe and a hood. Pull it far enough over your face and no one will look twice at you. But you must go.”

I had to agree.

That night the household was livelier than usual, for Mistress Condell and most of the children were packing for a visit to her sister in Surrey. By the time Thomas, Ned, and Cole were tucked in their bed it was nigh unto midnight, and they had no energy left to wrestle me. But they always demanded a story. Though not so free as Starling at making them up, I told tales from the Bible with enough spirit to hold them still. That night they heard of Elisha and the bears, a timely warning about the just reward of
exasperating little boys. It settled them, except for Ned, who popped upright in bed and remarked, “I saw a man turn into a bear today.”

“Did you, then?” I knew well the operation of his brain; oft he lulled us all to sleep on some wild notion that promised great things and ended nowhere.

“Aye. 'Twas just past noon, when we got back from the market. He came toward us and turned at the corner. A fine gentleman in a gold cape and a hat with a long feather.”

“How's that?” I rounded on him. “A long feather—with a curl in the end, like a partridge?”

“Aye!” Ned bounced in excitement. “You saw him, too?”

“Not I. But Star did. Ned, think: you say he turned at the corner. Did you see him make a turn after that?”

“But list what I tell you.” I was spoiling his tale. “I saw him turn at the corner and disappear behind that row of trees. The leaves—the leaves drew a curtain about him. And then—”

“What?”
I could have choked the story out of him in my impatience.

“When he came out from behind the trees, he was a bear!” Thomas, who had become skeptical at the ripe age of eight, groaned loudly, but little Cole squealed in delight. “A round, furry, black bear,” Ned continued in a growl, catching Cole about the neck.

“Don't strangle your brother,” I chided, my mind elsewhere. The hawthorn trees that he mentioned were planted along a wall. The branches spread low and were full and leafy—they could hide
someone walking behind them, at least in part. “Where did he go after you saw him come out from behind the trees?”

“How would I know? I didn't follow him—I had to watch Betty.”

Betty always went to market in company with one of the boys, who were supposed to discourage her courting. A worthless strategy, in my view. I sighed and shook my head.

“But would you hear more about the bear?” That was the best part, to Ned. I let him chatter on about it until the boys fell asleep, leaving me no wiser.

Mistress Condell and the children departed for Surrey in the mid-morning, leaving me ample time to make myself respectable and get to St. Paul's by noon. The groundskeeper of St. Paul's common directed me to a shed behind the cathedral, a stable of sorts, where a ragged troop of “mourners” were getting themselves outfitted. Two members of the Queen's Yeomen, in their black-and-yellow tunics, were leaning against the wall—perhaps to make sure that the distinguished company did not steal anything as they tried on robes and hats, washed at the stone trough, trimmed each other's hair. One was getting a tooth pulled by a barber wielding a pair of pinchers. The air of cheerful mayhem reminded me of the tiring rooms at the Theater. Zachary was easy to spot, even with his pale hair covered by a black judge's cap—an uneasy match to his redand-pink motley. “Little brother!” he sang out as I approached. “I knew our paths would cross again. Was it fate?”

“No; threepence,” I said, unsmiling. “And I want it back.”

“With good will.” He opened the pouch at his side, then paused. “If you stay to follow the corpse.” I nodded and he handed over the coin. “I was only keeping it as surety, and sure you've come. And turned out like a gentleman, too—we'll put thee in the second rank. I've a fine black hat that would look fetching—”