The Playmaker (21 page)

Though I dragged out my copy work, it came to an end eventually, and by August there was nothing to do except help Jacob with the gardening. Besides church on Sundays I kept to the house, begging off on the few occasions when Master Harry asked me to run an errand. Starling and I managed to converse without bringing up painful subjects, but often found we had little to talk about. She did learn, on one of her shopping trips to the quay, that Motheby and Southern had been released from the Tower with no charges made against them. Their business was ruined, but at least their heads were where heads should be: on their shoulders and not decorating the Bridge.

A letter from Susanna informed me that she was well and her
master was pleased and Walter Hawthorne was far too attentive, even though she kept him at arm's length. It gave me an opportunity to lecture her for a change, advising her to allow him no liberties. Not for the first time, I wondered if my rightful place was in Alford, watching out for her, even though she always claimed she could watch out for herself. The narrow, stinking streets of London, dense and damp as a plum cake in the summer heat, stirred a longing in me for Lincolnshire's open fields and fresh-cut hay. The geese would soon be gathering on Squire Hawthorne's pond, and I recalled with a pang how my mother could sit for hours watching them.

But in mid-August Mistress Condell brought the children back from the country, and three days later the Company returned from their tour, sun-burnt and played-out. Master Condell's family hurled themselves upon him when he came through the front gate. After him trailed a hired man pushing a barrow loaded with presents: bolts of wool for the ladies, wooden toys for the children, local cheeses and brews from outlying provinces which loudly proclaimed their product to be the best in England. For me he brought a well-made copy of Foxe's
Book of Martyrs,
a happy find at a county fair. “I saw it and thought of you.” I thanked him sincerely, moved that he should have remembered me in his travels—though I wondered what there was about Protestant martyrs that brought me to mind.

All Robin had for me was strong opinions. “Foxe didn't know what torture was. If Bloody Mary wanted to persecute Protestants,
she should have sent them on a tour.” He went on to describe the many shortcomings of wayside inns and county fair crowds, the roads choked with dust, the plague of gnats around every marsh, the miles of landscape in which one saw nothing but sheep and shepherds, and it was anyone's guess who was stupider. He sighed with envy when I told him of the anti-Catholic riots and the warehouse fire, and could not understand my loathing toward the same. “After performing on the heels of a dozen cattle shows, you would appreciate London better.”

“Did you go through Lincolnshire?” I asked.

Robin swore and turned facedown on our bed, spreading his arms to catch the warm air from the open window. “Don't ask! One fly-specked town looks like all the rest. Just let me sleep, and tomorrow I shall wake in better humor.”

No one told me I could stay for another season. Nor did I ask; I simply stayed.

The Lord Chamberlain's Men allowed themselves only a few days of rest before a meeting at the Mermaid Tavern that stretched to the small hours. They lined out a rough plan for the season: a “goodly blend” of comedy, tragedy, and history, beginning with
Romeo and Juliet,
a popular tale of thwarted young lovers. Robin did his second turn as Juliet, dying elaborately in full view of the audience, who loved him for it; Kit played Juliet's mother with some of the same controlled despair that I had seen in Constance; Dick drew the small part of Lady Montague; and Will Sly, with a cowl covering his beard, took on Juliet's nurse with a zest that
made the audience forget his mustache. I played various serving men and added steel to the many stage fights, though I was rusty on my fencing after a summer's disuse.

Only one week into the season, I was already too harried by the demands of my profession to think of anything else. To my surprise, I took to it like a beached fish returned to water. Twice that first week the Company handed me a speaking part to learn the night before, walk through in the morning, and perform that afternoon. Every day I marched with the armies and shouted with the crowds, jostling properties and costumes behind stage and scanning the plot in a frenzy to find my next entrance. By Friday, when I was ransacking the property room to find the last helmet, an odd thought struck me: I felt as though I had been at this all my life. The tiring master bounded back to shout, “Never mind, then! The Duke's men are marching. Here, put a bandage about your noggin and get on!” I sighed and wrapped the linen around my head as quick and neat as any actor forced to improvise.

At the Mermaid Tavern that Saturday I delivered my copies of
The Winter's Tale,
then lingered with the other boys to follow the casting. As with all new plays, the parts were assigned three weeks ahead of the performance. Some of these sorted out predictably: Richard Burbage would play Leontes, the jealous king, with Henry Condell as Polixenes, his suspect friend; Richard Cowley would take the shepherd's role, with Will Kempe, the clown of the Company, as the swindler Autolycus. Will
Shakespeare was Antigonus, the faithful courtier compelled to expose the infant Perdita; his brother Edmund would play the ardent young swain Florizel.

This last was an obvious disappointment to Kit, who coveted the role for himself. He had turned sixteen over the summer and seemed to think more male parts should be coming his way, but in this play his regal bearing and presence were needed for Hermione, the wronged queen.

That left Paulina, Hermione's friend and Leontes' conscience, and Perdita, the castaway daughter. The young-maiden parts were usually assigned to Robin, who made the most of them with his wavy auburn locks and long lashes and lilting voice. Imagine our surprise then, when Master Will rejected this obvious bit of casting. “I've another thought,” said he, “in which our Harry concurs.” I saw Master Condell incline his head and felt a quiver in my spine.

“I think Richard should take Perdita's role,” said Master Will.

Startled glances went to and fro. Robin looked ready to pop with indignation, but the next assignment pleased him. He was given Paulina, a mature woman of character and a stretch for him. Paulina's was the largest of the female parts and offered several opportunities for displaying fine disdain and righteous outrage. So Rob was in a buoyant mood as we made our way home that night. My own mood was difficult to describe.

On the one hand I was greatly flattered by the Company's trust in me. But there was a touch of uneasiness, too. I felt a deep sympathy with Perdita, “the lost one”: raised in the country among
rustics, separated from her mother by death, from her father by his own mad impulse. Some part of me knew that I could play this part well, or better than well. But I was almost afraid to play it. The line between stage and life was so fragile here that I felt a risk of losing myself somehow. The more I thought on it, the more did genial Master Will acquire the menacing shadow of a demon or sorcerer, for he had written the play and cast me in the part. How did he know so much?

“Fear not,” Robin said, climbing the steep steps to our attic room ahead of me. “‘Tis a deal of speech you have to learn, but I'll help you. All will be well.”

His confident tone was meant to reassure, but of course he had not spoken to my fears at all.

The Winter's Tale
was to be performed the first week in October, and I was not overburdened with speaking parts until then. We staged
The Merchant
again and I was amazed at how quickly Nerissa's lines came back. I employed some voice tricks learned from Master Condell and managed to hold the attention of the audience during the first scene. Then I brought about a minor setto with Kit by moving in front of him during one of his speeches. It was not intentional; I suddenly remembered I must be somewhere else on the stage, and without thinking took the shortest route to get there. No veteran would have done it, but Kit refused to take inexperience into account. As we shed our corsets and farthingales in the upper room, he lit into me with the vigor of a spar-hawk, ending with, “And don't upstage me again, you whey-faced
turd.” Robin told him he was crying murder after spilt milk, which made him hotter. We descended the stairs in a tiff, only to find the Company likewise. The object of their disgust was the Admiral's Men, a rival set of players.

“Lest any doubt their intention, here it is, writ large.” Edmund Shakespeare, who had taken no part in the performance that day, jabbed at the paper his brother was thoughtfully reading.

“What is it, Will?” Richard Cowley asked.

“Oh,” said he, with a wry little twist to his mouth, “‘tis the most excellent and lamentable romance of
Fawnia and Dorastus,
to be performed two days hence at the Rose. They claim it is a new play, though I remember seeing its like some years ago.”

“But that is the point,” cried his brother, jabbing the playbill again with enough force to poke a hole through it. “‘Tis said to be a new writing of it. But word is they've lifted it, all or part, from
The Winter's Tale
.”

“Ah,” growled Richard Burbage from the back of the stage. “That's just their meat.”

“Their sauce, more like.” Master Will glanced up with a smile. “How could they steal from my play before it's even performed? And it must be admitted, I stole the story from Robert Greene.”

“Stories cannot be stolen,” protested Master Heminges. “And Robert Greene is long dead, God rest his soul. But if they've taken your words, we must call them to account.”

“No one has seen the words yet,” said Master Condell, “save the Revels office. And Richard here, who copied it.”

They all looked at me, and the matter under discussion became abruptly and terribly personal. By now I understood what was at issue. The work of a playmaker is in no way protected. Once accepted and copied, it becomes the property of the acting company, which keeps the book under lock and key. But anyone might lift a few apt lines from one play and graft them into another; I had observed bookish young men in our audience furtively scribbling verses that took their fancy. Though not against the law, it was considered bad courtesy, and the more respected companies honored an unspoken agreement among themselves not to perform each other's works without prior notice. Still, any author might be tempted to steal from one of London's most popular playmakers; this was why the Lord Chamberlain's Men regarded me with more than ordinary interest.

“Didst show thy work to anyone, Richard?” Master Condell asked.

“None, sir.” My voice broke; I steadied it. “It was locked up in the scribe's desk while I was not working on it.”

“Take comfort, boy,” John Heminges said. “No one accuses you. Suppose one of us goes to see this
Fawnia and Dorastus
and uncovers the truth below the hearsay?”

The Company agreed to this sensible proposal, then pondered whom to send. “The obvious choice,” remarked Master Will, “is Richard. He knows the play.”

Before I quite realized what had happened, my duties for two days hence were assigned to Gregory, the new apprentice. Robin
wished to go with me and spoke so roundly for himself that our master allowed him, as he was marked for only a trifling part on the day in question. No sooner had she heard of our design than Starling insisted she must accompany us, and found a girl to substitute for her at the Theater. The more the merrier, apparently.

Our master gave us each two pence to admit us to the Rose. Robin, still flush with silver he had earned on tour, insisted that we be rowed across the Thames in fine style, laying out another two pence for the purpose. The September day gleamed like gold, beguiling me to lay aside my worries, and Starling reveled in the glory of being squired to the theater by two such gallants as we. She had put aside her cap and twined flowers in her wayward hair as though it were May Day, and smiled prettily at Robin as he handed her into the boat. I was the drab in this party, recognizing too late that if I wished to go unnoticed it was unwise to travel with either of them in a festival mood.

Robin, who could talk a snake out of its skin, persuaded our waterman to take a seat on the stern and let us boys do the rowing. Halfway across, when the fellow was gazing placidly behind him and no doubt thinking he had got the better of these young pillow-heads, Rob seized the moment and, with jab of his oar, tipped him into the Thames. Even before the splash had fully sounded with me, Robin suggested that we bend to our oars with a right good will, putting yards between us and the roaring waterman. Already an empty wherry was spinning to his aid. Its
grinning pilot tipped a nod to us, and Starling squealed with laughter, stamping her feet on the floor of the boat. Never was I more glad to reach another shore than when we ran the boat up the landing stairs and tied it securely. “Now for the Rose,” Robin said with a glance over his shoulder. “And let us blend artfully with the crowd.”

We passed the Bear Garden—which is misnamed to my mind, being as stinking, noisy, and ungarden-like a place as any in London. Rob knew it better than he should and entertained us with a bloody tale of the last match between Old Tim and Ball of Fire, until even Starling begged him to stop. By then we had reached our goal.

The Rose is newer than our Theater, and looks it: a many-sided building similar in design but sparkling with fresh paint and a permanent stage. The boards of the Rose were smooth-planed and well-fitting, with none of the humps that the Lord Chamberlain's Men had to guard against tripping over. Each door and shutter bore a handsome florid rose carved into the wood, and the floor was covered in dry rushes that breathed a light golden dust under the scuffing feet of the groundlings. Many of these—apprentices, laborers, and serving maids—were avid theatergoers who had doubtless seen Robin on the boards any number of times, but appeared not to recognize him. This was probably because he blended so well with them, as loud and unruly as any. Starling suffered a pinch or two, for females were fair game out of the galleries; she made me put my arm around her shoulders to pose as her protection.
She enjoyed this more than I thought seemly, but there were only twenty minutes to wile away thus until the trumpet sounded its third call and a Prologue stepped out to set before the audience the gist of the play.