The Playmakers (25 page)

William let this sink in for a moment.

“But what about Sarah?”

“Best that she not be told,” said Budsby
gravely. “Let her find out in her own good time.”

“But how can I hide such a huge deceit from
her?”

“William, William, did we not just conclude
that you are the consummate theatre man? The ultimate actor? You
will do that with ease.”

Shakespeare let go of the garment, and began
nodding. He was almost ready to accept this added enhancement of
his role that was being put to him so persuasively by his guide and
mentor.

In turn, the big fellow could see his selling
job was all but done. But he could also sense the young man needed
just a little more support. Having lit the fire of affirmation, his
experienced nostrils could smell the smoke from a few remaining
embers of concern, and he moved quickly to extinguish them.

“And don’t forget, Will,” he said, leaning
forward conspiratorially, “when he is not writing, Christopher’s
mind is, um, let us say, elsewhere.”

“You mean Rasa.”

“To be frank, young Will, when he is in a
state of heightened conjugality with his young dark lady from the
African desert, I don’t think Christopher Marlowe could give a
bugger what happens to his words.”

He let out the laugh, the big laugh, and
clapped Shakespeare on the shoulder.

That was it. No more needed to be said. The
pair turned to each other, and, as they did on that day when they
first met four years earlier, shook hands and smiled.

Budsby leaned over, pulled up the crude latch
on the door, and the pair re-entered the stage and walked across to
the second changing room, where Marlowe was sitting with his feet
on the table, and Walsingham was moodily staring at Soho who was
trying on a series of hats he had found in a box on the floor.

“It is done?” said Walsingham, looking
relieved.

“It is done,” boomed Budsby.

“Good work, Mr Budsby,” said Walsingham,
rubbing his hands and showing just a flicker of a smile, “good
work.”

Then the face of the master-spy grew serious.
“However, there is another aspect of this that I wish to
discuss.”

“And what is that?” said Shakespeare, as he
resumed his chair.

“Mr Shakespeare,” said Walsingham gravely,
“following your agreement to assume the responsibility of
authorship of Mr Marlowe’s plays, I want you to now agree -
verbally, but binding you absolutely - to a clear outline of your
tasks and an arrangement for the distribution of any profits
engendered.”

“Certainly, Sir Thomas. And how will that
work?”

“Considering your rapidly developing
theatrical skills …”

“He’s the best, the absolute best,”
interjected Budsby.

“Precisely,” said Walsingham. “You will
produce the plays, liaise with the Admiral’s Men, sort out the
cast, and direct them.

“Right.”

“You will continue your excellent promotional
campaigns with your learned colleague, Mr Budsby here.”

“I’m happy with that.”

“And you may even find some time to be the
narrator or play a role or two yourself,” Walsingham added, with a
glimmer of a smile.

“Excellent,” said Budsby. “He is God’s gift
to theatre.”

“In that context,” continued Walsingham,
“having the script ascribed to you looks perfectly reasonable.”

“Yes,” said Shakespeare, “Mr Budsby has
finally convinced me of that.”

“In turn,” said Walsingham, “you will be
suitably rewarded for your endeavours, Mr Shakespeare. As will Mr
Budsby.”

“Ah-ha,” chirped Budsby, “do I hear the
discussion turn toward that most favourable of subjects - the
glorious tinkle of the coin of the realm filling up one’s pockets.
How will we be paid? Shall we simply take our share out of the
ticket sales?”

“Let me make it clear, gentlemen,” said
Walsingham firmly. “All monies for the shows will come directly
under my province.”

“Of course,” said Budsby, the smile leaving
his face. “I should have realised.”

“They will be collected, counted and
distributed to those concerned by the Lord Chamberlain’s Department
- of which you know, of course, that the some-time poet, court
favourite and traveller Edward de Vere is the Lord
Chamberlain,”

“We’ve had him here up on our stage,”
interjected Samuel Davidson. “I was nearly going to throw him
off.”

“Yes, well,” continued Walsingham. “And you
know, too, that his finance manager is his father-in-law, Lord
Burghley, who I believe you have also had dealings with.”

“Indeed,” added Shakespeare, “we pay our rent
to him for this place.”

“In advance,” said Budsby. “In advance.”

“In advance, hey? Well done,” said
Walsingham. “I like to see men in control of their own destiny.
But,” he added, moving forward and staring directly into
Shakespeare’s eyes, “receiving such glorious public acclaim and
healthy financial rewards, Mr Shakespeare, brings with it other
responsibilities.”

“How is that?” said Shakespeare, staring back
into the steely eyes.

“We live in difficult times, Mr Shakespeare,
difficult times. Let any slips of your tongue be on the stage, sir,
where they can be remedied, and not on the street, where they are
irretrievable and can cause monstrous harm.”

“I would not dare otherwise, Sir Thomas.”

“I know you won’t, and I will tell you why,
young Will. And I will tell all here gathered at this table right
now. If you break your agreement, or broadcast any details to any
other person about any aspect of this agreement, I predict an early
and rather discomfiting demise for you, Mr Shakespeare … and anyone
associated with you.”

Grabbing his hat from the table, Walsingham
gave a little bow and snapped, “I hope we all understand … good-day
to you, gentlemen. Come Christopher.” He turned on his heel, and
walked out without saying another word, leaving Shakespeare and the
others looking stunned and his aging mentor mopping his brow.

Marlowe got up slowly, bowed to the others,
and headed quickly out the door.

“Best we do what he says, young Will,” said
Budsby after a few seconds. “Best we all do what he says.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“How does he keep it up, then?”

The question shot at Sarah across the
kitchen, and she unsuccessfully tried all the tactics she knew to
stop herself from blushing.

The woman who had thrown the query stared
across from scrubbing the big pot in which she daily cooked the
inn’s popular soup. Spotting the sea of vermilion flooding through
the young woman’s pretty cheeks, she let out a hearty chuckle.

“Sarah Fletcher,” laughed Margaret, “it is
three years now since we stood in this very kitchen and I told you
the facts of life.”

“Well, I remember you told me one fact,” said
Sarah, regaining her composure, and letting out a little laugh.
“And that was to show Will some ankle,”

“I had to start somewhere,” said Margaret,
putting the pot down. “No one else had given you much
guidance.”

“My mother never really recovered from the
shock of my father’s death,” said Sarah suddenly turning sombre.
“She made sure we finished our schooling, but hardly talked to us
girls about anything from then on, much less about, ah, you
know.”

“Don’t tell me about ‘you-know’, young lady.
Yet here we are, all this time later, and lord knows what you’ve
been up to with your Master Shakespeare, but you still blush at the
slightest mention of anything to do with loving a man.”

“I can’t help it, Margaret, that’s the way I
am.”

“The funny thing is,” said the older woman,
drying her sinewy hands and walking around the table to where Sarah
was cutting up some vegetables, “and you might find this somewhat
surprising, but even though getting a man into a bed is one of my
specialities, I was not talking about the ‘you-know’ on this
occasion!”

“No?”

“No. What I said was, how does he keep it up?
That is, how does William keep writing all them plays, all the
time? He’s the toast of the town. There’s been a new one out every
few months now for nigh on three years!”

“Oh,” said Sarah, “you mean that!”

“Yes. That.”

“Well, it’s … it’s hard to explain.”

“Try me.”

“I guess you could say he’s a
miracle-worker,” said Sarah, evenly.

“How’s that?” Margaret’s eyes narrowed.

“Well, he goes into that little room at the
end of the corridor, locks himself away for hours on end, and
scratches around.”

“Scratches?”

“Scratches. He scrawls away in a most
abominable hand - I have seen some of the bits of paper he has
thrown out - and comes and goes, and looks worried, and goes back
and does a bit more. And then …”

“And then?”

“After weeks of this, suddenly, he emerges
from the room, holding the script aloft, shouting, ‘It is done, my
sweet, it is done.’”

“And you reply, ‘Now we can all get some
sleep!’” said Margaret, bursting into laughter.

“Just about,” laughed Sarah. “It’s such a
relief when it is complete. It all seems to come together at the
last moment - somehow.”

And from Sarah’s innocent perspective, that
was pretty much how things had happened. From random scratchings
there suddenly came a final, wonderful product.

What she did not know was that in the three
years since Mr Budsby’s secret authorship plan had been hatched,
William’s acting skills and patience had been stretched to the
limit as he filled out ‘writing’ time, pretending to be the
author.

“Hours on end, I spend in that bloody room,”
he snarled at Budsby one day. “Hours! Scratching away at paper with
my barely legible hand, fingering through books that I can hardly
read, or staring out the window, or wandering through parks giving
the impression I am pondering a major structural change, or
inhabiting libraries in the pretence that I am doing research. On
and on it goes.”

‘Ah, but my boy, you do it with such skill -
no one is the wiser,” the big fellow replied jauntily. “And think
of the rewards.”

The relief would come when one morning
William would enter the room to find a parcel on the table - a
packet containing the latest Marlowe script, discreetly dropped
there overnight by a Walsingham agent well trained in the art of
getting in and out of a home and achieving a task, whatever that
may be, without disturbing its occupants.

The next steps always followed a similar
routine.

After waiting a suitable hour or two, Will
would triumphantly march down the corridor, holding the script
aloft, shouting, ‘It is done, my sweet, it is done.’ He would get
Sarah to read it, say to her, ‘And which part do you think I should
play, my love?’ and then head off to book a theatre, assemble a
cast, organise rehearsals, and dream up yet another bizarre
promotional escapade.

Inevitably the play would be a success, and
then the whole process would start again - Will anxiously waiting
for the next work to flow from Marlowe, who in turn was writing
feverishly away, either while lying low at Sir Thomas Walsingham’s
castle in Surrey or while travelling overseas.

So successful had been
Henry VI
, that Marlowe had adopted his
Tamburlaine
technique, declaring to Shakespeare that
it was the “first part only, Will, just the first part”. He
promptly churned out
Henry VI, Part 2
and
Henry VI, Part 3
. He had sated his
fascination with the Lancaster dynasty’s control of England with
Richard III
, a similarly strident,
bloodthirsty play.

Historically, this had brought him up to the
ascension of
King Henry VII
, the first
monarch of the House of Tudor - of which, Walsingham pointed out
sternly to him, Queen Elizabeth was a member, and that, “Maybe it
would be politically and strategically prudent, young man, to
explore other avenues.”

Marlowe had responded by looking to foreign
shores for inspiration, and
Titus
Andronicus
,
A Comedy of
Errors
and
The Taming of the Shrew
had flowed from his pen. Under Shakespeare’s name, the plays had
thrilled audiences with their wit, their style, and their incisive
view on life in Italy.

“How does he develop these locations so
well?” Shakespeare said to Budsby one day when
Two Gentlemen of Verona
was finished. “He goes into so
much detail!”

“Will, Will,” said Budsby. “Do you not
recollect the times, for example, we used to visit the little
seaside town of Brighton with our inspired group of players ready
to thrill the good citizenry with our skills?”

“Yes,” said Shakespeare, looking puzzled.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, for example, what is sited at the
northern end of the town square?”