The Quality of Mercy (17 page)

The waning flame began to sputter.

“Don’t leave me, Harry,” Shakespeare whispered.

The light dimmed, then finally died. Shakespeare felt a sharp rap on the back of his neck, then found himself floating in total blackness.

A serpent had wrapped around his arm, squeezing the blood from the limb. Shakespeare tried to cry out but no sound issued from his throat. As he attempted further cries, he felt his windpipe tighten, constricting his breath. He began to panic. The snake winked at him, an evil look glowing in its eyes. It hissed and clamped more tightly around his arm, its slithery body taut with muscular ripples.

The snake began to speak, but the words were unintelligible.

Louder and louder, until it screamed.

“Wake up, Willy!”

At last Shakespeare understood.

Still panting, he barely opened his eyes, opened them enough to see Cuthbert Burbage yanking on his lifeless arms.

“It’s already past daybreak, Willy! There’s work to be done!” Cuthbert tugged at him mercilessly. “Wake up, you besotted swine!”

“I’m up,” Shakespeare croaked.

“You speak but you’ve not awakened.”

In sooth, Shakespeare thought. He said nothing, and suddenly realized that his head was throbbing with pain. Too much drink? Impossible. He’d drunk very little last night. Or so it had seemed to him. His mind was a gale of confusion. He wished that Cuthbert would let go of his arm.

“My apologies in advance,” Cuthbert said, releasing him at last.

Shakespeare began to doze off. A minute later he was drenched with water. He bolted upward.

“For God’s sake!” he screamed.

Cuthbert placed the empty water pitcher on the floor, found a dry rag and offered it to Shakespeare. “Dry your face.”

Shakespeare was seized with the shakes.

“Marry,” Cuthbert said. “You’re ill.”

“No,” Shakespeare insisted. “I’m well. Just wet and cold.” He stood up on quivering legs and dried his face. “I was having a beast of a nightmare. I thought a serpent was upon me.”

“Let me help you dress—”

“I’m able to dress myself, thank you,” Shakespeare snarled.

He managed to change his soaked chemise, but it took a great deal of effort. His head throbbed. A bad attack of fever, he thought. No worse, he hoped.

“You’re flushed, Willy,” Cuthbert said. “Go back to sleep. And for the love of heaven, sleep on your pallet. No one can get a proper night’s rest slackened over on a desktop.”

“The voice is the voice of Cuthbert, but the words are words of Anne.” Shakespeare slipped on his hose.

“You have
need
of your wife.” Cuthbert looked around the room. It was covered in dust. “Or at the very least, a wench with a broom.”

Shakespeare picked up his doublet and looped his hands through the armholes, straining with each movement. He heard Cuthbert gasp, and looked up.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Your head.” Cuthbert reached out to touch the back of his friend’s skull, but quickly withdrew his hand.

Shakespeare felt it immediately — a large, crusty lump at the base of his head. He picked off a piece of the scabrous wound and regarded the dried blood.

“Someone attacked me last night,” he announced.

“Bigod!
Who
?”

“Harry’s ghost.”

“What?”
Cuthbert whispered.

“Harry’s ghost,” Shakespeare repeated. “At least that’s who it said it was. I never did see its face. Nor was its voice tuned as Harry’s.” He held up a loose sleeve. “Help me put this on.”

Cuthbert sank down onto the straw pallet in the corner of the room. His face was white.

“Whatever it was knocked me over the head,” Shakespeare said. “Why Harry’s ghost would desire me harm, I know not.”

He noticed that Cuthbert had begun to tremble, and sat down next to him. Shakespeare prodded his friend’s arm.

“Get hold of your wits, man. We have a performance this afternoon. Best we get in as many as we can while the theaters are still open. In the last few weeks Black Death has stalked the city like a fiend gone mad.”

Cuthbert took the sleeve absently.

“Do you think you were
actually
visited by Harry’s spirit?” he asked.

Shakespeare shrugged. “I know not.”

“What counsel did it offer you?”

“We didn’t talk too long. I do remember asking myself this — why was I falling back asleep when there still remained so much more to say? Now I realize that the ghost — or whatever it was — blunted my senses lest I question it too keenly.”

They sat in silence. Shakespeare pulled the sleeve away from Cuthbert and, with a heavy sigh, drew it over his arm.

“At least truss up the points for me,” he said.

“Merciful Jesu,” Cuthbert said, tying the sleeve to the doublet. “If it were Harry’s ghost, then the dead shall not rest in peace until the murder has been avenged.”

“On the contrary,” Shakespeare said. “The voice told me to cease my inquiry in Harry’s murder. Which makes me think that it was indeed a man and not a spirit.”

“Or maybe it was nothing at all, Willy.” Cuthbert stood and began to pace. “Perhaps you drank too much sack last night.”

“Only a sip or two.”

“Are you sure—”

“A God sointes, Cuthbert, do you honestly think I bashed in my own head? My imagination may be fanciful, but this bump isn’t a product of conceit. Nay, I wasn’t overpowered by sack last night, but something in the sack overpowered me — nightshade, or perhaps foxglove or Indian acacia. I’m sleepy from potion, my friend. I can barely stand without toddling.”

“And you think a spirit did this to you?” Cuthbert asked.

“Either a specter or an imposter. Throw me my other sleeve. It’s on the desktop.”

“Are you going to listen to its caveats?”

“No.”

Cuthbert tossed Shakespeare the sleeve.

“You’re not?”

“Not at all. Had it been polite, I would have considered its admonitions. But since it has shown itself to be a rude animal, I will disregard it totally.”

“And you will continue to look for Harry’s slayer?”

“I shall… though it may take me years to find him.” Shakespeare finished tying his sleeve and stood up. “It’s not the first time it has taken me years to achieve my goals.”

It had taken Shakespeare three years to go from horse tender to stagehand, another three years until he’d been made an equal sharer in the fellowship. Whitman had been Shakespeare’s staunchest supporter. Richard Burbage, the fellowship’s lead actor after Harry, had been vehemently opposed to the idea. Their argument had been overheard by the entire troupe.

Shakespeare is strictly mediocre as a tragedian,
Burbage had boomed.

Agreed,
orated Whitman in a louder voice than Burbage.

His voice barely projects over the shouts of the groundlings,
Burbage argued.

Agreed,
said Harry.

He has little presence on stage.

He had a good comic presence in his last performance,
Harry said, defending his charge.

Burbage cried,
He almost upstaged me! No, no, I refuse to have equal billing with an upstart
.

Harry said,
If he is not part of the fellowship, then the fellowship will have to do without Whitman
. He added slyly,
See how you do playing against me instead of with me, Burbage
.

Richard Burbage paled. Whitman was the biggest draw in London.

Burbage said,
Divine Jesu, Harry, Shakespeare is a good bookwriter. But why do you insist that he be part of the fellowship?

Because I love that boy,
Harry said.
He’s a dreamer… as I once was
….

The next day Shakespeare had been voted in as a sharer.

Yes, Shakespeare had had patience then, he would have patience now. He said to Cuthbert, “I shall know Harry’s murderer and he shall know me.”

“Some things are better put to rest, Willy.”

“Harry was cut down before his time. The rogue responsible must pay. Harry’s soul must be put to rest.” Shakespeare held back his grief. “Enough said. Where did I put my shoes?”

“They’re in front of the window.”

Shakespeare walked over and picked them up. “They’re frozen.” He looked at Cuthbert. “I make it not a habit to work in front of an open window in such weather. The cold freezes the ink.”

“The spirit — or the imposter — must have come in through the window,” Cuthbert said. “Obviously it neglected to secure the latch when it departed.”

“Now that’s a curious thing indeed,” said Shakespeare. “I was always made to understand that ghosts could pass through solid matter.”

“Well, your spirit may not have passed through the brick wall, but it must have been an accomplished climber. Your room is at least twenty feet up from the street. Why didn’t the apparition simply climb the stairway and jiggle the door?”

“It was bolted shut. Prying it open would have been difficult even for the most experienced of thieves. Twould have created much mess and racket.”

“Is your window bolted shut as well?”

“Closed, but not locked. The latch had broken off during the last windstorm. My current preoccupation with Harry has not afforded me time to repair it.”

“So there’s no other way to come in except through the window?”

Shakespeare nodded. “A practical fellow, this ghost of Harry’s.”

“Harry was practical,” Cuthbert said.

Shakespeare smiled and held up an icy shoe by the toe. “What am I to do? I haven’t another pair.”

“Use mine.”

“Be not absurd. Are my feet more valuable than yours?”

“I’ve another pair. We’ll stop by my closet on the way to the theater.”

“Than I shall wear these until we reach your room.”

Cuthbert grabbed the shoe from Shakespeare’s hand. “Admit it or not, my friend, you are ill. You’re red from fever and you’re shivering.”

“And you’ve just bested a miserable cough.”

“Stop jousting, Shakespeare, and listen to me for once. Wear my shoes, I’ll wear these.” Cuthbert squeezed the leather pumps and small trickles of water splashed to the ground. “See. They’re melting already.”

“Such cheer,” Shakespeare said. “It makes me sick.”

“How does your head feel, Will?”

“As if it were visited by the Scavenger’s Daughter.”

Papers tucked under his arms, Shakespeare strolled with Cuthbert in silence down Gracechurch Street. With his feet dry, ensconced in warm woolen socks and cracked-leather boots, he felt much better. The sting of the cold was chasing away his lethargy, and his mind began to revitalize, racing with thoughts of one book or another.

He loved the walk from his room in the city of London to the new theater in Southwark, just over the Thames. In the quiet of the predawn dark ideas would come to him, often starting off as no more than a wisp of reflection — a line or two, perhaps taken from bits of overheard conversation or gossip. London was an early riser, waking not as a man who stretches and bellows and farts, but as a woman who slowly wipes sleep from her eyes and smiles, seducing all that surrounds her with innocence and beauty. He loved her all the time, but more deeply in the mornings.

By the time they reached London Bridge, Shakespeare noticed how truly late it was, his oversleeping an outcome of the potion slipped into his sack, no doubt. The shops and houses that lined the bridge were bustling with activity. The sun had risen hours ago and was desperately trying to break through a sheet of steely clouds. A week ago it had been hot. Last night, freezing, unusual for May. Daft weather, daft times.

They passed St. Thomas of the Bridge, with its stately columns and pointed, arched windows — architecture of the old Church. His mind, filled with the image of Christ, suddenly juxtaposed against the dark memories of last night.

Who had visited him? Though he believed in ghosts, he was skeptical that he’d witnessed a genuine apparition. A phantom from the netherworld would be ethereal — of no form or definite shape. It needn’t have used a physical blow on the back of the head as an admonition. Yet what visited him last night did precisely that.

Shakespeare cleared his thoughts. Walking steadily, he and Cuthbert crossed over the gray waters of the Thames until reaching St. Saviour’s in Southwark. As they continued west, Shakespeare could hear the snorts and cries of the bulls, bears, and dogs caged in Paris Gardens. So far the theaters and baiting arenas had been allowed to remain open for public viewing, but if the toll of the dead from plague climbed further, all forms of amusement would be shut down to prevent further spreading of disease. Compared to last year, it seemed to Shakespeare that Black Death was striking earlier in the season and deadlier than ever.

Shakespeare had been lucky since arriving in London ten years ago. Rarely had the theaters been forced to close for more than a month at a time. The last time they had bolted their doors had been last summer — in July, when London had been choked with disease. The company had taken its productions on tour. Shakespeare remembered that travel had been exhausting. The country roads, often flooded, had been small or nonexistent, and the company’s accommodations had been cheap. Frequently they had passed the night in the stable with the horses, using only loose straw for a blanket. But, marry, the countryside had been in full blossom that year, a palette of color, the air scented sweeter than perfume.

Shakespeare inhaled deeply, and a waft of dung assaulted his nostrils. A bear’s roar filled his ears. A devil it was to project the lines over the blast of animal noises. But the theater’s new location was amid a lot more traffic, and the more traffic, the more money.

They reached the Unicorn. The theater was not yet completed, only half built, and preparations for the play seemed as chaotic as ever. The recent move from Shoreditch to Southwark was simply one more complication in a never-ending series of problems. Stagekeepers attempted to clean the standing pit and the galleries, sweeping away the remains of rotted food served during yesterday’s performance. Hired men wielded hammers and calipers, building scaffolds and fixing warped boards on the platform stage. A boy apprentice, gowned in full costume, raced back and forth, toting faggots of wood needed for repairs. Robin Hart paced furiously, the ’tire man shouting complaints to no one in specific about the condition of the players’ wardrobe. The clothes were being treated carelessly, and he was tired of mending unnecessary tears.