The True Prince (29 page)

The other Cobham ring is still missing, Bartlemy had said.

I quickly dropped it, and the mattress. But a single sheet of paper shot out under the force, and I scrambled to recover it. Though my heart was still racing, I marked the lines of verse on the paper and edged toward the light at the rim of the stage, to make it out. It was the Robin and Marian ballad, handwritten, with a note scribbled across the top. Squinting, I read: “The upstart Malory may have supplanted you on stage, but you have a chance to prove yourself a man on another ground—”

“Ill met by moonlight,” chimed a familiar voice. If I had jumped any higher, my head would have cracked the stage boards.

Trembling, I folded the paper and pushed it between the buttons of my doublet before turning around. The voice had come from the back of the theater, but all I could see when I looked that way was a reddish glow, bobbing toward me. Country folk speak of fairy fire in the forests at night, ducking and weaving as the spirits hold their revels. I felt my flesh prickle. “My faith! You make no more noise than a ghost!”

“A useful skill to know, when one's quarters are apt to be invaded.” The light separated itself into bars and I saw it was only a common coal carrier. Gradually a face took shape behind it—eyes first, gleaming like caged coals.

“Kit—what are you doing here?”

He set the carrier upon his “hearth,” then arranged a nest of kindling on the bricks and used a bent gardener's trowel to spoon the live coals on top. As a ribbon of smoke spiraled up he let down the trap overhead. “Should I not be the one to ask you that?”

“I … I happened to think of what you said, the other day, about living in ‘hell,' and it just popped into my head. That this might be what you meant. I came because I have something that belongs to you.”

Trying to compose myself, I fumbled among the effects in my purse and took out the black velvet pouch. I handed it to him, watching his face.

His eyes narrowed a fraction, but he gave no other sign as he took the pouch, opened it, and tilted out the silver crescent just enough to confirm what it was. Then he slipped it back, pulled the drawstring, and tossed it on the bricks as if it were of no more value than a potato. Not a touch, not a flicker of the agitation it provoked in him last June. And not a word of thanks to me, either. But then, he had something of much greater value under his mattress.

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. “What are you living on?”

“Bad ale, mostly.” He leaned over to an open-topped keg and uncorked a bottle, taking a long swallow from it. “But I neglect my duty as a host. Will you have some?”

“I meant, how are you supporting yourself?”

“I know what you meant.” His kindling had come to a blaze, so he set down the bottle and went about building a fire on top of it. The firewood was a mix of green twigs, rotted timbers, and bits of scaffolding that put out more smoke than heat while he fanned it with a tin plate. In the white belch of flame his cheekbones stood out like buttresses, his eyes redrimmed and sunken. But there was an elegance of gesture in his hands, even while flicking a rat turd into the fire.

“You're being sought,” I told him. “You're accused of murdering the Welsh Boy.”

“I know.” He laid the tin plate aside and took another swallow from the bottle.

“How? Where did you hear it?”

“On the street, of course. The flaming tongues of Rumor.”

“But they're looking for you! How can you go about on the street without being caught?”

“Ah.” He stroked his upper lip. “I've been
watched
all my life. But now I have become the
watcher
.”

An odd tone in his voice made me sit up straighter. Something was not right with him; was it hunger, or drink, or had he slowly gone mad indeed? “And what does that mean?”

“Look at me: what do you see?”

“Well … a ruin.”

“True! A wreck of my previous self. Who would know me now?”

“The constable would.”

“I doubt that. He's looking for the chief boy player of London. Who has been supplanted.”

This theme again. “
Not
by me. It was Davy who—”

“Davy is nothing. Robin's day is over and Gregory's ambition surpasses his ability. But you turned out to be the player.” His pale eyes glittered. “I must compliment the way you played the country lad and tripped and stammered through your trial term and put us all off guard. You tricked me, sure.”

“That's fool's talk. How came you to dream this fantasy that I was out to—” I stopped, remembering the taunting message I had just read about the “upstart Malory.”

“I'm not saying you did it out of malice or design. It was
instinct, more like. You were a weasel and a toad on instinct. It comes easy to you.”

I have been told this before—that one thing or another is easy for me—and swear I do not know where it comes from. “
None
of it was easy, then or now. I wasn't born to the stage, like you—”

“Born to the stage.” The words clanged in his voice like cold metal. “You know what I was born to. The blood of generations of tradesmen runs in these veins.”

“There's no taint in the blood of honest tradesmen—”

He stood up suddenly, stuck his head through the trap and hoisted himself to the stage. “Come up here,” he commanded. Not knowing what to expect, I followed him more slowly. We sat on opposite ends of the trap, legs dangling into “hell,” with the fire from below casting a diabolical light on Kit's gaunt features.

“Now
listen
,” he said fiercely. “I'm going to tell you a story, and then you can tell me how honest is the stock I come from.

“I was the only child of my parents to survive, and I fancied they would die for me. I loved my father; we used to sing together as we sorted turnips or stacked cabbages. Singing was my joy then. But one day an agent from St. Paul's happened to hear us….”

“Robin told me,” I prompted, when his voice trailed off. “An agent from St. Paul's heard you, and thought you not only sounded like an angel but looked like one too, and secured you
for the Chapel choir that very day. Robin speaks as though you were transported to the heavenlies, and you only seven.”

“Six. I was only
six.
And the place I was transported had no heaven in it, except for the music in the Chapel. Imagine yourself at a tender age, being ripped away from everything you have ever known, carried off, and set down among strangers. Boys, no less—if you shut a crowd of boys together with not enough government, what you get is a herd of beasts. They set on me in the quarters that first night and hung me out the casement window by my feet. They do that to all the new boys, and rare is the child who doesn't piss all over himself, or worse. Later, a big chunk of an alto named Gabriel Vance carved his initials into my rump, to show I was not my own anymore.

“Three times I ran away, and every time my father brought me back. My mother begged to keep me home one more year, but he held firm. Because he's such an honest tradesman, you see: he had made a bargain. I was bought and paid for. I saw the money change hands.”

I recalled Kit's father watching him in performance, standing afar off as though too humble to approach. Or too guilty. “Surely he didn't do it for the money. He must have thought it was best for you. Think of it: if you were in his place, and an agent from the Chapel told you that your only child is like a bright shining star in the firmament with a brilliant future, what would you say?”

He frowned, as though the question had not occurred to
him. “I would say … I would say, the boy is too young. Give him time. For God's sake, give him time. But time is the thing I never had.

“For once thrown into a viper's nest like the boys' hall in St. Paul's Chapel, you either fight your way to the top, or you sink under the heap. When I knew there would be no return, I set myself to go up, and fast. The road is clear marked: you work toward becoming the choirmaster's favorite, so he will give you solus parts, then you work to gain the attention of the voice instructor for the Chapel players and you work to catch the attention of men who matter. Along the way you hang a few little boys out of windows and carve your initials into a few rumps, so they'll know not to trifle with you. And once you've worked your way to the top of a children's company, you must begin plotting a way into a men's company, because by now you have gained the wit to know you won't be a boy forever.”

He began speaking faster. “I got that, too—the best place in the best company. Shouts from the crowd, and commendations from the Queen. Messages from women who wanted to meet me—women of all stations, all ages, with flattering lips. They'll set upon you, too.”

I felt my eyes widening, unsure whether I wished to follow this track. “Kit …”

“In short, I gained everything I could want from being the best boy player of London. Except, perhaps, a boyhood.”

I was thinking it would have been better for him if he had
not been so talented, so good at his profession. Better if he had stumbled at the beginning and gained his feet slowly, rather than shooting out like an arrow from the bow. And much better if he had started older, as I had, with some sense already of who he was. But he had been playing parts from the age of eight, putting on roles and taking them off with frantic speed. Which one was Kit? Or was he all, or none?

I spoke slowly, feeling my way. “Whatever happened to you in the past is beyond changing. It's there … to learn from.”

“True. I've learned that I'm done with the stage.”

“But that would be throwing away all your talent, all you've achieved!”

“And what's that?”

“A reputation; a name. Christopher Glover, if I mistake not.”

His gaze was fixed on the fire below. Now he looked up, and his eyes mirrored the light with a peculiar gleam. “You speak as if I would deny my name.”

“What?” The words sounded familiar.

“But I am Prince of Wales and think not, Percy, to share in glory any more.” Now I remembered: these were Hal's first words to Hotspur when they meet on Shrewsbury Field. “Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere. Nor shall one England brook a double reign.”

I marveled at how well he knew the lines. My own recall was much less certain, but the opportunity to play Hotspur
was too good to miss. “Nor shall it, Harry—for the hour is come, to … to … to end the one of us, and … Something about he wishes Hal had a name as bright as his so the glory of slaying him would be greater—”

“Never mind that.” Kit leapt down into the trap, then tossed up two straight sticks, each the length of a sword. Scrambling out of the pit, he cried, “All the budding honors on thy crest I'll crop to make a garland for my head!”

I barely had time to catch the stick he threw at me. “Wait! I didn't come to fight you! And I don't remember what comes next.”

“‘I'll no longer brook thy vanities!'” Kit rushed at me, and I had to defend myself.

The sticks were mostly green, with some bend to them; otherwise they would have snapped in that first exchange. Gradually my alarm faded as I realized he wasn't trying to kill me—we were merely playing parts. Or perhaps not “merely”— there was a fever in him to play this particular part. As for me, I made up my mind to give back as good as I got before Hotspur fell. To my surprise, for the first several minutes we were evenly matched—either I had greatly improved, or he was out of practice. I warded all his strokes and got in a few of my own. “Well struck!” he panted once, then went on to shout out Falstaff's line, with gleeful abandon: “Well said, Hal! To it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boys' play here!” Reddish light brimmed from the trap, casting a ghoulish glow as we circled around it.

It
was
no boys' play, even though we fought with sticks. He gave it his best, and so did I. In time, though, my treacherous right foot bent at the ankle and put me off balance, whereupon he slipped past my guard and poked me in the chest. Judging this a good time to fall, I stumbled back on one knee, crying, “Harry! … Um, Harry …”

“‘They have robbed me of my youth,'” he prompted, very solemn.

“Right.” Clutching my chest, I rolled to the floor. All I could remember of Hotspur's dying speech was the last line: “The cold hand of death lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust, and food for—”

Will Sly could die with a rattle in his throat that moved the coldest heart, but I simply choked on the last word and let my outstretched hand fall.

“—for worms, brave Percy,” Kit said, and went on to speak Hal's eulogy over his fallen foe. “Fare thee well, great heart:

Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk.
When that this body did contain a spirit
A kingdom for it was too small a bound.
But now two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough …
Adieu, and take thy praise to heaven …”

I wondered why he had stopped, for he was speaking well—better, perhaps, than Augustine Phillips in the same
part. “As for me …” Kit tossed the stick aside and spread his arms wide. “Happy garb, that ends my vile disgrace: Ye fates, bear me up to an honorable place!”

He crashed to the floor with his head near to mine and burst out laughing. I laughed too, partly from exhaustion, aware that we had never shared such a moment. Nor would we be doing it now, except that he was a little drunk and I more than a little confounded. Even after the laughter subsided, I felt him shake and pound the floor, from mirth or rage. “You should have taken Hal's part,” he said after a while. “I could do worse than die like Hotspur.”

“Why don't you live like Hal? Cast aside your worthless companions and assume your rightful place.”

“I cry you mercy.” His voice thinned with sarcasm. “What if I am in my rightful place at this moment? Isn't my reputation wrecked on the shores of Hebrides, as Master Heminges would have it?”

A wintry wind breathed over us, drying the sweat on me as my flesh clenched up in a shiver. “You're only seventeen. And Hal overcame his reputation.”

“At too high a cost,” he shot back.

“
Too
high? Giving up the Boar's Head Tavern, to gain a crown?”

“Look you—” He propped himself on one elbow. “Hal is a figure in a play, made up to please the public. Besides, he's a hypocrite: not too proud to gad about with common folk but when the time comes, he'll scrub them off like lice.” Kit
lowered himself to the floor again. “My folly was to mistake copper crowns for gold. To think that acting noble makes one noble.”