Master of the Revels

by Nicole Galland

  Will, in slow motion, looked around the room as if curious about something he could not quite put his finger on.

  “Will!” said Ned. “Will, what happened?”

  “Let’s get him home,” I said.

  “He’s going nowhere until he explains himself,” said the landlord, even as the musician pushed through the crowd and announced, “He owes me a fiddle!”

  Will looked at the musician, almost sorrowfully. “Did I break your viol, sir?”

  The man, still pale and trembling, held up the instrument.

  “Here’s silver for it,” said Will, as if entranced. He slowly reached for his belt, but Ned stepped between them.

  “Come you tomorrow to the Globe Theatre,” he told the musician. “I will be there, I’ll attend to this. Your fiddle looks past mending.”

  “Indeed!”

  “Bring the bill of sale for a new one. John Heminge will take care of it if I’m not there.”

  “’Tisn’t as simple as—”

  “Come ye tomorrow to the Globe and we shall sort it. My brother’s injured and I must nurse him now.”

  The musician gave Ned an unhappy look, but the landlord said, “I’ll vouchsafe them. Will, let’s get you sat down and have a talk about what’s just happened here.”

  “And see to his arm,” I added. “I think he’s dislocated his shoulder.” Will was rubbing his left shoulder and elbow gingerly, examining his upper arm.

  For about ten minutes, there was a lot of confusion among the remaining patrons, which the landlord’s family tried to calm; we ignored it, to get Will comfortable, finding a stool and a cushion for him to sit beside the tapster’s station. We tried to coax from him a sense of what had happened—or what he perceived had happened—when he went downstairs. He still looked calmly confused.

  “I came downstairs because we’d been spied on, and I saw the spy talking with you,” he said to the landlord. “A shortish fellow in a dark cloak.”

  The landlord shook his head. “Just before the commotion, do you mean? No, there was none by me. I was collecting the dregs of the night, everyone had gone to the back room for a final dance.”

  “But you saw me coming downstairs, surely,” said Will.

  The landlord frowned and shook his head. “Sorry, Will, I didn’t.”

  “I . . . greeted you,” said Will uncertainly.

  “You did not, my friend. I saw you go up the stairs, and next I saw you was just now in the back room with a bruised shoulder.”

  The four of us exchanged looks. “There must be some witching to this,” said Will in a tone of confession and apology. “I can think of no other explanation.”

  The landlord, a large man with rough fingers, folded his meaty arms before his chest. “A witch came into my tavern, disguised as a bear, and tried to kill you, but failed.”

  Will considered this, then nodded. “I think so.”

  “That makes no sense at all,” said the fellow.

  Will continued to nod. “I agree, and yet ’tis so.”

  The landlord opened his mouth to speak and then stopped himself, considered his thoughts, began to speak again, again stopped himself, and then began a third time. “I leave it to you and the witch to sort out your differences,” he said at last, “but I cannot welcome you here again until you’re sorted.”

  “Of course,” said Ned, reaching for his purse. “And as for the damages—”

  Will’s eyes brightened. “Tell your regulars it went exactly as intended. ’Tis a stage trick for a play we will be presenting next season. Didn’t it go off well?”

  The landlord gave him a look. “You’re writing a play about a murderous bear.”

  “I am now,” said Will. He stood. “Let us to Silver—oh.” He sat again quickly. “Oh. I am unsteady yet.”

  “Let the wife bandage your shoulder with a poultice,” said the landlord. He looked at Ned. “If there be witchery, get you home at once to put charms against it at your threshold. I’ll do the like here.” He lowered his voice. “I know a crucifix will drive the devil out, but better yet I’d make a witch bottle with nails and urine.”

  Ned nodded with an expression that suggested: Well, of course, who wouldn’t?

  “I’ll walk him home, after Kate’s seen to his shoulder and I’ve shut up here for the night,” said the landlord. “You and the lad go now. ’Tis safest that way.”

  Notes written on the back of a Union Jack banner announcement, in the hand of Edmund Shakespeare, in haste, late the night of 13 April 1606, Cheapside, London

  . . . So comes it that the “youth” Robin and myself, having left the Mitre tap-house in some amazement from our brush with witchery, are walking through the stinking night alleys of Cheapside, sauntering towards Silver Street, not so much as a lantern to light our way, only the uneven illumination from sundry taverns on our route, the light flickering wanly out of windows onto the uneven and rough-finished cobbles. We walk shoulder to shoulder, or rather say elbow to arm, as I am taller than my good Robin by a head.

  Northwards we stride, Robin on my right, when of a sudden, from the yawning shadows behind, a brigand clasps hands on Robin and shoves the “youth” hard into the darkness, then—I being the better dressed, and so presumably the one carrying lucre—grabs my cloak and yanks it down until, having pulled me off balance, he does wheel me round and shove me up against the nearby wall, his hand clapped hard to my shoulder to keep me fast. His cap is pulled low o’er his face and I can see nothing but a glint of evil mirth in’s eyes, no other human feature visible. His breath reeks of ale, his breath is laboured but steady; he is a professional cutpurse, sure. Such a man will not hesitate to kill his prey if it gets him what he seeks. On reflex, raise I my arm to toss him off me, but then I see him draw his own arm far back, level to the ground, and comes in at me with a thrust, a dagger aimed right at my throat.

  I hold up my hands to show I will not struggle, but undeterred the footpad is, and still the deadly tip of the dagger is making for my larynx . . . when suddenly, lo!

  Into this perilous scene young Robin hurls “himself,” shoves me bodily out of the way with such energy that the thief’s hand clapped to my shoulder falls away like snow. Having drawn all the attacker’s focus to “himself,” Robin wields “his” heavy cloak in frenzied fanlike movements, the weight of it interfering and repeatedly dashing the robber’s hopes of driving home a thrust. Then doffing “his” cap in the other hand, Robin flourishes this as a buckler and swashes away another quick thrust.

  Myself, having recovered balance in the darkness on that stinking lane, would of course have offered assistance to dear Robin, but now the desperado shifts his angle and thrusts one final time at Robin, who steps adroitly aside, then (after dropping both cloak and cap into the grime) gripping the bandit’s wrist from the side, with thumb on the outside and fingers on the inside, squeezing the fleshy heel of the thumb so hard that the foe’s hand curls from the force of it, weakening the grip and changing the angle of the weapon, and then does Robin, with the flat of “his” hand, smack the side of the blade and so disarm the churl. The dagger clatters to the street and bounces . . . but remains in reach.

  Barely has time elapsed long enough to blink and blink again.

  But Robin is not satisfied. Stepping onto the blade to secure it, “he” squeezes the enemy’s dirt-encrusted wrist harder and then, with both hands, spreads by force the yokel’s palm full open, and now twists the fellow’s wrist roughly in an outward arc, forcing the fellow’s whole body to follow after (else risk his wrist and elbow being snapped). Hoping yet to avoid a fall, the fellow grabs hard at the neck of Robin’s doublet—but anticipating this, does young Robin’s own hand rise to meet the fellow’s, pressing “his” thumb against the flat of the purse-snatcher’s thumbnail and (as I could make it out) squeezing back and down so hard that the man, he yelps and falls to his knees in a desperate attempt to avoid the pressure Robin is applying.

  So now the brigand is on his knees, eac
h of his hands still gripped by each of Robin’s. He yanks his left hand free of Robin’s clutch, with a clear aim to push Robin’s foot off the weapon and retrieve it for himself. To which Robin says, seeing his intention, “Think not on that, sirrah,” and when the oaf does not heed this, Robin twists his wrist hard, saying louder, “I jest not, sirrah, forsooth, think not on that,” so that the cutpurse, cringing, raises his free hand in surrender to demonstrate he will not think on it. At this point he is gasping with amazement and very nearly on the edge of tears. “But she said naught of your defences,” he complained, and at that moment, I myself step in to bring an end to all this conflict, and with a hearty roundhouse do I bludgeon our assailant in the face, leaving him blank-eyed in the dirt.

  “Truly,” says Robin with a cross look, “that was uncalled for, Ned! Now we cannot question him who she is.”

  “I would not believe a word he spoke anyhow,” I rejoined. “’Twould be a waste of time.”

  And thus do we leave our foe vanquished in the gutter and continue on our way home.

  ROBIN’S MID-ACTION REPORT, STRAND 1, NEW PLAN (CONT.)

  Entering into the rooms on Silver Street, we sank onto stools beside the large central table and took turns swigging from Will’s best bottle of brandy-wine.

  “Glad not every day’s like this one,” said Ned.

  “Oh, hush, you got through it unscathed,” I said.

  Ned fidgeted a bit, drew a long suck from the bottle. Then he blurted out, “I confess shame you had to rescue me rather than my rescuing you.” He handed me the bottle.

  I tipped my head back for the dregs but there was nothing left. “The only thing you should be ashamed of is passing me an empty bottle,” I groused, and stood up. “You saved me from the chandelier, remember? I owed you, and now the debt it paid. Where does your brother stash his spirits?”

  “On that shelf beyond the bed. But ’tisn’t the role of a woman to go rescuing a man.”

  “By my era, we see things differently,” I said firmly, and felt around in the dark corner for the shelf. I was still shaking from the encounter with the cutpurse and didn’t trust myself to hold a candle.

  He considered what I’d said and then grinned sheepishly. “My desire to be chivalrous must strike you as backward, then.”

  “You’re not backward,” I assured him. “Quite the opposite.”

  He stood up, mouth wide in comical protest. “Are you accusing me of being too forward?” He joined me in feeling around for the bottle, his own body casting a shadow that impeded him. “Haven’t I given myself a crick in the neck from sleeping on the floor all week? Would a forward man do that?”

  “That could be part of your strategy,” I said, and added (quoting Lady Macbeth), “Look like the innocent flower / But be the serpent under’t.”

  He took two steps along the shelf so that we were beside each other. He looked me full in the face and pushed me by the shoulder, playfully, so that I stumbled back and steadied myself on a pile of books at the far end of the shelf. Without taking his eyes from mine, Ned leaned in close to me and I thought he was going to kiss me. No. He shoved the books off the shelf with one hand, so that my upper body lurched backward toward Will’s canopied bed and I had to grab at a bedpost to keep from falling onto it. With a meaningful smile, he took a step and closed his hand over mine on the bedpost. “I’d love to be the serpent in your innocent flower.”

  “How do you know my flower’s innocent?” I asked.

  He looked surprised and delighted. “In truth, I hope ’tisn’t too innocent,” he said. He leaned in over me, his features sharpened in the candlelight. “I hope ’tis knowledgeable of certain things.”

  “You must test my knowledge by knowing me,” I said.

  He wasn’t expecting quite that inviting an answer. I could see him blush and adjust his stance a little as his codpiece twitched. “You must be a witch,” he said after a moment. “Else I would not be so enchanted.”

  “Enchantment, is it? Where I come from we call that an erection.”

  There was no morning-after weirdness, and even if there was you wouldn’t want to hear about it, so I’ll just skip to the part where we slept really well, and then were cheerfully up and dressed before Will was home.

  Will returned on his own, without assistance, after spending the night in the care of the landlord and his wife. Between them all they could not puzzle together what happened the night before, but it seemed obvious to me Gráinne was prepared to fucking murder William Shakespeare in order to make sure her nasty spells were recited onstage. (He hasn’t written King Lear yet, so clearly it is not his time.) (Although it wouldn’t be a travesty if he bought the farm before Henry VIII. Seriously.)

  The pain and bruises from the bear encounter were inexplicably gone. Will could move his arm without difficulty, as if nothing had happened to him. Maybe the landlord’s wife was a witch? In any case, his only take-away was now he wanted to write a bear cameo into one of his plays.

  The brothers headed for the Globe, and I hoofed it up to Rose’s for a Tristan update. I was a wreck, traveling on my own. Tristan hadn’t arrived in 1606 yet. (Still kind of a mind-fuck that in my experience of reality he isn’t here or there, while in his own experience of reality he’s here until he’s there.)

  After Rose’s I went to Tilney’s.

  Strictly speaking there was no reason to keep working at the Revels Office, since we were going to perform the play with Shakespeare’s lines regardless of what was in the licensed script. But Mel has said that until a DEDE is accomplished, it’s SOP to maintain the status quo. Which means that until Macbeth opens (and Tristan shows up and then I save his butt), I continue to work for Tilney.

  I’d explained this to Will, who’d informed Heminge (the company manager) that he wanted me to spy in Tilney’s office, because of the new anti-blaspheming laws. Since the three witches were all lodging together, Will explained, we’d rehearse our scenes at home in the evenings, and the prompter needn’t worry himself about it.

  So now I hustled myself to the Revels Office, rehearsing my swagger and man-voice, and upon being admitted to the Master, I groveled and apologized and said there’d been an illness in the family that accounted for my truancy. He wasn’t pleased.

  When we got through with the groveling bit, he instructed me to resume my decluttering. He himself was semi-kinetic all day, meaning the big table was free, so I began making orderly piles on it. It was a little like doing my taxes. (If you’re an actor, you can make practically your whole life a business expense as long as you have the receipts, so I was an ace at this part.)

  Tilney would stride in about every quarter hour, look over my shoulder, pull some document out of one pile, and stride back out. A lot of other people were also in and out of the room. Because I was in an enclosed space where guards patrolled, I felt safe for the first time since the Chandelier Event. After an hour or so, I stopped doing double takes when somebody entered. Mostly it was men, of course, and some boys, checking the rehearsal schedule or looking up an invoice or just seeking the boss man to answer a query. But shortly before the dinner break, two underweight, pale young gentlewomen appeared, accompanied by a fatherly chaperone. They wanted Master Tilney to show them their dresses for their dance cameo in The Masque of Lightness.

  They could not stop tittering when they looked at me. In my deepest voice, I directed them downstairs to the costume shop. They held hands and exchanged looks that made them titter even harder, and I tensed up as I realized they could tell I was a woman. They were laughing from nerves—they didn’t know what to do with their insight. Their ridiculous behavior would out me, even if they didn’t intend to.

  When they turned to leave the room, one of them said over her shoulder in a stage whisper, “We find you ever so handsome, sir!” After more tittering, they exited with their guardian.

  I did some deep breathing until my blood pressure chilled a little and then returned to sorting.

  About a quarte
r hour later, an attractive, buxom woman in a simple woolen dress came bounding into the room. Assuming she was attending the gigglers, I used my manly-man voice to inform her: “The Master is downstairs in Costumes with your mistresses.”

  She looked at me. And then didn’t stop looking. She was staring. With a knowing, amused expression that bordered on a sneer. And with that same clenching in my gut, I thought, She knows I’m a woman, now I’m fucked. I could feel my pulse in my neck so clearly I think it must have been visible to her. I stood there, trying to look innocent and manly, waiting for her to call me out. I reviewed my mental diagram of the building and mapped out three different escape routes, depending on what kind of alarm she raised and who chased after me.

  “You,” she declared at last, still grinning.

  “Me?” I said, forcing myself to grin back. The effect was dorky.

  She laughed. “Not as quick as Tristan, are you, lass?”

  The grin fell off my face.

  Eyes sparkling, she nodded. “Not a pure eejit, at least, you’re figuring it out.”

  “I wot not what you speak of,” I protested, and made a show of returning my attention to sorting the invoices. I could actually see my hands shaking, and I pressed them against the table as though trying to scrape some wax off the surface.

  “Don’t be bothering with artifice, lass,” she said breezily, and stepped farther into the room. “’Tis just some questions I have, and then we can get on with things.”

  “Questions about hosiery?” I asked, grabbing some receipts and waving them purposelessly at her. “That’s all I’m good for. If you’ll excuse me—”

  “I’ll be excusin’ you in my own time and my own way,” said Gráinne, as if she were doing me a favor. “Look at me, lass.”

  I didn’t. I pressed the receipts back onto the table and cemented my gaze to them as if my life depended on not looking up because that was probably the case.

  “Ms. Lyons,” she said in an arch tone, and goddammit, I glanced up reflexively at my own name. She seemed delighted with herself—so lusciously, joyfully so, that I found myself thinking, It’s too bad she’s a bitch. If only we could be buds, she’d be so much damn fun to hang out with! And then I thought, Well, why can’t we be friends? I mean, we’re professional rivals, but, like, so are Venus and Serena Williams and they hang out together all the time off the court, because sisters, right? She just seemed so cool and I really wanted her to like me, the way I haven’t wanted anyone to like me since I was about thirteen, and her smile was so welcoming it seemed pretty clear that if I just told her what she wanted to hear she would reward me with unwavering friendly—holy shit.