‘Here I go,’ he thought, and licked dry lips.
Gus Phillips strode out to some applause. ‘O for a muse of fire,’ he declared, ‘that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.’
Leashes were slipped. They were off. He took a deep breath. It had been a while. Two years . . . almost to the day, he reckoned, since the punch that felled Will Kemp. But the clown was gone now, quitting the Chamberlain’s Men even as they moved into their new premises, his antics both off stage and on finally too much for his fellow players.
Before the curtain, the Chorus was speaking of planting proud hooves; behind it, John considered the roles he’d inherited from flux-stricken Sam Gisburne, after his sobriety and modest behaviour had impressed all. Not too taxing for a return after a fair absence – one bishop, one traitor and one French lord – together with his body in the fights on both sides. Since he had set these, he was confident he could remember them. His lines, though . . .
He licked his lips again – God’s teeth, it was becoming a habit! – and looked to see one coming towards him who must have sensed his concern and swooped, like a red kite falling on offal. ‘Do not worry, Father,’ said Ned Lawley, all mock solemn. ‘The groundlings may forgive the memory of so old a man.’ He grinned. ‘Just try not to trip over your skirts as you enter.’
John gripped the fingers held out to him and twisted them, eliciting a yelp. ‘Respect for the aged, boy,’ he growled, then pulled his son into a brief clasp before moving past and joining the Archbishop before the curtained entrance.
‘Ready, John?’ enquired the appropriately named Master Pope.
‘As I’ll ever be, Thom.’
‘Then let us to it.’
To pipes wheezing the approximation of a Te Deum, John Lawley walked out for the first time on to the platform of the Globe. Once upon it, fears were dispelled by the familiarity of the situation. In truth, he had little enough to do and did it fine; free, for the most part, to stand at the back in an attitude of attention, and study the house as he had not before. As an actor.
What a playhouse! The first that ever was built, under the players’ strict supervision, for themselves. Tiers of galleries rose before and around the platform, with noblemen or the richer of the gentry in boxes closest to the stage. Their inferiors, those who could or would not pay the extra penny for a seat, stood in the yard, their eyes level with the players’ feet. Yet these groundlings had as good a view as their betters, could as well take in the gorgeous surroundings. John had stood out there with them, been as dazzled, smiling as he thought of his friend Will, who was thought to possess the first penny he’d ever earned, parting with many to create this wonder. The pillars that supported the roof over the stage were beautifully faux-marbled, Corinthian-crowned in glittering gilt, while every gallery was fronted in polished wood and, on their lowest levels, had bronzed statues supporting the ones above. The purpose was to create wonder, to open the spectator’s mind to the possibilities of magic, then to focus his imagination on the plain wooden scaffold which, except for the odd statue, stool or chest, rarely had anything upon it but men and boys, sumptuously clad, their clothes all the brighter for the simplicity of the setting. Everything was shaped to these ends: to transport the audience to higher realms and foreign lands, to send them out at play’s end entranced and, especially, to make them eager to return and part with more coin on the morrow.
Yet all is mere gilding, John thought. For at bottom, what are they truly here for? Words. Ink once on the playwright’s pen, transformed to energy and thence delight through skilled men’s mouths. John had little doubt that the audience was being so transported, just as he had been from the first time he’d watched the players in an inn yard in Much Wenlock; finding himself not in Shropshire, but in Athens as both blind Oedipus and himself did weep.
He looked out – and frowned. Not so much because the house was scarce a third full. The Globe was built to hold three thousand, so even such a proportion meant takings of seven pounds, not too bad for a hot August day. No, it was more the faces. These did not accord with his thoughts. They did not look transported. They looked . . . sullen.
He glanced at his fellows. Burbage was talking balls – the Dauphin’s tennis ones, transformed to gun stones. Yet he was not speaking with his customary subtlety, was trying to force a passion he appeared not to feel.
The scene ended. The court swept off, with Thom Pope muttering as he passed, ‘I told them this one was played out. But would they heed me?’
Swiftly exchanging the robes of priesthood for the livery of the traitor, Scroop, John kept an ear on the stage. For Ned was upon it, in his largest role so far, and the first one not in a dress. He was playing the Boy, apprentice to the rogues, a cherubic contrast to the cauliflower-nosed Bardolph. And from the laughter, it appeared he was playing the opposite well. John was happy – and, he admitted, a little envious. The boy inherited his comic skills from him, after all. He wished any of his roles contained even one laugh. Perhaps there was something he could do with Scroop. ‘Scroop . . . stoop,’ he muttered. Strapping on his sword, he entered with his fellow conspirators.
Treason and dispatch! This was better, for Londoners were attuned to whispers of conspiracy, especially that summer; all knew the Queen was under constant threat of assassination. So when their plot was uncovered and they were condemned by the King, John got some hisses for his craven pleading and one laugh as he was bundled into the trapdoor after his fellows – and his stiff leg got stuck. Pleased, he descended into Hell, as the understage was known, and scuttled between the columns that supported the stage above. He had a little while before his next incarnation as Lord Rambures, and only a fleur-de-lis surplice to throw over his armour in exchange for the cross of St George. Meantime, Ned’s largest speech was coming and John wished to hear if his advice for its delivery had been heeded.
Emerging from Hell into the storage space behind it, John wove between a cornucopia of costumes and props from other plays. All that was necessary to the day was above at the level of the stage, so here he saw Roman shields and swords, Bottom’s ass head, clothes on hook and hanger. Pausing at a rack to finger a maroon velvet doublet he recognised, he chuckled. His friend had once lent him Don Pedro’s guise when he was wet. Perhaps he would let him wear it correctly one day if they revived Much Ado – and he continued both in sobriety and in the company’s good graces, of course.
‘I was unaware, Master Lawley, that I had written the character of the conspirator Scroop with a limp.’ The voice came sternly from right behind the doublet. ‘While I am also certain that Gisburne does not avail himself of one.’
John parted the costumes, revealing a cramped alcove, a lantern lighting papers a-muddle on a table. Behind it sat William Shakespeare. His quill was poised above parchment and in alignment with his nose, making the shaft of a T that his raised eyebrows completed across the high dome of his forehead.
‘Limp?’ repeated John innocently, stepping between the dangling clothes. ‘Oh, you mean the wound I took at Zutphen?’ He bent, rubbed at one knee. ‘It plagues me sometimes, Will.’
‘Strange.’ The playwright scratched between his brows with the feathery end. ‘For I have never noted it upon the street, and yet there, upon the stage, it was . . . pronounced. Clump, clump, clump. It echoed back here. I thought my new theatre was ready to fall about my ears.’ He sighed. ‘How goes it out there?’
‘With me?’
‘I know how it goes with you, John. Clump, clump, clump. The words “duck” and “water” come to mind.’ He shook his head. ‘I was referring to the whole piece, not your expanded part within it.’
‘Ah.’ John found a small unoccupied corner of desk to set a buttock on. ‘’Tis barely a third full and the crowd . . . restless, I would say.’
‘Restless? Aye, the citizens of London have not had much rest of late. And this play that once so distracted them from their woes now worries them, like a burr under a saddle cloth. They take . . . dif
ferent things from it now.’
John studied his friend. He had not seen that much of him, despite his daily attendance at the theatre. Will was in a fever of writing, squirrelled away at his new lodgings near the Clink gaol. He played only rarely and if he must, hiding between scenes, quill in hand, scratching. His fingers were as ever ink-stained, his brow ploughed with new furrows. Careworn, thought John, and regretted briefly any lines he might have added. Though in truth, when he had suggested a theme that would please the Queen – a play to suit the martial times and help inspire an army for Essex – the playwright had needed little persuasion. Such a piece was already half in his mind, he’d said, and the famous story of Henry the Fifth had brought crowds to the old Curtain playhouse in April and, even more importantly, to the new Globe when it opened in July. The crowds had cheered it, just as they had cheered the noble earl when he set out from London for the Irish wars.
It was as if Will read his thoughts. ‘I’ve excised it, you know. That speech. You will not hear it played this day.’
John nodded. Her majesty was known for her meddling across the affairs of the realm. When it was seen that her wish was being acted upon, a further note came from the palace requesting that Master Shakespeare set down some few words in his play that spoke directly to the situation. Reluctantly Will had inserted the lines, some of which he’d taken from the earl’s own lips that night at Whitehall in the palace yard:
Were now the General of our gracious Empress
As in good time he may – from Ireland coming
Bringing rebellion broach’d on his sword . . .
It had gotten cheers in April. In August it got jeers – and flung fruit. ‘Wise, I think,’ John murmured.
‘Tell me,’ Will continued, in a lower voice, ‘for I have been distracted. What news from Ireland?’
‘There is never news from Ireland.’ John’s voice lowered to match his friend’s. ‘Cecil has forbidden news on pain of imprisonment, unless he issues it. But there is always its companion, rumour. Whispers on the street.’
‘Then tell me those. For you know ’tis my delight to give those whispers echo on my stage.’
Both men glanced around, then John leaned nearer. ‘Tess has had a letter from her – ’ he shuddered – ‘affianced. Combined with what I have heard in taverns from some returning soldiers . . . it does not go well for my lord in Ireland.’
‘Then your whispers agree with mine. Gus Phillips has a brother there – and a letter arrived only yesterday saying that the earl has at last acceded to the Queen’s commandment and marched north from Dublin to confront the rebel Tyrone.’
John nodded – and once more gave silent thanks to God or the Devil for sending astray every messenger that Essex had sent in search of him. He had made himself most hard to find in the dank boltholes of Southwark; waiting it out till the earl’s butterfly attention alighted elsewhere. He had also sent one note, telling Essex that as soon as his recurrent fever passed – a fever, he gently reminded, that he had contracted during his time in a Spanish gaol, after saving his lordship’s life in Cadiz – he would hasten to join him, bringing men and weapons. No reply had found him; and he had stayed indoors when Essex rode to such acclaim from London that late March day, so avoiding the chill he would undoubtedly have contracted when the skies opened over Islington and soaked the bravely marching men and their plumed leader. From what little had been heard from Ireland, his subterfuge appeared a better choice each day.
‘It seems a hopeless task,’ Will continued, once more voicing John’s thoughts, ‘for rumour also whispers that his own are less than half the Irish forces, with half of those diseased.’
‘He should be happy then,’ John grunted. ‘With those odds he will have to win as famous a victory as Harry did at Agin Court.’
As he spoke, a great shout came, and the clumping of many boots. A deep voice boomed. He listened to Burbage’s exhortations breachward. Teeth were being set, nostrils stretched wide. He stood. ‘I should go. Ned’s speech comes.’
‘He grows by the hour, your Ned. I think his bent is more for comedy. As we shall see tomorrow.’ Will smiled. ‘Does he like the role I have created for him?’
‘The wanton country lass? I think he relishes it. Though being raised entirely in Southwark, he needed to be informed both of their accent and of their . . . somewhat different ways.’
‘And from your vast experience of these, you duly informed him? Good.’ Will nodded. ‘Well, I hope that As You Like It delights as Harry Five no longer does.’
‘Nothing for me in it, though?’
Will smiled. ‘Small steps, John. You have shown restraint of late and served us well. The fights continue to thrill, at least . . .’
‘Thank ye.’
‘. . . but certain of the sharers remain to be convinced of your conversion. Let As You pass.’ He gestured to the papers before him. ‘There may be something here for you, though. We will need strong men.’
‘Another tragedy?’
‘Tragedy and history both. I attempt a life . . . and attempt the life . . . of Caesar. Though truly it is more a portrait of his assassins.’
John had taken a step away. Now he stepped back. ‘Caesar? Conspiracy and murder? Coup and counter? Is that wise with what is happening out there?’
‘I write it because of what is happening out there.’ Shakespeare’s eyes gleamed. ‘You know what we do, John. Our company is different because we do not give the people only food for their stomachs. We feed their minds too. Since they cannot talk of news upon the streets for fear of spies and inquisitors, they can hear it talked of here, within this wooden O. They see Caesar’s fall, Rome’s state shaken, while outside they witness each day soldiers in arms upon the streets of London, the unceasing threats to our sovereign and her state. Their unrelieved thoughts swell into a boil’ – he jabbed with his quill – ‘and I lance it. I do not suggest a cure. But at least I attend to the symptoms.’
Above, Burbage was building to a shout. ‘So, Physician,’ John said, ‘who is the hero of the piece, as Henry is of this? Caesar or Brutus? Monarch or rebel?’
‘Neither.’ Shakespeare shrugged. ‘For the whispers on the street also tell me this: these days people are believing less and less . . . in heroes.’ He rose. ‘Come. I must into the garb of the King of France. What follows for you? ’Tis Rambures, yes?’ He clapped a hand on John’s shoulder. ‘Does the French lord also have a limp?’
‘I thought perhaps a st . . . st . . . stammer,’ John replied, his face sober.
‘God a mercy! You dragged one of those out for hours in Melton Mowbray! Consider, John. We have a new play to present on the morrow. We would not hear the chimes at midnight.’ His smile faded, his voice lowered again. ‘I heard another rumour. Or was it speculation? That all those soldiers on the street are not to repulse the Spanish. No one truly believes their Armada will come now. Few believe any more that it was ever intended.’
‘Then why has a nation been in arms these long hot months?’ John asked. ‘Why have yeomen been held from their fields and merchants from their trade?’
‘Can you not guess?’ Will pulled his friend closer, his voice descending again to a whisper. ‘Master Secretary Cecil keeps an army in the field in case his rival Essex should bring his back with him from Ireland. It is not Tyrone’s rebellion he truly fears . . . but Robert Devereux’s.’
Will released him, moved to the stair, but John remained for a moment, considering. London had indeed been abuzz with the Spanish threat and the forces raised to counter it, citizens mustered by ward or guild to defend the realm. Almost daily reports had the enemy landing, repulsed, marching on the capital, sailing up the Thames. Parchments found on dunghills had Papist assassins lurking in every long shadow, graffiti had Elizabeth dead or fled. But this was not 1588, with a nation rallied. Eleven years later, the Queen did not appear in armour at Tilbury. The populace had grown tired of false war, only to be roused again by another threat that also was not deliv
ered. So while the players above him now told a tale of patriotism, the playwright added stronger spice for a hungry people to feed upon. If the French were thrashed again at Agin Court and a nation cheered, men and boys died horrible deaths while cowards plundered for themselves. Not all was glory, within the wooden O or beyond it.
Shaking his head, John followed Will up the stair and into the tiring house. While his friend donned the robes of the French monarch, he doffed St George’s cross and pulled on the fleur-de-lis. While he did, he heard Ned speak his lines – boldly, cheekily, in the accent of the streets he was raised in. He got his laughs. Will was right: the lad’s bent was to humour, and he looked forward to seeing him on the morrow once more in a dress, in the new comedy. He would watch from the galleries, pay the extra pennies for the place, two cushions and a bag of cob nuts – to share. For he would have a companion, one he had been as carefully, soberly, wooing over the summer as he had the players. Perhaps he would take her hand as they watched their son. He might even venture so much.
Tess! The thought of her, and how she had agreed to accompany him to the play, focused him. He spoke his remaining few lines stammer-less.
And then he had a sword in his hand.
The man he’d replaced, Sam Gisburne, was a good fighter, one of the more skilled in the company, having served some time in the army. So John had placed him in combat against Burbage, who, though nimble and swift, tended to remember his many lines better than he did his cuts, thrusts and parries.
Now it was John’s turn to manage him. And this day the player was also angry – at the poor house, at their inattention. The King came scything in, a great overhead swoosh fit to cleave a skull when he should have gently lunged. Taking the blow on his shield and high to lessen the force, John let the other’s blade slide across the wood, before slashing hard at Burbage’s face. The player was up the stage and John down, so most of the audience was behind John’s back and the blow looked a lot closer than it was. A section gasped . . . and it startled Burbage, no matter that it never truly threatened to mar his beauty. With half a dozen others clattering together and trying to represent the combined might of France and England, the noise was enough for John to hiss, ‘My eyes!’ and not be heard by any but the man he fought. Burbage did hear, looked, nodded. He was back, John’s partner again, each man in each other’s eyes as they alternated attack and defence.
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