by Neal Roberts
Henry smirks. “Oh, Marlowe worships a god, all right. Trouble is, his first name is Kit.”
In the vacant box, a page enters first, bearing a grave expression, comporting himself in a most dignified military manner. A sword with a golden hilt hangs at his side. Even at this distance, Noah can see that the real gold of the handle shames the painted props onstage. The page solemnly lights several candles with a long match.
Henry taps Noah’s leg with the back of his hand and motions for him to rise. “It’s Essex!” he whispers. Henry gathers his substantial girth and hoists himself to his feet, grimacing in evident pain. Though he is only in his early thirties (he will never give the precise date of his birth), his gout evidently proceeds apace, just as his father’s did.
Noah gathers his black robes and rises at Henry’s side, awaiting the arrival of the great man. Five more pages enter the box, equally dignified but not nearly so resplendent as the first, and disperse in grim military fashion to either side. The audience murmurs. Next to enter the box are four silent, beautifully attired couples, each careful to avoid looking at the gawping crowd, though clearly aware of its rapt attention. Couple by couple, they assume their seats near the rear of the box until only two seats remain vacant at the front.
Through the box’s open entrance, Noah can see a handsome gentleman unhurriedly removing his gloves and nonchalantly handing them to a valet, then jutting his elbow out to be taken by someone as yet unseen. Henry mutters, “Earl of Southampton, that!”
A dazzlingly bejeweled sword handle flashes into view, then a jewel-bedecked doublet. In a breathtaking portrait of noble English youth, the Earls of Essex and Southampton stride proudly into view, arm in arm, smiling broadly. The crowd erupts into deafening cheers and applause. A few hats fly into the air.
The two earls stand abreast at the front of the box. Southampton smiles glowingly at Essex, steps aside, and bows to him theatrically, on behalf of the whole crowd. He rises and, with upturned palms, silently presents Essex to the exultant crowd. The roar grows to a din. Onstage, the players clap, and beam toward the box. Marlowe, now visible to the audience, stands alone and applauds politely, a painted smile on his face that never quite reaches his eyes.
Smiling and applauding, Henry turns to Noah and leans toward him to shout above the noise. “The players applaud the audience. Which is the performance, I wonder? All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
Essex surveys the assemblage and bows dramatically, his hand flowing before him with utmost elegance. To Noah’s amazement, Essex’s eye seeks out Henry onstage. Seemingly oblivious to the crowd, Essex rakishly raises his right hand to his eyebrow and shoots Henry an intimate smile. Imperceptibly to all but Noah, Henry flinches. Every eye vainly scans the stage, seeking out the object of Essex’s attention, but Henry gives the curious crowd no clue that Essex’s attention is directed to him alone. Noah carefully avoids looking toward Henry, who evidently covets his anonymity.
The play resumes, filled with much abuse of Barabas the Jew, which is then avenged by the most abominable acts imaginable. The Jew seems perversely to exult in the Christian abuse he suffers, however much he rails at it (the better to pardon his increasingly vicious crimes). He seems impelled to justify himself aloud, heaping scorn upon gentiles, which includes the whole audience.
It’s unclear to Noah whether these endless expositions are spoken for the edification of other characters, of the audience, or of the Jew himself. More than likely, they were written by Marlowe for Marlowe to enjoy while watching his audience squirm. Indeed, of all current playwrights, it is Marlowe who cultivates the most intimate relationship with his audience, sometimes caressing his crowd of paying intimates, but sometimes (as now) slapping them in the face.
For each Christian injustice, Barabas exacts a most draconian penalty. He sets one young man against another, to do each other to death. He poisons his own daughter for having had the audacity to become a Christian nun, and then poisons the rest of the convent for good measure. At last, his intended victims turn the tables on him, and boil him in the very cauldron he intended for them.
The play concludes. For this debut performance, the troupe foregoes the usual parting song and dance. Instead, the players take their bows downstage, in groups of two or three, to universal applause.
The actor playing Barabas comes to the fore alone, still wearing his character’s black gabardine robes and diabolical makeup. The crowd erupts, simultaneously hissing and applauding, smiling all the while. The player beams, greatly satisfied by the simultaneous condemnation of the character he has portrayed, and approval of his satisfying portrayal. He brings his finger to his lips to silence the crowd. Amid the tumult, his voice now seems small.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he shouts, “I give you the playwright, Christopher Marlowe.”
The groundlings erupt in huzzahs. Even in the boxes, everyone rises to applaud. The last holdouts are Essex and Southampton. Although Southampton soon rises enthusiastically, he notices that Essex remains seated. Lighting again on his own chair, he pleads earnestly with Essex, who nods indulgently, and the two rise together, applauding the playwright. Essex’s smile toward Marlowe is no less forced than Marlowe’s toward Essex. The audience turns again toward the earls’ box, and cheers a final time. Ignoring the crowd, the earls depart unhurriedly, chatting amiably with the other occupants of their box.
The groundlings slowly file out, a few imitating Barabas’ more flamboyantly villainous gestures to the delight of their fellows. Henry taps Noah’s shoulder and arches an eyebrow. “Follow me!” he winks. “Quicker exit.”
Henry leads him through a backstage hall past the players’ dressing rooms. All doors are open, all lights are lit, and every room bustles with activity. Costumes and makeup are being removed at all points, and Noah’s senses are struck with the unfamiliar, slightly sickening smell of greasepaint. At the end of the corridor, a door that has been left ajar lets in a few rays of daylight and a stream of fresh outdoor air.
As Henry and Noah are about to burst into the open air, Marlowe emerges from one of the dressing rooms, a small man, almost petite, boyish-looking, with an undeniably sharp intelligence about the eyes.
Henry throws his hands up. “Marlowe the Magnificent! Honestly, man, I don’t know how you do it … so consistently … with such … panache!”
Marlowe bows formally to Henry. “Baron. It is always a pleasure to see you, but you flatter me beyond reason.” He rises and turns to Noah, gazing admiringly at his face, and smiles devilishly. “Is this lawyer a friend of yours, or did you rather come to serve me with some suit?”
Henry bellows with laughter. “Not on your life, Marlowe. Even had I cause, I would not let it out that you’d got the better of me. This is my old friend Noah Ames, of Gray’s Inn.”
Marlowe gazes intently at Noah’s face, as though he intends to draw it. “Charming.”
Henry gushes. “Tell me. Where did you get the idea for a villain who tells the audience his every motivation?”
Marlowe sidles up to Noah and caresses him familiarly from behind. Noah can feel the heat of his reddening face. “Henry,” he says urgently, “are we not expected for supper shortly?”
“Oh, that’s right,” replies Henry. “I nearly forgot. Marlowe, I’d love to discuss this further, but alas we are required elsewhere presently. Congratulations on an excellent play. God give you good e’en.” Henry leads Noah to the door by his elbow and nods in smiling farewell to Marlowe, who bows in return.
“Another time, then,” Marlowe says. “And please bring Master Ames. I have a few questions for one of his profession.”
Noah turns to Marlowe. “Thank you so much, Master Marlowe,” he says, and precedes Henry out of the door into the late afternoon.
As they walk abreast, Henry remarks, “Well! Marlowe was evidently taken with your appearance.”
Noah smirks. “A good appearance can be a mixed blessing.”
Hen
ry looks at Noah askance. “You’re not all that good-looking.”
“No? Well, better-looking than you, anyway,” says Noah in mock insolence.
“Oh?” says Henry. “Cheeky lawyer! What makes you so sure?”
“Well, let me ask you this,” says Noah, drawing himself up indignantly. “Did Marlowe just squeeze your arse?”
Henry’s face drops into a comical grimace. He guffaws, and takes Noah by the elbow. “Come on. To supper, then!”
Unlike Noah and Henry, who escaped The Rose through the actors’ rear exit and now stroll together around front, much of the paying public is still filing out through the front doors. Noblemen depart quickly by private coach, eager to return home before the onset of the rapidly approaching darkness and cold. The groundlings, who left through different doors, now mill about in no rush, enjoying the remains of the afternoon; many reside here in Southwark, unfashionably close to The Rose and the open sewers that run through the district.
Henry points to a particularly well-appointed coach sitting idly across the theater lawn. “That belongs to Southampton.” He glances around. “No sign of him or Essex. I wonder why they’re taking so long to go.” They pass a doorway where the well-dressed page who first entered the earl’s box waits patiently for his master to appear, his familiar gold-handled sword gleaming in the sun’s late rays. Neither Essex nor Southampton is anywhere in sight. Although they’re evidently tarrying inside the theater, Henry comes to a halt, apparently intending to offer a few parting words once they appear. Noah stops alongside, watching the noblemen depart in their beautiful coaches.
Last to leave the theater box, Southampton waits behind Essex, who’s abruptly halted short of the door.
“Out of my way, sir!” says Essex to someone standing athwart the doorway.
Southampton peers around his friend at the unwelcome obstruction: a middle-aged man in worn black robes of gabardine which, together with his long nose, longer beard, and gravest countenance, mark him as a Jew. He seems vaguely familiar.
“M’lord,” says the man to Essex with a bow, his supplicating posture completely at odds with his obstinate refusal to let them pass, “a moment, if I may. There is the matter of the … indebtedness.”
Already a few steps down the staircase, Essex’s chief page places his hand on his golden hilt and turns back to his employer for orders, but Essex, with a wave of his hand, directs him instead to usher his remaining guests out of the theater.
Recalling the man’s identity, Southampton rushes him, pinning him against the opposite wall, and remonstrates with him in a stern whisper. “Have you no sense, you fool, that you seek repayment from the earl in a public place? Have a care for decorum, man.”
The Jew smiles innocently. “I come only for what is mine, m’lord. I have lent my monies to m’lord of Essex for use by Her Majesty’s fleet, and members of my tribe tell me that the fleet is in, so my principal is come due, together with my … usances.” Now his smile seems more sly than innocent.
“Simpleton,” says Southampton. “Know ye not that the fleet is ‘in’ only when Lord Essex says it is?”
The moneylender’s smile fades. “Is it so writ, my lord?”
“It is so writ, you ignorant man.” There’s a light tap on Southampton’s shoulder.
“We have no time for this, Wriothesley,” whispers Essex, pronouncing Southampton’s family name “Rothslee.” “Permit me to handle it.” He deftly takes Southampton’s place in the confrontation. A jeweled dagger flashes in his hand. He sets the point to the moneylender’s throat and urges it forward, nearly breaking the skin. The Jew’s eyes grow wide with horror.
Essex smirks. “I see I have your attention now,” he says, obviously relishing the terror. “Your timing couldn’t be worse … for either of us, Master Jew. Do you know which play has just been staged here?”
“I … did not see the play, my lord, but it was about a Jew, no?”
“It was about a Jew, yes. A filthy, murderous, scheming Jew, who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. Sound familiar, hah?” He pauses, as though considering how best to proceed. “Now, if I so chose, I could toss you out of the theater and tell the incensed crowd who you are, and that you’ve come to embarrass me into paying you your filthy lucre. You do know what would happen to you?” The Jew seems too frightened to reply. “They’d tear you to shreds.”
The Jew nods, barely moving a muscle.
“The next time you try to collect a debt from me in public, or in such circumstances as might cause me embarrassment, I shall ensure that neither you … nor your survivors … shall ever see tuppence.” He smiles with self-satisfaction. “Are we of one mind?”
The Jew nods, his shoulders slumping with relief that this misbegotten interview appears to be coming to an end at last.
“Good,” says Essex. He grabs the moneylender by the lapels and hurls him down a half-flight of stairs.
The Jew, his fall broken by the landing, leaps to his feet in obvious pain and, without so much as dusting off his robes, bows low enough to scrape the floor, racing down the remaining steps and bolting out of the door.
Southampton observes, “That will teach him to embarrass a debtor into repaying a debt before it’s come due.”
Essex dusts off his hands, as though he’s been handling some particularly odious beast. “While the Jew has caused me no embarrassment, I fear he has delayed me at a most unpropitious moment.”
Chapter 2
AS NOAH WAITS with Henry for the earls to emerge from the theater, an altercation breaks out near the coaches. While it appears at first to involve three or more men, his eye quickly narrows it down to two. A short, swarthy fellow with gray hair at the temples, perhaps a Spaniard, has fallen (or been shoved) to the ground. He’s assisted to his feet by an Englishwoman a few years younger, and dusts himself off, glaring angrily at the other man, an unsavory-looking Englishman of indeterminate age with a cruel glint in his eye.
By sheer chance (or for some reason he can never again remember), Noah glances toward the door where Essex’s page waits. Still no sign of either earl.
“No, I most certainly will not!” shouts the short fellow with the slightest suggestion of a Spanish accent. “Now, be on your way!”
The Englishman scowls, mutters something inaudible, and takes a threatening step toward the Spaniard. As he brings his right hand around, as though to grab the purse dangling from the Spaniard’s hip, he raises his left toward the Spaniard’s face. Then something happens that will later prove otherwise than it appears. To Noah, he appears to strike the Spaniard abruptly in the forehead. It’s no roundhouse left, to all appearances amounting to little more than a sharp jab.
The effect on the Spaniard is out of all proportion to the weight of the blow. He staggers for a moment and drops to his knees, his every limb twitching. A second later, he falls face first to the hard ground, motionless. The woman who helped him up a moment earlier stares down at him in astonished horror.
“My husband!” she shrieks. “Help me, someone!” But by the time she rises to confront her husband’s attacker, he’s faded into the crowd as something incorporeal.
Noah rushes to her aid, plowing through the crowd, and Henry limps after him as quickly as he can. The woman cries inconsolably, in great heaves. Noah gently tugs her by the shoulders to get her attention, but she clings to her husband like a vise.
Despite the cold of the afternoon, Noah feels himself perspiring. As he steps back and takes in the sorry sight before him, he notices several things he did not expect. The Spaniard’s purse still hangs from his hip. It has been neither stolen nor opened during the fracas. Evidently, this was not a robbery, as it first appeared. Also, there appears to be no blood. By this time, Henry stands beside him, puffing with exertion.
“Damnedest thing!” says Henry, and pats the woman’s back comfortingly. “There, there,” he intones. With some strength, he firmly extricates her from her husband. “Let us try to help him,” he pleads.
As the woman lets go of her husband, two more things become apparent to Noah. First, the man is very obviously dead. There will be no call for a surgeon. Second, although the man’s right eye is shut, a single tear of blood has run down across his cheek and now reddens an inch of moist ground. This is the only sign of blood at the scene.
A man shouts from the gathering crowd. “Here comes the constable!”
“Are men so easily killed with one blow?” asks Henry in amazement. “We shall need the coroner’s man.”
“Oh! Oh, no!” the woman shrieks, hearing this confirmation that her husband is indeed dead. “Oh, mercy! What shall I do? Stephen! Oh, my poor Stephen!”
The constable appears out of the crowd. At precisely the same instant, the breathless Earl of Essex appears from the direction of the theater.
“’Swounds, what happened ’ere?” asks the constable, his deep voice sounding a strange mix of Yorkshire and North London. He sizes up the grieving woman. “Is this your ’usband, meddem?”
Continuing to weep, she nods emphatically.
“Did anybuddy see what ’eppened?” shouts the constable.
Before either Noah or Henry can open his mouth, a cultured voice says, “I saw the whole thing, Constable.” The crowd’s attention follows the voice. It’s Essex. Southampton is nowhere to be seen.
Evidently recognizing that this is a person of some importance, the constable replies, “Beggin’ yaw pahdon, suh, but who are you?”
“I am the Earl of Essex, Constable,” comes the reply with seeming humility. The widow looks imploringly to the earl, and her cries diminish to whimpers. A constable’s assistant draws her aside and manages to open a quiet conversation with her, frequently interrupted by her snuffling.
The constable’s eyes open wide, and he takes an appraising step backward. “Essex? Bless my soul, well, of course you are!” He waves toward the pathetic scene before him. “’Tis a pity to make your acquaintance, m’lord.”