“Master Marlowe?” Robin asked shyly.
“What?”
“If you are not a player, sir, what is’t you do here?”
“Hast not guessed? I am a playmaker. ’Tis my play they are about to perform. And very poorly, too, no doubt.”
So that was why he had claimed to be the foundation of the playhouse. The players would have no words to speak but for him.
“Ho there!” Master Marlowe’s attention had been caught by someone just entering the playhouse. He waved a hand. “Tom! Tom Watson!”
The man who came to put his elbows on the railing of our gallery was taller than Master Marlowe by a handspan, handsome and well made. His crisp, white ruff set off a thin, dark face. “Ah, Kit, I thought I’d find you here,” he said.
“Where else? Are you not teaching this day?”
“The brat is sick, or says he is,” Master Watson answered, and he cast his eye upon Robin and myself. “And who are these?”
“This one I plan to try for a servant,” Master Marlowe said. “And the other will be an apprentice at the Rose.”
“An apprentice here?” Master Watson turned his attention to Robin. “Brave heart. Dost truly dare to appear in such a play as this?”
“Aye, I think so,” Robin said uncertainly. “If I have the skill.” He glanced at Master Marlowe to see if this was the right answer.
“Has no one told thee? Shame, Kit, you should have warned him. Dost know, boy, that there is a scene in this play where the devil himself is summoned?”
“Enough, Tom, ’tis foolishness,” Master Marlowe objected.
His friend ignored him. “And knowst that often the players have made a count of who is on stage when the devil is called—and they find one man too many?” His voice dropped dramatically. “Pray, who dost think that extra man might be?”
“Go to,” Master Marlowe snapped. “It only proves that no player has the wit to count above five. Mind you, if the devil himself were to appear on the stage, I would not object. No doubt he could play the part better than Nick.”
I stifled a gasp of alarm at such careless talk, and Robin looked around as if afraid that the devil might take Master Marlowe at his word. Master Watson only laughed.
“I’ll find a seat, then, for they’re about to start. Kit, I must speak a word with you—”
“Not just now,” Master Marlowe said quietly, and Master Watson moved off as the trumpet sounded and the play began.
A scholar in a long, black robe sat on the stage, poring over his books. I shuddered as he tossed aside philosophy, medicine, law, and even religion, to seize on black magic as the only study fit for a wise man.
Master Marlowe was quiet through the early scenes, only once or twice hissing through his teeth and muttering, “Too fast, too fast.” But when the scholar chalked symbols on the floor and chanted Latin and conjured spirits, he fell silent, as did the whole audience. We all held our breath, and when a mighty figure, with black skin and horns springing from his forehead, leaped up from the trapdoor as if he’d come from the bowels of hell, everyone gasped at once, with a sound like wind in the leaves.
“‘Now, Faustus, what wouldst thou have me do?’” the devil roared. A woman in the audience shrieked. Master Marlowe, with his elbows braced on his knees, dropped his forehead onto his clenched fists.
“’Sblood, no,” I heard him groan. “Ranting, raving, mad, fantastical bombast…” And he didn’t look up for the rest of the scene.
I could not take my eyes from the stage, where the scholar, Faustus, carelessly bargained his soul away. He repented in the end, but it was far too late. Even Master Marlowe sat quiet and attentive as small devils leaped out of the dragon’s mouth I had seen earlier and capered around the stage. They were only boys, I realized, most of them Robin’s age. Though the summer sky was bright overhead, the stage seemed dark, somehow, and thunder rumbled. “‘My God, my God, look not so fierce on me,’” Faustus moaned. With a roar of triumph, the devil seized him and hauled him back between the dragon’s teeth.
Robin was staring openmouthed at the stage. I felt myself shivering. Would the devil and Faustus really come hand in hand to take their bows? It seemed impossible. But they did, and the crowd burst into applause as Master Marlowe sat hunched over with his elbows on his knees and scowled.
He didn’t stir while the playhouse emptied. At last, when the audience had all departed, he got up and, without a word to us, climbed over the gallery railing, dropped easily on the other side, vaulted up on the stage, and disappeared through the door at the back.
Robin would have followed him, but this was my first chance to speak to him alone, and I did not mean to waste it. “Robin, how couldst thou?” I demanded. “A player’s apprentice? For shame!”
“’Tis not so terrible,” Robin muttered sulkily, not meeting my eyes. “’Tis no crime. And what else was I to do? We’ve no money now.”
“We could have found some other work.”
“Cleaning privies? Sweeping horse dung off the streets?”
“Dost think we came to London to make thee a player? Didst think of our father at all?”
Robin’s face went white and then flushed red across the cheekbones. “Aye, I did,” he said coldly, and lifted his eyes to my face at last. “And thou’rt one to speak of shame. What will our father say when he sees thee?”
I felt as if he’d slapped me. Leaving me sick and stunned, he climbed over the gallery railing and followed Master Marlowe backstage.
How could he say such a thing to me? My own brother, who knew well enough what had happened—had nearly happened—yesterday. How dare he? Hot fury burned away my shock, and I leaped up and went after him. But I did not have a chance to start another argument with Robin, because a different confrontation was already taking place.
The space behind the stage seemed much too narrow to contain all the people inside it. A man with spectacles on his nose brushed past me, his arms overflowing with silk and velvet and lace. I saw the boy Harry, now in his proper clothes, perched on a ladder that led up to the chamber above the stage. The tall, dark-haired man who had played Faustus stood talking to Henslowe, idly stroking the neat triangle of a beard on his chin, while the devil himself sat on a chest and scrubbed with a damp cloth at the charcoal that covered his face.
It was the devil Master Marlowe was berating. “Nick!” the playmaker exploded just as I slipped through the door. “What do you call that? Bellowing, howling, bleating—are you a dog, a goat, or a cat in heat?”
The player Nick, his face now smeared half black and half white, seemed no more than amused. “’Tis what people expect, Kit, when they look at the devil,” he said in a tone of patient reason.
“Expect!” Master Marlowe spat. “Do you think the devil walks among us like that, horns and tail and all?” He had by now collected an audience of players, who gathered around, some frowning, some smiling in delight at a rousing scene. “Do you think the devil knows nothing of subtlety?” Master Marlowe went on. “Do you think he’s never heard of craft? I tell you, if the devil were among us right now, none of you would know it. He walks like a man, looks like a man; he gets souls by whispering, not by shouting.”
“Well, I could not say, Kit, not having such a close acquaintance with him as you do,” Nick said easily.
The others chuckled, and the man who had been Faustus clapped. “Well played!” he called out, and bowed toward Nick.
Henslowe held up his hands. “Enough! Pray, Master Alleyn, do not encourage them. Kit, the way he plays it fills up the galleries, and that should satisfy you. It does me, at all events. Out, now, let them set the stage up for tomorrow. Rehearsal in the morning, all. Where’s our new apprentice?”
Master Marlowe looked around as if he’d forgotten that we existed. Henslowe saw us at the same moment. “Robin, is’t? This is Master Cowley. Thou’lt be lodging at his home. Tomorrow thou’lt come to rehearsal, and we’ll begin teaching thee what thou needst to know.”
Master Cowley was a kindly looking man with a grizzled beard of black and white. Thinking back, I remembered that he had played one of Faustus’s friends. “Come, lad,” he said warmly to Robin. “I’ve two other crackropes lodged with me, so thou’lt make friends soon enough.”
Aye, friends among players and other riffraff of the streets. Well enough, if he preferred it. Why should I mind?
“Come, boy,” Master Marlowe said to me as he turned to go.
Robin looked at the ground, refusing to meet my eyes. But he muttered, “Farewell, Richard.”
I tightened my lips and, without a word, followed my new master back across the stage, out of the playhouse, and into the streets of London.
It would not be for long. That was what I vowed to myself as I hurried behind Master Marlowe. I was on a week’s trial as a servant, and Robin as an apprentice. By the end of that time, I would have found a way to change things.
I’d hardly been two hours in Master Marlowe’s service; I could not ask him for leave at this moment to find Newgate. But tomorrow, no matter what else took place, I would make my way to the prison. My father would tell me what was best to do; he would order Robin away from the playhouse. My brother might pay no heed to me, but he would be bound to obey his father’s word.
By a week’s end, if not sooner, this would be over. Robin would no longer be a ’prentice player and I would no longer be in service with a man who spoke as if he were on terms of close acquaintance with the devil himself.
In the meantime I kept close at Master Marlowe’s heels as he led me back to London Bridge, and for the second time in two days I crossed its span. He walked rapidly north along a wide street, past the fish markets I had seen earlier, past churches and houses and taverns and store-fronts. I was nearly breathless, trying to keep pace with him.
We had walked perhaps a mile when I almost trod on a heap of greasy rags by the roadside. I nearly shrieked aloud as the rags moved and a bare, skinny arm thrust out. A face, too, appeared under a ragged cowl, but I could not tell if this were a man or a woman.
He—or she, perhaps—spoke no word. Eyes so deeply shadowed I could not tell their color only looked up at me and the outstretched hand pleaded mutely.
I hesitated. It was sinful to beg. All who could should work for a living—
But if Master Marlowe had not taken me in, or if I failed to find some other plan before the week was out, would I come to this?
“Dost pay heed, Richard?” Master Marlowe asked, turning back to see what delayed me. He frowned, but slipped a hand into his purse and tossed a silver halfpenny in the beggar’s direction. She—or he?—snatched it out of the air and huddled back into the rags.
“Thou’lt need to find thy way about,” was all Master Marlowe said as I caught up with him, as if the beggar were not worthy of comment. “There’s the city wall, dost see?” He pointed ahead. The wall, its stones black with dirt and age, rose higher than my head, and I realized with surprise that we had crossed the city from south to north. “And Bishopsgate,” Master Marlowe added. That must be the arched opening that we were rapidly approaching. “My lodgings are in Norton Folgate; ’tis a ways beyond the wall.”
“Why so far, sir?” I asked, trying to put the beggar’s hungry stare out of my mind. Judging from Master Marlowe’s clothing, he was wealthy enough. Why did he not live in a fine house within the city itself?
“Most of us live beyond the city proper,” Master Marlowe explained. “Players and playmakers, the lot of us. The playhouses are outside the city boundaries as well. The Lord Mayor is not so fond of us as he might be.” He chuckled, but there seemed to be little mirth in it. “Some say we cause riots, and some say we cause plagues, and yet they all keep coming to see the plays.”
We had passed through the gate by now. I had expected green fields to begin on the other side of the wall and was startled to find little change, the houses still crowded together, the road still paved beneath my feet. “The city outgrew its old jacket many years ago,” Master Marlowe said, noticing my surprise. “Not much farther now.”
Master Marlowe’s lodgings, when we reached them at last, were on the third floor of a bakery run by a widow, Mistress Stavesly. She came out to greet us, a tall, plain, red-haired woman, and stood dusting the flour from her hands as Master Marlowe introduced me.
“The boy will need a place to sleep,” he said. “Have you a pallet you can lend me, mistress?”
“Aye, I can let you have that.”
I dipped my head to her. “Thank you, mistress.”
“Such manners,” she said dryly. “I’ll think I’m at the court next. Master Marlowe, your rent is due tomorrow, kindly remember.”
“I hear and obey,” Master Marlowe said, and bowed elaborately, as if she were the queen. She snorted and went back to her kitchen.
Master Marlowe’s lodging turned out to be nothing more than two rooms, each with one many-paned window. In the front room was a fireplace, a stool, and a table littered with papers and quills. On a shelf above the table there leaned some books and a lute, dusty as if untouched for many weeks. A few tankards and bowls and a spoon or two sat on another shelf. In the back room were Master Marlowe’s bed and a chest for his clothes. And that seemed to be all. A poor enough living space for someone who wore velvet and carried a sword like a rich gentleman.
I stood in the front room, feeling lost and not at all sure what a playmaker’s servant was supposed to do. But Master Marlowe decided the question for me. “I’m off,” he announced. “Thou canst….” He shrugged. “Settle thyself, I suppose.” With a wave of his hand, he seemed to say that I should make myself at home. “Ah, thou’lt need to be fed, I imagine. There’s bread left over from the morning. Take what thou wilt.” He pointed at the windowsill, where half a loaf of bread was wrapped in a napkin to keep it from the flies. Master Marlowe disappeared into the back room. A glimpse through the doorway showed him running a comb through his hair. He brushed the dust of the street from his doublet, polished the gilt buttons carefully against his sleeve, and was off again without offering me a word of farewell.
I was not alone for long, however, before Mistress Stavesly came puffing up the stairs with a heavy straw mattress in her arms. I ran to help her drag it into the room, and we laid it out in a corner by the fireplace. Without a word beyond, “Wait thee,” she departed again, and came back with a pair of rough woolen blankets under one arm. This freed her hands to carry a wooden bowl of pottage and a leather tankard of ale.
“I do not suppose he’ll have thought to feed thee,” she said gruffly, waving away my thanks. “Off to the alehouse again, is he?”
“I know not,” I said, though my heart sank. Was that where he had gone? Was he a drunkard as well as a playmaker and a man who claimed to know in what shape the devil walked among us? “Have you known Master Marlowe long, mistress?”
“I know him not,” she said sternly. “He pays his rent each week, and I ask no more.” She looked at me, I thought, in disapproval. “What possessed him to take thee into service, I cannot imagine. But do not count on his good humor too far. He’s changeable as March wind.” Shaking her head, she made her way down the stairs.
Her words might be discouraging, but her pottage was excellent, the oatmeal soft and thick, the chunks of mutton tender. And I was ravenous. Now I came to think of it, I had not eaten since Robin’s stolen loaf of bread that morning, back in the time I was still Rosalind Archer.
Rosalind Archer would have eaten her dinner at a table, with a cook to prepare it and a maid to serve. There would have been, perhaps, a joint of mutton, a cut of beef, or a capon stewed and savory. And her father and brother would have been there with her. She would not have crouched on the edge of a straw pallet, leery of sitting on the only stool in case Master Marlowe would think it a presumption, scouring the pottage bowl clean with chunks of bread and stuffing them into her mouth. Embarrassed, I sat up straight, wiped my face, and finished what was left of my food in a more see
mly fashion. Because I was not what I had been, it did not follow that I must be an animal. I would eat as if I’d been taught manners. My father would not be ashamed of me, if he could see me.
Or would he? I set the empty bowl and tankard down on the floor and rubbed one hand at the back of my neck. What will our father say when he sees thee? Had Robin been right? Would my father be shocked beyond measure at the sight of me, shameless and immodest in my breeches and doublet? Would he think I had disgraced myself to become the servant of a playmaker, a man who lied for profit? Would he condemn me for it? Would God?
I reached into my shirt and pulled a thin leather cord over my head. Attached to the cord, in a small linen bag, was my rosary.
I held the wooden beads, warm from the heat of my body, between my fingers and began to pray. “Ave Maria, gratia plena….”
The words wrapped themselves around me, soft and comforting, like summer sunlight, like a fur-lined cloak in winter. “Dominus tecum, benedicta tua….” I had much need of grace today. I had lied, I had abandoned the name I’d been christened with, I had entered the service of a playmaker and a blasphemer. And since I did not know where to find a priest in London, I could not even confess and have my sins lifted off my heart. But as I prayed my way around the beads, I could only trust that God would understand. And so would my father. They would know that what I’d done, I’d done so that I could survive.
I was a Catholic at heart, even if that must stay secret, just as I was a woman under my breeches and doublet. My lies were only on the surface. They did not change the deepest truths. When I had prayed all fifty-five prayers, I tucked the rosary back underneath my shirt and waited for my new master to return and tell me what he wished me to do.
The Secret of the Rose Page 5