Aye, bad company. He had not seen Tom Nashe for nearly a year, but when they met again they had returned immediately to their old habits, eating and drinking heavily and carousing in the streets. If he went to hell it would be the fault of companions like Tom, Tom and that damned atheist friend of his, Kit Marlowe.
He groaned to think of the last meal he and Tom had shared, and its aftermath. His belly had swollen upward until he felt it would burst. He wished he hadn’t gone with Tom. He wished many things, that he hadn’t left his wife, hadn’t come to London … His entire life could have been different, richer, happier—and he would not now be lying in this strange house, dying and about to go to hell.
Hell. He had repented of his life before, but now for the first time he thought he truly understood what it meant to be damned. Terror rose up in him like bile, until it seemed to drive every other feeling out, until he seemed made of fear. “Oh, no end is limited to damned souls,” he thought, and the aptness of the quotation pleased him, made him forget his pain for a while, until he remembered it had been written by that unbeliever Marlowe. How could the man have known?
There had to be something he could do, some bargain he could strike. If he repented, if he showed that he was sincere about repenting …
He called weakly to Mistress Isam. She had been in another room but she heard and came hurrying toward him, wiping her hands on her apron. She had strange notions about poets and playwrights: she thought that they deserved to be honored, and so she had kept him in her house and nursed him through his illness though he owed her at least ten pounds. He was grateful to her for that, and for the enthusiasm with which she talked about his plays and books, but he could not help but feel a little impatient with her. She moved so slowly, and when she started talking it was difficult sometimes to get her to stop. But how could he complain? Without her aid he would be dying on the streets.
“What is it, Master Greene?”
“I need pen and paper. Please.”
She brightened. “Of course.” No doubt she thought he was about to compose something brilliant. And perhaps he would at that. He smiled at her when she brought him what he’d asked for, sat up painfully and dipped his pen in the ink. If he had to die he would at least leave a legacy for his friends. They could learn where he had been too blind to see.
Feeling noble and full of purpose, he wrote: “To those Gentleman that spend their wits in making plays.” And then, “If woeful experience may move you (Gentlemen) to beware …”
September gave way to October. The days cooled slightly and the plague abated, and some of those who had fled London returned.
Christopher walked from his lodgings to the river, and then hired a boat to take him to the Ryders’ manor. He and Will had gone their separate ways for a few months, had each left London to escape the plague, but on his return he had sensed a distance in Will that had not been there before.
He wondered what had happened between them. He had never met anyone as even-tempered as Will, and yet lately they had had one quarrel after another, usually over something so trifling he could not remember what had started it. And the last time they had met Will had said, “I’m going home. I’m not going to argue with you. You know everything, anyway.”
Hadn’t that been one of the first things Will had said to him: “You seem to know something about everything”? He’d thought that Will had admired that in him, that that was a good trait, not a bad one. How had that changed? Should he pretend to be as ignorant as Will’s foolish friends? Most of them hadn’t even been able to graduate from the universities their fathers sent them to.
He wondered, though, if Will objected to something else. Will had said several times that Geoffrey disliked it when he went to visit Christopher, that his brother had threatened to tell their father. “And my father,” Will had said, “has warned me often enough about the sin of Sodom.”
Will’s father had been the one who had said that unbelievers brought the plague upon themselves, Christopher remembered. He thought the man must be a singularly joyless individual. “The sin of Sodom,” he said. “I always wondered what the sin of Gomorrah would be. And if I would enjoy it.”
Will haunt laughed. “I’m serious, Kit,” he said. “He could disown me if he knew what I’ve been doing. And Geoffrey might just tell him, out of—out of meanness, perhaps, or perhaps he wants ID inherit everything.”
“Your brother,” Christopher said, remembering a quoted line of poetry, “does not sound like a very pleasant person.”
“Nay,” Will had said, and Christopher had wondered, as he wondered from time to time around Will, how much the other man knew.
Now, going up the steps to the Ryders’ manor, he thought about Geoffrey again. Would the man truly disown his brother? What would happen to Will then? Well, perhaps it would be good for him, show him how everyone else had to live. But what would he do? How would he survive?
He knocked on the door and the elderly servant let him in. Geoffrey came to greet him. “Where’s Will?” Christopher asked.
“He’s not here,” Geoffrey said.
“I didn’t ask you if he was here. I asked you where he was.”
“Ah. I was getting to that. He’s gone to France.”
“France?” Christopher felt as if he had walked into a room he believed was solid and felt the floor give way beneath him. “Why?”
For a moment, he saw, Geoffrey had been tempted to give a hurtful answer: “To get away from you,” or some such reply. But then Geoffrey’s face changed and he saw that the other man was about to tell the truth, or what passed for the truth with him. “He’s gone to Rheims. To the Catholic seminary there.”
At first Geoffrey’s answer made no sense at all, like a line of nonsense in a ballad. He tried to think. “To the—But why?”
“I don’t know. Our father,” Geoffrey said, moving toward the door to signify that the interview was at an end, “is not pleased.”
Thomas Kyd sat in the room he shared with Christopher and stared at the piece of paper in front of him. He had gone to Bedlam earlier that day, intending to make that month’s payment for Arthur’s lodgings, but the steward told him that someone had come for Arthur, a man claiming to be a relative. The steward had described the man but Tom could not think who he might be. A relative, though: that sounded promising. He hoped that Arthur was safe and well cared for.
Tom sighed and looked around the room. Almost immediately after he and Christopher had taken the room he had begun to regret his decision. Sometimes Kit would come in for a few minutes, scribble something on a piece of paper and then leave. At other times he would stay on from morning to evening, lighting candles against the dark, covering pages and pages. To Tom, writing was a job like any other. He came in for the day and left when the day was done, and he had assumed that Kit would feel the same way. But when he had questioned the other man about it Kit had only laughed.
There were other problems as well. Christopher scattered papers throughout the room, letters and books and manuscripts. Once, on a day when he had felt dull and tired and Christopher had been off somewhere, Tom had sneaked a look at some of the pages. He had paid dearly for his sin, though, for what he had seen had been a poem so beautiful he had been unable to write for a week. And yet after that it seemed as if he couldn’t help himself: he read the poem guiltily every chance he got, watching as the story of the love between Hero and Leander took shape before him on the page. He knew that Kit wrote better poetry than he did (though perhaps, if it was not boasting to say it, he liked to think that his own plays were better constructed), but it seemed unfair to have to be reminded of that fact day after day.
The door slammed behind him and he looked around. Christopher stood there, back after an absence of several months. “Care to take a walk with me?” he asked.
That was another problem with sharing a room with Kit: sometimes, on the days he didn’t feel like working, his friend would try to talk him into going out into London. “Nay
,” Tom said, turning back to his work. “Where have you been?”
“Canterbury,” Christopher said, and Thomas nearly jumped from his seat. He would have sworn that the other man had been behind him, but somehow he had gone over to his desk by the window. He seemed to move at a different pace than other people, though Tom noticed that when they walked together he went slowly, almost languidly.
“Escaping the plague?”
“Visiting my family. Fighting a duel.”
Like Thomas Nashe, Kyd sometimes wondered what his friend did in the time he wasn’t working. But unlike Nashe, Kyd thought that he probably didn’t want to know. Back in January Christopher had told him a story about being arrested for counterfeiting in the Netherlands, and while Tom hadn’t disbelieved him exactly he had thought that for his own peace of mind he had better change the subject. Now he did the same. “The plague’s nearly over, they say.”
“Aye. Let’s go.”
“I’m busy here.”
“Come, we’ll be back in an hour. I promise.”
“Nay. I know your hours.”
“Two hours, then. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
He was. He had known from the first that he wouldn’t be able to resist his friend. Sighing, he stood and carefully put away the pages he had written that day. He didn’t think that Kit would want to read them, but then Kit probably thought the same of him.
They went out into the street. A cool breeze blew and he walked into it gratefully. His friend had been right: he had needed to get outside for a few hours.
On Cheapside a vagabond in torn and dirty clothing came toward them, a begging bowl held out in his hands. “Masters, please,” he said. “A penny, a groat, anything you can spare. I’ve been turned off my lands, my wife and children are dead of the plague …”
Kit moved past him, but Tom fumbled in his purse and dropped a coin in the bowl. “Thank you, master, thank you, kind sir,” the vagabond said, and moved on.
Kit turned to Tom in astonishment. “You don’t believe that he was truly turned off his lands, do you? Or any of those other lies he told you?”
Tom shrugged. “What if he was?”
“What if he wasn’t?”
“He was suffering—”
“Oh, aye. You write plays and you know nothing of disguises.”
“—and so at least I’ve done some good,” Tom said, ignoring the other man.
“That’s right, I forgot. You believe that goodness is rewarded.”
Tom said nothing. He had learned over the years not to argue with his friend. Suddenly he noticed that they had gone past all the stalls and cookshops on Cheapside. “I thought we were going to eat,” he said.
“Later.”
“Where are you going?”
“Paul’s.”
“Paul’s?” Tom said, hurrying after him. “Why?”
“I heard that Robin’s book has come out. The last one. His deathbed confession.”
Tom had heard of Robert’s book too. Folks whispered that it was filled with scandal, with revelations about poor Robin’s life and his last hours. If the book had truly appeared it would be worth postponing his meal for a few hours. He should have known that Kit had had something planned, that he would not be getting back to his work that day. It seemed that something extraordinary and exciting always happened whenever he went out with his friend; he wondered how the man could stand an entire diet of it.
They went inside the churchyard. Tom had never seen so few people there, had never heard it so quiet; the plague still kept most folks indoors. Kit nodded to some of the stationers as they passed but did not talk to any of them; it seemed he would not be moved from his original purpose.
Suddenly, though, he stopped and pointed across the yard. “Is that—Aye, there he is. Look, quickly, it’s Gabriel Harvey!”
Tom followed his gaze. A middle-aged man with large quantities of lace at his neck and wrists was making his way slowly through the courtyard. As they watched he adjusted his clothing, patted down his jerkin, smoothed his mustache and then walked off with a satisfied air.
“Doctor Harvey!” Kit said, shouting across the yard.
“What are you doing?” Tom asked, whispering.
“I want to wish him good day. Don’t you want to talk to him?”
“Of course not. Why should I involve myself in Tom Nashe’s silly feud? I don’t even know the man.”
“Time you got acquainted, then.”
Gabriel Harvey saw them at that moment. “Doctor Harvey!” Kit said again, but the other man seemed as reluctant to meet as Tom was. He turned and almost ran out of the yard.
Kit laughed for a long time. “The terrible Doctor Harvey,” he said finally. “I wonder why it is he angers Tom so. Why does he waste his time with that man?”
“One of those trifling feuds that neither one can finish, I suppose. Let’s get what we came for and go.”
But Kit had one more stop to make, at Edward Blount’s stall. There he talked to the publisher about the poem he was writing, assuring the other man that with the playhouses closed due to the plague he would have more time to work on it. Tom listened a little enviously. No one had ever been that interested in his poems. His hunger returned, and while the two men talked he browsed through the books on the neighboring stall.
“Look, Kit,” he said. “Nashe’s book. Pierce Penniless.”
“Aye, and we’ll take that one too,” Kit said, breaking away from his conversation. He took sixpence out of his purse and gave it to a pleasant-looking woman at the stall. Where does he get his money? Tom thought. He had heard rumors of a wealthy patron.
They went by William Wright’s stall and picked up Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit, heard talk of another book called The Repentance, bought that one too, and then made their way out of the churchyard. Just as they were leaving Tom Nashe came in through the entrance.
“We just saw your friend Harvey,” Kit said. “If you hurry you can catch him.”
“Nay,” Nashe said, and to Tom Kyd’s surprise he looked a little uneasy. “I don’t—I’ve said everything I had to say to him and his brother Richard in my book. That book,” he said, pointing to Pierce Penniless in Kit’s hand. “I hear he came to London just to write his reply to me. Came in the middle of the plague, while thousands died all around him.” He laughed.
“Are you thirsty? Come, let’s go to a tavern and look at the books we bought.”
“Groatsworth of Wit,” Nashe said, noticing it for the first time. “I doubt you’ll like that one, Kit.”
“Why not?”
“Ah. You’ll see for yourself.”
They made for a tavern close by that Nashe knew. Tom Kyd thought that this was the first time they had all been together in months, perhaps in years, and that it had taken Robert Greene’s death to accomplish it. They had been busy with their work and their patrons, and over the years they had drifted apart. And Kit and Tom Nashe had had some sort of falling out, though he didn’t know the details: Kit had told him only that he thought Nashe had lost his wits. Maybe poor Robin would work some good, then, especially if his book made Kit think over his life. The Repentance: it seemed a promising title.
They were the only ones in the tavern. Most folk avoided crowded places during the plague and the host approached them a little cautiously, as if afraid they might be infected. Tom Kyd was finally able to order his meal. Nashe leafed through the books they had brought.
“‘First in all your actions set God before your eyes,’” he read in a solemn voice.
“A Puritan!” Kit said. He reached for the book but Tom Nashe moved it away and continued reading.
“‘… for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom …’”
This time Kit managed to take the book from him. He turned a page and read a little to himself, and Tom Kyd saw his face change. “What is it?” he asked.
“‘Wonder not,’” Kit read, “‘that Greene, who hath said with thee (like the fool in his hear
t), There is no God, should now give glory unto His greatness—’”
“Is he writing about you?” Tom Kyd asked.
“Aye.” His face had grown intent, almost hard. There was no other sound in the room. “Listen. ‘Why should thy excellent wit, His gift, be so blinded, that thou shouldst give no glory to the giver?’” He looked down the page. “‘Defer not (with me) till this last point of extremity; for little knowst thou how in the end thou shalt be visited.’ Oh, the hypocrite! Oh, the damned wretched hypocrite!”
“He deals as badly with me,” Tom Nashe said.
“Did you know about this?” Kit asked.
Nashe nodded. Tom Kyd thought that just once in his life he would like to have heard some piece of news before the other man. “The printer told me a few days ago. Robin was not like this when I dined with him, I assure you.”
Kit began to read again. “‘Sweet boy, might I advise thee, be advised, and get not many enemies by bitter words …’ You are the sweet boy, I take it. Had he lost his wits when he wrote this?”
“Does he mention me?” Tom Kyd asked.
Kit laughed suddenly. “You? Nay, it seems he overlooked you. The only playwright in London, I fear.” He looked down the page. “Who is this here? ‘An upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers … the only Shake-scene in a country.’”
“I think I met him once,” Tom Nashe said. “An actor who wanted to write plays. Shake—Shakes something. I can’t remember now.”
Kit pushed back his thick hair and paged through the book. Tom Nashe picked up The Repentance. “‘It is better to die repentant than to live dishonest,’” he read in his Puritan’s voice, seeming anxious to fill up the silence.
“Aye, and best of all to do both, it seems,” Kit said, looking up from his book.
“How can you mock the dead?” Tom Kyd said.
“Mock him? He mocks me, and from the grave, too, where he’s safe from my answer. What did he think I would do when I read this, change my ways? Nay, I’m certain that he didn’t think of me at all.”
Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon Page 19