Apparently the Earl of Sussex’s Men had performed at the Guild Hall a few weeks prior; handbills advertising a matinee of The Malcontent were still stuck to buildings and trees. The mayor said that shortly after their departure the number of plague deaths had begun to rise.
“But that doesn’t m-mean that Sussex’s Men were responsible for the p-plague!” protested Mr. Heminges, so upset that his stutter was surfacing.
The mayor refused to listen to reason. Again we were offered money to move on; this time the bribe was only sixty shillings. “Well,” sniffed Will Sly indignantly, “I should certainly have thought we had amongst us at least five pounds’ worth of corruption.”
Two days later, in Newbury, we encountered the same attitude, and with even less reason. There had been no plague to speak of, and the authorities were determined to keep it that way. This time Mr. Heminges refused to accept the paltry sum offered us not to play. “F-fie on them! We’ve a license to p-perform, and perform we will, whether they l-like it or no.” I had seldom seen him so cross. Normally he was as tolerant and even-tempered as Sander. He turned to the rest of the sharers with a look that dared them to challenge him. “Are you w-with me?”
Mr. Armin held up his hands as if in surrender. Mr. Phillips nodded quickly. Mr. Shakespeare toyed thoughtfully with his earring and then smiled slightly. “You’re right, John. We are not beggars; we are players. Let us not play according to someone else’s script.”
“They’ll never let us use the town hall,” Mr. Phillips said.
“Then we’ll s-set up our stage in the street,” Mr. Heminges declared.
While the hired men unloaded most of our equipment from the carewares and stored it in the granary of the inn, we three prentices were sent through the town with preprinted handbills announcing a performance of Mr. Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. On each sheet we had printed in ink 2 O’CLOCK TODAY ON THE SQUARE. Some we handed out to shopkeepers and passersby; others we tacked to trees and fences and the sides of buildings.
We spent most of the morning getting our lines fixed in our heads. Though we had performed the play many times at the Globe, this was a special gypsy players’ version, with all the excess parts trimmed away to make it suitable for traveling.
Even though Mr. Shakespeare had reduced the number of speaking roles from nineteen to thirteen, there were but ten of us in the company, so some of us had to double up. Sam, for example, donned a wig and dress to play Maria, then doffed them to play Moth. I played both Jaquenetta, my usual role, and Rosaline, the part usually played by Sander. Luckily for me, the two of them never appeared in the same scene.
I believe Sal Pavy’s lot was the hardest. Though Ned Shakespeare was new to the company, he had at least acted with an adult company before. Sal Pavy had not. Nor had he ever had a part in one of Mr. Shakespeare’s plays. Worse, he had been given but two scant weeks to con half a dozen different roles.
In my early days with the company, when I was coaxed into playing the part of Ophelia in Hamlet before I was truly ready, my friend Julia had made certain that I did not disgrace myself; she had gone over and over my lines with me until they stuck in my head. Though I did not care for Sal Pavy’s company, I felt it would be right for me to follow Julia’s example.
I found Sal Pavy sitting alone in a corner of the courtyard with his eyes closed. He was silently mouthing his lines. “Excuse me,” I said. “I thought perhaps you could use some help.”
His eyes opened slowly. The look he turned on me was distracted, irritable. “Help?” he said. “With what?”
I gestured at the partial script he held in one hand. “Why wi’ your part, of course.”
“Oh. No, I need no help.” He closed his eyes again. “And if I ever did, I would certainly ask someone more competent to give it.”
I had not truly expected him to be grateful, but neither had I anticipated that he would insult me. “How would you ken,” I demanded, “how competent I am or am not? You’ve never even seen me perform!”
“You’re quite wrong,” he replied calmly. “I saw you only last month, in Titus Andronicus. You were … how can I put it kindly? … dreary.”
I was not a violent person, but if I had had a sword in my hand at that moment, I would surely have thrust it through his heart—or at least considered it. When I recounted the scene for Sam, he shook his head in disgust. “The lad has a bad case of swollen head, all right. I recommend we give him a dose of the same medicine we give to Jack.”
Several times in the past, when Jack had gone beyond the bounds of his duties as a hired man and insisted on pointing out our shortcomings, we had retaliated during a performance by replacing some crucial cue line with a line of our own invention. It was like throwing a lead weight to a wight who could not swim. We always rescued him eventually, but not until he had gone under a time or two.
The notion of giving Sal Pavy the same treatment was appealing; there was no doubt that he deserved it. But I reluctantly shook my head.
“Why not?” protested Sam. “It’ll be great fun!”
“Because. Mr. Armin said we should make him welcome.”
“Yes, well, that doesn’t mean we’re obliged to cheerfully accept his insults.”
“‘A never insulted you. Let it pass, all right? It’s not worth creating ill will over.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “You sound like Sander.”
“Good,” I said. “I meant to.”
As two o’clock approached, we set up our makeshift stage atop the wagon beds and then returned to the inn to get into our costumes. As usual, Sal Pavy was not among us. “I expect he has a nasty case of stage stomach,” said Mr. Armin, “and is somewhere vomiting his victuals.”
“A little fear is good for a fellow,” said Mr. Phillips. “It keeps him from getting over confident.”
As we headed for the town square, Sal Pavy caught up with us. He certainly did not look as though he had spent the last hour or so puking and agonizing. He looked, in fact, as cool as a cowcumber.
“Don’t tell me,” Sam said. “You got dressed in the stable.”
“Yes. I’m accustomed to having a modicum of privacy.”
“Weren’t you afraid the horses would look at you?” Sam teased. Sal Pavy ignored him. “I suppose at Blackfriars you had your own private tiring-room?”
Sal Pavy smiled smugly. “As a matter of fact, I did.”
A crowd of a hundred or more townfolk had gathered before the wagon-stage, drawn by the notes of Mr. Phillips’s pennywhistle. While the rest of the company went behind the striped curtain we had suspended at the rear of the stage, we prentices passed among the audience with our caps in our hands, calling “One penny, please”—or rather Sam and I did. Sal Pavy stood off to one side, silent and un-moving, with his cap held in both hands as though he found the prospect of actually soliciting money too demeaning. “Another thing he’s not accustomed to, I expect,” Sam muttered.
As I reached the rear of the crowd, I heard a commotion from down the street and glanced up to see a body of eight or nine men striding purposefully toward us, wearing grim looks on their faces and carrying cudgels in their hands.
“Gog’s blood!” I breathed. “They’ve come to run us off!” I pushed back through the crowd, raising cries of indignation, and scrambled around to the rear of the stage, where the players were waiting to make their entrances. “There’s a bunch of wights wi’ wasters coming!” I blurted between gasps. “I think it’s the catchpolls!”
“C-constables, you mean?” said Mr. Heminges calmly. “I’ll s-speak to them.” He stepped through the curtain. I peered over the edge of the stage. The band of constables were dispersing the crowd, yelling, “Go home!” and brandishing their clubs.
“Gentlemen!” Mr. Heminges called in his best Pilate’s voice over the clamor of the audience. “This is a lawful assembly! We are a licensed theatrical company! If you question that, we have here a decree issued by our patron, Lord Cobham!” He withdrew a paper f
rom his wallet and began to read in a voice as mellifluous and dramatic as though he were reading the player’s speech from Hamlet.
“To all justices, mayors, sheriffs, constables, headboroughs, and other officers, greeting. Know ye that I have licensed these my servants and their associates to freely exercise the art of playing comedies, tragedies, and histories—”
He got no further, for two of the catchpolls had climbed onto the stage and seized him by the arms. Despite his protests and those of the audience, they dragged him to the edge of the stage—not an easy task, for Mr. Heminges was not nearly as old nor as frail as he appeared in his guise of Ferdinand, King of Navarre.
One of the constables cried, “Stop struggling, old man!” and raised his cudgel. Before it could descend, Mr. Armin was through the curtains and across the boards. As quick as a dog can lick a dish, he had Mr. Heminges’s rapier out of its sheath and pointing at the constable’s throat-bole.
Though the sword was blunted, it would have gone badly for the man had he not let his cudgel drop. His fellow officer, taken aback by this turn of events, had loosened his grip. Mr. Heminges elbowed him sharply in the stomach and he toppled from the platform, waving his arms wildly.
Now the rest of the catchpolls were swarming onto the stage, scowling and shouting in anger. Mr. Armin booted his adversary off the apron, and he and Mr. Heminges backed away, into the ranks of the other players, who had now made an entrance en masse, with their stage swords drawn. The battle was joined.
8
The fight that ensued was nothing like scriming on the stage. There was no elegant, choreographed swordplay, no dramatic cries of “Have at you, now!” or “Yield, cur!”—only blows and grunts and curses. At first our men held their own, but when the officers discovered that our stage swords were more dull than deadly, the tide quickly turned.
Ned Shakespeare was the first to fall. He was struck in the ribs by a constable’s cudgel and doubled up, gasping for air. His brother rushed stage left to come to his aid, but was in turn felled by a blow to his forearm that made a sickening crack, audible even over the sounds of the struggle. Mr. Shakespeare gave a bellow of pain, dropped his weapon, and sank to his knees, clutching his arm to his chest.
As I was in ladies’ attire, I had no weapon save the stones at my feet. I scooped up a handful and let one fly at Mr. Shakespeare’s attacker. The man staggered downstage, holding his neck and howling. I loosed more stones whenever there was no danger of my hitting one of my fellows, and a few of them hit their mark, but it made no difference in the outcome.
Within five minutes’ time, all our company were sprawled upon the stage, holding their bruised limbs and pates—all save Mr. Armin. He was backed up against the curtain with a dagger in one hand and a rapier in the other. But the look on his face, a sort of gleeful menace, was far more daunting than those dull weapons were.
The clump of catchpolls backed off, all breathing heavily, and many of them nursing wounds of their own. The largest of the men, who seemed to be their leader, took a moment to get his wind, then growled, “If it was up to me, I’d throw the lot of you in jail, but the mayor says only to make sure you leave town—as speedily as possible.” He glanced up at the clock on the town hall; it read a quarter past two. “You’ve got until three o’clock. Then we come back.” He nodded to his men. They swung to the ground—more gingerly, for the most part, than they had ascended—and departed the square.
One by one our men got to their feet, wincing and groaning. Mr. Heminges’s doublet was torn; Mr. Phillips’s head was bleeding; Will Sly was holding a red-stained kerchief to his mouth and muttering muffled curses; Mr. Shakespeare was cradling his right arm against his body, his face drawn and white with pain.
I glanced around for Sam. He emerged from beneath the stage. In one hand he held the cudgel that one of the constables had dropped; in the other he clutched my cap and his, which sagged under the weight of the coins we had collected. “Sorry I didn’t join the fray,” he told the others. “I thought I’d do better to guard the box.”
Mr. Heminges smiled wanly. “G-good lad. But we m-mustn’t keep the m-money, for we’ve not earned it.”
“Not earned it?” Sam protested. “I’d say the audience got treated to quite a stirring performance.”
“But more like t-two minutes’ traffic upon the stage than two hours.”
“Well, we can’t just give it back, though, can we?” Sam gestured at the empty square. “They’ve all gone home.”
“We’ll l-leave it with the innkeeper, then.”
“He’s got enough of our money already—”
“That will do, Sam,” said Mr. Heminges sharply.
Sam hung his head, and thrust the caps full of money at me. “You do it,” he murmured. “I can’t bear to.”
“Have you seen Sal Pavy?” I asked him.
“Not since the excitement began. Try looking in the stable.”
As we headed back to the inn, I said to Sam, “I don’t think it’s wise to speak back to the sharers, as you did just then.”
Sam gave me a curious look. “I seem to recall you speaking back a time or two yourself. When did you become so cautious?”
I did not reply.
We were hard-pressed to take down the stage and get the carewares reloaded before the specified time. Sal Pavy turned up and, to my surprise, worked as hard as anyone. For once, all the sharers lent a hand with the labor as well, including Mr. Shakespeare, though his right arm was obviously causing him considerable pain.
The granary of the inn, where we had stored our equipment, was the center of activity. As I was dragging a property chest from the room, Mr. Shakespeare came in, his arm still clamped to his chest, his face as white as when he had played the ghost in Hamlet. “Where’s Ned?” he demanded of the company at large. “Has anyone seen him?”
The other players glanced at one another uncertainly, and then Jack volunteered, “I seen him a quarter of an hour ago, in the kitchen, dallying with one of the maids.”
Mr. Shakespeare scowled. “A plague on him! We need all the hands we have.” He reached down with his uninjured arm and hefted one end of the property trunk I was struggling with. “Let me help with that.” He got halfway to the careware before his legs buckled beneath him and he collapsed in a heap on the cobbles of the inn yard.
Alarmed, I called to Mr. Armin, who was hitching up the horses. “Come quickly!”
Mr. Armin knelt next to the playwright’s limp body. “He’s passed out. His injury must be worse than we thought.” Carefully he lifted Mr. Shakespeare’s right arm and gently probed the lower limb with his fingertips. Even in his unconscious state, Mr. Shakespeare cried out. “It’s badly swollen,” said Mr. Armin, “and I think I can feel the bone shifting. I’d say it’s broken, but I can’t be sure. My specialty is sword wounds. See what you think.”
“Me?” I said. “Can we not find a surgeon?”
“We haven’t time. You were apprenticed to a physician, Widge. Surely you must have seen him deal with broken bones.”
“Seeing is one thing,” I said. “Doing is another.” Mr. Armin did not reply, only gazed at me expectantly. Sighing, I put my fingers very tentatively on the arm, then jerked back as Mr. Shakespeare groaned. But even that brief touch had confirmed the fracture. “Aye, it’s a bad break. It’ll need a splint.”
“Do it quickly, then. I’d just as soon not have to face the mayor’s men again, even with a sharp sword.”
“But I don’t—” I started to say, to no avail. He had already gone back to his task. “I don’t ken what I’m doing,” I muttered, and then, because there was no one else to do it, I went about setting the arm as best I might, using soft cloth for padding and two stage daggers from the property trunk for splints, binding them in place with a scarlet sash from the costume chest. Then, with Jack’s reluctant help, I hoisted Mr. Shakespeare, still unconscious, and laid him out atop the supplies in one of the carewares.
The company rolled out of
the inn yard just as the church bells rang nones. Mr. Armin guided his fine black mare up alongside me. “Climb on,” he said. “You’ve earned a ride.”
Gratefully, I grabbed hold of his saddle and swung up behind him. “That splint will do for now,” I said. “Perhaps there’ll be a surgeon in the next place we stop, who can do the job right.”
“Perhaps. But you know, no matter how well it’s fixed, Will’s going to be unhappy with it.”
“Why? ‘A’ll still be able to act, will ‘a not?”
“No doubt. But I expect he’ll have some difficulty writing.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. ’A’s working on a new play, then?”
Mr. Armin nodded. “He’s trying. I don’t think it’s going very well.”
I wasn’t surprised, considering how hectic the past several weeks had been for us. “But … when could ’a possibly find the time to write?”
Mr. Armin laughed a little, as though he found my question naive. “When the rest of us are abed.”
We did not attempt to account for many miles that day, for we were all of us spent, and most were sore and aching from the afternoon’s skirmish. We put up at a small inn on the outskirts of Hungerford. Mr. Armin rode into the town to search for a surgeon, but without success. The best we could do for poor Mr. Shakespeare was to fortify him against the pain with brandy and put him to bed.
Over supper the rest of the sharers discussed what our next move should be. Back at the Globe, the prentices and hired men ordinarily would not have been privy to such matters, but here on the road the distance between owners and mere players seemed to have narrowed. There was an unexpressed sense of shared destiny, a feeling that we were all cooking at the same fire—or perhaps over it.
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