The Playmaker

by J. B. Cheaney

  “Enough!” Abruptly, he turned away, swerving out of the candlelight, and took three paces to the window. There he stood, gazing out at the blank wall of the next house. The other two watched me as intently as cats watching a mouse, Bartlemy in particular.

  “Have you ever met a man named Peter Kenton?” Master Feather asked, with his back turned.

  “Please, sir. I'm just an apprentice. I know hardly anyone outside the profession—”

  “Have you ever met him or heard of him?”

  “No, sir.”

  “John Beauchamp? Or Beecham, as he is sometimes known— have you ever heard that name?”

  By now I was sure of it: whatever Matthew Merry had done or knew, he was keeping much of it from his master. If the attorney was unaware that I had carried an image of his medallion, or that it was taken from me, or that I had met John Beecham, then I would not be the one to enlighten him.

  “I know him not, sir. I wish to go. If you will not give me justice against your clerk—”

  “Enough, I said!” He turned back to the table, bent swiftly, and picked up an object from the floor. Then he was at my right shoulder, a presence suddenly as tall and forbidding as the Tower. I smelled a dusty scent, felt a rough texture scratching my face. “I'll tell you this, Richard Malory.” I felt a sudden chill at his pronouncing that name, as though a cold breeze had blown off Finsbury Fields, where long ago two men met with drawn swords. “I perceive you have a fair imagination,” he went on. “Pray you, imagine this grain sack pulled over your head, and bound up tight, and then dropped in the middle of the Thames with you in it. My counsel to you is, lay off. I cannot vouch for your safety, should you wind yourself further in this coil. Canst follow me?”

  “Aye, sir.” My voice felt tight as a bowstring; the two words were all I could manage, for I was no longer acting.

  He left my side. “Then I'll leave you to find your way home. Remember I was merciful, and breathe not a word of this to anyone … or you may find my mercy extinguished.” I saw his pale hand glow behind the candle flame and then abruptly close upon it. In the darkness a curl of sulfurous smoke met my nose, like the beckoning of hell. I heard the three gather up their few implements and leave, almost as quietly as ghosts blown upon the chilly October breeze. A line spoken by King Leontes came to me: “I am a feather for every wind that blows.” True, but now a Feather was doing the blowing, and I the thing blown, light and uncertain, drifting this way and that over the ever-changing earth. The words we spoke to each other might have been a play of sorts, but I knew that the threat was as real as the scratch of coarse sacking against my face. God help me, thought I, alone in that featureless, nameless room. God catch me.

  “Not a word to anyone,” he had said—but Starling was not “anyone.” And for certain there was no avoiding her; she pounced when I came through the Condell's gate, with the hungry zeal of a tiger. “Oh, thank God! I thought … but never mind what I thought. Who was that man? You must tell me—for the past two hours I have died a thousand deaths!”

  This last I put to her tendency to exaggerate. We found a place on a window seat far from the hearth fire, where we could talk privately. I had feared that Master Condell, who was enjoying a rare night at home, would upbraid me for skipping a rehearsal. But he merely paused, in the middle of a conversation with his wife and son, to fine me the amount set by Company rules. Lady Alice, whom I had not thought inclined to sympathy, grabbed Ned and Cole when they galloped toward me and bore them off to plague Robin instead.

  When we were settled I told Star, “The man was Martin Feather.”

  “Ah!” she burst out, then tempered her lively face so as not to draw attention. “I knew it.”

  “So did I, somehow. That part was not surprising. But other things were. …” I went over the interview, with its curious turns and missed cues, then voiced my conclusion: “From all I could tell, there seems to be much he doesn't know.”

  She thought this over. “But that cannot be. Why would he have made himself so scarce? And why would you be warned away from him by two different men if he were innocent of any plot?”

  “I didn't say he was innocent—he had that medallion, after all, and set some store by it. But he was not scarce today. He put himself in the middle of the gallery, where he was certain to be seen.”

  “And it was as I said—he lured you into a trap.”

  “He did. But it was odd how they went about it. As though it were all a play.” I paused and swallowed. “Except at the end.”

  “Why? What happened at the end?”

  “There is something I haven't told you. Something I learned about Martin Feather. … He … he killed my father.”

  “What?”

  I related the story I had from Ben Jonson and watched her eyes grow wider. “Oh, Richard,” was all she said.

  I was rubbing my hand against my thigh, thinking out loud. “Now. He seemed not to remember the name Malory, but that was pretense. Of course he knew it—he sent us money under that name. Whether he associates me with Robert Malory is another matter. He made no sign of it, in the presence of his henchmen. But his last words to me were a threat.”

  “So … will you heed him? Will you let it alone?”

  “They did not sound like idle words to me. Would you like to fish my body out of the Thames when I disappear?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then I must let it alone.” I watched my hand on my thigh, rubbing the rough woolen hose as if the dark stench of Wall Lane still clung to it—harder and harder, the flesh warming, then burning. Finally, I gripped so tightly, I could feel a bruise forming under each finger. “The question is, Will it leave me alone?” I turned to the window, where night had laid its cold palm, leaned my forehead against it, and admitted to myself that I was truly afraid.

  Starling raised a hand and rested it lightly on my knee. Then she let it fall. A moment later I heard her slide off the window seat and leave me alone with my fear, but the peculiar warmth of her touch remained. A small, light touch that spoke more clearly than words ever could. A simple touch that told me she cared for me, as more than a friend.

  The warmth spread from my knee to my face. It was like a gift delivered into my hands—an awkward, unmanageable gift, squirming like a puppy. What might I do with this? Did I even want it? Starling's affection weighted me like another burden. Yet I found myself wondering, in spite of everything, what it would be like to kiss her. …

  THE SKIES LOOK GRIMLY

  he Winter's Tale played for two more perfomances. I walked through them with appropriate voice and gesture, keeping a good arm's length between Perdita and myself. On the third performance our patron appeared in the gallery—Lord Hunsdon. Though less than three months had passed since I saw him at the funeral, he appeared much older, and the players confirmed his health was poor. “He'll not be with us much longer,” Will Sly confided to me, and that was a measure of some distress on his part, for he seldom spoke to me at all. Lord Hunsdon had been the Company's staunch friend since its beginning, but who could predict the temper of our next patron? Masters Burbage, Heminges, and Shakespeare returned from an interview with gloomy looks that belied their good news—Lord Hunsdon had extended his usual invitation to perform at Whitehall over Christmastide. The Company's status was thus affirmed and even exalted, but none could say for how long.

  As October went on, more and more of our performances were given under blustery skies to a house only half-filled with hardy souls. Once a northern gust blew over our scene of a May frolic and dropped a light mantle of snow upon the god Pan and his attendants. As one of those attendants, robed in summer draperies and strewn with silk flowers, I came very close to quitting the theater then. “We grow too old for this,” remarked Will Kempe to his comrades, after suffering the part of Pan. “From now on we must perform only winter's tales in the fall so we might dress in furs. Or battle tales so we might hop around nimbly enough to keep warm.”

  “Or no tales at
all,” Master Cowley laughed. “Merely battles. Have at thee!” He jabbed with a poking stick, which Kempe parried with a wooden sword, and then the two gentlemen were cavorting like boys, making havoc in spite of the tiring master's protest.

  As for me, I felt as old as the year. “Solid,” was the way Master Condell put it. “You're settling, Richard. Though you've much yet to learn, I see you as a solid performer now, and the better part of the Company agrees with me.” This was the best word I had received from anyone about my future, but it failed to satisfy. “Solid” meant that I learned my part, remembered actions, manipulated my voice to fit the words, adjusted my movements to show feeling. If Master Smithton in the hut were ingenious enough to construct a mechanical figure of such talents, it would have done as well. “Solid” was not the mastery of Richard Burbage or the brilliant promise of Kit Glover. Only once had I entered fully into a part—and frightened everybody, including myself. It seemed I must give too much to the stage or too little; I had struck the right balance with Constance, but that was long ago. At the end of the season I might solidly walk off the boards never to return, and in a month all recollection of me would be gone. I confided this to Starling one Sunday after church.

  “But why should that trouble you?” she asked. We were walking home from St. Mary's on a blustery, chilly day, near the end of a long procession of Condells. An armada of gray-bottomed clouds plowed across the sky, white tops unfurled like sails. “Why should you care?” Starling asked again. “You never liked the stage. You've not been happy since you came.”

  This was not entirely true. I'd known happiness in my master's house, and it wasn't that I disliked Lady Theater so much, but feared she disliked me.

  “Who says I care?” I hiked up my cloak against the chill.

  “No need to say it. It shows in your look, your walk, your whining voice.”

  “I do not whine.” I was regretting that I had opened my mouth, as I often did with her. “But there is this in me, that wants me to do my best. As St. Paul says, ‘Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it heartily.'”

  “I think there is this in you, that hates to be bested by anything.”

  I stopped and turned to her in exasperation, but could think of no reply. Jacob and Tobias stepped around us with identical grins that said, At it again? They hurried to cross the street in front of a drayage cart, leaving the two of us alone on the corner.

  “Ha,” she said. “I am right.”

  “You are presumptuous. You are quick to size and speak a thing you know nothing of.” Further, you are right, I thought—but did not say. And at that moment she might not have heard, for all her attention seemed taken by some movement on the far side of the street. I followed her gaze to the row of hawthorn trees now half-stripped of their red leaves, and a pair of scholars passing behind them, black robes billowing in the wind. The sight seemed unremarkable and not worth the scrutiny she gave it. “Star?”

  “Ask me anon.” With no more farewell she charged into the street and crossed with a quick, determined step, leaving me suspended in mid-argument. Starling could be seized and carried away by an idea while slower mortals choked on her dust. I sighed mightily and walked home at my own deliberate pace.

  Betty drew me aside when I entered the house, her manner sly. “Richard,” she said, “I've a message for you, delivered but an hour ago.” She took from her bodice a small, folded paper crumpled about the edges. The seal remained whole—Betty would not be tempted to break it, for she could not read.

  But what made my breath come shorter were the initials on the seal: JB. He had written my full name below it, in a spiky hand.

  “Did anyone see this?” I demanded. “Who brought it?”

  “None, sir. I've kept it safe. 'Twas a ragged little urchin brought it.” She smiled coyly. “By a fine lady's hand?”

  Covert messages could mean only one thing to her—and it was not unusual for ladies, fine or not, to carry on dalliances with boys in the theater. During the season Robin received giggly love notes as a matter of course. So I shrugged, allowing her to think what she would, and folded the message over once. “Thank you, Betty. We will keep this between ourselves, won't we?”

  She agreed, tittering, while I turned and galloped up the two sets of narrow stairs to the attic room. Once alone, I studied the seal, but could think of only one person with those initials. Scarcely breathing, I lifted it and read these words:

  My eyes are upon you yet.

  You have done well, and I expect great things from you. From me, expect nothing, fear nothing, be surprised at nothing. You owe me a great debt, and I may be forced to call it in.

  Watch and wait.

  A great debt. Called in. Watch and wait. My heart flew up into my throat. I tore the paper in half, then put the two halves together and tore them again, and again and again, until the message was reduced to scraps. Then I scooped them up in my hand and rushed back down the stairs, through the great room and kitchen, and out the door of the buttery, making for the servants' privy in one corner of the yard. Once safely inside, I tossed all the fluttering pieces of paper, with the seal, into the muck below. I stood in the near-darkness, one hand against the rough board wall. But the sensation of relief lasted only a moment. The burden of the message could not be made to disappear.

  Starling was waiting for me when I opened the privy door—not a welcome sight.

  “What?” I nearly shouted. “Is this where fashionable ladies and gentlemen meet now? Is there no place I can be at peace?”

  “I have somewhat to show you,” she replied, quite calmly. “Come with me.” Without another word she turned and led the way past the garden and around the house, where the Condells were gathering for dinner. It crossed my mind that they would miss us and exchange glances when we came in late together, but Starling had no regard for the looks of the thing—or any other thing, else she would have marked my state, observant as she was. I followed her to the street and down to the corner, where moments earlier she had so abruptly left me. Here she turned and pointed to the row of hawthorns.

  “Look at it. Four months ago the trees were all in leaf and from here you could see little behind them. True?” I nodded. “You remember Ned's tale of the bear?”

  “I remember.”

  “Now suppose—” I could see she hoped to present the calm face of a master of logic, but the ferment of her thoughts bubbled through. “Suppose you are Ned, standing here. You see a gentleman walking toward us on the street—a gentleman with a golden beard and orange cape, crowned in a dark velvet cap with a partridge feather sticking out the side of it.”

  “Star. I told you to let it alone—”

  “This is only a surmise. You may do as you will with it. Mind the partridge feather; the eye goes at once to that, and marks not so much the rest of him, especially his face. Therefore, the feather goes first.” She trotted several paces away, then turned and started toward me slowly, reaching up her right hand to pull an imaginary ornament from an imaginary cap. “He can hide it away in his doublet. What is left is a plain black or brown cap, squarish like a lawyer might wear. By now he is at the corner, where he may pause a moment to make sure no one is passing. With his way clear, he steps behind the trees and reaches around his back”—she imitated this action—“where, under the cloak, is room to hide a barrister's gown. He pulls it forth, which he can do still walking, and throws the gown over cloak, sword, doublet, all. The beard may come off. I wager it does, and he can pull up his cowl to cover any redness it leaves on his jaw. In any event, he goes in as a fop and emerges as a lawyer. A changed man—or we may say, a changed beast.”

  I passed a hand over my face. “Such as a bear.”

  O“Now mark, a child of Ned's fanciful turn of mind could see a black robe appear where somewhat else was expected, and call it a black bear, could he not?”

  “Especially after being exposed to your fanciful turn of mind.”

  She waved that aside. “Follow you now what t
his might mean?”

  “I follow, but like it not.”

  “Meaning?” “Peter Kenton was John Beecham in disguise.” She clapped her hands with a crow of triumph, a delighted response I could not share.

  “Or,” she proposed, “John was Peter in disguise. Or—” Her expression heightened, as though struck by a new thought: “John and Peter are both manifestations of someone we've not even met.”

  I stared at her, then convulsively shook my head and started back across the street. She fell in beside me, obviously disappointed in my lackluster response to her brilliance. “It was clever of you to work it out,” I said, by way of compensation.

  She made a modest shrug. “I only thought you should know. It is for you to act upon. I do wish the man would appear again, now that I know what to ask him—but be assured, I won't seek him out.”

  I could only nod in reply. I knew the man might well appear again, for I had just heard from him to that effect. But all my questions for him now boiled down to one: What do you want from me?

  All Hallow's Eve blew gustily and raw, from mid-morning all the way through a performance of The Spanish Tragedy. While an audience filling less than a third of the Theater milled about and shivered, we of the Company held on to our hats and fought to keep our voices steady. Afterward we walked—or ran, more like—through a tavern scene that would be played the next day should winds and rain permit, then the Lord Chamberlain's Men broke rehearsal early and gathered in the tiring room to discuss a business matter. As the days were growing ever shorter, Jacob and Watt, the Heminges' footman, had arrived with torches to light us home.

  “Fearful stirrings in the city,” I heard Jacob say to Robin.

  “Why not?” was the reply. “‘Tis All Hallow's Eve.” Robin had already confided to me his intention to “slip out” this night.

  Jacob shook his head. “More than that. There's real trouble on the boil. They say the papists are rising again. The master needs come quickly so we can get safe home, lest you fancy your head broke.”