The Shakespeare Stealer

by Gary Blackwood

  But Mr. Armin was better prepared than he seemed. Instead of beating the blade aside, he performed a maneuver I had never before seen, and have not seen since. In truth, I thought it was a blunder. He fell forward, under Falconer’s blade, and landed on his outstretched left hand, at the same time thrusting his sword before him, parallel to the ground. It took Falconer squarely in the belly and drove in halfway to the hilt.

  Falconer gave a gasp of surprise and drew back. His hood fell away from his face, revealing his startled and scowling countenance. The skin of his face looked tight and twisted, as though something were pulling it askew.

  He seized the blade of Mr. Armin’s sword in his cloak-wrapped hand and, with a contemptuous gesture, jerked it free and flung it aside. For a moment, it seemed as though he had not been wounded at all. It was a trick, I thought, a collapsible sword. I half expected him to laugh and come at Mr. Armin again.

  Then the blood began to well from the wound, spreading across his doublet, dyeing it red, and I realized with a shock that this was no illusion. This was not sheep’s blood spurting from a bag, but his own life’s blood draining away, and no amount of bandaging would staunch it.

  Yet we had to try. Though Mr. Armin was bleeding himself from the gash under his arm, he stripped off his doublet and his linen shirt. We knelt next to Falconer, who had sunk onto the stones of the street, and tried to wrap the cloth about him.

  He pushed it impatiently aside. “Let it be,” he said in a voice so unlike his usual growl that I blinked in surprise. “It’s no use.”

  Mr. Armin let the shirt drop and put an arm under Falconer’s head as he sighed heavily and lay back. He seemed less like a man in pain than one who is simply unutterably weary. His face was weary, too. In full daylight, there was something curiously mask-like about his features.

  He pressed a hand to his face, as though trying to hide it from our view, but his words said the opposite. “I suppose you have a right to see the true face of the man you’ve slain.” As I watched in astonishment, he plucked at the dark skin of his cheek with his fingernails, and pulled away a great chunk of it. Where the repulsive scar had been there was now a smooth, pale patch of skin. Again his fingers dug at his face, and this time pulled away a portion of his hooked nose, leaving it straight and similarly pale-skinned. His eyes turned to me, and the look in them was almost amused. “You know me now?”

  I swallowed hard. “Aye. Mr. Bass.”

  “And you?” he said to Mr. Armin. “But you knew before, did you not?”

  “I suspected it.”

  “Still it was a good disguise, was it not? My masterpiece. Everyone’s idea of what a Jew looks like, eh?”

  “An excellent disguise,” Mr. Armin said. “Such a talent should not be wasted.”

  “I agree. The very reason I left the Chamberlain’s Men. There were too many fools in it to suit me.”

  “Better a company of fools than the company of thieves.”

  Mr. Bass coughed, and wiped the corner of his mouth. A bit of red smeared the back of his hand. “Perhaps so. But you must allow that I had the good taste to steal only from the best.” Those were the last words he spoke, in this life at any rate.

  Though death had taken my fellow orphans, and Dr. Bright’s patients, I had never seen a man die at the hand of another, and had no notion of how I should react. I glanced at Mr. Armin, as if for a cue. He avoided my gaze and busied himself folding his doublet to prop up Mr. Bass’s black-dyed head.

  I had not shed tears in a long time, nor did I shed them now. All the same, I was overcome with a strange sadness, at odds with the relief I had expected to feel, now that the threat which had hung over me for so long was removed. The sensation was something like what I’d felt for Julia, when she had been forced to relinquish her position as a player. I could give no name to it, unless perhaps it was the word Julia had once tried to acquaint me with—compassion.

  We sat with the dead man, ignoring the gawking crowd that had gathered, until a constable came and summoned a cart to bear the body away. The constable knew Mr. Armin, and when he was satisfied that the duel had arisen over stolen property, he let us go free.

  We both had had our fill of the Thames, and so walked back to the Globe by way of the bridge. “How is it you kenned Mr. Bass?” I asked.

  “I might ask the same of you. But I’d rather you told your story to the company as a whole, and let them judge you.”

  “Will they—will they turn me out, do you think?”

  “I can’t speak for them. As for how I knew Simon Bass—the truth is, I was with his company a short while before I came here. They were a sorry lot. Not only did they steal scripts, they often borrowed the name and reputation of some respectable company. They would give a single performance, then depart in the dead of night, often with the contents of the town’s treasury. They seldom played the same town twice. There were scores of places where Bass dared not even go on legitimate business without disguising himself.”

  “But why bother to disguise himself from me?”

  “I suppose he didn’t want to risk your giving him away. Or it may be he believed you’d follow orders better if they came from Falconer.”

  “’A was right about that.” I shook my head, still unable to quite understand. “But how could ’a bear to play a part for so long a time, and never reveal his true self?”

  “Perhaps,” Mr. Armin said, “it was his true self.”

  The Chamberlain’s Men were more lenient than I expected or deserved. Both Mr. Pope and Mr. Armin argued on my behalf. Even Mr. Shakespeare, who had most cause to call for my dismissal, seemed inclined to forgive me. Only Jack spoke out against me, and not very vehemently.

  So it was that I was permitted to stay on as a prentice with the company, and I was very grateful for it. I recognized now that I was being offered something more than just a career as a player, acting out a variety of roles. I was also being offered a chance at a real-life role, as a valued member of the Globe family.

  My only cause for regret was that Julia had not been so fortunate as I. What had become of her no one seemed to know. Neither had we heard any news of Nick, but in his case no one cared much.

  When several weeks went by with no word from Julia, Sander and I persuaded Mr. Armin to accompany us into the grimy depths of Alsatia, where we made a few inquiries. The man named Hugh recalled hearing that she was working as a serving maid for a household in Petty France, that colony of French émigrés just outside the walls of the city. Sander and I tried to track her down there, but neither of us knew enough French to make much headway.

  All through the summer and into the fall, my schedule at the Globe remained hectic. In addition to all my new roles, I was given the task of copying out the individual sides from the book of each new play. Still I doubt that a day went by in which I did not think of Julia and wonder how she fared. I began to fear that she had joined her father at his unsavory trade and disappeared into the city’s underworld, in which case we might despair of ever seeing her again.

  Then, a week before Christmas, as we were preparing Twelfth Night for presentation at the court, Julia entered our lives again briefly, like the well-known Messenger I had so often played, who delivers his message and then departs.

  Mr. Pope and Sander and I were on our way home after a trying performance, at which three so-called gentlemen took seats upon the very stage, thrust their feet in the players’ paths, and distracted us with their “witty” comments. So busy were we venting our irritation that we scarcely noticed the serving maid who approached us until she spoke our names. “Widge? Sander?”

  We halted and stared at her. “Julia?” I said.

  She laughed at our looks of surprise. “Yes, it’s me, disguised as a serving maid. Good day, Mr. Pope,” she added, not very cordially.

  Mr. Pope bowed slightly, as if to a lady—which, I had to remind myself, Julia now was. “We’ve all been wondering what became of you.”

  “Nothing of any c
onsequence, I’m afraid.”

  “That is unfortunate,” Mr. Pope said, and I could tell that his words were sincere. “I truly wish that…that things could have worked out differently.”

  “So do I.” Her tone was still far from friendly.

  Mr. Pope cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Well. You’ll want to talk with your friends, I expect. I’ll bid you good morrow.”

  She made him a curtsy that was neither very graceful nor very gracious. When Mr. Pope was out of hearing, Sander said, “You might have been more kind. It wasn’t his fault you had to go.”

  “I know that. It’s no one’s fault, really—or everyone’s. It’s just that I haven’t quite gotten over it.” She tossed her hair, which had grown long, and went on more cheerfully. “But I didn’t come to open up old wounds. I came to tell you some good news, actually. It seems I may have the chance to be a player after all.”

  “Truly?” I said eagerly. “They’ve changed the rule?”

  “No. No, I’m afraid not. But you see, Mr. Heminges once told me that in France women are permitted to act on the stage. So I’ve been working in the household of a French wine merchant, saving up my wages for passage money, and learning the language and—well, the long and short of it is, I sail for France in the morning.”

  “That’s the good news?” I asked.

  “Yes. Aren’t you happy for me?”

  “Oh. Aye. Of course.”

  “That’s as happy as Widge gets, I think,” Sander said, and shook his head. “Gog’s bread, Julia, it’s hard enough learning lines in English. How are you going to do it in French?”

  She gave him an indignant look. “Je parle français très bien, monsieur.”

  He laughed and held up his hands in surrender. “Very well, mademoiselle. If anyone can do it, it’s you. Best of luck. I mean, bonne chance.”

  “Merci.” She curtsied again, less awkwardly. “Widge? Aren’t you going to wish me luck?”

  “Aye,” I said glumly. “Good luck.”

  She reached out and took my hand. “You needn’t look so forlorn. Come, now, smile a little. For me?”

  This business of friendship was a curious thing, I thought, almost as difficult to learn as the business of acting. Sometimes you were expected to tell the truth, to express your thoughts and your feelings, and then other times what was wanted was a lie, a bit of disguise. I was still but a prentice in the art, but slowly and painfully I was learning. Though in truth I felt more like crying, I put on the smile she asked for, or as near to it as I could come. “Up Yorkshire, we say ‘Fair ’chieve you.’”

  She squeezed my hand. “Fair ’chieve you, then.” She backed away, as though compelled to leave, yet reluctant to let us from her sight. At last, she turned and hurried off in the direction of the Thames, which tomorrow would carry her to the sea.

  As I watched her go, tears welled in my eyes, and for the first time since I was a child, I let them come. Now I understood why she had left us before without any farewell. Parting was not, as I had heard one of Mr. Shakespeare’s characters say, a sweet sorrow. It was bitter as gall.

  Behind us, Mr. Pope cleared his throat again. “She’s a plucky girl.”

  Embarrassed, I wiped at my eyes. “She is that.”

  He put a hand on Sander’s shoulder and mine. “We’d best be heading home now, boys. Goody Willingson has promised us toad-in-the-hole for tonight’s repast.”

  “Toad-in-the-hole?” I said, laughing a little despite myself.

  “Don’t laugh,” Sander said. “It’s good. Almost as good as bubble and squeak.”

  “It certainly doesn’t sound very good. But I can rely on your judgment, I suppose.”

  “You can that.”

  As the three of us—Mr. Pope and his boys—walked home, I reflected on these new terms and all the others I had learned—and unlearned—since my arrival here but a few months before. Though I hadn’t quite learned a new language, as Julia was doing, I felt almost as though I had.

  For every ken and wis and aye I had dropped from my vocabulary, I had picked up a dozen new and useful terms. Some were fencing terms, some were peculiar to London, some were the jargon of the players’ trade. But the ones that had made the most difference to me were the words I had heard before and never fully understood their import—words such as honesty and trust, loyalty and friendship.

  And family.

  And home.