“I don’t think he’s a skilled actor. I think he’s the most false—”
“To be sure, you’re free to think what you like. But hurting his feelings is counter to what you would be trying to do. Let him think you admire his work, and that you would give him secrets to how women really are. He would be pleased to learn what you could tell him.”
“Would he really?”
“I think so.” She rose to leave. “Give it a try. I think we’d all benefit from whatever you could show Wally. The better he does, the better we all look. Consider it.”
The look on Liza’s face made Suzanne hopeful as she left the room and returned to Ramsay, who awaited her just inside the upstage entrances.
“What was that about?” he queried.
“Well, either things will calm down between Liza and Wally, or else they’ll murder each other.”
He chuckled. “Then you’ll know who did it and can dispatch the investigation in no time at all.”
She laughed also as they left the building.
The day was not as cold as had been others recently. Certainly not warm, but there was no wind and for the moment it seemed a thaw might be in the air. Of course it was still January and winter would have them in its grip for another two months or so, but for today the walk across the bridge was not particularly unpleasant.
Suzanne rapped on the door of the astrologer’s rooms near the Royal Exchange, as Ramsay ducked his head to keep it from bumping the plain wooden brace overhead that held up part of the building overhang. There was no answer, and so Suzanne banged longer and harder.
Finally, the voice of Esmeralda came from the other side, promising she was on her way, a bolt was drawn back, and the door creaked open. “What . . . oh.” She drew the door open further and stepped back. “Do come in, Suzanne. And your friend.” She nodded to Ramsay as he followed Suzanne inside. “What might I do for you so very . . . very early this morning?” She had a glance outside before closing the door, then went to stir her hearth so to catch alight a twist of paper for lighting a candle. The dawn was still more of a promise than a fact, so the room was nearly as dark as if the night were still pitch-black. Once there was light to see by, Suzanne spoke.
“Esmeralda, I have another request to make of you. And here is a half crown for your trouble.” She handed over a coin, which the astrologer deposited without hesitation in a tin cup that sat atop her mantel.
“Very well. What is it you require? Another reading?”
“I wish another reading. Not of my own chart, but of someone else’s.”
She held up her palms and shook her head. “Not the king. I won’t tell you anything about the king’s horoscope, for it would mean my neck. I’m the only woman in the kingdom entitled to read his chart, and that is only for his own sake. ’Tis the one confidentiality that is sacrosanct, and I absolutely will not say a word to you or anyone else on it.”
Suzanne shook her head. “Not the king. We’ve seen what happens to those who meddle in the king’s fate, and I value my neck as well as you do yours. There have been too many heads perched on the bridge belonging to men who thought they had something to say about the fate of a king for me to have any interest there. No, I need a reading for the boy we spoke of some days ago.”
A skeptical eyebrow raised. “The one whose name has eluded you, and never mind his birth date?”
Suzanne smiled and drew the duchess’s letter from inside her doublet. She’d not taken the time to change her clothing that morning, and still wore the man’s outfit from last night. “I have not only learned the poor victim’s name, thanks to your last reading and a suggestion from my friend Throckmorton, but I also have from his mother the exact time and place of his birth.”
Esmeralda’s face brightened and she lost the sleepiness in her eyes. “Oh! You’ve found him!” She began to reach for the letter.
“Lord Paul Worthington, son of the Duke of Cawthorne. I wish you to tell me his indications just before he died.”
Now the astrologer’s face took on the darkness of alarm and she retrieved her hand rather than touch the letter. “Oh. Yes. The victim, who is now dead. That could be troublesome.”
“Why?”
She looked at Suzanne as if she’d gone mad. Or stupid. “’Tis terrible bad luck to tell the horoscope of a dead person. One takes an awful risk to meddle in such as that.”
“Not even to learn the name of a murderer?”
Esmeralda, frowning deeply, gazed off into the middle distance for a moment as she thought that over. Slowly she said, “Well, you understand that there’s good and evil in everything. Nothing on God’s earth is pure in either. And those of us who study the stars must consider that we’re entrusted by God with information that may or may not be ours to know. Or tell.”
“You’re telling me you’re afraid of your own power?”
Now Esmeralda looked into Suzanne’s face. “All who wield power should respect it, no matter what that power is or how ’tis given to them. Every king, and every sorcerer, should respect the power in them. I do no less.”
“So you won’t do the reading? I should have back my coin, then.”
Esmeralda snorted, frowned some more, then said, “No, I never said I wouldn’t do it. But we must be careful.”
“Of course.”
A good rummage through the papers and books on her table, and the astrologer was ready to begin, with an ephemeris in her lap and a large piece of paper on the table at her elbow. A quill stood in an inkwell next to it, barely visible amongst the stacks of books, papers, and a plate of poultry bones that appeared left from last night’s supper. Suzanne told her the date and time in question, then sat to wait. Ramsay stood near the door like a statue depicting Patience. He hadn’t said a word since their arrival.
It seemed to take a very long time to construct the chart of Lord Paul, and there was much frowning and grunting in it. At one point the astrologer muttered, “Oh . . . not good. Not good at all.” But when Suzanne opened her mouth to ask why, she raised a finger for silence and continued on with her work. The sun rose and a sliver of light crept onto the wall opposite the small window at the front. The astrologer worked on.
Finally she sighed and looked up at Suzanne, then at Ramsay. To Suzanne she said, “That poor boy.”
“What, then?”
She gestured to the paper before her, and said, “Betrayal. ’Tis all betrayal in his life. I see nothing here but evil for him, and the most profound betrayal. Had I read this chart before he died, I could have predicted it. The poor boy never had a chance at a long life, nor a prosperous one.”
Ramsay said, “You’re saying he’s better off dead?”
Esmeralda shrugged. “‘Better off’ would be a judgment I couldn’t make. But I see his death was inevitable.”
“And what does the chart say about how he died? Where should we look for his killer?”
The astrologer closed her eyes to think, as if trying to picture something. “Home.”
“He wasn’t at home when he died. He hadn’t been there for months.”
A shrug, and Esmeralda’s expression was apologetic. “I cannot say why, but home and betrayal are connected with strong indications of death.”
Ramsay said, “That could simply mean he was abducted from his home, and that you already know.”
Suzanne’s heart sank. “There must be something more, for the indication to be so strong. We must be missing something.”
He replied, “Perhaps what we need is to talk to someone who may know something other than where Mars is in the sky.”
Esmeralda turned to frown at him. “You doubt the stars?”
“No, ’tis you I doubt. You’ve only told us what we already know.”
“And how, then, did I know it? I’ve not heard a word about this since your mistress was here asking about her own ch
art several days ago. I never knew the name of the victim until just this morning.”
Ramsay didn’t seem to have a reply to that, and only pressed his lips together.
Suzanne said, “There must be something else we can learn.”
Again Esmeralda shrugged. “All I might tell you is to look to the boy’s home. That is where you’ll find the answer to your question. But tread lightly. This chart has such strong indications of death, there might be danger to others.”
Suzanne then remembered her own chart, and how it had brought Esmeralda to her in the first place. Suddenly she was uncomfortable with this, and she said to Ramsay, “Come. Let us return to the Globe.”
“Surely you won’t quit the chase, mistress,” said the astrologer.
“I don’t know for certain what I’ll do at the moment. Thank you for your effort and expertise.” With that, she left in a hurry, with Ramsay behind her.
Outside in the street, Ramsay said as he hurried along beside Suzanne, “Are you afraid now?”
She walked head down, her legs scissoring quickly along. “I can’t tell what I am. But I’ve got a disquieted feeling about all this. Suddenly it’s all too shadowy. Too hidden.”
“Too deathly.”
She stopped to examine his face. He didn’t seem any more sanguine about this than she was. “Death is everywhere. It can’t be avoided. Media vita in morte sumus. In the midst of life we are in death.”
“But this was in your chart, and I cannae blame you for not liking it.”
She made a humming noise of agreement, then continued on her way.
Chapter Fifteen
On returning to the Globe, Suzanne found the mummers onstage, rehearsing a short commedia dell’arte bit that included some tumbling. She gathered it would be to complement the next production, though she couldn’t remember which was next up after Twelfth Night.
Inside the ’tiring house she found small clusters of actors occupying assorted spaces, rehearsing. Suzanne was too tired from too little sleep to care what play it was, but on her way to her quarters in the basement she paused in the stairwell when she heard the voices of Liza and Wally going over some dialogue from Twelfth Night. Since that play was well into its run and should not need rehearsal, Suzanne was curious what they were up to, hidden away down here like this. Unseen, she sat on a step to listen. It was Wally’s voice speaking, as Olivia.
“. . . I heard you were saucy at my gates, and allowed your approach rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be gone; if you have reason—”
“Wait.”
“What now?”
“It’s all wrong.”
“Don’t start again.”
Suzanne started to rise, to separate the two and prevent a shouting match, but Liza’s next words made her pause.
“I’m not. I swear it. This is the part I was talking about. You’re playing this as if you were a man pretending to be a woman.”
“I am a man pretending to be a woman.”
“But you don’t want the audience to think that. You’ve asked me to help you pass undetected.”
Suzanne sat again to listen some more. She began to see she might not want to interrupt this.
“How would you do it, then?”
Suzanne’s eyebrows went up. This was new.
Liza replied, “Not so much hip. After all, you can’t flaunt what you don’t have, and your farthingale is no substitute.”
“Well, I’ve no bosom, either.”
“But you have padding, and the lack doesn’t affect the way you move. The way we walk, it’s all because of our hips. If you don’t have them, you can’t help but walk like a man. You either look like a man walking, or you look like a man trying to look like a woman walking. So you must bring attention to your bosom.”
“Which I don’t have.”
“Show us your padding, then.” There was a moment’s pause, then she said. “That’s it. Shoulders back.”
“They are back.”
“Stop trying to hide your lack.”
“I don’t want to show the edges of the padding.”
“Nobody is looking there. They’re looking at your neckline. The edge of your costume is in the front, not the sides, and you’ve marvelous padding. I wish my bosom was as well dressed.”
That brought a chuckle from Wally, and Suzanne stifled one as well.
“So,” continued Liza, “let us hear that line again.”
“It is the more like to be feigned; I pray you, keep it in. I heard you were saucy at my gates, and allowed your approach rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be gone; if you have reason, be brief: ’tis not that time of moon with me to make one in so skipping a dialogue.”
“Excellent. I would never know you were a man.”
“If only there were something I could do about this face of mine. I so wish my face were soft and oval, like Kynaston’s.”
“He’s no woman. I am, and I have a square jaw like you.”
“You’ve nothing to overcome.”
“Nonsense. I would be far prettier with an oval face, but it wouldn’t make me look any more like a girl.”
“I would like to be pretty, truth be told. I think it would be a sweet life to be a beautiful woman and have men shower me with gifts and want to take me to bed.”
“And put their hands up your dress, and tell you what to do and what not to do, and then beat you when you disobey.”
“There is that, I suppose.” His voice turned bright for a change of subject. “So, what was that other spot you wanted to work out?”
“Act II, Scene II. I left no ring with her. It feels exceedingly strange to be talking to Malvolio one moment as a boy, then the next to myself as a woman. How do I make that transition?”
“Simple enough. One moment you’re putting up the façade, and then Malvolio leaves and you drop it.”
“But how do I do that?”
“Here . . . stand like this.”
Suzanne continued to listen as the two worked out their differences and began to cooperate. It did her heart good, and though it was a bit late for Twelfth Night, she thought it boded well for future productions of other plays.
* * *
EVENTUALLY the two finished their private rehearsal, and quickly Suzanne rose from her seat to make footstep noises as if she were just then descending from the floor above. Then she came down the steps to meet Liza and Wally on their way up, nodded good morning to them, then let herself into her rooms to undress and crawl into bed. Sounds of the mummers thumping against the stage boards outside her window lulled her to sleep.
Exhausted, Suzanne spent a large portion of the day sleeping. Though she would have liked to have pressed her investigation without wasting time on rest, her thoughts had all collapsed in on themselves until they were a worthless jumble. She had no choice but to lie down for a while.
But not a long while. During that afternoon’s performance of Twelfth Night she went into the audience, sitting as she usually did in the third gallery over the entrance doors. She knew the role of Viola so well, her lips sometimes moved along with Liza’s voice. Some muscles twitched with the memory of past performance, as if by her effort she might guide Liza in her movements on the stage. Suzanne would never play the role again, for she had grown too old for it, and she missed it. She watched Liza play a woman pretending to be a man, opposite a man playing a woman in love with her, thinking she was a man. And that actor was a sodomite in the bargain. It was a mishmash of gender confusion that might even have boggled the very author of that play.
As she laughed at the dialogue, she saw that, while Wally as Olivia was very polished and Liza as Viola was not, there was a subtle undercurrent between them that added an extra layer of insanity to this lively, sophisticated comedy. The joke of the play, of course,
was that Olivia was in love with a woman who could never return that affection. As played by Wally, Olivia presented as terribly silly and not entirely sane. In Wally’s skilled hands, the role was that of a manic, out-of-control girl. Liza, less skilled but more genuine, presented as down-to-earth and entirely ordinary. Sensible, and earnestly in love with Olivia’s brother. Suzanne would not have thought it possible, but the differences in style and in the actual genders of the actors gave the play a giddiness and the characters a tension of contrast even more than what Shakespeare could have achieved with two actors who were both men. The audience could tell who was real and who was not, and they responded to those subtleties with laughter.
About the time the scenes moved on to an exchange between the clownish servants Fabian, Feste, and Maria, played by two men and a boy, the bench next to her was filled by a new arrival. She looked up to find Piers had joined the audience. He said, “I haven’t seen you here much lately.”
She returned her attention to the stage below. She knew the scene by heart, and laughed appropriately at all the funny spots, though her focus wasn’t truly in it anymore. “I’ve been busy.”
“I thought you’d been asked to lay aside the job you were doing for Constable Pepper.” Piers also gave the appearance of watching the actors. It wouldn’t do to let anyone see he wasn’t interested in the performance, though Suzanne knew he was not. It was a rare play that caught his attention. Though he’d acted as a child, it had never been his calling.
“My business is my own.”
“The constable’s business, you mean.”
“I do what I like, and Pepper has no sway over me.”
“Mother, I wish you would never mind these investigations that have you all caught up. You’ve no business doing Pepper’s work for him. There are many other things you should be doing that are far more appropriate for a woman your age.”
The Twelfth Night Murder Page 20