The Play's the Thing (The Chronicles of Christoval Alvarez Book 7)

by Ann Swinfen

  I began to know more of the players better. There was Geoffrey de Claine. He must have been no more than thirty, but once he was on stage he became a quavering old dotard. And Thomas Hulin, who played the older, more difficult women’s parts, too demanding for the young boys. He could be anything from a mighty queen to a scheming hag, but needed to shave several times a day, being dark and whiskery.

  Until I started to spend so much time with them, I had not realised how hard the players worked. They must memorise the words and actions of anything from a dozen to twenty new plays mounted in each summer season, a feat I could barely comprehend.

  ‘But you must learn all your potions and poultices,’ Dick Burbage said one day, when I had commented on this. ‘You must remember hundreds of different illnesses and how to treat each one, and all the learned writings of the past, handed down to you.’

  ‘That is different,’ I said, though I admit I was at a loss to explain why.

  ‘It is a matter of what engages you.’ Guy had been listening to us. ‘Dick cares about the parts he plays, so learning the words is far less arduous for him than it would be for you, Kit. Whereas you have a passion for curing the sick. Learning how best to do so calls for all your mind and effort. Besides, I expect you started your studies very young, did you not?’

  ‘At about the age of seven,’ I admitted, ‘studying with my father.’

  ‘There you have it. It is like Davy’s acrobatics. He was trained to it as a small child. I could not take one of the older boys, of twelve or thirteen let us say, and persuade his body to perform the sort of contortions which cause Davy no difficulty at all.’

  I conceded that there was some truth in what Guy said. Yet the hard work of the players did not end with learning so many parts. Day after day they must perform upon a public stage. An audience might be bored or hostile or simply very small, but still the players must take their parts with the same delight as when they had an enthusiastic crowd filling all the tiers of seats and the pit before the stage. I saw that before each performance they were lit up with a kind of sick excitement, so that they seemed larger, more vivid than in their everyday world, and this enlarged character they took on seemed to grow while they were on stage. After a performance they looked either drained and exhausted or else febrile with a sort of left-over ferment. Burbage very wisely, I realised, allowed them a calming break before starting the rehearsal which generally followed in the later afternoon.

  Two days after I returned to my copying work, I was able, at last, to watch a performance of Will’s play about the early troubles in the reign of the sixth King Henry. I had found it very complicated when I was copying out the parts, and I am not sure I had all the details clear in my mind after watching it on stage. So much political manoeuvring, alliances made and broken – not just between the English and the French, but amongst the English nobles during the early reign of a young and weak king. One thing Will did make clear, amongst all these shifts of power – civil war is inevitable when the monarch is weak. No wonder that the last century had been a time of so much fear and bloodshed.

  Dick Burbage played the role of the English hero, Talbot, betrayed to his death by the internecine strife of York and Somerset, each determined to control the young Henry VI. Simon was suitably devious and untrustworthy as the French dauphin, ready to betray not only peace treaties but his own supporters. The most dramatic of those supporters was the young French farm girl, Joan La Poucelle.

  The part would once had fallen to Simon when he was younger. Recently he had been training two of the boys to take the leading women’s roles: Henry Condell, whose voice was near breaking, and a lad called John Spencer. Spencer was very talented and was given the part. Joan the Holy Maid, revered in France, though betrayed by Frenchmen, and reviled in England, became through his performance the poignant human sacrifice to the vicious quarrels of great men, although Will had retained the English view that she was a witch, which had troubled me when I copied the part. Young Spencer portrayed with considerable skill Joan’s abject terror in her last scene. It left me very thoughtful. Such is the end of women who dare to break into the world of men, even – or perhaps especially – women who surpass the men amongst whom they live. Involuntarily, as the players took their bows, my mind turned to Aemilia Bassano. I wondered whether she had seen the play.

  The weather continued unbearably hot and windless, while the thunder clouds also continued to pile up on the western horizon, but with the lack of wind they drifted no nearer. Despite the profitable time in the playhouse, with the Theatre full almost every day, I sensed that the players would have welcomed a good rain storm to send the audiences away for a few days. They were becoming very tired. Tempers were growing short and a number of squabbles broke out over quite trivial matters.

  Once I had finished making a fair copy of The Spanish Tragedy, Master Burbage set me to work producing better copies of some of their older plays, which also existed in somewhat tattered form. Becoming so familiar with the texts, I began to understand a little – though not a great deal – about the play maker’s craft. These old plays were very simple, the same characters appearing again and again – the young lovers, the wicked villain who tries to part them, the foolish old man (often the girl’s father), the clever servant, who might also be a comic (so a part for Guy). They reminded me of nothing so much as the puppet plays I had watched at Bartholomew Fair. The language too was usually crude and limping.

  When I compared this old stuff with Will’s new plays, I understood that he was creating something quite different. The language was beautiful. But it was more than that. The people he created seemed to live and breathe in the very ink on the page, before they were even performed on the stage. They had all the complexities of the people you might meet in your real life. As Simon had said, even the supposed villains were not simply evil, they were complicated, troubled people. I did not like Kit Marlowe. Although I had seen some of his plays, I had disliked their violence, and in particular their fascination with evil, but I began to understand that he, like Will, was fashioning something the like of which had never been seen or heard before. Even Tom Kyd was touched with this new spirit of creation, as I realised when I copied his latest play. And I now understood why the Master of the Revels kept such a close watch on any play to be performed in the public playhouse. There was a latent power here that could prove more dangerous than a troop of armed men. A play, I now understood, could start a rebellion.

  I was copying one of the old and rather dull plays in a desultory fashion one afternoon while a rehearsal for the next day’s performance was taking place on stage. The snatches that reached my ears sounded desultory too. The players were hot and tired. Then there was a loud shout from somewhere beyond the stage which brought the rehearsal to an abrupt stop and nearly caused me to drop a large blob of ink on to my almost completed page. I managed to flick it back into the inkwell and stood up, flexing my cramped fingers. I laid down my quill and crossed the tiring room to the door leading out on to the stage.

  Master Philip Henslowe, owner of the Rose playhouse, a bear pit, a pawnbroker’s business, and several bawdy houses, stood below the stage, his face red with exertion, and breathless, as if he had run all the way from the Rose in Southwark – although I did not really believe he had. He must have been twenty years younger than Master Burbage, but he already possessed the stately figure of middle age.

  ‘Lying there like a dead man!’ he said. ‘We have carried him inside, but he is still insensible.’

  I joined the players on stage.

  ‘What’s amiss?’ I said to Will.

  ‘I am not sure. One of his company has been attacked. This afternoon. In the full light of day, near the Rose.’

  Master Burbage sent one of the boys to bring a jug of ale from his office and he sat down on the edge of the stage with Henslowe. The rest of us crowded nearer, to hear what was afoot, some on the stage, some in the pit, some seated on the steps leading up to the stage.
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  Master Henslowe drank deeply of his ale, then ran his fingers through his hair, lifting the strands, damp with sweat, that clung to his forehead.

  ‘My copyist, Walter Holles, had gone to his lodgings to fetch the parts he had been writing out, from the manuscript of a new play by Kit Marlowe.’

  He glanced at Master Burbage out of the corner of his eyes. I knew there was some rivalry between them as to who should gain possession of the best new plays.

  ‘His lodgings are just round behind the Rose. He should have taken no more than a quarter of an hour. When he hadn’t returned in twice that time, I sent one of the boys to look for him. Holles likes a drink or two, and in this weather . . . Well, there he was, not more than two hundred yards from the playhouse, lying on the cobbles in a pool of blood, a great gash in the side of his head. He had been struck down and robbed.’

  ‘Your copyist, you say?’ Master Burbage spoke carefully.

  ‘Aye. And the satchel that he carried his papers in was gone as well. Edward Alleyn went to his lodgings to see if it was there. It was not. Nor was Marlowe’s new play.’

  ‘Stolen!’ Cuthbert exclaimed.

  ‘Aye, stolen. And I recalled that your man who was poisoned, Wandesford, he was your copyist too, was he not?’

  ‘He was.’

  Furtive glances were exchanged between us. Another copyist? I had not realised I had undertaken a dangerous trade.

  ‘The coroner’s sergeants, and the city constables,’ Master Henslowe said, ‘are they any nearer discovering who poisoned poor Wandesford?’

  Master Burbage shook his head. ‘We have heard nothing, but I am sure, if they had discovered anything, we would be told.’

  ‘And you cannot account for it yourselves?’ Master Henslowe looked round at us. ‘Was anything stolen? Any new play he was copying?’

  At that, Master Burbage looked at Will.

  ‘We cannot be sure,’ Will said reluctantly. ‘Some papers may have been stolen from his lodgings, but nothing of importance, it seems. Why kill a man for that? There must have been some other reason. Your man Holles – was he carrying coin? God knows, there are enough rogues in London will hit a man over the head for sixpence. Surely you will find Kit Marlowe’s play cast aside in the satchel, but the chinks gone.’

  I saw that he had gone very pale. Surely he could not believe that the plays themselves could be the cause of this violence?

  ‘I merely find it very strange,’ Master Henslowe said, ‘that the copyists of the two leading companies of players should be attacked within days of each other.’

  ‘Aye.’ Master Burbage poured him more ale. ‘It does seem strange. We have not had a play stolen, but then I keep our play books safely locked away.’

  ‘And so do I, usually. However, I was in a hurry for the parts from the new play and Holles had taken the play book home to copy overnight.’

  I had heard that Henslowe was something of a hard master. If so, it seemed that both he and Walter Holles had paid for it.

  ‘There is no other copy?’ Will asked. I could see he was grieving for the loss of the play.

  ‘None.’ Henslowe looked grim. He turned to Burbage. So have you found a new copyist?’

  ‘For this time, Dr Alvarez is helping us,’ Master Burbage said, nodding toward me.

  Master Henslowe turned and looked at me attentively for the first time. ‘Dr Alvarez? I thought you were a physician at St Thomas’s?’

  ‘I was,’ I said quietly. I disliked having to account for myself in public, but I could hardly help it in the present circumstances. ‘While I was absent in Muscovy, my temporary replacement at the hospital was given a permanent appointment. At the moment I am attending private patients only.’

  ‘Well, Burbage,’ Henslowe said, ‘it seems you have found yourself a very grand copyist. He’d best look to himself when walking the streets. That satchel might hold a play book.’

  He pointed to my physician’s satchel.

  ‘I assure you it does not,’ I said, stung. ‘Nothing but the instruments of my profession.’

  ‘Aye, but will any footpad stop to ask you politely?’

  It occurred to me that my satchel also still contained Gregory Rocksley’s report on the dealings Boris Godunov had had with the Spanish. I had best rid myself of it, lest it, too, should be stolen and fall into the wrong hands.

  ‘Returning to the matter of Wandesford and Holles,’ Guy said, ‘it may be no more than coincidence. Wandesford was poisoned while dining during the evening, at an inn in the City. Holles was knocked over the head during the day, walking along a street in Southwark. Apart from their trade, there seems nothing to link the attacks. In the case of Wandesford, nothing of value seems to have been stolen. In the case of Holles, his satchel was stolen, but that may mean no more than a thief seizing an unforeseen opportunity.’

  ‘Aye, perhaps you are right,’ Master Henslowe said reluctantly. ‘My first thought was the similarity of the victims, but the methods, the times, the places, all are different. London is a violent town and no one can guess how many other attacks have taken place in the time between these two. I am sorry to have troubled you. I acted in haste.’

  ‘You have not troubled us, Philip.’ Master Burbage was at his most affable. ‘If we are told anything further about Oliver Wandesford’s death, I will inform you at once.’

  As they shook hands on it, I picked up my satchel.

  ‘Would you like me to see to Master Holles?’ I asked Henslowe. ‘Blows to the head can be serious. Or have you already called in a physician?’

  For the first time Master Henslowe looked embarrassed, and it was quite clear that he was considerably more worried about his lost play than his injured copyist.

  ‘I left the lads caring for him,’ he said, ‘but I would be glad if you were to take a look at the fellow. But he has a hard head, does Holles. Can drink any man under the table.’

  I forbore to say that having a strong head for drink had nothing whatsoever to do with the resistance of a man’s skull to a violent blow.

  ‘I will put away my papers, then come over to Southwark with you.’

  It took me no more than a few minutes to tidy away my work, lock the door, and hand the key to Cuthbert Burbage, before setting out with Master Henslowe for Southwark. I was glad to be going to a patient with a genuine need, the first since my return to London. Although I was happy to assist the players for the moment, medicine was my real love.

  ‘I think we had best walk,’ Master Henslowe said, setting a fast pace for all his bulk. ‘I caught a wherry on the way over, but the walk across the mud at either end is so slow and trying, the saving of time by wherry in the centre of the river hardly compensates.’

  I agreed. ‘I shall be glad when the promised rain comes at last.’

  ‘Aye, well, it will mean the playhouses will be empty.’

  I could imagine him mourning the loss of every penny.

  We made polite but meaningless conversation as we pushed through the crowds on the Bridge, bursting out at the far end like a cork out of a bottle. Master Henslowe’s playhouse, the Rose, was not far beyond my lodgings, set a little back from the river. When we arrived, it was to find a group of worried players gathered in the Rose’s tiring house about a couch (clearly playhouse scenery) on which the copyist had been laid. The gash in his head was still bleeding freely on to a rolled up lump of canvas which had been placed under his head.

  ‘Any sign of life?’ Master Henslowe asked abruptly.

  ‘He is still breathing, but he has not woken.’

  I recognised the speaker as Edward Alleyn, betrothed to Henslowe’s step daughter, for I had seen him on the stage. Like Dick Burbage he favoured the big dramatic roles, such as Marlowe’s Tamburlaine. He appeared to be in charge here, the leading player. As we approached the injured man, the other players melted away. I set down my satchel and began taking out what I needed.

  ‘Can you send for some boiled water?’ I said to Master Alleyn.
‘Boiled, mind. Not just any well water.’

  ‘I’ll see to it myself,’ Alleyn said. ‘Do I not know you?’

  ‘Dr Alvarez,’ Master Henslowe said. ‘Late of St Thomas’s.’

  ‘Aye, that’s it.’ Alleyn did not enlarge on this, but went off to a small room like those at the back of the Theatre, where it appeared the players of this company were accustomed to cook for themselves. It seemed that some of them were making a supper, but cleared a space for Alleyn to boil a pot of water on a brazier there.

  When he brought it, I added cleansing herbs and bathed the split in Holles’s scalp, which was as long and almost as wide as my index finger. The blood continued to well up, but only thinly, as I took my suturing needle and stitched the wound together. The man winced, but did not wake. Alleyn turned pale and looked away, but Henslowe seemed not to mind. For a man accustomed to the slaughter of animals in a bear pit, I suppose a little raw flesh is no great worry.

  Once I had finished the stitching, I spread a salve composed mainly of woundwort over the place.

  ‘I will not bandage it for the present,’ I said. ‘With the weather so hot that will cause sweating, which will slow the healing, or even cause the flesh to rot. Best if it is open to the air, but it must be kept clean.’

  Master Henslowe nodded. ‘Can you warn the others, Ned? I am going to the parish constables now to see whether that satchel has been recovered.’

  Alleyn nodded, then turned to me with an apologetic smile. ‘He is concerned for Holles, but now that he has seen him cared for, he is wild to recover Kit Marlowe’s play. We were to perform it next week.’

  I looked up from packing my satchel. ‘What do you think? Do you believe Master Holles was attacked by common pickpockets? Or did someone indeed intend to steal the play?’

  He shrugged. ‘Who can say? But new plays are valuable. And a new play by Will or Kit is nigh priceless.’

  ‘Words on paper?’ I said in a lightly disparaging tone, intending to provoke him.

  He smiled. ‘Aye, words on paper. Nothing more valuable than that. But look on a play as a commodity, as Master Henslowe would. You pay a play maker to write a play, let us say ten pounds. That is an investment. You expect to make a return on that investment. In the first year you will perform that play perhaps twenty or thirty times. Already it has earned back your investment and begun to make a profit. The word spreads. “Master Henslowe has a fine new play.” The company is then summoned to perform that play at some great nobleman’s house, or even at Court. Greater financial profits. In the second year it is no longer new, but if it is a notable play – and the plays by Kit and Will are notable – some will return to see it a second time, or even a third. And it will go on earning until every citizen in London, and every foreign ambassador, has seen it.’