I knock on the door: no answer. I bang harder: but there is only silence. So I push it open, throwing all my weight against it. It groans as it yields, opening just a crack, and I wriggle inside. I’m standing in the dark passageway between the lowest tier of seats, facing the stage itself. There’s no sound, save only the cry of the kites, flapping on the roof thatch high above me. I look around, bemused by the emptiness of the place, having only been there as part of a boisterous crowd. The pit, open to the grey, snow-burdened sky, stretches before me. The great stage is deserted. I walk over to it, looking around me uneasily.
Someone laughs, loudly, from far above. I climb the steps on to the boards.
‘Hello?’ I look up. ‘Mr Burbage?’
Another laugh, very merry.
‘Who’s there?’ I call. I narrow my eyes, scouring the entrances to the tiring-rooms, and the musicians’ gallery which is just above them.
‘She can’t see us,’ says a familiar voice.
‘Aemilia!’ This is a louder, richer accent. ‘Aemilia, look higher!’
I look around me, flushing with anger. ‘I can’t see you,’ I cry. ‘Come out, and stop fooling with me.’
‘Higher!’ calls the rich voice. ‘Even higher!’
Finally I spy them. Two heads, peering down at me, from the topmost point of the Heavens, half-hidden behind a painted wooden cloud.
The cloud-space proves to be a narrow platform, like a hidden stage, just below the cupola. It is reached by a series of steep flights of steps. Burbage and Will are bending over a chart on a small table. They present an odd contrast: Burbage short and stout, with his walrus nose and doleful eyes; and Will, taller, well-made, tapping his foot in time with some rhythm that beats in his own head. Both are dressed in heavy coats with black coney collars, and fine kid gloves, with long patterned cuffs. They could be two wealthy merchants, discussing a consignment of new kerseys from Halifax or a cargo of pepper from the Levant.
Burbage kisses my hand, bringing off his trick of being mocking and gentlemanly at once. ‘Mistress Lanyer, we are honoured. And you are looking so well.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I hope the climb did not tire you?’
‘I am not in my dotage yet.’
‘Indeed not. You have not changed one jot since the first day I saw you. Still as comely as a maid.’
I bow. ‘I am sorry to see that you are busy with Mr Shakespeare. I had thought we had arranged to meet at this hour.’
‘Oh, no matter, we will be done with this in no time,’ says Burbage. ‘It’s just some hare-brained scheme of Will’s.’
‘It is business, Dick, I wish you’d give it your proper attention,’ says Will, not looking at me.
‘Business, man? Our business is the play, upon the stage.’
‘Indeed,’ says Will. ‘I am aware of it.’
Burbage straightens his back, pushes out his chest and seems to grow a foot taller. Stepping back from the table, he declaims:
‘Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou all-shaking thunder.
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’th’world,
Crack Nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once
That makes ingrateful man!’
It is a splendid speech: he seems both aged and magnificent in the making of it.
‘You see?’ says Burbage. ‘The words are all. Not dandling players like newborn babes.’
‘I agree that they are most significant, since I wrote them,’ says Will. He has not looked up from his study once.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask. ‘What “dandling”?’
‘Will sets out to make men fly,’ says Burbage, extending his arm with regal generosity. ‘As if he were Icarus.’
‘Daedalus, if I may correct you,’ say I.
Will looks at me for the first time, almost as if he is about to laugh. ‘They’ve done it at the Fortune,’ he says. ‘Our competitors.’
Burbage makes another expansive gesture, as if dismissing Greek legends in their entirety. ‘Ah, yes, Daedalus is the inventor. Of course, of course. Icarus is the son, who fell. As did two men at the Fortune, and broke their backs.’
Will appears to be making some sort of calculation on a piece of foolscap.
‘Do you not think of that?’ I ask him.
‘I think of divinities and angels, descending from above,’ says Will, after a moment. He seems to consider the empty air in front of him. ‘I think of the heavens, riven by the radiance of a suspended goddess. Strapped safely in a chair.’ Quite suddenly, he turns and flashes a glance at me. ‘Come, Mistress Lanyer, look…’
I go over, lips pursed. The diagram shows a strange construction consisting of a pivot, a long arm and a chair. It reminds me of the Wheel of Fortune, that most double of the Tarot cards, which can foretell great luck or dire calamity.
‘You see, this is the stage we stand upon.’ He indicates the outline of the diagram. ‘We have enough space for windlass, drum and strong cordage. And – here – for the player to be readied for his flying seat.’ He is looking down again, pointing to the next diagram. ‘And here – with some little refinement to the plan, the whole business will be done in one sweeping movement – just a slight upward thrust so the chair can clear the edge of the platform – and then forward and downward. On to the stage. You see?’
I make as close a study of the diagram as I would if I were the carpenter myself. I dare not look up. At last I say, ‘What do you want with my play?’
Will sighs and folds up the chart. ‘You must discuss all that with Dick. It is nothing to do with me.’ He disappears down the stairs, his dark cape flying out behind him.
Burbage, on the other hand, is smiling, all avuncular. ‘Come, mistress, sit down,’ he says, coming over to the table. ‘Don’t mind Will. He has a sore head. He has been doing the accounts again – it’s best left to Heminge.’
‘I don’t mind him at all. I do not think of him.’
He smiles in a manner which annoys me. ‘Please – sit down. I have a proposition to make, which I think will interest you.’
I sit.
‘Have your brought the play with you?’ he asks. ‘I should like to read it, if I may.’
I pull it from my bag, but withhold it when he tries to take it from me. ‘Sir, I should like to know why you wish to read it? Since a lady’s work cannot be played upon a public stage.’
Burbage beckons me closer, lowering his voice and rounding his shoulders in a stage approximation of urgent secrecy. ‘Can we speak in confidence? Up here, where none can hear us? Might I depend on your discretion?’
‘I would not be alive today if I did not know how to be discreet.’
‘Quite.’ He shifts his chair closer, so I can see the smallpox pits on his great nose. ‘To be frank with you, we are looking for something new. Fresh ideas, to please and reassure the King. He is distracted, sees an assassin in every corner and fears the Catholics will try again. He is not a happy man.’
‘He can’t be blamed for fearing plotters. Since they came so close to blowing him to Heaven.’
‘Of course not. Daggers, poison, even curses might undo him. Or, like his own father, he might yet be ripped to pieces by a conspirator’s bomb.’
‘So why can’t… Mr Shakespeare turn his hand to this?’
‘Will is busy. His daughter is to marry, his wife wants more money to spend on her fine house, and he insists his next piece will be set in Ancient Egypt. I cannot for the life of me see a Scottish theme emerging there. We’ve looked at other plays – including three from Dekker – but none of them will do.’
I have to swallow hard at the mention of Will’s greedy wife. ‘No, I can see that would be diff
icult.’
‘The King is… well, he is a scholar one day, and a sot the next. In his books, he is the wisest man I ever met. In his cups, the most foolish. I don’t know what to make of him.’
‘You are the leader of the King’s Men. The Royal company, in his pay. What’s there to worry you?’
‘We are his appointed company now, but, in time to come – who knows? We must work hard to keep his favour.’
‘Doesn’t he like what you have done for him so far?’
‘Well enough, I’m told. Though he’s not as fulsome as the late Queen. Scots, you see. Uncivilised.’
‘So what did you do last?’
‘Madam! How can you ask such a thing? It was my greatest part so far. My King Lear!’
‘The foolish dotard Prince? I saw it done at Court, years ago. I never understood it.’
He frowns, offended. ‘What, a woman of your superior understanding?’
‘Must Kings be told to keep hold of their kingdoms? I should not have thought so.’
‘You must see the new play! We are staging it again in spring. No one remembers that hoary elder version now – Will’s telling is quite new, and vastly better.’
‘But you haven’t changed the story?’
‘No. Why should we?’
‘The King divides his kingdom between his three daughters, and suffers the consequences.’
‘That is the sum of it.’
‘What King ever lived who acted in such a way?’
‘In Will’s hands, how could it be otherwise than great? An instructive, yet crowd-pleasing fable.’
‘Crowds are not always right.’
‘He always does so well with the words.’
‘I’ve no doubt of it.’
‘Also, there are some scenes of excellent torture, his best since Titus.’
‘Now torture is a crowd-pleaser, that I certainly recall.’
‘But… I don’t know. The King seemed distracted, low in spirits when he was watching it. Tired. At least he woke up for my great speech, on the blasted heath. Which I just gave a flavour of.’
‘So now you think… a Scottish play, with hags?’
‘Indeed!’ says Burbage. ‘Blood and hags! We need a play to please the King, and to please the King, it must have murder in it, as he was nearly murdered, and that murderer must be most direly punished.’
‘I see, but – ’
‘We must include the intended destruction of a kingdom – ’
‘Which I have – ’
‘The undermining of the good by the diligent deception of the evil. As our King was undermined – d’you see it? – by the traitor Fawkes and all the rest.’ Burbage spreads his hands. ‘And we need plots – which can be woven in, don’t fear this. And equivocation, but we can do that in one speech.’
‘Assuredly.’
‘But most of all,’ says Burbage, taking my hand in his, ‘most of all we must have witches.’
‘Why?’
‘Marston has them in his Sophosha, and Barnes has his Devil’s Charter. And Dekker’s done one, which comes as no surprise, since he works like a thousand demons.’
Will has returned, with more rolls of paper, which he spreads out upon the table, using pewter mugs to flatten the corners.
‘And what is Dekker’s play called?’ I ask.
‘The Whore of Babylon,’ says Will, his back still turned. He speaks with peculiar vehemence.
‘So you see,’ says Burbage. ‘What you have wrote is wellnigh perfect.’
‘But what’s my reward for this?’
Burbage crosses his legs as if to make himself more comfortable in his seat, then recrosses them. ‘Well… it would partly be this much: knowing these were your lines, of course, performed before the King of England. Few men can claim so much.’
‘Few men. And no women. I should like my name to be heard.’
‘Heard?’
‘If my play were done before the King, this might be possible. As if it were a noble lady’s closet play, put on at some great house.’
Burbage raises his eyebrows. He looks at me as he might have done if a black rat had addressed him from the wainscot. ‘Give me the play, my dear, and we will talk about the terms – if it is good enough,’ he says.
I consider this. ‘I suppose it would be foolish to say no.’
Burbage smiles, and looks down at the first page, on which I have written: The Tragedie of Ladie Macbeth, A Scottish Queen.
‘An excellent title, certainly. Leave it in my hands, and I will see what shall be done.’
Scene III
Something ails Marie. Never the most sensible of serving girls, she appears to have turned quite mad since Christmas, and at first I cannot think what can be the matter. She forgets to do the linen on washday, so that Alfonso has to wear a soiled shirt to the palace when he is called to discuss a new trip to the Indies with Sir Robert Unwin. Yesterday, she moaned so much over the drying of ruffs on wood sticks that I was forced to beat her about the head, giving her a thick blobberlip. Which I regret, as I am somewhat tender-hearted. After that, she was in such a state of woeful discontent that she spoiled the soap, burned the bread, spilled the milk, dulled the pewter and cried when I asked her to comb out my hair.
Today brings the latest of her blunders. She has failed to brush my best wool dress, so a great moth flitters up into the air when I shake it out to wear to church. The blind insect has feasted till the cloth is full of holes, and now it is only fit for wearing in the house. When I tell her of this, she is half-crying, half-laughing, and so distracted that I fear I might lose her to Bedlam. In fact, I have ceased being angry, and am afraid of what she might do next: set the house on fire or jump into the river.
‘What’s the matter with that simpleton Marie?’ I ask Anne as we cross the fields towards the distant spire of St Mary’s Church. Marie is ahead of us, walking along with Henry. I frown as she falls over a running pig, which Henry had the sense to side-step.
‘Can’t you guess?’ Anne looks at me queerly.
‘If I could, I would have said so.’
She smiles, hard-eyed. ‘It’s love. She feels the pangs of love.’
‘But whom does she love?’
Anne regards me as if it was I who were the half-wit, and not my silly servant. ‘Why it’s Tom!’ she says.
I give a scream of laughter. ‘But he is just…’
She lays her hand on my arm and I see that Marie has turned to look at us. ‘Just a babe in arms, I know,’ she whispers. ‘No more than a child in his ways. And besides, when he is of an age, he will most likely marry into the theatre, not waste himself on some little drudge.’
‘To think of it!’ I say. ‘Of course, he cannot love her in return. Such a useless dizzard of a girl.’
‘Of course not,’ says Anne, sticking her chin out. And I see from the jut of it that he is utterly enslaved.
‘Oh, Lord above!’ I cry. ‘Whatever shall we do with our misbehaving children?’
Anne stops and looks at the calm steeple of the church, cutting into the sky. She is weeping. All around I can hear the bleating of sheep in the winter sunshine.
‘Marie is going to have a child,’ she says.
‘Dear God,’ I say. ‘So that is what it’s all about!’
Anne wipes her eyes. ‘He doesn’t even know who else she’s been with. Why should he marry the little slattern? She threw herself at him the minute she set eyes on him.’
‘It was ever thus.’
‘He could be great, Aemilia. He has a talent, you know. Now he wants to tie himself to that shameless trollop, and her unborn child.’
‘Let us go to church,’ I say, ‘and pray. You have your son’s foolishness to burden you. I have my idiot spouse.’
Inside St Mary’s, we lower our heads and pray, most devoutly. ‘Please God,’ I say silently, deciding not to trouble with the Scriptures. ‘Let Marie’s womb-blood flow tomorrow, and let Sir Robert Unwin take Alfonso on his next sea voya
ge. Let him go to the Americas, and preserve our fortunes. And my virtue, what is left of it.’ I stand, head bowed, for some time.
‘I do not want to fornicate with Inchbald, Lord, if this can be avoided.’
I stand longer, before my Maker.
‘Forgive me, Lord, for being so bold.’
God answers one of these prayers, but not both. Alfonso is given a commission by Sir Robert that very day. Of Marie’s womb blood I hear nothing, but she burns the bread each morning.
The letter I have been waiting for finally arrives. What I receive is not – as I had expected – a slender folded document. It is a bundle of messy pages. My pages, I see at once. And yet the note itself is brief enough.
Madam,
We regret that these words, though Admirable in one of your Sex, are not of the Quality or Kind which will make a Show upon the Stage. For this reason, they did not inspire that Passion in us which we must feel in order to transform your Thoughts into Theatricals.
Might we thank you for your Interest and wish you every Success with your future Experiments in Fabrication.
Your most humble,
Richard Burbage
I do not breathe – I think I might not breathe again – but scrabble through the pages as if looking for reassurance, desperate to soothe the fizz and fury in my head. A speech springs out at me: Lady Macbeth, at full height.
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