‘How goes it, John?’ he asked.
The boy half nodded, half shrugged, then threw a glance along the bench, seeking reassurance from the presence of the other men. Nick looked up and caught Tom’s eye for a moment of shared understanding.
‘Forgive me,’ Tom murmured, ‘for last night. I didn’t mean to frighten or to hurt you. I thought you wanted it as I did.’
John was silent, biting his lip, but his eyes never left Tom’s face, watchful and full of distrust.
‘Say something,’ Tom said. ‘We must work together. We must be friends.’
‘I cannot share a bed with you,’ John whispered. ‘You must find somewhere else to sleep.’
Tom nodded, angry with himself for his failure. He had moved too soon, too suddenly, and wrecked his chances of success. And too, he had lost the roof above his head. He would have to find lodgings somewhere else, an expense he could poorly afford.
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I expected no less. But please, no more of this witchery business.’
He had thought of it all through the morning, the implications sinking in, the understanding he could lose his life at the end of a rope if John chose to press the claim. And if the accusation of witchcraft failed to stick, he could hang for being a sodomite. He cursed himself for his impatience.
‘I do not trust you,’ John breathed. ‘So keep away from me.’
Tom nodded again, eager to pacify the boy and keep him sweet. He lifted his hands palms outwards in a gesture of conciliation.
‘I am not like you,’ John went on, ‘so do not seek to make me so. As God is my witness, I detest all that you are and all that you want from me.’ Furtively, he touched his fingers to his chest and traced a tiny outline of a cross. It was a small movement, almost imperceptible, but Tom was regarding him closely and he saw it.
A secret Papist then, he realised. Not a Puritan after all. He wasn’t sure which was worse – both creeds would condemn a witch or a sorcerer without a second thought, and neither would have mercy for a sodomite. His heartbeat quickened. The risks had not seemed real before when he was safely alone in the wardrobe. They had seemed distant, a vague and unlikely possibility that he could easily avert with the charm and wits he had always used in the past. But faced now with John, the terror and hatred plain across his features, he began to fully understand his danger. His mouth turned dry as sweat broke out along his spine and under his arms, and he could feel his shirt as it clung wetly to his back. He forced himself to breathe slowly.
‘I swear to God,’ he said, ‘I won’t touch you again.’
‘Don’t even look at me,’ John snarled softly. ‘Because I can see the lust in your eyes, the presence of the Devil inside you. You are not your own master and I cannot trust your promises.’
Tom shifted back away from the hatred, afraid of what he had unleashed. He dropped his gaze away from John for the first time. ‘Forgive me,’ he whispered.
‘It’s not in my power to forgive you. Only God can do that. But I will pray for you because I do not think you will pray to save yourself.’ Then he got up from the bench and, sliding out past Tom’s knees, careful not to touch him, he walked away across the yard, lifted himself up onto the stage and disappeared into the tiring house behind.
Tom watched him go, observing the narrow back and slim hips, the tight movement of his arse, and in spite of everything, he still wanted him, desire only fanned by the challenge and the risk, John’s anger only making him more beautiful. He shook his head at himself, at the tenacity of his lust. Perhaps he really was infested by the Devil, he thought, and blackened beyond redemption.
The conversation along the bench had stopped and he became aware of the attention of the others. He turned towards them and pasted a smile on his face.
‘How are the costumes coming along?’ Will asked. ‘Are there any that are ready yet? May we try them?’
He forced his mind back to the wardrobe, trying to recall his work that morning. He had sewn in a haze, his mind only turning on John and the memory of the taste of him, and he struggled to remember.
‘Almost,’ he said.
‘Good.’ Will nodded with a smile of satisfaction. ‘I find it helps to rehearse in costume, do you not?’ He turned to Nick, who nodded. But it was obvious to Tom that Nick was barely listening, his attention wandering towards the tiring house where John had disappeared, and wondering what had passed between them.
Later in the day Tom found new lodgings – a narrow third-floor chamber in a crumbling house of similar rooms west of the theatre. But it was dry and relatively clean, with fresh rushes to cover the boards and a soft straw pallet on the bed. Linen and blankets and candles supplied for sixpence a week. A place to lay his head at night and nothing more. She was a widow, he guessed, Mistress Overbury, renting out the rooms of her home to make ends meet. Downstairs had once been a potter’s shop, the sign still swinging above the door with the symbols rusted and faded out of sight, and it was her living quarters now, the rest of the house rented out to journeymen and hired workers such as himself.
With the first week’s rent paid, he took the few coins he had left and met the other players in the Green Dragon for his supper. He took care to sit away from John and ate his stewed beef without attention or appetite, saying nothing. His silence was noticed.
‘Are you quite well, Tom?’ Henry asked. ‘I’ve never known you with nothing to say for yourself before.’
Tom forced a smile. ‘Quite well, thank you, Master Condell. Tired merely.’
‘Too much sewing?’
He cocked his head. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Too much ale and too many women, more like,’ John Heminges teased.
‘That too,’ Tom replied. He glanced up with a smile. Nick was watching him with the same intent scrutiny as earlier, as though he would see beneath the surface, beyond the words and smiles. He dropped his eyes once more to his food, uncomfortable to be so observed, and wondered if Nick had guessed more than he was saying, or if John had told him more of the truth. Tom risked a look towards the boy, and he too was sitting silently, examining his hands on the table in front of him, his food and ale untouched. Then Tom cursed himself once more for being a fool.
Tom left the tavern early, the others still drinking and talking over the day’s rehearsal, and went out into the clearing cool of the night. The street was quiet, with few people about. Torches flickered at the doorways, and across the way the windows of the church glowed and glimmered from the light of the candles within. He shivered and looked up. The sky was clear and black, stars shimmering brightly, a waning moon. He stood for a moment, head tilted back, taking in the vastness and the beauty and the mystery of it. Then a beggar child scurried past him in the narrow street, too close, and he snapped back to his surroundings, one hand reaching for the knife at his belt, the other checking to see if the child had taken his purse while he was dreaming. It was still there but he glanced around him anyway, wariness a habit in this part of town, and when he was satisfied he was safe, he set off at a good pace away from the river toward his stepfather’s house.
In Narrow Lane he slowed his steps, and took a moment to observe the house from a distance. It was a good house, timber and brick that had belonged to his own father first – three spacious storeys above the tailor’s shop, his own room and Sarah’s behind the little windows high in the gables. It was his birthright from his own father, and though he had never thought of it much before, the realisation it would never now come to him fanned his hatred harder. He spat into the mud at his feet in disgust but the bitter taste in his mouth remained.
The shop was closed, shutters drawn, and he guessed the household would be gathered after supper in the first-floor chamber above it. He ran his mind across the image: his stepfather in the big hardbacked chair to one side of the hearth, reading aloud from the Bible on his knee, asking questions and quick to temper if the answers fell short. Or he might be at the table with Tom’s mother at his side as he checked
the day’s accounts, every last farthing counted and accounted for. Simon would be there too, hanging on his master’s every word, spineless and servile. Tom had detested him always. And Sarah?
He searched the image in his mind, trying to place her before the fire with sewing or a book in her hands, or simply staring into the flames. But he could not see her there and a sudden fear billowed through him, goading him into action. Doubling back on himself he found his way easily in the darkness to the overgrown alley that ran behind the row of houses, and vaulted the wall into the back garden with practised ease. He still had his copy of the back door key, and the fact that his stepfather had never known of its existence gave him a grim satisfaction.
Letting himself in silently, he wondered if the terrier had heard him from its place at the hearth. Sarah had told him once she always knew when he came and went, the dog’s ears pricking up, listening with a slight half-bark of recognition, before settling down once more to sleep. Sliding through the dark, he passed the kitchen and the door to Simon’s room behind the shop, then found the staircase that ran up alongside it. At the foot of the steps, he crouched to take off his boots, and his stockinged feet made no sound on the wooden boards, the creaky ones well known and avoided. He was up and past the first-floor chamber and in his attic room in moments.
In the utter blackness he crept across to the window and drew back the curtain, letting in a faint glow from outside to give enough shape to the shadows so that he could see to grab a handful of linen and his spare set of breeches from the chest at the foot of the bed, folding them deftly into a bundle. Then, hurriedly, silently, he closed the chest and, leaving the curtains open to the night, he padded back across the small room and opened the door. On the landing outside, the weak light spilled through and caught on the key in the lock on Sarah’s door, glinting softly. It took a moment to understand the significance but then he turned it silently, sliding into the room. Inside was dark, no candles, no fire, but he knew straight away that she was there, his senses attuned to the night.
‘It’s me,’ he whispered into the gloom. ‘Tom.’
She was standing at the window, a black shape silhouetted against the softer dark of the night behind her. At his voice she turned with a soft gasp of breath, and in a moment she had reached him, holding him tightly against her. He held her, smoothing her loose tangled hair with his fingers, his face close.
‘What happened?’ he murmured.
She lifted her head from his chest. In the half-light he could just make out her eyes, searching his face, pleading.
‘Later,’ she breathed. ‘Take me with you now.’
For an instant he hesitated. It was one thing for him to be cut free from his father, his family: he was a grown man who could make his own way in the world. But Sarah was little more than a girl, innocent and dependent, no rights to her own life under the law.
She sensed his doubt. ‘He’s going to marry me to Simon,’ she whispered, ‘and forbid me to see you, forbid me the playhouse. You must help me.’
He swallowed, thoughts spinning rapidly with all the possibilities, all the risks and dangers. But he had promised her once he would always take care of her, and he could not leave her to such misery now. With a quick sigh he nodded, aware he would probably regret it, as she reached under her bed and grabbed a bundle she had already packed. In spite of the danger, he smiled, impressed. ‘Your boots? Your cloak?’
‘By the front door.’
‘Come,’ he said. He took her hand and led her out, careful to close and lock the door behind them. She followed him down, her hand still in his, soft-footed as he was, skills learned early in life.
At the first-floor landing they paused to listen: this was the most dangerous part of the journey. The door could open at any time – anyone might step out to head downstairs to the privy – and there was nowhere to hide. They listened. Their father’s voice was rumbling its nightly sermon, odd words carrying out to the passage, and they half walked, half ran along the landing, gaining speed on the last flight of steps. Sarah paused to find her cloak and her boots and then they were outside in the back garden, running together across the damp grass. Tom took the wall first and leaned down to help her as she struggled, her small hands gripping his hard as her feet kicked against the wall to lift herself up. When they landed in the safety of the back lane, she cried out and he turned to her, holding her arm in one hand, bending to see into her face.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ She shook her head. ‘Let’s go.’
Then they walked away quickly and he wondered what he had done.
They moved in silence for a time, slower now. She was less sure in the darkness than he was, less accustomed to finding her way, and she held tightly to his arm. She seemed to be limping, and he shortened his stride to keep pace with her. Finally she stopped. ‘I must rest a moment.’
He looked down at her, surprised, and in the flickering light of a nearby torch he saw her face was wet with tears.
‘Sarah?’ He lifted his hand and wiped at her cheeks with his fingers. She tilted her head towards his touch and sniffed.
‘Forgive me.’
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked her again. Doubts began to bubble through him. He was responsible for her now, her only protector, and the prospect of it terrified him.
‘He beat me,’ she told him. ‘It hurts to walk.’
‘Oh God,’ he murmured. He knew too well the pain she was suffering, and he could only begin to guess at her humiliation. It had been bad enough for him as a boy to have his arse and legs exposed before a man he detested, but for her it must have been a torture, every bit as painful as the physical hurt. A fresh hatred for his stepfather burned inside him, and he vowed the old man would pay. Taking Sarah’s bundle from her hand, he put his arm around her waist and drew her in close to his own body.
‘We’ll take it slowly,’ he said. ‘And I’ll support you.’
He felt her lean in to him and they set off again, moving with small, careful steps through the night.
He took her to the theatre. His new landlady had been most insistent that he should not bring women to the house, and he dared not disobey so soon after moving in. He could not afford to lose the room, his money almost gone. In the morning he would think again, but tonight they needed somewhere safe and warm where she could rest and recover.
It took an age to climb the wooden steps that led to the wardrobe.
‘Why here?’ she said, when they were at last inside. ‘Why not Nick’s?’
‘I’ve moved into lodgings,’ he replied. ‘A room in a house. No women allowed.’
She nodded, too weary with pain and emotion to question him further.
‘Tomorrow, we’ll find you somewhere else,’ he said, clearing the couch for her to lie down. He knew from experience it would be a while before she could sit without pain: the old man used to make him sit on the hard wooden stool in the shop for hours of Bible study after a beating, keeping watch as he worked. ‘And I’ll find some salve for the welts.’
‘Mother has some,’ she said.
‘Mother is out of our reach,’ he replied, wondering if she understood she was renouncing all of it: fleeing her father meant fleeing her mother also.
‘For now,’ she said, so that he realised she didn’t yet fully understand.
He helped her to the couch and eased her down gently. ‘Sleep now,’ he said, sitting himself down on the floor by her head, smoothing back the hair from her face.
She smiled. ‘Thank you.’
He watched her in the light of the single candle, eyes flickering quickly into sleep while he stroked her head as he used to do when they were children. She was peaceful in her sleep, he thought, pale and soft and pretty, but he was sleepless himself, wide awake with the turmoil of his thoughts. She could not stay at the playhouse for long. Really, no one should ever stay, and if the others in the Company knew how often he spent his nights there, he would possibly find h
imself out on his ear.
But where could she go? Become a servant somewhere in a household? For one of the sharers, perhaps? Master Shakespeare? Master Burbage? Or Nick? He ran his thoughts across the possibility. It was easy to see her there with Nick as her master, an honest servant and helpmeet; she would find her way from there to his bed for sure. If he could persuade Nick to take her on, it would be the perfect answer, and for the first time since he had led her from her chamber prison, the load seemed to lighten on his shoulders a little. Relieved, and sleepy at last, he reached for the nearest thing he could find to cover himself – a single blanket – then, resting his head on his arm, he curled up on the rug by the couch and drifted quickly into sleep.
Chapter Eleven
Black and Deep Desires
Sarah woke abruptly, startled by an image in her dream, and it took a moment to remember where she was. Dim morning light filtered in through the window and she blinked to clear her vision, memory of the night slowly returning. She lay still, allowing the recollection to come, then ran her gaze around the room, looking for Tom. He was sleeping on the hard floor beside the couch, covered by a single blanket, curled into a ball. He must have been freezing, she thought, and wondered why he hadn’t found more blankets to use.
Carefully, she raised herself to sit up on the couch, and winced as her skirts brushed the welts on her thighs. Hesitating, she planted her feet firmly on the floor and, using her hands to steady herself, pushed up to standing. Once upright, she paused, allowing the slight dizziness to subside before she took an experimental step towards her brother. She could feel the tightness of the weals in her skin as she moved, but the soreness was tolerable and she bent carefully to wake him, placing a gentle hand against his shoulder. He woke groggily, slowly, evidently surprised to see her before he blinked himself fully awake and sat up.
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