At the playhouse, Tom tarried a while in the yard to watch the rehearsal of the final scenes – Macbeth’s last battle, his death – and Nick was magnetic to watch. He was a better Macbeth than Burbage would have been, Tom thought, a younger and more physical energy that well fitted the warrior king. There was a passion and strength in him that was hard to look away from, and it was easy to understand his sister’s eagerness: Tom would not have said no himself. He recalled with satisfaction Nick’s brief confusion that morning, the half-conscious recognition of an unwelcome lust.
‘Turn, hell-hound, turn!’
Macduff’s cry rang out through the empty theatre. Strange how different the voices sounded without an audience, hollow somehow and lacking substance. It took an audience to bring the sound to fullness. He kept watching, filled with pity for Macbeth: he was too aware himself of the lure of ambition and the power of promise to judge the laird harshly for his folly. But Macbeth’s downfall had been his trust – trust in the witches, trust in his wife. Surely a man should know to ponder deeper meanings – the spirits seldom promise an easy truth, giving glimpses instead of unseen possibilities, unlooked-for ways to meet our fates. Choices offered, possible futures. What we do with the knowledge is for us to decide, and Macbeth sealed his fate the moment he chose to take their words as gospel truth, immutable and destined.
The rehearsal broke for a moment, Nick and John Heminges stepping aside to practise their swordplay. Tom got up from the bench and made his way backstage to the tiring house, climbing the stairs to the wardrobe where his work awaited. He had not been working long when John’s head appeared through the hatchway and halted, hesitant, apparently unsure of his welcome. Tom laid down his needlework and turned with a smile. ‘Come up,’ he coaxed. ‘Come sit with me.’
John returned the smile and climbed up into the room. He looked around as if he had never been in it before, and Tom recalled that the last time had been for his first attempt at seduction. No wonder the boy was nervous.
‘What brings you to my lair?’ He smiled.
John rested on one of the high stools by the bench and Tom noted the distance he had carefully put between them. He had been less reluctant to get close in the night.
‘I don’t rightly know,’ John said, with a small half-smile of uncertainty. ‘I wanted to see you.’
Tom smiled. John seemed to have returned to himself, the unsure, eager boy he used to be before all this. ‘Then I am glad.’
They sat in silence for a while and Tom returned to the doublet he was altering. It had last been worn by Burbage for King Lear and the waistline swam on Nick. Even without looking up, Tom could feel the heat of John’s attention on him, desire in the bright green eyes. He finished the seam and tied it off. Then he lifted his head to look at the boy.
‘What are you going to say on Friday?’ he said.
‘Friday?’ John looked confused.
‘Sarah’s hearing,’ Tom reminded him.
John drew in a sharp breath, remembering. ‘I … I … don’t know,’ he stammered.
‘Do you still think she bewitched you?’
John dropped his gaze away and bit his lip.
‘John?’
John spoke without looking up, avoiding the other man’s gaze. ‘I don’t know,’ he whispered. ‘Perhaps.’ He edged his eyes back towards Tom. ‘Why else would I … would we …?’ he offered, trailing off with a shrug, unable to put words to his desire, his acts.
‘Why would Sarah do that to you?’ Tom asked.
‘For you. Because she loves you,’ John said.
‘Of course she loves me, she’s my sister.’
John hesitated, taking two quick breaths of indecision.
‘Tell me,’ Tom said.
The boy shook his head, too afraid or ashamed or uncertain to say more. Tom waited, and in the silence took up his sewing once more, focusing his attention on threading the needle, placing one neat stitch after another. After a while he said, ‘So you will hold to your accusation on Friday?’ He paused in his needlework and lifted his eyes from the doublet.
John was silent, lips compressed, eyes bright and evasive. Tom took a deep breath. He had hoped this might go more easily, that he could turn John’s beliefs with more gentle persuasion, but his sister’s fate rested on John’s evidence: he needed John to doubt himself.
‘It was not my sister’s doing,’ Tom said, ‘that brought you to my bed.’
John’s breathing quickened and his hands began to fidget with the reel of cotton before him on the bench.
‘’Twas your own desires. Your own sin.’
The boy shook his head rapidly in denial. ‘I would never have acted so wickedly …’
‘The flesh is weak,’ Tom said.
‘No! It was the Devil’s doing!’
‘It was your own desires, your own lust and weakness. Did you not take pleasure in it?’
John stared, barely breathing. Tom laid down the sewing and slid off his stool, moving round to stand close to John, almost but not quite touching him. He could feel the boy quivering with fear and lust, and his own lust started to rise. Ignoring it, he leaned in to place his mouth close to John’s ear. ‘Were you not satisfied?’
John dropped his head away as Tom slid his arm along the boy’s shoulder. ‘She made me,’ he whispered, lips barely moving. ‘She made me do it.’
‘And I?’ Tom murmured, pressing closer, using all the power of his charm.
John straightened a little, trying to find his strength, but Tom could hear the tears in his voice when he spoke again. ‘You are a wicked man, Tom Wynter,’ he said, ‘a sinner. And your black soul will surely burn in Hell for all eternity. But your sister is a witch. She sports with the Devil and she has bound me to you with dark and ill-gotten spells. She has sent her imps into my dreams and fed me with a madness, and until she is dead I won’t ever be free.’
Tom stepped back and let his arm slip from John’s shoulders. ‘And last night?’ he asked, his voice soft and casual. ‘Who compelled you last night, when we lay together and you took your fill of me? When you loved me? Was it madness then?’
John’s face began to crumple, tears beginning to brim and fall, small sobs breaking his breathing. Tom stepped closer again and drew John to him, the boy’s head against his chest, his arm around him, holding him.
‘It was love, John,’ Tom murmured. ‘We loved each other and that was not the Devil’s doing. God gave us the gift of love.’
He felt John tense in his arms and shift back, lifting his head to look up. ‘Love?’ John asked. ‘Was that love?’
‘Did you not feel it?’ Tom said.
John was silent, considering this new possibility. Tom took the boy’s hands in his own with a gentle grip and drew him up from the stool so that they were standing together, close, hands still interlinked. With a quick glance to the head of the stairs to reassure himself they were still alone, he lifted one hand to touch John’s face, and very gently kissed him on the mouth. The boy’s face was still wet with his tears and his lips tasted sweetly of salt.
‘Does that not feel like love to you?’ Tom said with a smile, using his fingers to softly wipe the tears from John’s cheeks.
Still uncertain, John nodded, swallowing. Tom could feel the confusion and the doubt, and he understood it was the best he could hope for now. But the danger still remained. He had lain awake through the night next to John’s slight and naked form as it sprawled beside him, and as the hours had passed, he found himself imagining the constriction of the rope around his neck. How would it feel, he had wondered, to struggle hopelessly for breath? Putting his own hands around his throat, he had squeezed with his thumbs to simulate the moment, but he couldn’t hold it for long. He had heard once that there were whores who would choke a man in the throes of passion to enhance the climax, but it was said to be a rare skill, and he had never yet found a whore to try it with. Regret flickered through him: so many experiences he might never know. Perhaps he should
conjure the daemon again, he thought. Perhaps he should consult the secret book. But for what? The rites in the forest would bring Hecate to their aid, though the goddess had her own brand of justice and he was still afraid.
‘John,’ he said quietly, now that he had restored the intimacy of the night. They were still standing close, the fingers of one hand still entwined. ‘What did you tell the magistrate?’
John shook his head, and a shadow of panic flickered across his face.
‘John?’
‘I don’t know,’ the boy murmured. ‘I have no memory of it. None at all.’
Tom closed his eyes. He could see no way out. John’s descent into sin, his fits of madness, his forgetting – all could be laid at Sarah’s feet, and whether or not it was witchcraft it was Tom who had seduced him into sodomy. They were both of them in danger and if anything else happened now to John, it would surely be seen as the Devil’s work. Sighing, delving deep to recall his trust in the goddess, he touched the backs of his fingers once more to John’s pale cheek. ‘You should go,’ he said. ‘I have work to do.’
John smiled and nodded, and backed away, letting his fingers slide free of Tom’s. Then he turned and walked away, and Tom watched as his head descended out of sight down the stairs before he turned once more his stitching.
The afternoon performance of Julius Caesar was a success. Though they still missed Richard Burbage, they were learning to manage without him, the parts rearranged and rapidly learned, the play familiar to them all, and afterwards the players went en masse to the tavern to celebrate. The sky had broken at last and a cold rain whipped through the lanes, soaking them in moments. The torches in their sconces could barely stay alight. At the Green Dragon they dragged tables together and ordered wine and food and the chatter was full of the new play.
Nick raised his cup in toast. ‘To Macbeth,’ he said, to a chorus of cheers and whistles of approval. Then, turning to Will at the head of the table, ‘And to Will, who makes it all possible.’
The others lifted their glasses in Will’s direction and there was a moment of silence as all of them drank. The wine was cheap and strong, and on an empty stomach its strength hit Tom hard. He was aware of his head growing light and the loosening of his tension. He loved this feeling – he had learned to seek it early as an escape from his cares. When he filled himself with the pleasures of the flesh in the stews and the taverns, his stepfather had lost the power to hurt him; he had treated the pain of a whipping more than once in the insensibility of wine and sex.
Now he drank to blur the fear he refused to acknowledge. He thought of Sarah still at the Marshalsea waiting on her fate, and looked across to Nick, who met his gaze with an uncertain look. There was little understanding between them – too many secrets, Tom guessed, for them ever to be close. Next to him he was conscious of John’s attention, the boy quiet as always in company, listening to the talk of the others. Tom wondered how much of it he ever understood: even now, he retained the same air of innocence as in his very first days with the Company, something naive and incorruptible about him. Such purity would do much in his favour in Court – most men would instinctively see him as victim.
Under the table, John’s tentative hand touched his thigh and Tom turned to him with surprise and a smile. Perhaps he was learning after all, less innocent at last. Then Jane appeared and rubbed herself against her favourite customer, her arm across his shoulders, her bosom level with his face. Automatically he lifted his face to smile at her and he felt John’s hand withdraw from his leg.
‘Not tonight, Jane,’ Tom murmured.
She gave him a theatrical pout, coy and disbelieving. ‘No?’
He shook his head lightly but still she stayed. Her feelings for him had clouded her whoreish instincts for business. ‘No,’ he said, more firmly. He could sense John growing tense beside him and he lifted her arm from his shoulder and shoved it towards her, ignoring the hurt look on her face.
‘Not tonight,’ he said again.
She stepped back and he swallowed with a slight sense of pity. But she was just a whore, after all, and he had only ever paid her for her time. Within a moment he had dropped her from his thoughts and turned his attention once more to the boy at his side, bestowing his most charming smile, the full light of his focus. But John was staring and rigid, and at Tom’s smile he shifted back along the bench as far as he could before the body of Nick, whose back was turned, prevented him going any further.
‘You like her,’ he breathed. ‘You want her.’
‘She is just a whore.’ Tom shrugged. ‘Nothing more to me.’
‘I don’t believe you. Was it love with her too?’ His voice was rising and Tom flicked a glance around the table to see who had heard. But the tavern was noisy, the Company was raucous and laughing, and no one else seemed to be listening.
‘I remember what you wanted me to do with her,’ John said. ‘Did you laugh with her about it? Did you mock me together?’
‘No! No, it was always you I wanted,’ Tom answered. ‘But I thought you might like to know a woman first.’ It was true enough, he thought, although wanting John had never once lessened his lust for Jane. And now he longed for the ease of a simple fuck with her, pleasure taken without consequence. Without the boy beside him he would have gone to her tonight, hours in her bed well paid for and both of them happy. With the thought of it he raised his eyes to search for her again and found her at a nearby table with her arm around another man. Fat and twice Tom’s age, his hand was already up Jane’s skirt. She let him feel her, an instinct for money, but still she looked over his head to scan the room, always searching for a better prospect. Tom watched her, waiting for her gaze to light on him, and when they finally locked eyes, she gave him a rueful smile and a slight shrug. An unexpected ripple of jealousy turned in his gut and he had to look away. Beside him, John sat silently watching and Tom turned his attention to him once more. ‘You like her,’ John repeated. ‘You still want her.’
‘She’s good at what she does,’ Tom replied with a lightness he did not feel. ‘You should try it.’
‘Am I not enough for you?’ John leaned in close, his voice lowered, so that Tom could only just hear him over the rowdiness in the room. ‘Do I not satisfy you?’
‘It’s different.’
‘Different how?’ John demanded. ‘Tell me.’
‘I can’t explain it,’ he answered gently, lightly touching John’s leg beneath the table, fingers resting on his inner thigh. John’s own hand clamped over his, squeezing it tight.
‘You want me to go to her?’ John lifted his eyes to search Tom’s face and there was fear in his look, and a desperation that was disturbing.
‘Only if you want to,’ he replied with a smile.
John said nothing, but his hand still gripped Tom’s with a vice-like fury as his eyes searched for Jane among the crowd. Sensing the tension at his back, Nick turned to see and gave Tom a questioning look. Tom replied with a small shrug of bewilderment.
‘Have you drunk enough yet, John?’ Nick said, smiling, lifting the jug to refill their cups.
John jumped, startled, and his hand sprang open to release Tom’s, shoving it away from him as if it were poison. ‘No,’ he answered, smiling weakly. ‘Give me more.’ He held out his cup and Nick poured.
Tom’s cup Nick refilled without asking, and both men lifted their drinks together in a silent salute. Then Nick turned to John. ‘What think you of the play now that we know all of it?’
John hesitated. Then, ‘It’s good,’ he said with a feigned shrug of nonchalance.
‘You don’t like it?’ Nick asked.
The boy’s glance flicked from one to the other as though they were bullies who had cornered him. ‘I like it …’ he began. ‘It’s just …’
Nick nodded his encouragement and Tom sat back, his interest waning and his thoughts drifting towards Jane again. She was still flirting with the fat man but she had removed his hand from her skirts. Perhaps she had decide
d he might not pay her after all. He half listened to the conversation at his side.
‘It’s just …’ John was still stammering. ‘It’s very dark. The witches frighten me. It is they who lead Macbeth and his Lady to their fates, with their promises and lies. Without them …’ His eyes slid towards Tom. ‘And Tom frightens me as one of them.’
‘The illusion is convincing,’ Nick agreed quickly, trying to draw the boy’s attention back to himself. ‘And your portrayal of the Lady …’
John looked up, hopeful for praise.
‘I can’t think of anyone who could do it better.’
The boy smiled, flushing with pleasure, and Tom got up. John’s head snapped round towards him.
‘I need to piss,’ Tom said. ‘I’m coming back.’
Behind John, Nick shook his head gently and gave a wry lift of his eyebrows. Tom smiled in response then turned and walked away, heading out to the courtyard at the back. From the stables at the far end he could hear the restlessness of horses, their stamps and whinnies competing with the drum of rain, and he kept close to the wall, sheltered by the wooden gallery that serviced the first-floor row of rooms for rent above him. Holding his breath against the stench, he relieved himself in the corner by the stables, then moved hurriedly away to breathe in fresher air, beginning to sober with its touch.
The wind was swirling round in bursts, trapped in the square of the yard and blowing the rain into confusion. The eaves of the gallery offered scant protection from its reach. He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself but he tarried anyway: he was weary of John and his own desire, and it was easier to forget it in the tumult of the rainstorm.
He should have left John alone, he thought again, but how could he have known where it would lead? He, Tom, had been a much younger boy when he first gave himself to a man, and the man had been a stranger and far less gentle than Tom had been with John. But there had been pleasure in the pain, and the experience unlocked doors to a whole new world he hadn’t known existed; he had never once regretted the rough initiation. But his own corruption of John had opened different doors, gates that led to realms of danger, and he could think of no way out.
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