William had returned to the glove shop from his visit to the players and it was from there that he and his father set out for the play. March is still a dark month in England; winter not yet broken, spring not yet here. As William and his father closed on the market square their fellowship increased as they were joined by others in twos and threes, gathering from various directions for the performance.
At the centre of the market square sat a stone cross on an elevated dais. It was here that the crier would stand on market day. A small rostrum had been built across one side of the dais. A wooden framework rose above it. Strung across the back was a painted cloth showing the white columned portico of a temple with the peaks of seven hills visible across the landscape behind: Rome.
There was loud prattle across the square. All Stratford was in attendance. The first performance of any play was free. The ‘Mayor’s Play’ was put on for the councillors of Stratford, that they might judge whether the players were worthy of their licence.
William and his father made their way in front of the stage. William watched his father grasp the hands of friends and rivals alike and exchange small nothings and gentle jibes as he passed. The market brought many for their rare visit to town and a special entertainment like the play brought more seldom seen strangers still. The play was business as much as entertainment for his father.
‘Jesu, Father,’ said William, ‘here comes Hunt.’
The whispered warning was hardly needed. Matthew Hunt, two-hundredweight of fur-clad man, advanced like a barge and parted the crowd before him as a wave, his arrival heralded by his brass chain of office clanking about his fat neck. Matthew Hunt, steward to Sir Thomas Lucy, the local Member of Parliament and Stratford’s most prominent landowner, was the unlooked-for bone in the fish, the unexpected pit in the stewed apricots, the taste of gristle as one swallowed the last bite of pie.
‘Master Shakespeare.’
Hunt greeted William’s father in a voice like the deflating of a bladder.
‘Master Hunt,’ John Shakespeare replied.
‘I trust the play will be suitable,’ Hunt said.
It surprised William that Hunt, barely the same height as he and his father, should be able to tilt his nose far enough back as to be able to look down upon them both. The fat of his neck, William thought, should surely obstruct such movement. That air of superiority was as unmoveable as it was unjustified, born of Hunt’s status in Sir Thomas Lucy’s household. Sir Thomas was not a man to be trifled with, particularly in these days. Lucy stood hard with the Protestants. William’s own family, particularly his mother’s family – the Ardens – had uncomfortable papist connections. It was a fact that made Sir Thomas Lucy watchful of them, something he had not troubled to disguise.
‘I trust you are well, Master Hunt.’ John Shakespeare paused to see if such common courtesy would be reciprocated; curious more than hopeful. ‘You will find in tonight’s entertainments nothing that offends and much that amuses.’
‘I should hope so,’ said Hunt. ‘My master, Sir Thomas, is not glad to hear of this frippery in town. He himself is in London, but, of course, as his steward I stand here for him.’
Hunt’s chest, already prodigious in girth, expanded yet further as he puffed himself up.
‘You surprise me, Master Hunt,’ John answered, ‘for I had understood that Sir Thomas was aware of this market day’s entertainments and took no issue with them. In any event, I assure you that they are entertainment of the purest virtue.’
‘Would that your assurances were sufficient, Master Shakespeare. Yet were we not also assured that your son, William here, would not trespass again upon my master’s land?’
‘And neither did I,’ William said.
Hunt turned with calculated slowness to take in the hot-faced son before returning his gaze to the father. ‘The morals of the town are my master’s charge,’ he intoned.
John Shakespeare raised an eyebrow. Hunt ignored his questioning look.
‘A charge he takes with great seriousness,’ he continued. ‘As do I, as his representative. Not the least because I have brought my wife and daughter with me.’
Hunt endeavoured to deliver a stern look, but was undermined by the glistening of sweat upon his brow. To William’s great frustration John merely nodded and bowed before walking away. William hurried after.
‘You leave that fat tumble of flesh unanswered, Father?’ he said.
‘If you want the organ to stop making noise, stop feeding it air, William,’ his father replied. ‘What do I care for the posturing of one like Hunt? I am assured by the players that the performance will be entirely respectful of the sensibilities of the town. Hunt can have no cause for offence. Besides, whatever Hunt may be, his master, Sir Thomas, is not a man to be lightly dealt with, and your escapade on his lands has done our position no good.’
An embarrassed scowl crossed William’s face. He had poached one bird and was yet to hear an end of it.
‘Come, William.’ His father interrupted the young man’s thoughts. ‘Our seats are here.’
Four wide wooden steps had been built directly opposite the stage. On them were benches and chairs taken from the town hall for the benefit of the aldermen and their guests and various of the town dignitaries. Two near the right-hand side of the front row had been reserved for John Shakespeare and his son.
A fair-sized crowd was gathering in the space before the stage. Though it was afternoon, torches had been lit before the stage and at the sides. The hubbub was building at the expectation of the entertainment’s start. The cries of hawkers of ale and food rose above the crowd.
William did his best to glare at Hunt as the fat man stumped up the wooden steps to the chairs set aside for him, his equally fat wife and his daughter. Hunt was oblivious, too wrapped up in his dignity to observe the common man. There was a noisy shuffling as the seats were rearranged to make space for Hunt. A man whose death, thought William, would free a county from famine and, boiled down, make candles for a year’s light. William took note that the daughter was not yet run to fat. She was, indeed, a surprise in the fairness of her appearance. Even from the darkest mines, he mused, can come a diamond.
Those on the benches stood as the mayor entered and took his place at the centre. That arrival marked the moment for the play to start. John Shakespeare nodded to a fellow stationed by his feet. He rose and disappeared behind the side of the stage. His disappearance prompted a corresponding apparition on the stage, the giant figure of Oldcastle, dressed as Father Time.
Cakes and ale
A hush fell upon the crowd as Oldcastle began to speak.
William sat, rapt. It was not the dialogue that took him – he thought it mannered – but he knew enough to recognise a master at work. Oldcastle’s voice leaped and dived as he spoke, bringing light and shade to the lines. He held the crowd at a hush. The only noise that competed with him was the crackle of the torches.
Until, that was, there was the scraping of a shifting chair behind him and the audible whisper of Hunt’s voice declaring his concern at the pagan references to Father Time. William bit his tongue.
The play moved on.
Pyramus declared his love for the beauteous Thisbe. Hunt coughed his concern for the lustful thoughts of youth. Thisbe shared her desire for the noble Pyramus. Hunt muttered of how Thisbe’s father had spared the rod and spoiled the child. The lovers planned their elopement. Hunt spoke loudly of the dangers of conspiracy. At the place of their assignation, Pyramus came upon the wild lion, maw bloody with what he feared was the remains of his slaughtered love. Pyramus killed himself in despair. His death rattle was accompanied by a loud harrumphing at the sin of suicide.
Those on the benches stiffened with each statement of discontent from Hunt, the moments between serving only to stretch out the tension in anticipation of the next interruption. Yet none, not even the mayor, dared challenge Hunt.
The groundlings, those stood before the stage, seemed unaware. Far enough fro
m Hunt to hear only the players, they remained, for the most part, swept up in the tragedy before them. Oldcastle’s stern performance as Thisbe’s father held them tight. The slender boy William had seen earlier was transformed into a lithe young woman, distraught at her love denied and moving in her pleading. Hemminges, a powerful presence as Pyramus’ father, growled his anger at lost honour. All to the good.
Then Pyramus had come to the stage. William winced. Nightingale, his hands sawing at the air as if trying to pull down the talent that he desperately needed, paced back and forth like a man with the itch. His voice had all the subtlety of a stallholder crying his wares on market day. As for the lion – the pot-bellied fellow coughing out a piteous mewl, lips choking on Thisbe’s white veil as he did so – the less said about him the better. Yet even these grim performances and a script that continued to grate on William’s ear could not break the effect of the play entirely. The players finished with a dance to the applause of the groundlings and the relief of the great and good of Stratford.
Hunt rose and marched down the steps towards John and William.
‘It was much as I feared, Master Shakespeare, despite your promises. Licentiousness held up as admirable. Two houses with children lacking respect for their elders. Suicides.’
‘It was just a play,’ replied John Shakespeare.
‘All plays are lessons for the weak of mind,’ said Hunt. ‘I liked it not.’
‘Then you like not Ovid, Master Hunt, which they teach the children in the school,’ John said.
‘I thank the Lord I have had little dealing with Ovid,’ Hunt said. ‘The Bible is all my reading. The play was not sound, I say. Worse than that, Master Shakespeare, it was not even good. That ghastly old man with the beard. His voice rising and falling like a bird’s squawking. Faugh! At least with the fellow playing Pyramus you could hear him speak.’ He turned abruptly to William. ‘What?’
The start of Hunt’s speech William had met with wide-eyed incredulity but by the end he was in howls of laughter.
‘I’ll not be mocked,’ said Hunt.
‘William,’ his father hissed.
‘Your pardon, Master Hunt.’ William struggled to gain his composure. ‘It is just that I had not thought to find in you such knowledge of the arts.’
William burst into laughter again.
‘I’ll not be mocked.’ Hunt’s voice was low. He turned to William’s father. ‘I shall make full report of tonight, Master Shakespeare. I see that not only in the play are there households where children lack respect for their elders.’
Hunt pointed at William and glared as he turned away; a gesture of such mummer’s artifice that William was shocked from his chortling into silence.
Spending your wit in the praise of mine
William and his father watched Hunt walk away.
‘Father . . .’
John did not glance round at his son. He simply held up a stiff, quivering finger. William threw his head back and looked up at the sky. After a long moment John let his arm drop. Without saying a word to his son, John Shakespeare crossed to the mayor and began to engage him in conversation.
William seethed. His anger travelled in many directions. At Hunt, the pompous windbag who nearly ruined his pleasure in the play, who stood in judgment over his father and himself, as if armed with divine understanding. At his father, who, supine in his silence, did not take Hunt to task for his overbearing manner. At himself, for having so unguardedly revealed his contempt for the fat fool, and thereby made an enemy.
William shook his head and turned towards the stage. People still milled about the space before it in knots of two or three. Most had dispersed to the stalls that now, reopened, served food and drink again. The buzz of conversation was accompanied by the sound of horn and lute from travelling players.
William found Oldcastle by the side of the stage wiping his face clean with a rag.
‘Fine work, Master Oldcastle,’ said William.
‘Aha! The herald of the town, Master Shakespeare,’ said Oldcastle. ‘You enjoyed it?’
Oldcastle’s face glistened with sweat and he gazed eagerly on William, waiting for praise.
‘You, sir, were magnificent,’ proffered William.
‘Naturally, naturally you should say so. Yet I am not immune to the pleasure of a compliment, even when social graces demand that it be given.’ Oldcastle let out an odd rumbling noise. ‘You see, I purr.’
He leaned in to William and whispered, ‘The crowd, I felt, a little flat. What thought you?’
William found himself whispering in reply, ‘Perhaps a little.’
Oldcastle nodded. ‘They did not wish to upstage our lion, I suspect.’
He turned his face and raised an eyebrow in the direction of the portly fellow now padding about behind the curtain of the stage still draped in the moth-eaten lion skin.
‘Would that they had rather matched the heights young Pyramus reached,’ William responded.
William’s and Oldcastle’s eyes locked.
‘Yes.’ Oldcastle dragged the word out. ‘A nuanced performance.’ He raised his other eyebrow.
‘As full of hidden meaning as a Jesuit’s argument,’ said William.
‘And just as welcome,’ said Oldcastle, a fat smile splitting his beard.
‘Fortunate for us that Master Nightingale should also write our pieces,’ said Oldcastle, ‘so many talents.’
‘The Bible has a parable about those with talents . . .’ William began.
‘Aye – best buried, sayeth the Lord,’ Oldcastle finished.
‘I recall it differently,’ William said.
‘You are, no doubt, more the scholar than I,’ said Oldcastle.
He scrubbed his face one more time. Emerging from the rag, he declared, ‘Our work is done. Now time for pleasure.’
‘The Bible also has a parable about that,’ William said.
‘Enough, Shakespeare. My throat is quite parched by the dryness of all this wit. To the tavern.’
Vows made in wine
The King’s Hall sounded to the loud laughter of happy people. William sat in a circle with the players’ company passing a jug of wine while they sang catches like tinkers. Hemminges sat on a stool leaning against the back wall and picked at a lute. The young lad, who William now knew to be Arthur from Norwich, sang along beautifully but quietly, his voice quite drowned out by the hubbub around him. Glanville, as William had discovered the portly lion was called, mumbled along drunkenly.
The laughter, wine and pleasant company were not having the effect on his humour that William hoped. The cold pang in his stomach had become a knot of tension. A battle of wits with Oldcastle where each sought to outmatch the other in pointed parable and proverb proved but fleeting distraction. His thoughts returned to Hunt, to his father and from there to thoughts of duty. The pleasures of the present moment served only to raise thoughts of contrast with the chains of daily life.
‘More wine?’ He asked the group generally and, not waiting for the expected grunts of approval, rose and wandered to the bar.
The discordant words at the play were still to be resolved. He would have to make peace with his father. He would have to wait out Hunt’s revenge. William knew Hunt too well to fool himself the matter would be let pass. Hunt would not let a rogue like William stand and laugh at him unanswered. Not knowing where the blow would come, or against whom, was a torment. He hoped to find in wine inspiration towards a solution, though he was some way into that plan and, as yet, without success. The whirligig of his thoughts was interrupted by a new arrival in the King’s Hall, Hunt and his wife and daughter.
William and his party were sat in the back of the inn, where they were served on rough wooden benches with sawdust on the floor. The King’s Hall, however, catered to more than just roister-doisters. The great inn had, at the front, a room where those of a more refined nature might enjoy the pleasures of the alehouse. Fresh reeds covered the floor and carved oak benches were plumpe
d with cushions. With the town full of visitors on this special market day, the King’s Hall bedrooms were crammed with those who had too far to travel to return home that night. The elegant front room hummed with the chatter of wealthy farmers and their wives, and it was into this room that Hunt and his family now came.
William ducked back into the shadow of the bar. Hunt strode towards the stairs that led to the rooms on the first floor, then stopped short, as if coming to the end of an invisible tether. He turned back to see his portly wife, cross-armed and red-faced, staring at him. He hastened to her side, provoking a short conversation involving much finger-jabbing on each side. It ended with Hunt visibly deflating and making his way upstairs, alone. Hunt’s wife, head held aloft in victory, set sail for a small table in the corner with daughter in tow. She settled herself down, snapped her fingers for the barmaid’s attention and, having ordered, began to talk at her daughter with nearly as much finger-jabbing as had accompanied her speech to her husband. William’s gaze fell on Hunt’s daughter. A plan began to form in his head.
My thoughts are ripe in mischief
William had not heard the argument between Hunt and his wife. He could guess at it. Hunt had planned to leave town as soon as the play had ended; to signal his rejection of Stratford and its denizens, the Sodom of Warwickshire. A plan that had wrecked itself on the rocks of his wife and daughter’s desire to enjoy the pleasures and opportunities of market day. No doubt Hunt had made his irritation at being forced to traipse about after the two women quite clear. It appeared Hunt’s wife intended drink would dilute the unpleasantness of that memory.
William waited till Hunt’s wife was the better for two glasses of sweet wine of canary in swift succession. Then he beckoned Susanne, the barmaid, over.
‘Doll, would you take a stoup of wine to the lady there and her daughter, with my good wishes.’
William gestured at the table where Hunt’s wife and daughter were sitting, the girl in bored silence while the woman talked on heedless.
The Spy of Venice Page 3