October 1598
If Nick hadn't been watching Philip's face at the time, he wouldn't have known whose the voice was.
"What?" Philip slammed to his feet with such force that he nearly tipped the table into master Henslowe's lap, cups, pots and all. "Benefit of clergy?"
"I'm afraid it's true," Henslowe said. If it had been the Lord Mayor and aldermen closing down the theatres again, he would have been huffing and blustering, but now he was perilously soft-voiced.
"He kills my friend and they let him live because he knows one line of Latin?" Philip spat. "It's enough to make me forswear Rome, I tell you."
"English law too," Henslowe said, reaching out and standing a parcel-gilt jug in its place once more. "He has been branded; he won't get away with it again."
"I've half a mind to set myself on him."
"Don't be a fool!" Henslowe snapped. "Losing Gabriel to that - that ham-handed bricklayer, was bad enough. You, I need even more." He sighed. "I wouldn't care two farthings if only Jonson couldn't write - but he can."
"I'm not working with him again!"
"No, I understand that. I'd as soon not, myself. But his plays bring in the pennies - more than pennies, Philip - and keep us all in work. I'll not take his next piece, nor maybe the next, but if I take nothing he'll go over to the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and then where are we?"
"Without me, when you take him back," Philip persisted.
Nick swallowed. "And that means without me, too," he said. "I am master Standage's apprentice, after all."
Henslowe made an indeterminate noise something like a growl, but not quite. "Well - I will leave it in God's hands, and see what comes," he said. "Gabriel, God rest his soul, would be glad to know he had two such staunch friends, but I dare say he would be cursing you for fools as well."
Philip shook his head, but made no reply. After a minute he said, "Come out to the Rose, Nick."
They did not go straight to the theatre, but wandered there by way of the riverside. Above them, the cloud scattered into flying scuds and fleets of white against blue, and the sun shone down. They came back to the road where a haywain had passed not long ago, leaving a trail of chaff and seed behind it; Philip stooped for a handful of seed, and held it up high. In a moment, there was a whirr of small wings, and sparrows perched on his open palm, pecking and chirping. "Come on, Nick," he said. "You too."
So Nick picked up his own handful of seed, and presently the sharp light claws were on his hand too; but the sparrows did not stay so long, because he jumped every time they pecked at his fingers. Suddenly Philip laughed, and threw seed and sparrows and all to the air. "I'm wasting time. Let's teach you how to fight."
"Fight?" Nick said, easing through the gap in the theatre doors as Philip pushed them ajar.
"I'll not have you unable to defend yourself," Philip said, his eyes bright and bitter. "Not after Gabriel. You can't have a sword yet, but I'll buy you a better knife than that bodkin you have now, and meanwhile the foils will do to learn with." He disappeared above stage, and came back with two slender blades. "No taking these from the theatre or Stephen will have you fined, same as if it were costume. Now: take hold of that, and let's see."
So, for the next few hours, there was more to learn. Nick enjoyed it; Philip found him an apt pupil, even when he ended up for the third time in an hour with his back to the tiring-house door and the blunt point of Philip's foil over his heart.
"It's as if I haven't learned a thing!" Nick said, nodding downward to the glittering line.
"The last boy I taught, I would have done this to him four times as often as I have to you. You've nothing to be ashamed of," Philip said, pushing sweaty hair off his forehead. "Do you feel able to fight?"
"No."
"Good. That means you may have a chance of defending yourself successfully if the time comes. Tomorrow, I'll teach you about fighting with the knife. Bring your cloak." Philip shivered. "It's too cold to be taking this much exercise. Come back to Henslowe's - maybe Joan or Meg will heat us some wine."
Whether it was the wine, or the memory, or some other thing, Nick never knew, but that night he dreamed that he had rushed in between Gabriel's and Jonson's swords, and it was he who had his death-wound, and Philip saying his name, over and over.
"Nick! Nick, wake up! It's only a dream."
It was, of course, and Nick did wake up; but he did not tell Philip the dream. It came back again, and again, but less often after a few more weeks of practice, and not at all after the day in November when he first managed to score a hit on Philip.
Philip looked down in surprise, then threw his head back and laughed. "Well done, Nick. So, shall we go choose a knife for you tomorrow?"
Nick put up his foil, feeling remarkably unsettled, almost as if he was afraid; but there was nothing to fear. "I don't even know where to buy a knife."
"You don't need to. I'll take you over to Blackfriars," Philip said. "My old fencing-master lives there, Saviolo, and he'll let me have something for you good cheap. He may even show you some real fencing - if I can get a word in edgeways for long enough to ask him."
It happened pat as Philip said, and so Nick had his knife, and began to practise with it. The summer's takings at the Rose had been good, and thanks to that, and the foul weather, none of the company were of a mind to take the road. Philip earned himself gold and silver, now and then, by going out of an evening as one of the Musicians' Company; sometimes Nick went with him, to hold his music or carry his lute, or simply to sit and listen.
One night, late in December, they were passing, not altogether sober, along the edge of Finsbury Fields, hurrying because it was dark and cold and they were out after curfew, though with business enough to be so; and then Philip stopped in his tracks, so abruptly that Nick, in front of him with the lantern, never noticed, and got well ahead.
"Nick," Philip said, forming even that short word with some care, "do my eyes deceive me?"
"I don't know," Nick said. "What about?"
"How much did I have to drink?"
"Ah - I lost count. You're still on your feet, anyhow."
"Because," Philip said, "I can't see Burbage's Theatre. And I know it's dark, but … "
Nick went back to him, holding the lantern high. "There's the Curtain. But that's the other side of Holywell lane."
They retraced their steps. Where the Theatre should have been was a pile of rubble, and not enough of it to make a theatre either. The beams were gone, and the doors; only plaster remained.
"By Saint Barbara and Saint Thomas," Philip said, "the city fathers are right after all, and the Theatre is struck down by fire from heaven." He sounded in earnest; but then he laughed.
"No lightning," Nick said.
"The lightning had human hands, I think. But it's too late and too dark - and too cold - to stop and wonder. Let's get back."
May 1599
Whatever had struck the Theatre down, they heard nothing more, save rumours that Burbage had lost the lease of it, and that the Lord Chamberlain's Men, whose affairs he managed, were playing in the Curtain instead. Then, one afternoon when the Admiral's Men were on their way back from the Rose, all was bustle and industry, like a hive of bees, between the river and Deadman's lane. Jack Wynter, the newest of the company and the one least likely to be recognised as a player from Admiral's, strolled towards the place and disappeared into the crowd. The rest, even those who didn't lodge with Henslowe, hung uneasily round his house until Jack returned with news.
"Timbers from the Theatre," he said. "Lord Chamberlain's Men had them brought here to build themselves a new playhouse."
Silence. Every man looked at his neighbour.
"Who's going to tell Henslowe?" someone asked.
"He'll know already," Philip said. "Trust him. See, the door's ajar."
"You may trust me, and I know indeed," Henslowe said, opening the door wider. "Now listen, players and lads all; I am as sanguine about this as may be. Although the old Rose she's serve
d us well, she's beginning to rot in her timbers. With the Lord Chamberlain's Men close rivals, we may struggle to bring folk through our doors."
"And so?" one George Attwell said.
"So, Alleyn and I will make a plan, and if I can trust you all to stand by the company, we'll come through."
There was a murmur of agreement and men scattered, each about his own business. Philip and Nick found themselves alone outside the door, with Henslowe regarding them benevolently. "Come inside, Philip," he said. "I have a plan for the two of you, if you'll hear it. Nick, find yourself something to do."
"May I go across to Paul's?" Nick asked.
Philip nodded. "Fetch your knife, though," he said. "And put your cap on; don't carry it all the time."
So Nick put on the cap that marked him as an apprentice, and slipped his knife into his belt, and went walking to St Paul's School, hoping to see Martin; but by the time he arrived it was evensong, and nothing to be gained by waiting. Rather than go back at once, he wandered through Paul's Churchyard and Paternoster Row, looking at bookshops: the Angel and the Green Dragon and the Flower de Luce and the Crown. At the sign of the White Greyhound, a new book was in stacks on the sill, a small thing in quarto: The Passionate Pilgrim. By W. Shakespeare. Nick took up a copy and leafed through it. Poems, some good, some bad, printed on one side of the paper to bulk a thin load out into something worth buying. Nick near as anything set it down again, but a bystander stepped in front of him and reached for another book high up.
"How much?" Nick asked the bookseller, craning himself round the jamb of the shop door.
"Sixpence."
He rarely had money to spend; in his purse was a single groat. "I have four."
"I don't bargain," the shopkeeper said.
"I'm not asking you to." Nick looked at the first two poems. They were worth having. "If I give you the groat, will you keep the book for me until I come for it?"
"I can sell it faster than that," he said. "No."
At that point the bystander stopped reading and said, "If you will forgive me, lad, I have a better idea. Let me lend you tuppence, and you may take the book with you now."
Nick hesitated. "It's most kind of you, sir, but you may never see your money again."
"Oh, I don't think so." The man swept off his hat and bowed, with a smile. "Nicholas Skeres, late of Furnival's Inn, at your service."
Nick did likewise. "Nicholas Hanham, sir, of Silton in Dorset."
"Ah," he said. "New in London?" His face was ruddy, with the ruddiness of his skin showing through brown hair going grey and cut very short. Blue eyes glanced everywhere, watchfully, but the smile remained on his face.
"No; I have been here these few years now." Nick looked down at the book again. "I don't think that I should - "
"Nonsense." Skeres slid two pennies between Nick's fingers and the paper, and patted the back of his hand. "I am here - yes, let us say Friday - most Fridays. Enjoy your book."
Nick handed the silver to the bookseller, said, "Thank you, sir," to master Skeres, and walked back to Bankside, rather more hastily than he had gone.
As soon as he came through Henslowe's door, Joan Horton said, "Master Standage asked me, will you go upstairs at once? He wants to talk to you - and never look so dismayed, you've done nothing wrong. Something he and master Henslowe talked of, it seems."
Nick climbed the stairs, knocked on the attic door - something he never usually did - and waited for Philip's call before he went in.
Philip looked up with a brief smile. "Nick. How was St Paul's?"
"As always," Nick said, contriving to sit down on his bed and slide the book under the pillow without Philip's seeing. "Joan said you wanted to talk to me."
He went straight to the point. "Henslowe has had an offer from Will Shakespeare. He saw us in Agamemnon, and he wants us to play in a comedy of his. As You Like It."
Nick blinked at him. "He saw us in a tragedy, so he wants us in a comedy?"
Philip shrugged. "It needs six boys, and only four in the company at the moment. He wants me for a melancholy part, which I think I can command. What do you think?"
"Is he good?" Nick asked.
"Good enough."
"I'm only the apprentice. Why are you asking me?"
Philip's smile lifted every line in his face. "So you are. I forgot. We're to expect our parts by a messenger soon, and then wait for notice of the rehearsal at the Curtain. What book did you buy, Nick?"
Nick snorted, forgetting that he was only the apprentice. "Do you see everything? Here you are."
"Mostly," Philip answered, and leafed through the book much as Nick had done. After a moment his hands stilled, and so did he, his face intent on the page. Then carefully he closed the book, handed it back, said, "Thank you, Nick," and walked out. Nick did not see him again until very late at night, when he stumbled into the room with the smell of beer on his breath.
Philip said nothing about the book or his drunkenness the next morning, apart from clutching at his head and muttering when he first sat up. "What weather is it?" he said, after a while, and then must have realised what the noise was on the roof and shutters. "Rain. Have we a rehearsal?"
"No, it's Sunday."
Philip nodded, and winced. "I wonder if I can persuade master Henslowe that I'm too ill to attend church."
"He's probably well-accustomed to that illness," Nick said, half-jesting, and Philip grinned back.
"Oh yes. He allows me to be a papist for a shilling at a time; much better cheap than paying her Majesty's fine."
Nick nearly choked on his own indrawn breath. "But - you are a papist?"
"Didn't you know? Yes." Philip leaned forward, and pulled out a thin sheaf of music from one of the chests at the foot of his bed. He chose a page and began, softly, to sing in Latin.
"I like that," Nick said. "What is it?"
"Part of the Mass," Philip said. "William Byrd wrote it."
Nick blinked. "The papist?"
"My co-religionist," Philip said. "You did not see these, Nick, and I did not tell you. Now run along; I'm not paying your fine as well as mine." And he began to sing again.
Nick stared at him for a moment, then went to dress himself.
It rained for days; work on the new theatre along Bankside stopped. A messenger came from the Curtain with parts written out for Philip and Nick; they began to learn them, and waited for the call to rehearsal. It came on a Friday; May twenty-seventh, to be exact. Rehearsal and play would take place on the Monday.
That was nothing unusual; they had time to learn their lines, after all, but as Monday drew nearer Philip became quiet and withdrawn, his mood broken by bouts of merriness that sat on him like an ill-fitting costume. The evening before rehearsal, he did not come back until it was late, and again there was the smell of beer on his breath, although how he found a house open on a Sunday, Nick could not tell.
"Wake me at cock-crow," he said, his voice slurred. "Drag me out of bed and down the stairs if need be. I won't be late for that rehearsal. And bring your new book with you, if you please."
Chapter 9
May 30th 1599
As You Like It, indeed. Nick adored his part as Phebe; Touchstone was played by Chamberlain's Men's new clown, Robert Armin, and Philip might have born to play Jaques. Indeed, when he gave his first long speech, for the first time ever Nick forgot that it was Philip Standage who spoke. He might be thin, dark, and foreign-looking, but his voice in a play would have charmed serpents.
For all that, something was wrong; Nick noticed it first in the scene with Touchstone and the country wench and Jaques. Master Shakespeare had added lines to Touchstone's part since the morning's rehearsal: "'When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.'"
Philip was standing aside, as the staging called for, and at those words he rocked back on his heels; but he was ready at his next cue and
never a word out of place.
Then, Nick's lines in one scene were, "'Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'" He came offstage; Philip first closed the tiring-house door, where he had been watching the stage through the grille, then backed Nick towards the far side of the room. "'Loved not at first sight'," he whispered, his face white to the lips. "Do you know where that line comes from?"
Nick shook his head. "Only from this. Did you not hear it at rehearsal?"
"If I had - " But there was no time for him to say more; his cue came, and he strode out fast to make his entrance. All in black, he seemed both taller and thinner than usual.
"What's up with him?" said Harry Condell, who as Silvius was passionately in love with Nick on stage, but mostly ignored him off it.
"I don't know. He's been in a strange humour for days now." Nick straightened his partlet, then the linen kerchief on his head, then his skirts. "This is the best piece we've played together."
"Trust Will for that," Harry said. "If Standage makes a mill of his part, we'll be waiting for him afterwards, I can tell you."
"He won't," Nick said, fingers crossed; and, to his relief, Philip didn't. He did, however, come in at the end after the jig with a mug of strong beer in each hand, and drink them both off fast. Then he took off his apparel, dressed again, and waited alone at the back of the tiring-room while all the others folded away their costumes and departed.
"Go home, Nick," he said. In his usual clothes, he looked tired, and paler than ever.
Nick said, "I'll come with you to Henslowe's, if you please, master Standage."
"Oh. Very well." His head turned. "Master Shakespeare. I was waiting for you."
"I thought you might be," Shakespeare said, out of the shadows where the stairs went up to the heavens.
"You keep your anniversaries well," Philip said in a strange, meditative voice. "'It strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room', to hear such words on the six-years'-day of his death. And to hear Kit's words pulled like feathers and adorning your play, or read them stolen for your book - I can hardly thank you." His voice cracked, and his breath as he drew it in was like tearing cloth.
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