by Simon Hawke
“Now then,” Worley continued, pacing as he spoke, “as you have quite correctly pointed out, I am a very wealthy man. And I, indeed, have everything. Or so ‘twould appear, at least, to anyone such as yourself. I could easily sit back and rest upon my laurels, like the rest of the slothful, parasitic fools who make up the larger part of our blue-blooded nobility, but then, such is not my nature.
“You see, Smythe, I did not inherit the fortune I now possess. I earned it. Or else stole it, depending upon one’s perspective. Either way, 1 worked damned hard to get it. And I enjoyed getting it. Every damned bit of it. From my very first business venture, in which I risked every single penny I had earned since boyhood and parlayed it into my first ship, to the latest addition to my fleet, which is even now under construction in Bristol and promises to make Drake’s Golden Hind look like a river barge, I have played the game of risk and won. Well, occasionally I lost, but losing is just part of the game. And the ones who play it best are those who are not afraid to lose.
“Look about you, Smythe,” said Worley, indicating their surroundings with a sweeping gesture. “What do you see? Opulence. Grandeur. Elegance. Taste… Well, I am not so sure about the taste part, for some of this monstrosity I call a home is rather overdone, I must confess, but the point is, it is the refined and genteel residence of a knight of the realm, soon, perhaps, to be a lord, as strange as that may seem. And yet… and yet… how did I get here? How did I achieve all of this?”
Smythe simply stared at him, uncertain as to whether the question was rhetorical or not. Worley was looking at him as if he expected an answer, but Smythe had none to give. Or else, all he could do was repeat back what Worley had just told him.
“Through hard work, milord?”
Worley snorted. “Through piracy, my lad. Through piracy. I worked hard at it, to be sure, but it was piracy, nevertheless.”
“Piracy, milord?”
“Aye. Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, the rest of them who either sail my ships or else have bought them from me… all pirates. A slightly better class of pirate, I will grant you, than your tarry-haired, rum-swilling, eyepatch-wearing, smelly buccaneer, but pirates, nonetheless. They attack ships and loot them, take them as prizes when they can and sink them when they cannot, and they are wined and dined as heroes here in England, instead of being strung up to dangle from the gallows. And why? Because they attack Spanish ships. And because the queen gets a share of all their booty. And that makes the queen no less a pirate than all the rest of them.”
“I cannot believe that you would call the queen a pirate!” Smythe said, with astonishment.
“ ‘Tis the truth,” said Worley, with a shrug. “And believe it or not, in private, she would even admit to it. Her Majesty is nothing if not practical. She always sees a thing for what it is, and not for what it should be or could be. And if she is not always honest with her ministers and courtiers and other heads of state, she is unfailingly honest with herself, which is why I rather like the old girl. She is a woman who has made her way in a man’s world without ever once submitting to a man, and she has done so with courage and intelligence, duplicity and guile, good-heartedness and malice, trickery and effrontery, and pure, unadulterated rapaciousness, God bless her great black heart, and I love her better than I loved my own sweet mother because I understand that wondrous royal bitch. She, young Smythe, is every bit as much a thief as I am. And what is more, she revels in it!”
“As do you,” said Smythe, as comprehension dawned. “Except that it sits ill with you to be so far removed from it as her. You cannot be a sea-going brigand, at least not anymore. It would ill suit a man of your position. But if you are going to be a thief, then you prefer to do the stealing with your own two hands, rather than have others do it for you. That way, at least, you own what you have done, and experience the thrill of it.”
Worley pointed a finger at him and shook it slightly. “Ah, there, you see? I knew you were a smart lad from the moment I laid eyes upon you.”
“You are most gracious, milord,” said Smythe. “But the one question which puzzles me above all others is… why me? Why take me into your confidence? Merely because you know that I could never be a threat to you?”
“In part, that,” admitted Worley. “But also because there was something about you that bespoke a difference from your usual, common sort of lout. ‘This one has promise,’ I said to myself. ‘This one, given half a chance, is going to amount to something.’ I always recognize talent when I see it. ‘Tis a gift. I felt the same sort of thing about young Marlowe when I met him.”
“Have you taken him into your confidence, as well?”
“Marlowe? Perish the thought! He, unlike you, is dangerous. He is the most rash, impetuous, demented young fool that I have ever met, for all his brilliance.”
“I should not think that he would be any more capable of being a threat to you than I could,” Smythe said.
“On his own, perhaps not,” Worley replied, “but Marlowe has some secret friends. Powerful friends. And he does not even realize how powerful and unscrupulous they are, more’s the pity. More wine?”
“Uh… Aye. Please.”
“Help yourself. Oh, hell, bring the whole decanter over. Are you hungry?”
“I could eat, milord.”
“I have some of the queen’s own venison being prepared. There is plenty. You shall stay for supper.”
“You are most kind, milord. But you were speaking of Master Marlowe and his secret friends? Why secret?”
“Because they deal in secret things,” said Worley. “Among them, murder.”
“Murder?”
“Aye. Murder and intrigue. And at the highest levels.” “The highest levels of what, milord?”
“Of government, my lad, of government. Marlowe is a spy, the wretched soul.”
“A spy! “
“Aye, he allowed himself to get drawn into it while he was pursuing his studies at Cambridge. A nasty, complicated business. Papist versus Protestant, Rome versus England, with dashing young Kit Marlowe all caught up in it and playing both ends against the middle.”
“He told you all this?”
“Nay, I have other sources. Astonishingly enough, Marlowe can keep his mouth shut about some things. To a point, anyway. But he is irrepressible and, as his patron, I have been duly ‘cautioned.’ As an intimate of the queen, you see, I do receive some consideration. Especially since my ships have been so instrumental in helping line the pockets of the Privy Council. But enough about Marlowe. Believe me, the less you know about his intrigues, the better. You wanted to know why I am telling you all this, why I should take you into my confidence.”
“Aye, milord. It seems… rather unusual. I mean, you do not know me, really. True, ‘tis most unlikely that anyone in his right mind would take my word about anything over yours, but nevertheless, there is still the possibility that I might compromise you- or Master Marlowe-in some way. That is to say, I assure you that I would not, at least not intentionally, but how do you know that I would not?”
Worley chuckled. “Because you say such things, that is how I know. And because I do not know as little about you as you think. I have made inquiries. I know all about your father and his recent difficulties, for one thing, and I know about your uncle, for another. I was most especially interested in him, considering your claim that you could craft a sword superior to the one I loaned you. Was it merely arrogant boastfulness or simple honesty? As your uncle was the man who taught you, I was keen to learn what sort of work he did. Now, I believe you.” Worley reached down to his side and drew a dagger from a sheath at his belt. He placed it on the table and slid it across to Smythe. “You will recognize the workmanship, of course, even without your uncle’s maker’s mark on the ricasso. The craftsmanship is among the best that I have ever seen.”
Smythe picked up the dagger, already knowing it to be his uncle’s work. He swallowed nervously. “I take your point, Sir William.”
“I think
you miss it,” Worley replied, seeing the expression on his face. “I am not threatening your family, Smythe. I could, of course, but that was not my purpose. I wanted to find out more about you. That day on the road, I saw something in you that I do not see in men very often. I saw a remarkable forthrightness, and a complete lack of fear. Those are very admirable qualities. Admirable and rare. And they should be encouraged.”
“I am not fearless, Sir William,” Smythe said. “In all honesty, I was a bit afraid to come here.”
Worley shook his head. “I do not believe you were, else you would not have come. I have no doubt you felt some apprehension, some uncertainty, to be sure… but fear? You are not the sort. You do not seem to have it in you. I sat astride my stallion with a pistol aimed straight at your chest and you did not blink an eye. You exercised the proper caution that the situation called for, yet you kept your head and even bantered with me. I admired that in you. It reminded me… of me. And you know, as enjoy-ably diverting as it may be to be Black Billy, the infamous highwayman that every schoolboy sings about, a large part of that joy is lost in not having anyone to tell about it. Well… now I have you.” He smiled. “So, what say we take a quick look at that forge I promised you before sitting down to supper? You still owe me a sword, you know.”
***
The play, thought Shakespeare, was appallingly inept. Its failure to draw a decent audience at the Theatre was not due to any particular failing of the actors, although from what he’d seen, the only really good performer in the company was Ned Alleyn, and he had just quit. Things were not looking very promising for the Queen’s Men, but despite any flaws in the company’s performance, the main fault lay in the play itself.
Part of the problem was that it was not a new play, but one that had been adapted from other sources and rewritten many times, so that he no longer had any idea who the original author was or precisely what had been intended. This particular version was credited to Greene, and it had his stamp all over it. The Honorable Gentleman was full of literary references and high-flown academic speech which suffered from the same pretensions that it aimed to satirize, and in those cases where these allusions did not go straight over the heads of most people in the audience, they were explained awkwardly by other characters, who were simply leaden in their coarseness and derision.
The honorable gentleman of the title was a prosperous merchant of the rising middle class, with pretensions to gentility, and throughout the play, he was held up as an object of cruel mockery and ridicule. His employees stole from him, his suppliers cheated him, his wife cuckolded him, and throughout, the main character remained blissfully unaware and foolishly convinced of his own genteel superiority. It was, thought Shakespeare bleakly, crass pandering to the groundlings and as unoriginal as sin.
The speeches were all grandiose and peppered with crude jokes, which seemed to be there for no other purpose than to break up the monotony of the declamation by allowing some character or other to play the fool and caper for the audience. At some point, perhaps, there was a cohesive story that somehow got lost along the way as a result of too many cooks pissing in the stew. And now, he was going to piss in it, as well. He was not at all convinced that his efforts would improve the flavor, either. Still, he had to try.
He had been up all night, working on it. At first, he had thought that he could simply polish a bit here and improve a little there, and tighten some things up a little overall, but it soon became apparent that nothing less than a complete rewrite would do. And that would not save the next performance, because there would simply be no time in which the members of the company could learn all their new lines. The task seemed utterly impossible, especially given the time constraints he had to work under. Had he begun from scratch, with a completely new, original play, it would have been much easier, but that was not what he had been asked to do. His job was to rescue this one. The trouble was, he could not generate any enthusiasm for the project, because he simply hated it.
Nevertheless, this was going to be his chance to show what he could do, and if he failed to deliver something much improved, he had little doubt that there would ever be another opportunity to prove himself, at least to this company. Somehow, before he could even entertain the notion of submitting his own plays for consideration, he had to make a start and convince them that he knew his business, that he could turn a phrase adroitly.
The main problem, aside from the awkward writing, which clearly, at least to his eyes, showed an author whose talents were well and truly on the wane, was that the characters were not very well delineated. They were stock characters, and nothing more. They had no complexity and were not drawn with any imagination. There was nothing to differentiate them from any number of similar characters in similar situations, which the audience had seen many times before. They were crude rather than subtle, snide rather than clever, bitter rather than ironic, and loud rather than brash. In short, every brushstroke throughout the play was broad and heavy-handed. And Shakespeare was not sure how to fix it short of simply tearing it all up and starting over. Unfortunately, that was not an option.
After agonizing over it for hours, he had finally decided on a course of action that might, perhaps, allow him not only the chance to prove he could improve this play, but gain more time to do so in the process, while still managing to meet the deadline. The trick, he thought, would be to improve the play in stages.
They had already committed to the next performance; the playbills had all been posted. The company could, if absolutely necessary, decide to put on another play at the last moment, but that might not sit well with the audience. Therefore, he decided to select certain scenes throughout the play where the alteration of a line or two, or even a short speech, would effect a slight improvement or produce a bigger laugh, so that the actors would not find themselves in the difficult position of having to learn too many new lines in only a few hours, at best. Then, he would spread the changes out in such a manner that they would gradually move the play along in a new and hopefully improved direction. But to do this, he would have to map out all the changes first, before deciding on the stages in which they would progress. He had spent most of the night and early morning doing so, and now he was exhausted.
He had been working by candlelight when Smythe went to sleep and he was still working in the morning when Smythe got up and went out to see Sir William. Shakespeare wondered how that was going. He felt a bit concerned for his friend, but reasoned that Smythe seemed to know what he was doing. Shakespeare still found it difficult to believe that Sir William was actually Black Billy, the legendary highwayman, but Smythe seemed certain of it and he had learned by now that his roommate was not given to idle flights of fancy. He was anxious for Smythe to return, so that he could hear all about their meeting. It would surely be a great deal more interesting, he thought, than working on this miserable play.
He put down his quill, removed his light, close-fitting, deerskin writing glove, which had no mate for he had made it himself to keep the ink off his fingers, and rubbed his eyes, wearily. For a moment, his tired gaze focused on the quill, which he had laid flat on the table, and the well-worn, ink-stained writing glove beside it. The parchment, quill, ink pot, and glove looked rather like a still-life composition, the sort of thing that art students would practice at before they moved on to the more advanced techniques of portraiture. And, coincidentally, it also made, in a sense, for a portrait of his life… what it had been, and what it could yet be. The product of the glovemaker, next to the product of the poet. He could go in either one direction or the other. And this present task might well establish which direction that would be.
Perhaps it would not all come down to this, he thought. Even if he failed at this task of doctoring the play, there could yet be other opportunities to prove himself, though he did not know when or even if those opportunities would arise. The iron was, perhaps, not yet glowing hot, but it was warm, and it was up to him to strike just right, and in the proper time. He
could not afford to dwell upon the play’s deficiencies and bemoan Greene’s clumsy unoriginality. To keep thinking about such things would make the task weigh even more heavily upon him, and he would start to work more and more slowly, taking more and more frequent breaks, and before he knew it, all momentum would be lost entirely. He needed to think of the play merely as a framework, a scaffolding upon which he would build a more solid and finished edifice. It was not the sort of beginning he had hoped for, but it was the beginning he would get… if he could properly begin it.
By the time midday was approaching, he had mapped out all the changes he would make to the whole play and finished the first and second stages. In all, there would be five stages of gradual changes to the play, each one adding new lines and new scenes for every part, and dropping others, until by the time the third stage was completed, it would be a play that was significantly different from the original version-or to be more precise, Greene’s rewrite of whatever the original version may have been-and by the time the fifth version had been staged, it was a completely different play entirely. This way, Shakespeare thought, the actors would not be overwhelmed by having to learn too many different lines and scenes and cues, and the audience would have an unusual opportunity to see a work in progress, a play being performed even as it was being rewritten. It struck him as a novel experience, and anything new could only help the Queen’s Men at this point. They certainly needed help of some sort after that last performance.
Now all that remained was to get the play to Burbage and, unless it was deemed completely unacceptable, a frenzy of activity would begin down at the Theatre. It would be necessary to make a clean and legible “fair copy” of the play for submission to the Master of the Revels, for which purpose a scribe was usually employed. Poets… or playwrights, as some thought poets who wrote plays should be called, though this made it seem more like a craft rather than an art… were not generally known for their calligraphic skills. Their first drafts were usually covered with ink blottings and crossed-out lines and changes written in the margins and between the lines and, not infrequently, food and ale or wine stains. Hence, the term “foul papers” for the manuscript initially submitted.