by Lisa Klein
Will assented, for he still felt dazed, and the threesome made their way across the bridge and through the thinning crowds. Will’s limp slowed their steps. Sir Percival kept his hand upon his weapon, and Valentine talked unceasingly of his beloved’s many virtues. By the time they arrived at the inn Will was convinced of the doctor’s devotion, but he had no clearer image of Olivia than he did of the Queen of Sheba.
Finally Will interrupted him. “I am poor and cannot pay a doctor’s fee, but I can offer you food and drink here where I am well known.”
“I would be glad to eat and drink with you, Will Shakespeare,” said Valentine.
“Stop! I know that stratagem.” Sir Percival narrowed his eyes at Will. “Do you take me for a witless rustic?”
A desire for mischief tickled Will. “Your suspicions are quite valid, Sir Percival,” he said. “This inn is the deepest den of iniquity in all London. The serving maids are wantons. Ha-ha! And I am a varlet, a most crafty varlet—a poet and a player. Therefore trust nothing that I say—” Will was laughing so hard his ribs and his head pounded with pain.
Sir Percival drew back in alarm. “Thomas, you should not have aided this madman. Come away now.” He grabbed the doctor’s cloak.
“God go with you, Valentine, my good fellow,” said Will, holding up his hand. “Come back and see my play in a few weeks. I have such a fetching and womanish actor playing Cleopatra, I swear you will forget your love for the lady Olivia.”
“Let me die first!” said Valentine. He turned to follow Sir Percival, who was fleeing as if a devil were chasing him.
Chapter 18
Meg hardly noticed the man who stumbled to a table in the corner and leaned on it. His head was bandaged, his clothes torn and dirty. Someone shoved a stool beneath him and he sat down heavily, his head in his hands.
She heard Violetta shriek. “O look at poor Will!”
Meg felt liquid all over her hand. The tap was overflowing. She turned it off and hurried over with a dripping cup of sack.
Violetta glared at her. “I suppose you will blame Mack for this?”
“My brother would not hurt Will,” said Meg, giving Violetta a stern look of warning. “Will, tell me who did this and I’ll thrash the guts out of him.”
Violetta tried to wipe the dried blood and dirt from Will’s face. He turned his head aside with a grimace and took the towel from her.
“I would feign a good tale but my wit took a battering. In truth, it was no honorable fight; I dealt not a single blow in exchange for my hurts.” Will gulped down the sack. “I gave up the sword to one who proved his ownership, and he thanked me thus!” He touched his bandaged head.
Violetta whimpered.
“Who was my assailant, you ask? ‘Aargh, Aargh!’ ” Will groaned.
Meg nodded. “Was he wearing a ruff?” she asked.
“His hands were rough but his neck was notable for the absence of one,” said Will.
“Certainly he was that notorious pimp and brawler, Roger Ruffneck,” said Meg. He must have been following them.
Violetta gasped. “He is the same one who pinched my arm!”
“You’re lucky he did not kill you, Will. It is rumored that he has murdered more than one of his rivals,” said Meg. “It was I who took that sword from him, and I shall do it again and skewer him through the—” Meg stopped, for she saw Will looking at her in alarm. “Where was my brother when Ruffneck attacked you?”
“We had just parted,” said Will. “Blame him not. He was excellent good company and we are already fast friends.”
“I love him myself,” said Meg, smiling to hear Will speak warmly of Mack.
“It was a false friend who left you in danger,” said Violetta, frowning at Meg. “I would not have done so.” She turned her attention back to Will. “Who tended to your wounds?” Her eyes brimmed with tears of tender concern.
“It was a young doctor in the company of an old, bald coot who would have left me in the street. The doctor himself was a good fellow named Thomas Valentine.”
Violetta cried out again, putting her hand to her throat. She leaped up as if to run out the door, then turned and fell to her knees, grasping Will’s fingers and watering them with her tears.
Will gave Meg a surprised look. “Am I really such a pitiable sight?”
“Indeed you are,” she said. Of course she knew the real reason for Violetta’s distress. Her father and her faithful lover were nearby looking for her.
“You are drawing unwanted attention,” said Meg, not unkindly. “Go and wipe your eyes.”
“What prodigious tears!” said Will as Violetta scurried away. “Think you Cleopatra cried so over the wounds of Mark Antony?”
Meg shook her head. “Hers were crocodile tears. Violetta weeps with unfeigned sadness at your plight.”
“It would seem she loves me then,” Will mused. He looked a little dismayed.
Now was Meg’s chance to speak on her friend’s behalf. “As hard as Roger smote you, love has smitten her. The difference is your wounds will heal.”
“What about you, Meg?” Will’s tone was plaintive but his eyes sparkled. “Do mortal goddesses never weep? Do they fall in love? In Ovid’s poetry they do.”
There he goes again, calling me a goddess! Meg felt confident, even bold. Perhaps Meg could banter with Will as Mack had done. She tipped her head to the side and winked. “I soak my pillow every night with tears of unrequited love for Will Shake-his-beard.” A hot blush rose up her neck. She wondered if she was being too saucy.
“So she loves me!” Will threw his head back and laughed. The sudden movement made him wince with pain. “What can I do about it?”
“Woo her,” said Meg. “She will tire of you, fall out of love, and you will be free again.”
“I woo the indomitable Meg?” asked Will. “How shall I undertake that Herculean task?”
Meg did not know what “indomitable” or “Herculean” meant, but she suspected Will was referring to her great size. Once again she was Long Meg, the object of men’s taunts.
“You misunderstand me and mock me to boot. I’ll pluck your shaking beard for that!” she said, her teasing mood giving way to vexation.
“Peace, you Amazon warrior!” said Will. “I am wooing as you suggested.”
“Not me, fool! We were talking about Violetta. She is the one smitten by love. Woo her.” Meg didn’t really mean it. Why should she encourage Violetta’s silliness?
“Then you do not love your poor, wounded Will?”
“I do not, for you irk me on purpose like every other jack,” she said, but to her surprise she was not angry.
“I shall not rile you further, Long Meg, for if you throw me out of here how shall I court the fair Violetta?” he said, letting out his breath in a sigh.
Meg rolled her eyes. “How indeed? You may stay, for though I do not love you, I would not add to your injuries. Now good night.”
Wearied yet strangely excited by this contest of wits, Meg went up to her room. There she found Violetta tossing uneasily on her pallet.
“Did anything else happen?” she asked, sitting up and lifting her red, swollen face to Meg.
Meg nodded. “Your tears served you well, for in their aftermath I persuaded Will of your love and encouraged him to woo you,” she said, pulling off her clothes. “I know that was to be Mack’s office, but it was Meg who found the opportunity.” She flopped on her bed. “I kept my promise. You keep my secret.”
Violetta’s eyes filled again. “My father and Thomas—how close they came to finding me!”
“Your father sounds like a harsh man. I understand why you ran away from him.” Meg meant to be sympathetic but Violetta sobbed even louder. “Now, now. Thomas Valentine is a man of virtue. But who loves what is virtuous?” she said, adopting a lighter tone. “We love sweets and rare fruits that make us ill. ‘Love knows no reason,’ Will says.” She yawned and climbed under the coverlet. “Perhaps I shall meet this doctor and against all r
eason he will fall in love with me. I will marry him and you can marry Will.” Meg hardly knew what she was saying, and as soon as these words left her mouth she fell asleep, while Violetta whimpered like a kitten.
Will’s injuries were not serious enough to deter him from adventure. The next day he asked Meg to arrange for him to spend a whole day with Mack. “This time you must come along and be my defender,” he urged.
“You may borrow a poniard and defend yourself. Or better yet, I have a pistol,” she said, just to see his eyes grow round. I had better watch my tongue, she thought.
Before going to meet Will, Meg asked Violetta for help with her disguise.
“You are strangely fixated on this clothing,” said Violetta, looking askance at her.
“I do this for your sake. If he looks too closely at Mack and recognizes me, the game will be up.”
Violetta obliged, paying particular attention to the fit of Meg’s doublet. “If anything betrays you it will be your bosom. You had better wrap this cloth around your chest first.”
Meg took off the doublet and regarded her breasts. Sometime in the last year they had grown ripe and round, probably while she was sleeping. “I should be glad, but ’tis an inconvenience now,” she murmured to herself.
When Meg was swaddled and dressed, Violetta tucked the last locks of her hair under her cap and helped her smudge her upper lip and chin with ashes.
“You look nothing like yourself, save your height and the color of your eyes,” Violetta said approvingly. “I would not know you myself.”
Chapter 19
It was a golden October day when Meg and Will ambled the length and breadth of London from Aldgate in the east to Ludgate in the west, from Moorfields north of the city to the harbor at Queenhithe. Meg loved walking down the street in breeches and breaking into a run if she felt like it. She held her head high, thinking what an advantage it gave her, this ability to see above the crowds.
Will was eager to relate his encounter with Roger Ruffneck. It was a different story than the one Meg heard him tell at the Boar’s Head.
“Seeing he meant to fight me for the sword, I threw it aside,” said Will. “He had no weapon and I meant to make it a fair fight. So with my fists I met him blow for blow, blackening his eye and raising knots on his head. He contrived to fall in the direction of the sword, picked it up, and ran away with it. What a dastard! A base coward!”
“Well done, Will,” said Meg, suppressing a grin. “I would have fared no better. Did the villain hurt you?”
“Not much,” he said with a shrug. He was wearing a cap that hid the cut on his head and trying not to limp. Meg learned something new about men: they liked to embroider their deeds as some women did pillow cushions to make them seem magnificent.
“Let’s go to St. Paul’s, which you showed me from the bridge,” Will suggested.
Meg had assumed that the purpose of their outing was to find Davy Dapper and Peter Flick, but Will seemed more interested in exploring the city. So she decided simply to enjoy his company. Paul’s Walk she found unchanged. Every sort of business was being conducted as usual in the nave of the church, which was thronged with merchants, lawyers, pickpockets, pimps, and even animals. Meg and Will left in disgust when a pack mule voided its bowels in an aisle and no one seemed to care. In the churchyard a crier sang the latest ballad and a troupe of tumblers entertained a happy crowd.
“Look up; heed those boys in the belltower,” warned Meg. Just as she and Davy and Peter used to do, they were pelting passersby with pigeon droppings and rotten fruit.
But it was up to Meg to be watchful. Will was ambling from one printer’s shop to another, pausing at bookstalls to read the broadsides and examine the tiny octavos and large folios. “This churchyard is heaven,” he sighed. “But though I am a poor man—nay, because I am poor—I may not enter.”
“So you cannot buy a book, but you can get a free sermon,” said Meg, indicating the stone cross where a black-robed preacher stood. With his arms spread he resembled a giant crow. He had to shout in order to be heard.
“You may see them in taverns, theaters, and even in hallowed churches, these mankind witches!” His thick brows were like caterpillars crawling up his forehead as he spoke. “For God saith in His testament that a man who wears a woman’s apparel is accursed, and a woman who wears a man’s apparel is accursed also; verily they are monsters abhorrent to the Lord.”
Meg felt herself grow crimson with shame and fury.
“Are there such creatures in London?” said Will, amused. “I thought all monsters dwelled in far-off Asia and Africa.”
“The preacher himself is the monster—a dragon spewing poison,” said Meg. “Come away.”
“No, this is as good as a play. Listen.”
“They are not fit for His house, but for the alehouse and the playhouse, those resorts of the riotous. Beware the dens of deviltry, the sinks of sinfulness.”
“Even better!” said Will. “His eloquence inspires me to visit those places that promise so many pleasures.”
“Let’s go now, for I am thirsty,” said Meg, hoping Will did not really intend to visit a bawdy house.
“A moment yet. Is that the chamberlain from the inn?” said Will, pointing to a man who stood rapt before the preacher.
Meg looked. It was indeed Job Nockney. When had he become a Puritan? Meg almost spoke her thoughts but remembered in time that Mack was not supposed to know Job. Nor did she want to risk Job recognizing her. She turned and strolled quickly away.
“Hold! Wait.” It was Will, running to catch up with her, a notebook in his hand. “Let me sit and write down some choice phrases.”
They entered the nearest alehouse, and while Meg quenched her thirst Will jotted in his notebook.
“Is it true, as my sister claims, that you write plays in order to repay your father’s debt?” said Meg, seizing the chance to remind Will of his blunted purpose.
“I wish I could deny that heavy reckoning!” he said with sudden feeling. “I write but to please myself and forget my sorrows.”
“Ah, the sorrows of love. It was vile of those sisters to trick you. Or do you mean the sorrow of your bankrupt family?”
Will shook his head. “I’ve forsworn the Hathaway wenches! Let me love instead an honest and true-hearted friend such as yourself.”
Meg’s heart skipped a beat. Then she remembered Will believed he was speaking to Mack. She felt a tug of brief regret.
“Where does that leave my poor cousin who loves you distractedly?” she said.
Will groaned. It was not a sound that spoke of love. Therefore to plead for Violetta would be harmless, Meg decided. But how to praise her as one man might to another? She chose her words with care.
“Consider that Violetta has a pleasant temper as well as a pretty face—except when she cries at length, and her features remain swollen for several hours after.” She paused. “Her father is a wealthy man, and she has every hope of an inheritance when he dies, if they are reconciled and if he does not spend it by then.”
“That is faint praise,” said Will.
Meg clapped him on the shoulder. “Do not think because I praise her I am in love with her myself! I have seen her but once or twice. My sister will vouch for her virtue, though it was nearly vanquished by the same villain who smote you in the matter of his sword. My sister took it from him, you know. At the Boar’s Head.” She glanced at Will to see his reaction.
“’Struth, Long Meg is a brave wench. She fears no man. And she has the most agile tongue of any woman I know.”
To Meg this sounded like a bawdy remark. “Do not speak of my sister in that manner,” she warned.
“Be content, Mack. I refer not to kissing, for her lips are beyond a man’s reach. I refer to her quick and nimble speech. She confesses her mind most freely and with words well chosen.”
Meg could not hide her pleasure. “In truth I got all my brains from her. Our parents had none to spare.”
�
�Say, Mack, why don’t you come to the Boar’s Head? We three could indulge in a great feast of wit between us.”
“I may not. And you must never speak of me there,” she said with great feeling. If Will talked of Meg’s brother, that would give her away, for the Overbys knew she had no family besides her “cousin” Violetta.
“Why should I not claim you as my friend?” said Will.
Flustered, Meg struggled to think of a reason. Finally she said, “One night I became boisterous, calling the hostess ‘mighty Mistress Overbyte’ and praising her toothsome fare. I meant the tasty food.” She winked. “But her husband took offense and had Meg throw me out, whereupon my sister bade me never return there, for she feared to lose her position.”
Will nodded sympathetically. “Meg is vexed with me too. I love to jest with her, yet she often takes it amiss.”
Meg faltered, then found her riposte. “Can you blame her? How would you like to be a curiosity of nature, say, a man of uncommonly small stature?”
“I am already a curiosity, for no one respects a poet or understands him.” Will sighed. “But you do, I believe. Therefore disguise youself and come. You can keep me company while I write.”
Meg started. Disguise myself? She glanced at Will, whose open look revealed no suspicion.
“With you present,” Will went on, “Violetta might refrain from disturbing me.”
The idea of sitting next to Will while his mind invented new people and gave them words and deeds greatly appealed to her. She had to shake her head briskly to remind herself to behave as Mack.
“You are too cruel to my cousin!” said Meg, more heartily than she intended. She took a swallow of ale. “Why do people flee from love?” She was thinking not only of Will and the sisters from Stratford, but Violetta running away from Thomas Valentine. “They should be glad of it. Is not the state of being loved preferable to that of being indebted?”
Again Will would not be reminded of his business. “To be in love is to be a slave to flesh and fantasy. It is to be speared with self-doubt and stretched on a rack, to have one’s mind possessed with thoughts that find no relief but in wretched poetry.”