The True Prince

by J. B. Cheaney

  “To the first question, I cannot. He's guilty of aiding and abetting highwaymen. To the second … I hold nothing against him. I've watched him for years; he is one of the few who have shown me what virtue and tenderness and nobility can be. True, that was all on stage, but seeing it there has helped me to recognize it in life.”

  Starling had told me there was more to him than met the eye, but virtue, tenderness, and nobility were not what I would have expected to find under that hard surface—or even the desire for them. “I need not tell you he is in peril,” Bartlemy concluded. “His best hope is with us. If he surrenders himself, he can expect every mercy. If not, only God can save him. For depend on it, something will happen, and it will be soon.”

  HONOR PRICKS ME ON

  ays passed, then weeks. November drizzled into December, as icicles lengthened from the eaves and shoes sank ankle-deep in the muddy streets, and the spicy smell of mulled wine wafted from every tavern door. Bartlemy's warning lost its edge as days slipped by and nothing happened.

  The Company drew up a list of plays that we could perform at the Curtain with our eyes closed and bent their energies toward preparing for the court season. That was all the talk—no word about Giles Allen or the sad fate of our old Theater, or the man Richard Burbage had called “Master Street.” The Company was keeping its own secrets, as I was keeping mine, though surely they had not so much to hide as I did.

  Performances became irregular, subject to rain or snow. On canceled days we often found ourselves at the Curtain anyway, or in an unused hall at Blackfriars, practicing the plays set for Whitehall. Both parts of Henry IV were included, at the Queen's request. Ben Jonson's new play made another (even though the author, having narrowly escaped the hangman, was now serving a prison term for manslaughter). A tragedy and a comedy rounded the bill, all rehearsed until we knew them like our own names.

  Then, when I had almost made up my mind he was gone for good, “Robin Hood” reappeared.

  Starling first heard the ballad sung among the fish vendors on Thames Street and immediately hurried to St. Paul's churchyard to buy a copy. A whiff of dried fish still clung to it as I scanned the lines that afternoon. I read it twice, then said, “This is pure fantasy.”

  “No, I'm certain it tells of a real event. It's like a riddle— you don't understand it until you see the catch.”

  “We know the catch. We know who is writing these, and we have a good notion why. But this is too bold for the purpose.” The ballad told how Robin and his men kidnapped the Sheriff of Nottingham, nobly entertained him in their forest glen, and finally ransomed him for a bottle of nut-brown ale— “For we fear that is all you are worth, tra-la.”

  Ha-ha, laughed the Londoners, always eager to see some silken snob land splat in the mud. But it was one thing to rob a gentleman of his money and jewels and escape under cover of darkness, and quite another to steal the gentleman himself. Even if the Tewkesburys were foolish enough to try, Penny and Watts would not gamble a hangman's noose for a bottle of ale.

  “The streets are abuzz,” Starling went on. “Everyone is delighted to see Robin Hood back. There's a strong vote for the Lord Mayor serving as Sheriff of Nottingham, though another opinion says it must be someone at court. I heard at least one argument: Mistress Browne the fishwife says it's a ruse to distract us from the real crime, and her husband claims there are no crimes at all—the whole ballad series is a trick played on gullible citizens. When I left, she was threatening him with a swordfish.”

  “Do you have an opinion?”

  “Not yet.” She tugged the paper out of my grasp. “But the answer is hidden in the text, depend on it. I'll have another look.”

  She did not take long to find it—once spotted, the “catch” stood out like a rusty nail. Supper was over, and the little children had been blessed and sent to bed when Starling joined me on the window seat at one end of the great room. I felt the excitement in her and knew she had made a discovery. “Look at this,” she said, thrusting the ballad at me. “The third stanza, second line. What do you see in it?”

  I read aloud, “‘But under Rob's guardance he late entered York.' I see a line awkwardly phrased.”

  “Very true: either written too hastily, or too carefully. Look at the first letters only.”

  I lined up the letters in my head: B-u-r-g-h-l-e-y. “Lord Burghley? But that can't be.”

  Her green eyes were sparkling with excitement. “Why not?”

  “He's the Queen's Secretary, her right hand.”

  “And everyone knows he's the chief rival of Essex.”

  “Well.” I waved a hand impatiently. “This takes rivalry too far. They may as well kidnap the Queen herself.”

  “But suppose kidnapping is not what they have in mind? Suppose they only mean to … steal his dog. That would be insult without grave risk.”

  I scanned the lines again. “There's no reference to a dog here. No, wait—if you rearrange some of the letters of ‘Nottingham' you get … ‘hog.' They mean to kidnap his hog? Oh, cruel plot! Foul stain! Dastardly—”

  She snatched the paper back. “Tomorrow is Sunday. I think we should take a walk after church.”

  Early the next morning she sent off a message. Later that day, as we took our apparently aimless stroll in the public gardens surrounding Drapers' Hall, not far from St. Paul's, Bartlemy joined us as quietly as a wraith. If I had to meet him, I had rather it be without Starling, but she claimed the right to share her own discovery. If that was all she wanted, Bartlemy's response must have disappointed her.

  “Aye,” he said, after hearing her out. “We saw the Secretary's name in that line, right off.”

  I did not look at her face, but allowed myself a secret smile. She had placed herself between us and likely fancied the picture of a fair maid taking in the gardens with her two squires—no matter that the wind blew raw and cold, the gardens had withered, and not many Londoners were out. “Has anything happened yet?” she asked.

  “Nothing has happened, though the Secretary has been warned and there's a guard about him.”

  “Starling,” I remarked, “thinks they may kidnap Burghley's dog to make their point.”

  “Does she?” Bartlemy's voice lightened with interest. “We never thought of that. He has a dog—a little pug that belonged to his wife. She died not long ago, so the dog means more to him than common. That's good. We'll follow it.”

  I felt a pain in my ankle—a little sideways kick from Starling. “But,” I persisted, “you'll agree that there can be no intention of kidnapping the Secretary himself?”

  “Nay, of course not. Too great a risk for an uncertain gain.”

  I delivered my own little kick, as she asked, “What about Tewkesbury's actions? Are you watching him?”

  Bartlemy shrugged. He seemed distracted, as though his thoughts were elsewhere. “Lord Philip has been a model of faultless behavior.”

  “Any signs of Robin Hood and his Merry Men?” I asked.

  “Only the ballad, which hints that wounded arms are healed, fears are quelled, and all stand ready for we know not what.” Abruptly he reached inside his cloak. “I have a thing to show you.”

  He took out a folded handkerchief and unwrapped it. There on his palm lay a silver crescent moon within a circle, ornamented with a single pearl. “Recognize it?”

  I nodded, speechless. The thing was like a bad penny, always coming back. “Where did you—”

  “Pawned. Probably for food or firewood. He must be in dire straights—he's even stopped leaving shirts for his mother to wash.” Bartlemy tapped the brooch. “If money from this is feeding him, it won't last much longer. He wouldn't have got more than two shillings for it.”

  I longed to ask if the Cobham ring had likewise appeared in a pawn shop, but could not risk bringing up that subject. I felt Starling's eyes on me, demanding: Tell him about the ring. Tell him. But I could not.

  Bartlemy wrapped up the brooch and tucked it away again. “Remember: If you hav
e any notion that would help us find him, it would be in his interest to tell.” I shook my head, quite honestly, and we parted company soon after with very little wisdom gained.

  On Thursday I was sent home early from the Curtain to inform Mistress Condell that her husband had invited some of the players home for supper. Passing through Bishopsgate, I noticed a small crowd around the puppet motion. The “Ballad of the Cold Lady” had drawn an audience even in the chill and the thickening dark. As I came closer, the climax was playing out, the young poet sinking before the lady who had cruelly broken his heart. His dying speech was rather eloquent, for a puppet. He died with a rose extended toward her, in a pathetic gesture that should have stricken the proudest heart. The cold beauty picked up this last token (or rather the puppet master did—I could see his fingers behind the black curtain, pinching the stem), and shrilled, “Good riddance to poetical milksops! Who'll be next?”

  This made a curious end to a tragic story, but the audience seemed to expect it. Amid titters and chuckles they glanced about. The last thing I expected was for the paper rose to come sailing from the puppet stage and strike me on the shoulder. Bewildered, I picked it up. A couple of boys nearby howled with laughter and pushed me forward until I was only three feet from the lady, her painted wooden face turned coyly aside. “So,” said she, in a voice that managed to be intimate and comic at the same time. “Do you wish to woo me?”

  “Well, no—”

  “Nay, lad!” shouted several voices in the audience. “Play the game—it's excellent sport!”

  What game? thought I. But since I was holding the rose, there seemed to be no harm in giving it back. Her little hand, guided by a thin black stick, nimbly caught hold of the stem as the audience sighed with pleasure. “Will you meet me, Hotspur?”

  This brought a new round of laughter, for I am short and blush easily—hardly cast in the warrior mold. Why would the lady choose that particular term to mock me with? A curtain of black gauze hid the puppet master; I could not see him, but he could see me.

  I have become the watcher, Kit told me, the last time we met. And the last time we met, I had played Hotspur's part. “Ah—ah—” I swallowed, and managed to say, “I'll meet you.” Catcalls and whistles scattered through the crowd. “When?”

  “At midnight, on Holy Innocents' Day,” she replied. That would be 28 December—two days before our court season began.

  “He'll not be innocent for long!” a stout carrier guffawed.

  “She likes you, lad,” a woman remarked, nodding at me. “Most of the young ones are cut down to size by now.”

  As the noise died down, I asked, “Where will I find you?”

  “In hell!” she screamed, and disappeared in a peal of devilish laughter.

  This abrupt ending disappointed the audience. “Hah! I've seen her far cleverer.” Apparently the Cold Lady was famous for putting down “suitors” with bawdy jokes that tickled everyone except the victim. But I, needless to say, was not disappointed—merely aghast.

  No doubt of it: some business was afoot on 28 December at the old Theater. The business might well be the latest—if not last—adventure of Robin Hood, and I had received a special invitation to attend. Whether this was an honor or a trap, I knew not. Kit could not have expected to find me in his audience that very day. The invitation must have been an impulsive gesture. Was he in trouble and seeking my help at last? Or was he insane and seeking revenge?

  One thing sure: I would not hesitate to inform Bartlemy. The next morning I was pacing the south transept in St. Paul's while my breath made little wads of cloud on the cold air. A couple of unemployed laborers approached to ask hopefully whether I was hiring, but Bartlemy failed to show—for the first time ever, now that I truly needed him. After half an hour I could wait no more, but hurried on to the Curtain, in a torment over what to do. Master Condell had begun to give me doubtful looks when I requested time for “private business”; strictly speaking, an apprentice was not supposed to have private business, much less the pressing, life-or-death sort that I had blundered into.

  That afternoon, midway through a cold, sparsely attended performance of Every Man in His Humor, church bells all over London began ringing. We did not know the reason until the play ended, and the owner of the Curtain arrived to inform us that William Brooke, the Lord Chamberlain, had died. Though murmurs of “God rest his soul” scattered through the Company, I sensed a lightening among them, a hope that Brooke's successor might be more friendly to us and we could once more wear the proud title of Lord Chamberlain's Men.

  For me, the news carried an entirely opposite meaning, confirmed when Starling waited at St. Paul's the next morning and Bartlemy again failed to appear. “He must be kept away on business,” she declared. “I'm sure he would come in a minute otherwise.”

  “What if his master no longer has any business?” I pointed out. “You know who John Clement was working for. If his employer has died, what happens to the employment?”

  “I'll go back to St. Paul's tomorrow,” she promised. “He'll be there. He must be there, otherwise you'll be thinking of going to the Theater by yourself that night. You're not thinking that, are you?”

  I did not answer; she knew me too well.

  The Christmas season was rushing upon us and all business would soon be suspended for the great festival. Shops closed, law courts disbanded, and even the watch laid off their watching to some degree, though the season of peace and good will was not always peaceful. After the holy observance of Christmas Day came the twelve days of Epiphany, with increasing disorder in the wrong parts of London. At the Inns of Court the scholars held riotous celebrations on Twelfth Night, presided over by a “Lord of Misrule,” during which they insulted their professors, drank the wine cellars dry, and broke the furniture. All of which seems a curious way for law students to behave, but consistent after all with the wild school days described by Justice Shallow in Part Two. The common folk were only too glad to follow their example, and Lords of Misrule reigned in the streets even before Twelfth Night. Anyone who meant mischief could do it easily under cover of merriment.

  Two days after Christmas, Master Condell, Robin, and I arrived home from a rehearsal in Blackfriars to find the household in an uproar. It appeared that a pack of ruffians had lured Roland, that happy, trusting hound, out of the gate—and strangled him.

  The family and servants were at dinner when it happened, so none had actually seen or heard the culprits. They assumed that such a cruel, aimless prank could only be the work of cruel, aimless boys taking advantage of the holiday carelessness to work their mischief. I knew better once I saw the dog laid out beside the garden, stiff as a pike, with a doubled string around its neck.

  “It must have been Tom,” Starling said grimly. “We know his work. And it appears he knows you. He must have spied you with Kit when Davy was killed. Richard! Do you suppose he's been watching you all this time?”

  We sat at one end of the table in the great room. Over by the fireplace, Master Condell attempted to cheer his grieving children with tales of Sir John Falstaff. Since Fat Jack made the perfect example of a Lord of Misrule, I would have chosen a more comfortable subject for mirth—especially with Captain Penny and his associates laying so heavily on my mind.

  “I don't know.” I thought it was more likely that Tom had taken cover with Captain Penny, but supposition was worth very little in the face of a threat like this. “Still …”

  “You are not going to tell me you intend to be at the old Theater at midnight tomorrow. Are you?”

  “I don't know.”

  “How can you even think of it? This well-named Dark Tom knows who you are. If he caught you meddling in this, he'd kill you as sure and quick as he did Roland.”

  “I know.”

  “And whose side is Kit on, after all? How could he tell you that something is afoot at the Theater unless someone told him—like his lady love, or Captain Penny?”

  “I don't know.”

 
“Now you have that look on your face that tells me you're going to do as you please, no matter what I say.”

  “I know.”

  “You don't know!” she burst out. “You can't see yourself.” Her voice cracked so sharp that others in the room stared at us. “Starling's mad at Rich-ard,” chanted young Ned, in a singsong voice.

  “That's not news,” sniffed Thomas. “Come, father, tell us what answer Fat Jack made to the Chief Justice this time.”

  I turned around on the bench, my back to the room, and Starling turned also. After a moment, I said, “I must do this. He asked me to, and he's never asked anything of me.”

  “But suppose he means you harm?”

  “I can't believe that. Rivals can be as close as friends.

  We're not much alike, but we've shared the same space, the same sounds and smells, the same ambitions, even spoken the same lines. Our paths have met, and crossed, and …” And he's never had a friend, I thought—but did not say.

  After a moment, she said, “That's not very clear.”

  “I know.”

  “Well—” A gusty sigh. “What do you propose to do?”

  I stopped short of saying, I don't know, though it would have been mostly true. “We leave for Whitehall in three days. The Company will run our legs off all day tomorrow. After bedtime Robin should drop off like a stone, and I will be able to slip out to the Theater. After that …” I shrugged. “Tomorrow, you must try once more to reach Bartlemy. Tell him where I'm going, and when, and he may judge what to do about it.”

  She was silent for some time, which made me wonder if she was concocting a plan of her own. “You promise this is only a spying mission?”

  “Of course! I know that place like my own hand. I can hide and not be seen.”

  “Very well. But if you get yourself killed, I will never forgive you.”

  As I predicted, the entire Company worked frantically all the next day from dawn to dusk, finishing up rehearsals and packing costumes and properties to be taken to Whitehall. Also as predicted, Robin could barely keep his eyes open during supper, and soon after prayers he dragged himself up to bed. The Condell boys followed directly, then I, yawning elaborately and ignoring all the anxious looks Starling sent my way. Even though we had had very little chance to talk, I knew that she had made several attempts to reach Bartlemy, all unanswered.