The Secret of the Rose

by Sarah L. Thomson

  Not long after this incident, Marlowe was killed in Deptford, a port near London. Robert Pooley, another spy, was present at his death and gave testimony at the inquest. The official verdict was self-defense in a fight that arose over the bill, but theories have abounded ever since as to who was actually responsible for the death of London’s best-known playmaker.

  Robert Cecil was a member of the queen’s Privy Council, which handled the day-to-day business of the English government. He did indeed write secretly to King James VI of Scotland, promising him help and support in the matter of the succession, although there is no evidence that he did so as early as 1592. If Queen Elizabeth had ever discovered these letters, Cecil would have been convicted of treason.

  A NOTE ABOUT LANGUAGE

  The English that the Elizabethans spoke was not too different from what we speak today. There are some words we’ve stopped using; most people nowadays wouldn’t know that a picadil is a roll of fabric at the shoulder of a shirt or that a maltworm is someone who drinks too much. And we’ve added some new words, like “nanosecond” and “ecology.” But if you met an Elizabethan, you could probably understand each other, more or less.

  There is, however, one major difference between the English of today and the English of the sixteenth century: the pronoun “thou” (and “thee,” which is the objective form of “thou”). When we are talking directly to someone, we always use the pronoun “you.” Elizabethans also used “you.” But they used “thou” as well.

  Deciding whether to use “you” or “thou” could be a tricky question for an Elizabethan. Here are some of the rules.

  “You” is always used for the plural. Anyone speaking to more than one person would say “you.”

  “You” is also used to speak to a single person who’s considered more important than you are. A child talking to an adult, a servant to a master, or a peasant to a nobleman would say “you.”

  “Thou” is used to speak to someone considered less important than you. An adult talking to a child, a master to a servant, or a nobleman to a peasant would say “thou.” “Thou” can even be used to insult somebody. If you’re talking to an acquaintance or a stranger of your social rank or better, you can call that person “thou” if you’re really angry. But you’d better be prepared for a fight.

  You can also use “thou” if you’re talking to someone you love and feel close to. Lovers, siblings, and close friends can call each other “thou.”

  “Thou” comes with its own set of verb endings that we don’t use anymore in modern English. Usually an “st” or “est” ending is paired with a “thou.” So you might say “How dost thou?” to your servant or sibling or dear friend, but “How do you?” to your parent, employer, or a duke you happened to meet in passing.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Susan Tananbaum

  for her help and advice

  About the Author

  SARAH L. THOMSON is the author of two previous novels for young readers. The Dragon’s Son, a retelling of the King Arthur story, was a Junior Library Guild selection and was chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by the Bank Street College of Education. The Washington Post described The Manny, a comedy about a boy nanny, as having “a plot worthy of Jane Austen.”

  Sarah Thomson managed to graduate as an English major without ever taking a class on Shakespeare (or Marlowe, for that matter), but she did travel to London to research The Secret of the Rose, visiting the reconstructed Globe Theatre. A former editor with a major children’s book publisher, she lives in Portland, Maine.

  To find out more, visit www.sarahlthomson.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Credits

  Jacket art © 2006 by Michael Gibbs

  Jacket design by Paul Zakris

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE SECRET OF THE ROSE. Copyright © 2006 by Sarah L. Thomson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Thomson, Sarah L.

  The secret of the Rose / by Sarah L. Thomson.

  p. cm.

  “Greenwillow Books.”

  Summary: When her father is imprisoned in 1592 England for being Catholic, fourteen-year-old Rosalind disguises herself as a boy and finds an ultimately dangerous job as servant to playwright Christopher Marlowe.

  ISBN-10: 0-06-087250-0 (trade bdg.) ISBN-13: 978-0-06-087250-2 (trade bdg.)

  ISBN-10: 0-06-087251-9 (lib. bdg.) ISBN-13: 978-0-06-087251-9 (lib. bdg.)

  [1. Sex roles—Fiction. 2. Survival—Fiction. 3. Theater—Fiction. 4. Catholics—England—History—16th century—Fiction. 5. Marlowe, Christopher, 1564-1593—Fiction. 6. Rose Theatre—Fiction. 7. London (England)—History—16th century—Fiction. 8. Great Britain—History—Elizabeth, 1558-1603—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.T378Sec 2006 [Fic]—dc22 2005022177

  EPub Edition © November 2009 ISBN: 978-0-06-199592-7

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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