“Sam?” prompted Sander.
Sam sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, all right, I’ll try.” He screwed his face up into a grimace. “How’s that? Do I look remorseful now?”
“You look as though you’ve swallowed a fish bone,” I said. “Just look normal.”
“Ooh,” said Sam, “that’s even harder.”
Salathiel Pavy was sitting on the edge of a wooden footbridge that crossed one of the many drainage ditches around the theatre. He was looking glumly out over the Thames toward Blackfriars, as though wishing he’d never left it. I came up behind him, clearing my throat so as not to startle him. “Salathiel? Or do they call you Sal?” He did not answer, or even acknowledge my presence. Undaunted, I went on. “It seems we started off on the wrong foot.” I couldn’t help adding, “Or hand, as it were.”
He gave me a sidewise glance that was anything but amused. Perhaps Sam was right; perhaps he just did not appreciate a jest. Knowing he must be feeling like an outsider, I looked for a way to include him. “We’d all appreciate it an you’d give us a”—I’d almost said “a hand”—“an you’d help us wi’ loading the carewares for the tour.”
He turned to look at me directly at last, and his expression was less hostile than wary. “Would you?”
“Aye. Those trunks get heavy,” I said, flexing my aching arms.
He gave me a thin smile that was totally unlike the one he had displayed when greeting the company; it held no charm nor warmth but was cold as a key. “You’ll excuse me if I do not oblige you. I was hired to be an actor, not a stagehand.”
For a moment I was struck dumb by the unexpected and unwarranted rudeness of his reply. Then I felt a flush of anger. I could scarcely keep myself from giving him a slight shove, which was all that would be required to topple him into the drainage ditch. But I reminded myself of Mr. Armin’s instructions to make him feel welcome. I tried again.
“I saw you perform, some two weeks ago, in The Poetaster. You were …” I paused. I did not wish to overrate him. “You were noticeably better than the others.”
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“Aye.”
He tilted his head in a way that, had he been a lesser actor, might have seemed merely quizzical. He managed somehow to make it clear that he was mocking my speech. “I beg your pardon?”
“Yes,” I said peevishly. “It was meant to be, yes.”
“Well, I’m afraid it did not succeed. If I were only ‘noticeably better’ than those wretches, I’d begin looking for a new career.”
I was sorely tempted to suggest some possibilities—perhaps something in the hermiting line—but again I restrained myself, not without effort. When I returned to the yard, Sander asked, “Did you find him?”
“Aye,” I said. “I found him a conceited ass.”
“Really?” said Sam. “That’s good.”
I frowned at him. “Why’s that?”
“Well, don’t you see? We can take turns riding him.”
Though Sam’s comment was made in jest, it had teeth in it. The truth was, the company could not afford mounts for all of us, so only the sharers would ride. We prentices and hired men would, as usual, have to rely on shank’s mare. The company had purchased teams of horses to pull the wagons, of course, but these were plodding draft animals; even if they could have borne the extra weight of a rider, we could not have stood their jolting gait for long.
The day we had set for our departure proved a dismal one, but we could not put it off, for Mr. Heminges had booked an appearance for us in Reading two days hence. It would have been hard enough in the best of weather to leave the comfortable, familiar surroundings and the folk I knew and loved best, for an uncertain existence on the road. The rain that leaked from the smudged sky made the prospect even less appealing.
My leave-taking was as different from the way I had left Dr. Bright’s home a year earlier as Berwick is different from London. Back then, not a soul had seemed to care a rush what became of me. Now the young boys vowed noisily not to let me go, and clung to my clothing like burrs until Mr. Pope pulled them off. Tetty, meanwhile, stood apart and gazed at me, unblinking, as though memorizing me.
Goody Willingson tearfully embraced me as though I had been her own son. Mr. Pope left me with a litany of advice nearly as extensive as that given by Polonius to Laertes in Mr. Shakespeare’s Hamlet. But, whereas Polonius’s ultimate admonition was “To thine own self be true,” Mr. Pope stressed that, above all, I should not whistle in the tiring-room, lest I bring ill luck down upon the company.
I reminded him that we would not have a tiring-room. He dismissed this and went on to tell me of a wight he had known who whistled behind the stage during a performance.
“What befell him?” I asked.
“One of his fellow players chucked a pot of face paint at him to shut him up. It struck him in the temple and killed him dead as a duck.”
“Well,” I said, “that certainly was ill luck.” I donned my cloak. “I must go. We’re to meet at nine o’clock outside Newgate.”
“I’ll walk with you a way,” said Sander.
Just as we were going out the door Tetty rushed up to me, pressed something into my hand, and quickly retreated. I glanced down at the object. It was a sheet of paper folded into a tiny square. I looked around for Tetty, but she had vanished. “Move your bones!” called Sander. “I’m getting soaked!” I thrust the square of paper into my wallet and caught up with him.
“You’ll write me now and again, I hope,” said Sander as we traversed the muddy slope to the river. “Mr. Pope says that most carriers who travel to and from the city will also handle letters.”
“Aye, but how will you ever reply?”
“They’ve told me some of the towns you’ll be playing in. I can send letters ahead, to be held for you.”
“I wish you were coming.”
“No more than I do. But sometimes wishes must yield to duty.” He put a hand upon my shoulder. “Cheer up. Autumn will be here before you know it, and everything will be the way it was. Perhaps better.”
“I would that I could believe that.”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
“Nay, not that I ken.”
“Go on, then.” We shook hands, then he urged me toward the waiting wherry boat. As it pulled away from shore, he called after me, “Cheer up!”
I waved and feigned a smile that did no credit to my acting skills. The boat had a small canopy that shielded me from the rain. Remembering the paper Tetty had given me, I drew it from my wallet and unfolded it carefully.
It was a crudely drawn picture of a group of human figures: two fat ones—Goody Willingson and Mr. Pope, I imagined; a tall, thin one—Sander, no doubt; and half a dozen small ones wearing wide grins. Standing apart from the others was a small figure with dark hair and eyes. Beneath the picture, printed in crooked, uncertain letters, were the words SO YOU’LL NOT FORGET US.
6
I reached Newgate, drenched and downhearted, just as the bells at St. Paul’s rang tierce. The carewares, each with a pair of draft horses hitched to it, sat by the road. A sheet of canvas was stretched between the wagons, and under this the rest of the company were gathered, looking more like a forlorn band of vagabonds than one of London’s premier theatre troupes.
We had all been issued navy blue hats and cloaks embroidered with our badge, a rampant swan. This livery marked us as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, licensed to perform anywhere in the realm. But no one wished to soil this fine livery by wearing it in such unpleasant weather, so we made a rather motley company, and a dismayingly small one. As Mr. Heminges had said, Mr. Burbage chose not to make the tour. That left us with the following cast, in order of importance, as it were:
MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, ordinary playwright of the company
MR. JOHN HEMINGES, business manager
MR. ROBERT ARMIN, clown and fencing master
MR. AUGUSTINE PHILLIPS, player of villains and dancin
g and singing instructor
MR. WILLIAM SLY, hired man
MR. JACK GRYMES, hired man
MASTER SALATHIEL PAVY, prentice
MASTER SAMUEL CROSSE, prentice
MASTER WIDGE (NO SURNAME), prentice
There was, in addition, an unfamiliar face in the group. Though he was well past the age of a prentice, he had not let his beard grow. His head of black hair was worn longer than most men’s and, in deference to the weather, pulled into a horse tail. He slouched indolently against one of the carewares, with a pained look upon his face, as though he would much rather have been somewhere else, somewhere warm and dry.
“Have you met my brother Ned?” asked Mr. Shakespeare. “He’ll be joining us on the tour.”
“Though God knows why anyone would want to,” put in Will Sly.
Ned shrugged. “It seemed to me preferable to starving or dying of the plague.”
I offered my hand to him. “I’m Widge.” Without changing position he languidly held out his left hand to me. I gave it an awkward shake.
Mr. Shakespeare said, “Ned has been a player in London for—how long, now?”
“Nearly a year.”
“The same as I,” I said. “Wi’ what company?”
“The Admiral’s Men.” Before I could remark upon this, he went on. “Lord Pembroke’s Men. Leicester’s Men, for a time.”
I reacted with surprise. “All in less than a year?”
He shrugged again and scowled up at the slaty sky. “None was quite to my liking.”
I glanced past him at Sam, who was making a wry face as if to say, “That’s his version of it.”
“I b-believe the rain is l-letting up,” Mr. Heminges said hopefully.
“If by ‘letting up’ you mean coming down harder,” said Will Sly, “I’d agree.”
“Well,” said Mr. Shakespeare, “whether it’s coming or going, we can delay no longer if we’re to make Reading by nightfall tomorrow.”
As soon as we prentices had stowed the canvas sheet in the rear of one of the already overloaded wagons, the company set off, the sharers riding horseback at the head of the procession, the teams and wagons slogging along behind them through six inches of mud, the hired men and prentices bringing up the rear, wading through the wet grass alongside the highway.
The rain went on coming down—or, as Mr. Heminges would have it, letting up—steadily all day long. By the time we reached Slough we were exhausted from dragging our waterlogged limbs along. The inn where we lodged was small, so there were but two rooms available to us. The four sharers took one; we prentices and hired men were left to crowd into the other.
We set about making ourselves as comfortable as we might—all except Sal Pavy, who merely stood in the doorway, looking about with obvious distaste at the spartan accommodations. I was not a little surprised at his attitude, for, all during the day, despite the wearisome weather, he had not uttered a word of complaint; in fact, he had put on quite a cheerful face. Apparently the face had been a false one, which he could don and doff at will.
“I was never informed that I would have to share sleeping quarters with half a dozen … others,” he said.
“Oh, you don’t have to,” said Sam.
“I don’t?” said Sal Pavy hopefully.
“No. Half a dozen means six, you see, and there are only five of us … others.”
As usual, Sal Pavy was not amused. “I am not at all accustomed to this sort of arrangement. At Blackfriars I had a room to myself, with a feather bed.” Disdainfully he prodded one of the straw mattresses furnished by the inn. “This is worse than sleeping in a stable.”
“Well,” said Jack grumpily, “why don’t you sleep in the stable, then?”
Sal Pavy flushed. “Perhaps I will.” He disappeared from the doorway.
As we stretched out upon the lumpy mattresses, I said, “A room to himself and a feather bed. Do you suppose that’s so?”
“I never heard of a prentice having it that soft,” said Sam. “Of course, they may have given him a separate room just to be rid of him.”
“I hope he does sleep in the stable,” growled Jack. “Him and his airs. Thinks he’s better than the rest of us.”
“And perhaps,” said Sam, “being an ass, he’ll feel more at home with the horses.”
By the time morning came, I heartily wished I had slept in the stable. What with Jack’s vigorous snoring and the bedbugs and other vermin that infested the straw mattress, I spent a restless night. The sharers evidently fared little better, for when we sat down to breakfast in the main hall of the inn, Mr. Heminges proclaimed, while scratching irritably at his bug bites, “F-from now on, we use our own m-mattresses and bedclothes.”
When Sal Pavy entered the room, Sam called out to him, “Well, how were the horses?”
Sal Pavy pretended not to have heard. He looked well rested and had taken care to put on his cordial face again.
“The horses?” said Mr. Armin.
Sam nodded emphatically. “He slept in the stable, didn’t you, Sal?”
“I did,” Sal Pavy admitted blithely. “I don’t care for crowded rooms. I believe them to be unhealthy.”
Out of the corner of his mouth, Will Sly murmured to me, “Particularly when they’re filled with wights who would very much like to strangle you.”
I snickered. “Well, ‘a does have a point, though.”
“How’s that?”
I nodded in Sal Pavy’s direction. “You don’t see him scratching, do you?”
The rain truly had let up now, but the surface of the road still resembled porridge more than earth. We made such slow progress that, by the time we reached the outskirts of Reading, its church bells were ringing compline.
Weary though we were, upon our arrival at the George & Dragon we retrieved our wool mattresses and bedclothes from the carewares and spread them on our bed frames, having deposited the inn’s bedding in a pile in the hall. Though we had the luxury of a larger room this time, and no bedbugs, Sal Pavy still did not deign to bunk with us. No one seemed to mind. Though he was amiable and cooperative in the presence of the sharers, when he was in the company of hired men and prentices alone he showed his true colors, and they were not attractive ones.
In the morning, after breakfast, we cleaned the mud from ourselves as best we could, given the limited washing facilities—a ewer of lukewarm water and a bowl—and dressed in doublets and breeches taken from our costume trunk, for these were the only unmuddied garments we had. Then we donned the blue caps and capes that distinguished us as the Chamberlain’s Men, and set out for the town hall.
We were forced to wait half an hour outside the mayor’s chambers before he could see us, but the time passed quickly, for we were once again in good spirits with the prospect of a performance ahead of us, the first one in over a week. We occupied the time with jests and with stories of past triumphs and debacles, such as players like to tell.
Mr. Shakespeare’s brother Ned held the floor longer than anyone, recalling the circumstances that had led him to leave his family home in Stratford. It seems he was caught by Sir Thomas Lucy’s gamekeeper in the act of dispatching one of the lord’s deer. He hinted that, in addition, he had gotten a prominent landowner’s daughter with child. As a result of these trespasses, he no longer felt welcome in Stratford and had come to try his luck in London, only to be kicked out into the countryside again.
His monologue was cut short by the arrival of the mayor, a heavyset fellow dressed in gaudy scarlet clothing and adorned with gold chains of office so numerous and weighty that they would surely have brought a less brawny man to his knees. Mr. Heminges stepped forward and gave a slight bow. Just as it did when he was upon the stage, the stutter that ordinarily plagued him disappeared. “The Lord Chamberlain’s Men at your service, sir.”
The mayor shook hands with him and the other sharers, smiling broadly as though delighted to have a company of such renown in his city. He seemed especially honored to greet Mr. S
hakespeare. “Your reputation has preceded you, sir,” he boomed.
“Has it?” said Mr. Shakespeare. “Would that it had secured us better lodgings, then, and perhaps tacked a few handbills up around town.” The mayor laughed, but it sounded more dutiful than amused.
“We’d like to begin setting up as soon as possible,” Mr. Heminges said, “if you can direct us to where we are to perform.”
The mayor’s smile grew a trifle stiff, and he rubbed his beefy hands together in a way that, had a player performed the gesture on stage, would have demonstrated obvious unease. “Well, the fact is, there’s been a … a change of plans, you might say.”
“Oh?” said Mr. Heminges.
“Yes,” the mayor went on uncomfortably. “You see, we’ve had some … problems. Illness, you know. In point of fact, the plague. Twelve deaths in the past week alone. In view of this, I—that is, we—that is, the town council have decided to ban all public gatherings.”
“Including plays,” said Mr. Heminges.
The mayor nodded emphatically, setting his wealth of chains jangling. Unexpectedly, the sound set a shiver through me, for it called to mind the clanging of a bell heard long ago in the streets of Berwick, a doleful sound that was always accompanied by the cry of “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!”
7
Our brief stay in Reading was not a total disappointment. The town councillors had authorized the sum of eighty shillings to be given the company—a reward, as it were, for not performing our plays. Mr. Heminges was obviously insulted and would, I believe, have turned the money down had not Mr. Shakespeare’s practical sense prevailed. “John,” he said, “I’m afraid we cannot afford to be overly scrupulous. This will pay for a week’s lodging.”
So we took the money, but, like a coin tested with the teeth for its gold content, it left a bitter taste in our mouths. We moved on to Basingstoke, where, to our dismay, we found the situation much the same. The mayor here seemed less concerned about spreading the plague, though, than about offending the church. The clergy of the city, he said, were preaching that the source of the plague deaths was not corrupted air but corrupted morals, and were singling out the bands of traveling players as a particularly evil influence.
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