Shakespeare's Scribe

by Gary Blackwood

  “Do you ken where ‘a was working?”

  She shook her head. “He never said. I suspect it was some lowly task he didn’t care to admit to.”

  “That’s not like Sander, though, to be so secretive.”

  “He’s not been himself, lately. He’s been distracted, like. To tell the truth, I believe he was hurt and disappointed that the company didn’t respond to the letter he sent asking for help. I told him it might well have failed to reach you.”

  “It reached us, all right, but at the worst possible time. You see … every bit of money the company had was stolen.”

  She put a hand to her mouth in distress. “Oh, Law! They’ve sent nothing with you, then?”

  “Nay. In truth, they did not even send me. I … I had a falling-out wi’ them.”

  “Oh, Widge, no! What was the cause of it?”

  “I’ll tell you about it later.” I dug from my purse the few coins that remained to me. “Here. That may buy a little food at least. Is Mr. Pope still under a physician’s care?” Goody Willingson nodded. “How is ‘a?”

  “Up and down, like Fortune’s wheel. For a time he seems to be getting his strength back, and then Dr. Harvey comes and bleeds him, and he takes another turn for the worse.”

  I frowned. “How often is ‘a bled?”

  “Every few days.”

  “Gog’s malt! It’s a wonder the poor man has a drop of blood left to let! Has either of you asked this Dr. Harvey to leave off the bloodletting?”

  Goody Willingson’s look of surprise was as profound as if I’d asked whether they’d renounced their allegiance to the Queen. “Why, no! I’m sure the doctor knows what’s best for him.”

  “Perhaps. I’ll go up and see him.”

  “Yes, do. But mind you don’t say a word about Sander. I’ve not told him yet. It might be best, too, if you don’t mention the stolen money. We don’t want him to fret.”

  When I looked in on Mr. Pope, I found him so weak he could scarcely talk. He had been such a vigorous man, despite his age, that it was shocking to see him so helpless. I sat by his bedside and, to spare him the effort of asking, told him all the things I was sure he would want to know about how the company was faring.

  He reached out unsteadily to pat my hand. “I’m glad you’re back,” he whispered. He closed his eyes, then, and I thought he had gone to sleep. But as I rose to leave I heard him say, “Widge. Where is Sander?”

  “‘A’s just … gone out,” I said, casually. “When ‘a returns, I’ll send him up.”

  As I stepped out into the hallway, I saw Tetty’s slight figure sitting on the top step of the stairs, looking down through the balustrade at the boys playing in the hall below. I sat down next to her. Without turning, she said somberly, “You came back.”

  “Aye,” I said. “I had your picture to remind me.”

  “Good. You won’t leave again, will you?”

  I hesitated. I was not sure myself what I would or should do next. Finally I said, “Not for a while, anyway.” I fished from my wallet some sweets I had saved for her. She accepted them as gravely as though they had been physicking pills.

  Around a mouthful of marchpane, she asked, “Why did Sander leave?”

  “I don’t ken, exactly.”

  “Was it because we were bad? Some of the boys complained when there wasn’t enough food.”

  “No, no,” I assured her. “‘A would never stay away over such a trifling thing. There must be some more drastic reason.”

  In the morning I went looking for work, and found nothing. With the rising death toll had come a corresponding drop in business for the city’s merchants and tradesmen. They were more inclined to let help go than to hire more. As I went about Southwark, I inquired of every familiar face I encountered whether they had seen Sander recently. No one had.

  That afternoon, on a whim, I went by the Globe Theatre. All the entrances were locked. The only windows at ground level were those in the tiring-room. I grabbed the sill and hoisted myself up to peer inside. The place was, of course, as empty as a granary in May. Through the open tiring-room door, I could just catch a glimpse of one of the stage entrances and, beyond it, a small section of the stage itself.

  The sight sent a stab of something through me—I was not certain what, but it was akin to the feeling I had experienced upon seeing again the orphanage in York where I had spent my early years. It was, I think, the curious sensation one gets when seeing a familiar place from a new perspective—from the outside, as it were, rather than the inside.

  I had had no desire, of course, to be inside the walls of the orphanage again. But the sight of the stage filled me with a fierce longing. I dropped to the ground, wishing that I had not taken that look within. I knew that, in a month or so, when cool weather reduced the threat of the plague, the company would return and the theatre would reopen. What I did not know was whether or not I would be with them.

  I sat on the steps outside the rear door of the theatre for a long time, hoping without much conviction that Sander might somehow be drawn back here. Finally, fearing that Goody Willingson and Tetty and the others would think that I had deserted them, too, I rose and, heavy-hearted, made my way back to Mr. Pope’s.

  28

  The following day the physician returned to see to his patient. Dr. Harvey was a gaunt man with pasty skin. In truth, he looked as though he had been administering his bloodletting cure to himself, and had overdone it. Goody Willingson obviously knew the procedure well; she had already fetched a bowl. Dr. Harvey laid his patient’s right arm across the rim of the bowl. Both Mr. Pope’s forearms were dotted with small scars from previous bloodlettings. As the doctor opened his medical case, I got up the nerve to open my mouth. “Excuse me, sir,” I said.

  He gave me a cursory glance. “Who are you?”

  “Widge, sir.”

  He selected a narrow-bladed scalpel from the case. “What’s happened to the other boy, the tall one?”

  “Sander.” I glanced at Mr. Pope. “We … we don’t ken, sir.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t ken?”

  “I mean, ‘a’s been gone a week; we don’t know where.”

  “Hmm.” The doctor took out a tourniquet and tied it about Mr. Pope’s upper arm to make the veins stand out.

  “I ha’ a question,” I said. “I understand that Mr. Pope’s condition seems to grow worse after ‘a’s been bled.”

  “That’s not a question,” said Dr. Harvey.

  “All right, then. Should his condition grow worse after ‘a’s been bled?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s to be expected. The patient always feels a bit weak at first from loss of blood. It’s only temporary.”

  “But … well, is there not some other treatment you could try? One that would build him up, rather than making him weaker?”

  Dr. Harvey sighed heavily. “The patient has suffered a stroke. That means there’s a surfeit of blood, and that means it must be let out.” He took hold of Mr. Pope’s wrist and searched for a suitable vein to open.

  I stepped closer to him. “But it would do him no dare, would it, an you left off bleeding for a week or so, to see what happens?”

  The doctor turned to glare at me over the tops of his spectacles. “Do you have a university degree in medicine?” he demanded.

  “Nay, of course not. I was only—”

  “Well, I do. So stop trying to tell me how to do my job!”

  Mr. Pope, who had lain quietly until now, somehow summoned the strength to sit up a little. His arm fell off the rim of the bowl. “Here,” he said, his voice thick, as though he had drunk too much ale, “you’ve no call to be harsh with the boy. He’s simply asking.”

  “Asking? What he is doing, sir, is questioning my ability.”

  “Nay,” I said. “Only your methods.”

  “You must admit,” said Mr. Pope, “the bleeding hasn’t exactly been a great success. In fact, you might say it’s been a bloody failure.”

  Dr. Har
vey stood rigid a moment, looking as though he were contemplating letting blood from both our jugulars. Then he nodded brusquely and threw the scalpel carelessly back into its case. “Very well,” he said, and untied the tourniquet so roughly that Mr. Pope winced. “Obviously, you don’t want the care and advice of a physician. Go see an apothecary; he’ll mix you up some fancy-sounding and foul-tasting concoction that is guaranteed to make you well. The catch is, you see, you can’t ask for your money back if you’re dead!”

  “I wasn’t—” I started to protest, but the doctor was already stalking from the room. I scrambled down the stairs after him. “I wasn’t saying we should consult an apothecary. I only thought you might know of some other treatment.”

  “Well, I don’t!” the doctor said sharply over his shoulder.

  Angry and ashamed in equal parts, I trudged back up to Mr. Pope’s room. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll find another physician.”

  Mr. Pope waved a hand weakly, dismissively. “Sometimes common sense is the best doctor—and the cheapest, as well. Better we should spend what little money remains on food.”

  “But what an ‘a’s right? What an you’ve a surfeit of blood and something bursts?”

  “Do I look to you as though I’ve a surfeit of blood?”

  As I plumped up the pillows behind him, I studied his face, which was, as they say in Yorkshire, all peely-wally. “Nay. You look as though you’re made up to play the ghost in Hamlet.”

  “Well, I’m not a ghost,” he said. “Not just yet. Is there any meat in the house?”

  “A little, I think.”

  “Then have Goody Willingson make me a cullis of beef broth, will you? Suddenly I’m starving.”

  The next afternoon, I went about the Bankside neighborhood again, asking after work and after Sander; I returned with little hope of finding either. To my dismay, I encountered Dr. Harvey coming from the opposite direction. I would have gone on by him without a word or a glance, but he stopped me. “I’ve something to tell you.”

  “An it’s about yesterday,” I said hastily, “I’m sorry I was—”

  He held a hand up to silence me. “No, no,” he said impatiently, “I’m not here looking for an apology. I wanted to let you know that I’ve found your friend.”

  “Me friend? Sander, you mean?”

  Dr. Harvey nodded.

  “Well … where is ‘a?”

  “In the pesthouse in Kent Street.”

  All the breath seemed to go out of me. With what little was left, I said, “The pesthouse? Where they take folk wi’ the plague?”

  “Yes. I look in there from time to time, and do what I may to ease their suffering. There’s little anyone can do, except God.”

  Though the weakest parts of me, of which there were many, cried out against it, some small courageous part said, “I’ve got to go see him.”

  “If you do, you’ll be in grave danger of infection yourself.”

  “So are you,” I said. “Yet you go there regularly.”

  “I take precautions.”

  “Then so will I.”

  Dr. Harvey gave me a cloth bag filled with arsenic and instructed me to bind it to myself beneath my shirt and doublet, next to my heart. The theory behind this was that one venom repels another.

  Folk fall prey to all manner of illness, of course, and as we made our way to the pesthouse I held on to the hope that Sander might not have the plague at all, but some other disease of similar symptoms. Perhaps, like Sam, he only suffered from the ague.

  But when we entered the pesthouse and I saw him, that hope vanished. It took several moments for my eyes to find him, among the dozens of patients who lay about the room on straw mats. Even then, I was not certain it was he, so altered was his appearance.

  The attendants at the pesthouse had burned his garments; he was covered only by a linen sheet pulled up to his chest. His arms were spread out at right angles to his body, like those of Jesus on the cross, so as to keep any pressure off the grotesque black pustules on their undersides. There would be similar painful swellings, I knew, on the insides of his thighs. His face was not pale and drawn like Mr. Pope’s, but dark and contorted, as though he were slowly strangling.

  “He’s experiencing severe cramps,” said Dr. Harvey dispassionately. “That’s a mortal sign.”

  I gave him an angry glance, as though, by speaking of Sander’s approaching death, he were helping to hasten it.

  “I’ll leave you alone with him,” said the doctor. “It’s best if you don’t get too close.”

  What would have been best, I thought, was never to have gotten close to Sander to begin with. If I had not let myself come to regard him as my nearest friend, perhaps I would not feel now as though the arsenic in the bag I had bound to me were eating away at my chest and at the heart within it.

  I knelt down next to his mat; the bay leaves and lavender and rose petals that were strewn about to purify the air gave off a scent that was spicy and sweet but not nearly strong enough to overcome the sour smell of sickness. “Sander?” I said.

  He turned his head to the side with obvious effort; when his dull gaze fell upon me, he gave me a faint semblance of his old smile. “Widge,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “You came.”

  I swallowed hard. “Aye.” Though I had given up lying, I made an exception, knowing that it would ease his mind. “I’ve brought money wi’ me—enough to provide for the household.”

  “Good. Good. I knew you’d manage it somehow. I hoped you wouldn’t manage to find me, though.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t want you to see me like this. I wanted you to remember me as I was.”

  “I will, I swear.” I fought back tears, wanting him to remember me, too, as I was in better times. I tried to think of something cheerful to say, but the question that was in my mind forced itself to the fore. “How did this happen? No one else in the household has come down wi’ the contagion.”

  So faintly that I could scarcely hear, he said, “I had to get work, to keep the boys fed. It was all I could find.”

  “What was?”

  “Carting the dead away for burial.”

  “Oh, Sander,” I said.

  He shrugged slightly, apologetically. “I followed your advice. I kept a kerchief soaked in wine over my face.”

  “Nay, nay, I never said it was certain proof against the plague!” I cried. “You should not ha’ listened to me!”

  With much effort he raised one hand, as though to clap me on the shoulder in his old familiar fashion, but then stopped himself. “It’s not your fault, Widge. It was my choice. I’m certain that all of them”—he waved his hand weakly to indicate the other patients in the pesthouse—”tried the best they knew how to ward off the plague, and it claimed them anyway. There’s nothing anyone can do. There are no rules to follow. It’s all a game of chance.”

  I did not dispute him. I had heard other folk say the same thing about the plague and about other sorts of ill fortune. I think it gave them some comfort to believe it was so. It is far easier to accept one’s lot in life as inevitable, a whim of fate, than it is to struggle and rail against it.

  But I was not certain it was so. I suspected that, like every other disease, the contagion had a cause, and if that cause could be discovered the plague could be contained, perhaps even cured. Surely, someday someone would uncover its secrets. But it would be too late for Sander.

  I longed to do something to ease his suffering but, as Dr. Harvey had said, there was nothing to be done. I had seen Dr. Bright drain the pustules of plague victims and apply ashes and quicklime to them, but the treatment had seemed only to cause the patient more pain, and it made no difference in the end.

  I took my mother’s crucifix from about my neck and placed it in his outstretched palm. His hand closed tightly about it, and he smiled faintly one last time. I fetched water to slake his constant thirst, but beyond that all I could do was to sit by and watch him fade farther and farther from me, as
gradually and as surely as the evening sun was fading from the sky.

  I could not even arrange for a funeral, for at sunset all the day’s dead were carted away at once and buried in hastily dug graves outside the city. I went along so that Sander would have someone to mourn him, and I marked the site with a small pile of stones, vowing to replace it someday soon with a proper headstone.

  29

  After the burial, I hurried home, knowing that Mr. Pope and Goody Willingson would be worried about me. To lessen the chance that I might carry the plague with me, I stripped off my clothing and burned it, and scrubbed myself all over with lye soap before I went inside. There was, unfortunately, no way I could avoid carrying to the others the sad news about Sander. I waited until the boys had gone to bed, wanting to spare them a while yet. I had hoped that, in telling Mr. Pope and Goody Willingson, some of the weight would be lifted from me, but it was not.

  “I suppose I must let his parents know as well,” I said. “Can you tell me where to find them?”

  Mr. Pope shook his head. “In one of the shabby tenements along the south bank, I believe. Sander never told us much about them. It was my feeling that he was rather ashamed of them.”

  “I do recall him saying once,” put in Goody Willingson, “that his mother made a bit of money taking in washing, and that his father turned around and spent it all again on drink.” She clucked her tongue disapprovingly. “Imagine such a good boy as Sander coming from such sorry stock.”

  “Mr. Armin said to me not long since that it mattered naught what sort of heritage a wight had; the important thing, ‘a said, was what you did wi’ ‘t.” I thought of Jamie Redshaw, and of my still unknown mother, and of myself. “Perhaps ‘a was right,” I said.

  I had not yet spoken to them of Jamie Redshaw or of my reasons for leaving the Chamberlain’s Men. I knew that, soon or late, I must, just as I must reveal to Mr. Pope that I had come to them almost empty-handed. But it would have to wait. We had all had enough dreary news for one day.