The Player's Boy is Dead

by Leonard Tourney

  Then Jupiter spoke in a rumbling voice of godly authority so that for the moment Matthew forgot Will Shipman and really believed himself privy to the Olympians and their disputes. The King of Gods called the boy to him, declaring his love for him, despite Juno. When the boy replied, Matthew realized that Juno was wife to Jupiter and a shrew who, not brooking Jupiter's dalliance, beat the lad soundly. Jupiter flew to the boy's defense, rolling into an impassioned speech of which Matthew could but grasp the gist, and then he gave Ganymede jewels that had belonged to his wife.

  Another player, dressed as a great lady, mounted the platform. She berated Jupiter for toying with the boy, accused him of ignoring the hero Aeneas while Juno subjected the hero to the peril of sea storms. All this was done in a grand manner, in verse, he reckoned, which was altogether unlike the speech of common folk, being more musical and eloquent, like that of the street vendors who cried out their wares on market day.

  Matthew wondered that a god should fondle so insolent a lad, or tolerate such shrewishness from the lady—Venus, he understood, though Jupiter's daughter nonetheless. She strode across the stage and lifted a sinewy arm in expansive gestures, first to the right and then to the left, as she limned her son's perils in a mellow treble neither masculine nor feminine but strangely in between that made Matthew squirm uneasily in his chair. Beneath the layers of white powder, Matthew could trace the lineaments of a man's face, broken teeth, skin marred with the pox, and a nose somewhat east of the perpendicular.

  Then Jupiter calmed Venus's rage with a prophecy: All would be turned to the hero's good, though he must first

  endure hardship and war. The Queen of Love responded, cynically mistrustful of her father's prophecy. Matthew thought of his daughter Elizabeth, how for her her father's word was better than the Queen's Warrant. Then Jupiter sent the other player, who was Hermes, the Messenger of the Gods (so much he had understood from what was said), from the platform to order Neptune to abate his wrath that the hero Aeneas might live, and both he and Ganymede retired from the stage, leaving Venus alone.

  Of her speech the constable made little sense, adorned as it was beyond the measure of common tongue. She seemed to speak of her son again, to pronounce a blessing upon him; her voice became softer, as a mother's should, he thought. And she had not finished her part, gesturing still, before two players returned to the platform.

  It was Will Shipman again and Samuel Peacham, the latter with the white powder cleared from his skin. Both were garbed as soldiers, the chief actor dressed in a captain's uniform with sword and buckler. This, Matthew guessed, was Aeneas and his companion. Neither man wore a hat, suggesting, he supposed, their recent struggle against the sea.

  Except for Jupiter's throne, which had been by this time removed, the platform was quite as bare as before. Aeneas extended a brawny arm to the wall of the chamber, identifying it as the wall of Carthage; Venus crouched at the corner of the platform as though behind a bush. Now Aeneas strolled proudly around the stage as became a hero while the two companions related the woe of their travels. When Venus discovered herself (Matthew marveled that she could not be seen crouched there so plainly), Aeneas did not recognize his mother, but introduced himself to her, boasting of his courage. When she departed the platform, Aeneas realized that it was Venus to whom he had spoken. Then the actors left the stage and the servingman entered to light the candles at the great table.

  "How did you like the first act, Master Constable?"

  Matthew, as though awakened from a dream, responded slowly to Sir Henry's question.

  "I think it not like anything I have seen, sir. The actors

  play their parts admirably, ne'er missing a line as I could tell. Their speech is marvelously fashioned, quite poetic I would say,"

  He paused with embarrassment, wondering that he should have said so much, but Saltmarsh did not seem annoyed at his answer. The knight smiled pleasantly and sipped wine from his goblet. In a moment his attention was fixed upon another guest.

  "I think Master Peacham a most engaging Dido," Cecilia Saltmarsh was saying. "He that would play that unfortunate queen must know how to weep as a woman as well as sue for a gentleman's favors."

  "You should play such a part, my dear," Saltmarsh said, bowing gracefully in his wife's direction.

  "I might, were it seemly that ladies so display themselves. But, as in all things else, plays are men's work, though they be to a woman's pleasure."

  Her remark was met with laughter around the table, as though it concealed some wit. Matthew looked to Joan and found her eyes meeting his. At the moment the squire was addressing some remark to her right ear. Then he saw her smile and look down at her hands on the table. Matthew thought of the play he had just witnessed and of the lad Ganymede perched so securely on Jupiter's knee. He had heard of such loves between man and boy, but such was beyond his fathoming: He found it difficult to think about.

  She sat transfixed, so intent that only a vigorous shaking of her shoulders would have drawn her eyes from the stage, the players, the magnificent scene. When the play was done and the candles relighted, it was as though she must swim up to the surface of her life after having held her breath for an hour or more in this place, both the great room of the Hall and somewhere else all together. It was all, Joan reflected, so pathetical—Aeneas's misfortunes, his moving account of the great city's fall. Dido's hopeless love on the altar of her beloved's duty. She might have wept for it had she not been in company. What had impressed her most had been Queen Dido herself, tall and stately with features most perfectly white and rouged so that her cheeks seemed aflame with life and gowned and slippered in the old-fashioned elegance of an embroidered chemise of fine Raynes linen partly hidden by a crimson cloak. She had almost forgotten that this graceful feminine figure was a man—and yet not so, for from time to time his falsetto would break, allowing his tone to fall to a more masculine depth that betrayed the player's mature years. So this was a play, she marveled.

  Varnell had seen better, and the thought of it gave Mm no little satisfaction under present circumstances, seated as he was obscurely at the table's end. At least, he reflected bitterly, he had been allowed to sit with the guests and not shuttled off to the kitchen to feed with the servants. And now in return for a middling supper he must endure this evocation of musty tomes whose moldy tales he had so hated at school and for which none but melancholic wenches and pedantic schoolmasters cared but a groat. The players marched the stage like laborers seeking their tools, delivered their lines as though they understood but half, fitted their mouse-eaten robes most ridiculously, and mumbled in their beards by turns. He that played Dido so scur-vily was the worst, whining out his lines like a cat in the bag, pleading with his mistress to drown him not, for he was a good cat, as many a mouse caught in the buttery might affirm. Besides, he had drunk with the man within the week. Varnell knew him to be a fool and cutpurse.

  Disgruntled absolutely, he turned his attention from the stage to the table. His employer's back was between him and the players, looming like a shadow in the half-darkness, well fed, well satisfied, and powerful. To his right, his mistress leaned upon one slender arm. Toward her husband, he noted. He thought, She hates him more than I, and doubtless for similar reasons. On both sides of the table sat those who were no better than he and yet more honored here. There was the priest, morose, secretive, looking as though he had his salvation by patent and waited nothing but to be lifted up to his glorification. Others, besides the cloddish constable and his wife, were the small fry of the town. All sat like blocks, or like children watching the devil dance in a bright fire. What could they know, who could not find this piece as wretchedly done as conceived, Kit Marlowe's reputation notwithstanding. Not one month past he had seen Ben Jonson's Poetaster upon the Blackfriars stage. Now there was a play with meat. He wondered that his employer should bid to his table such as these, whom fortune had declared must serve and not be served. He had detected Sir Henry's oily condescension to the rout at
entrance. What game was he playing now? Or his lady, who on this occasion played so sweetly his accomplice?

  Varnell looked up from his musings to see the dark eyes of the priest fixed upon him, and he shuddered.

  The play done, Saltmarsh and his lady rose from the table. The players were sent to the buttery, where, Saltmarsh assured them, they might have a free hand to fill their own stomachs and quench their thirst, but not before they had been roundly applauded for their efforts. Then the guests bid their hosts farewell with many thanks.

  "A word with you, Master Constable, before you go," Saltmarsh said as Matthew and Joan were about to follow the servingman to the door.

  Matthew paused while his wife went on ahead with the other guests. "I thank you, sir, once again, both for such meat and for the play, of which I had never before seen the like."

  Saltmarsh responded in what was almost a whisper, "You see, then, Master Stock, what table we keep here and what cheer. These are persons who 'twould be to your good to know, since they may help you in a business way. But pray oblige me in this: do not lessen your efforts to resolve me in the players' boy's death, for I have this night by Master Hayforth just come from Southend that word of the murder has spread the county and 'twere unseemly if in my first year of my magistracy I did not bring the murderer to speedy justice. You know my mind, then?"

  "Aye, sir, and do promise you once again. It is only that in this case there are so few clues."

  Saltmarsh smiled grimly. "Perhaps, but there is one who knows everything in the matter, and it is your commission to find him out and quickly. My wife and I expect to depart for London later in the week."

  "You may in all things trust me to do my duty," Matthew said earnestly.

  Saltmarsh patted him on the arm. "I do, I do," he said, "and now I must look to the players, who will have their reward, I hope, not too rowdily."

  Joan waited him on the steps. A groom had brought around the cart, which now stood ready at hand in the drive. Matthew helped his wife in and then himself, and both rode silently until they had come to the gate and passed beneath its imposing height.

  "That was a night we shall not soon forget," he said.

  "I think not," she replied.

  "How liked you the play?"

  "It was strangely pleasing. Such fine speeches, although I near wept at Dido's end, poor lady, of such quality and then to be deserted by her lover.''

  He smiled in the darkness to himself. "But would a woman sa love a man to cast herself into the flames for him?"

  "Men have done so for the truth of their religion," she returned.

  "Yes, but hardly unless pressed to it."

  Joan reasoned, "Perhaps she was. The heart may be as compulsive as a wicked queen to drive men and women to madness and beyond."

  He retorted, "I think such be the devil's work. God has made us free to choose the evil from the good, and to believe or not without constraint. If a broken heart has the strength to drive one to self-slaughter, 'tis no better than a prince puffed up in his pride and deserves no pity."

  She considered this. Then she said, "I see my husband is a moralist as well as constable. I know not where his competence shall have an end."

  He chuckled and threw one arm around her shoulder, for the night was cold. "I fear I am competent only as thy husband, Joan, and then only in part, but as a theologian or moralist I am none, only that I try to give heed to good short sermons and read the scripture of a Sunday. As for my constableship, I fear I am in danger of losing that."

  "Is it that of which Sir Henry spoke as we "were leaving?"

  "Aye, it quite took from me the joy of supper to think that I have made so little headway against my own ignorance.'Tis a point of honor with him to have the murder solved and quickly. He intends to leave the Hall at week's end for London."

  "Surely he would not be adverse to allowing more time, should it be needed. The boy's death is hardly cut and dried. There were no witnesses."

  "He regards not that and reminds me still of my commission."

  "Are you sorry now that you accepted the office?"

  He thought before replying. "Indeed I am; but havirig it, I must serve dutifully, no matter the outcome. Tomorrow I will go again to speak with the players. I suspect that they know more of Richard Mull's private matters than they are willing to admit. Such folk keep close counsel. And I think they at the Hall are also involved, though I cannot say how."

  "Then you do think my suspicion of Cecilia Saltmarsh be more than idle gossip?"

  "At table they seemed happily coupled. She is a beautiful lady, hardly more than twenty, I should think. I cannot fathom why such should not get along, since her husband is a proper enough man and, although twice her age, evidently not unkind. I cannot therefore think that she would have cause to chase a mere boy who brought nothing to her but . . ."

  He paused searching for the word, which she supplied: "A young body?"

  "Shame, woman," he retorted with mock severity. "Your mind doth too much run in such ways. Soon I will be thinking myself too old for such a one as you."

  "We are of near the same years, Matthew. And of love you have always been my only teacher. If I now grow ripe as a student, 'tis yourself who art much to blame."

  He said, "Tush, I have gone to school to you, Joan, as you well know. No, that some strange lust has perverted her ladyship's way I hope to doubt. What I think rather is that the boy may have made some suit to her, which her refusing drove him into a passion or perhaps into a quarrel with one of his fellows."

  "You love the plain road, husband, and could not see perversion were it hanging on our strong oak like a child's bauble. Did it not the more make you fit for my husband, I would lament that your very innocence should so undermine your ability as constable."

  He laughed heartily. "Innocent? I?"

  "Innocent, you," she replied quickly. "He that can think so little evil will never find the rat in the cellar, he himself too honest to sneak or steal."

  "I have never thought of myself as such, but as a plain man, no better or worse than my fellows."

  " 'Tis not virtue I am accusing you of but innocence. They be different."

  He laughed again. "And now who plays the moralist?"

  He felt the touch of her cold lips upon his cheek and drew her close to him.

  "Full stomachs and wine have made us both merry," she said and, looking up, realized that they were already on High Street and not a minute from their own door.

  He drew the cart to a halt, dismounted, went up to the door and began knocking vigorously.

  "Pray God on such a cold night our man is not himself fast asleep. We must freeze here if we wait until morning.''

  His blows rattled the windowpane. From the rear of the house the hounds Molly and Col yelped peevishly.

  "The neighborhood will wake," she warned from the cart.

  "I do fear it," he replied, knocking again impatiently.

  A light appeared at the window, and soon husband and wife could hear Philip unbarring the door and mumbling prayers under his breath."I heard your first knock," the old man growled, half in apology, half in protest, "but thought it was a dream and rolled over in my bed."

  "Well," Matthew said sternly, "let us in now or we'll die of the cold."

  Joan helped herself down from the cart and led her husband through the door.

  "Mind that the house is fast again, and do quiet the hounds. We've wakened them with our beatings," he said. He led the way with lantern to their chamber above, where he quickly built a fire.

  They warmed themselves without speaking and then she sighed and said, "I am for bed."

  "And I with you," he replied.

  Under the heavy quilt he drew near her just before sleep, letting his hand find its way under her night garment to the small of her back, warm and soft as it had been the twenty years he had known her as husband. He fell asleep and dreamed of the walls of Carthage, and of Aeneas, and of the boy Ganymede whom Jupiter loved.<
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  Seven

  THE CHAMBER that Hayforth had been given was cramped, and the servant had brought no wood for the fire. He shivered, reluctant to undress, listening instead for the soft sound of footfalls beyond his door.

  It had been a long day, most of which he had spent on horseback. His muscles were sore; his head ached with drink. His host had proved polite but suspicious. Such, the priest guessed, was the man's nature. Cecilia Saltmarsh had prevailed upon him to stay the night and perhaps another until he should be sufficiently rested to continue his journey to London. She said she desired his counsel, and that he might say mass in the chapel, although to do so might be risky. All of that had been predictable enough, but not his recognition of Samuel Peacham in Marlowe's play. Neither the intervening years since their last meeting nor the heavy makeup on Peacham's face could erase the memory of those oddly twisted features, the small frightened but intent eyes, the chin that seemed to disappear into the hollow of the thin neck.

  The priest had shared a room with Peacham and Marlowe ten years before when the three were postulants at the Catholic college at Rheims, and earlier Hayforth and Marlowe had been fellow students at Cambridge. At Rheims they had in fact been spies, eager for news of Papist plots on the continent and names of Papist sympathizers and agents in England. Peacham and Marlowe had given over such services, Peacham becoming an actor in an obscure company, Marlowe going on to make a name for himself as a playwright. Only the priest retained his old profession as a spy, his present business being the discovery and undermining of fresh conspiracies on his native soil. A friend had written Hay forth of Marlowe's death. How like Marlowe to end that way—at a reunion of confederates at Eleanor Bull's tavern at Deptford. Ingram Frizer, Robert Poley, Nicholas Skeres—Hay forth had known them all, and a fine lot of devils they were. Now Marlowe was dead, murdered in a quarrel over the reckoning. Well, what of that? Walsingham, their old employer, was as cold. They might both rot, for all Hay forth cared now. But how clearly his mind's eye recalled the young playwright's face. In the stillness of the chamber he could almost hear yet the golden tongue of him whose young piety had withered in the fire of the intellect and whose infinite aspiration had been tempered only by sudden fits of cynicism and melancholy.