The Player's Boy is Dead

by Leonard Tourney

  They had shared rooms above a carpenter's shop in the French city, descanting on the absurdities of French manners, their poor allowance from Walsingham, and the ridiculousness of Papistry while they had hatched plots against fellow students and pooled intelligence that might be sent home through the network of Walsingham's spies. It was a dirty life that might have shamed him in the recalling of it had custom not long ago taken the vice from it. Now, near forty, he was too old to begin another profession (if profession spying could be called). He was too proud to play courtier, too cynical for churchman, too lazy for the law, too practiced a dissembler for honest service at home. Such was the fate of a spy—to become so proficient in the devious art that even one's mother must hide the key to the breadbox. Besides, he now had the office of priest down pat; he could pray, hear confessions, celebrate mass, preach sugary sermons, squirm and grovel before the well-to-do like any priest in hell. He could tell lies to shame the devil, knew more tricks of policy than a cardinal and more ways to slander, maim, and poison than the Pope himself.

  The play had brought it all back with startling clarity. Indeed, Marlowe had written Dido in the next chamber at Cambridge, between translations of Seneca and snatches of Machiavelli, whom Marlowe had studied as though they were holy writ. Even as the players had spoken their lines, the priest recalled their author's voice through the thin walls reciting the work to himself until all the syllables were numbered and marshaled into rattling rows and made fit for such persons as should speak them. But the priest's nostalgia was now poisoned by a fear that Peacham should have recognized him at table and, remembering their earlier association as agents, conclude logically that he remained in the business and, purposely or inadvertently, let the fact slip, to Saltmarsh.

  The knight he knew to be the sort of Catholic who would have welcomed the return of the old religion but who would do little to further it. His devotion was at best lukewarm, as far as the priest could tell. Cecilia Saltmarsh, on the other hand, seemed genuinely pious, or so he had inferred from several private conferences he had had with the lady at Rheims and from her invitation to visit her and her husband at Chelmsford upon his return to England. His acceptance of the invitation had been encouraged by his superiors in the government who were anxious to identify any member of the gentry willing to hear mass in chapel or play host to a disguised priest. He dreaded to think of Saltmarsh's response to the information that he had given bed and board to one who might be his undoing.

  He had found the guests of the evening mildly interesting despite his weariness from travel, but perhaps only because they were different from the lot he was used to. Except for Saltmarsh's secretary. The priest knew his kind. The constable and his wife he found quite droll, both plump and dark like gypsies. Then there was the garrulous squire who went on about the price of wool as though it were the man's own skin that was to be shorn and his thin-as-a-bean wife who ate as solemnly as a Puritan at meeting. The pompous scrivener had pronounced upon stage plays, the quality of the pudding, the merits of city versus country life, new cures for mad dogs, and ways to build a mousetrap to catch three of the vermin at a swipe. It was all like the comedy of the old style. And, finally, Peacham as Queen of Carthage. What irony had been there. Yes, he had been queen all right, as any of the Cambridge gallants who had had him as bedfellow might testify were they willing to make their curious tastes known.

  The play done, the priest had walked toward the door with Cecilia Saltmarsh at the same time her husband had separated himself from the others to say some words in private to the constable. She had asked for an interview in private late that evening when the guests were gone and her husband had gone to carouse with the players.

  He heard no knock at his door; she entered suddenly with a finger at her lips commanding him to silence. She was dressed in a thin loosely fitted chemise over which she had thrown a finely woven shawl. He noticed that her feet were bare and small, almost like a child's. She did not wait for him to speak but took the chair.

  "The hour is not too late for this?" she asked.

  "Needs of the soul must be met as they occur." He fell easily into his old role. He knew the voice, the gestures, just how the lips were pursed and the hands folded prayerfully as though the interlocking fingers alone might draw deity into the room.

  "I am obliged to you, sir, for allowing me to come hither so late for spiritual comfort. I ask you to be discreet, however, for I would not have my devotions the talk of servants." She paused to allow the significance of her remark to settle.

  He said, "Perhaps, then, we should delay our talk until tomorrow?''

  "No . . . the house then will be in confusion and the servants occupied with packing. Sir Henry and I go to London later in the week.''

  "How may I serve you, lady?"

  "By listening," she replied softly. "I am a most unhappy woman."

  In the half darkness of the chamber her face was white, her hair loose about her shoulders. She is prepared for bed, he thought, yet she comes here boldly. Had she remembered their appointment at the last minute or come so by design? The priest was no novice in the devices of women, but he was prudent enough to allow her to show her hand before he would wager his own. Women, he knew from the varieties of his experiences, could be more subtle than men in such matters. They could also be naive, and he had often found himself amused at the way women of refined manners could treat a priest as though he were not a man at all but some sexless, passionless thing. Yet he knew enough of the world's ways to proceed with caution. Cecilia Saltmarsh was a beautiful woman, but she was also the wife of a peevish knight who would not hesitate to cut his throat for overstepping bounds.

  She asked, "You are pensive?"

  "I only wait for you to speak, lady. You say you are an unhappy woman. Certainly with such a husband and house and servants you could not want much?''

  "I do not have things I seem to have," she said mournfully as her gaze fell downward to the folds of her lap.

  "Things you seem to have," he echoed.

  "My husband has no love for me."

  "Surely, madam, you are mistaken. He does seem a most affectionate and generous lord."

  "So he does seem," she said bitterly. "That's his public manner. In private he is much different, cold, often angry without cause. We do not share the same bed."

  He considered his words carefully. " 'Tis not uncommon between husband and wife that quarrels force them apart for a season. They sleep in different chambers until cold sheets and silent walls bring them back to their senses and their mates. Have hope, madam. Despair is 'gainst God's will. You are far too young and, may I say, beautiful to consider yourself forsaken. If your husband has been cruel, indifferent, he may be kind and loving yet if you will be but patient."

  "I fear he is beyond the redemption of which you speak. Nightly he carouses, and I know not where. Even now he is below with the players and may drink till dawn. After, he proceeds to other friends."

  "Other friends?"

  "I do not know their names. Women of the town perhaps. My husband likes women."

  "You are accusing your husband of adultery," he said. "That's a most grievous sin."

  "Yet I have no proof, only a feeling."

  "If proof might be found, you might do nothing still, yet no wife should suffer her husband's continued infidelity."

  She said after a pause. "You are a kind man, even for a priest."

  "I serve God in treating humanely his children."

  "I wonder," she began, "if I may be so bold as to approach even more private matters?"

  "What passes here," he replied, "will not pass beyond these walls, though death threatened. I am under solemn oath."

  "Not all priests honor their vows."

  " 'Tis true, lady," he admitted, rising from the bed and stepping toward the cold hearth of the chamber. "Priests are but men. They suffer temptations as other men must. Their priesthood should serve as an iron garment through which no carnal lust might pierce, and y
et it sometimes does. I have known fallen priests. Perhaps circumstances mount such a battery against their oaths that not even a saint might resist."

  "Your pity for your fallen brethren argues you a man of God indeed," she said.

  "It argues me a man, no more," he replied simply.

  "Are you a man?" she asked.

  Her question took him suddenly, and it was spoken to his back so that he could not read in her face the implication of the question. When he turned to her, her head was down, her hands placidly in her lap.

  "I am sometimes tempted," he said, returning to the bed.

  "To what sort of things, may I ask?" She faced him boldly now. "You can count it but a woman's curiosity. Yet 'tis not an idle one, for I have revealed unto you the cause of my distress and yet you have said nothing of your own."

  "My distress? Why do you suppose I am distressed?"

  She stood and walked to where he sat upon the bed, raising a hand to his brow as though she were reading the lines in his forehead. "I can read your sorrow, just here, above the brow ... in the little furrows."

  He admired her wit, seeing now her design, the chain of words by which she hoped to bind him. Now he cared nothing for her husband, for the risk. "I am a priest still," he said, but with enough regret in the tone to render it an invitation for her to proceed further.

  "And a man?" she whispered, moving closer to him. "As a man, do you find me comely?"

  He hesitated, uncertain now of just the right words. "I think you are the most beautiful woman I have known.''

  "I am not dressed.," she protested halfheartedly.

  "Men were created perfect. They are most so, then, when as God made them."

  Her eyes were large; they shone brightly in the candlelight, full of knowledge and with a masculine confidence he found strangely appealing. He could tell that his sophistry pleased her.

  "You are eloquent, sir. In what church did you learn so to please a woman's ear?"

  "It is you, lady, who makes me eloquent. But I would express myself in more than words."

  She made no show to move when he grasped her wrists, but remained erect. Her lips formed a slight smile. She said, "You may express yourself as you see fit. We are quite alone here."

  As he reached for her waist, her shawl slipped from her shoulders, leaving them bare and white in the half darkness. He could see her perfectly round breasts beneath the sheer cloth of her chemise as he pulled her toward him.

  "You are passionate," she whispered after they had lain together for a while. "Pull the blanket over us, for God's sake."

  "You are modest?" he grunted drowsily.

  "I am cold," she said. "You make love more like a soldier than a priest."

  He could feel her thighs and stomach tremble in the cold beneath him. He said, "I have been both in my time."

  She pushed him suddenly from her. His desire spent, he rolled over on his back, staring into the dark of the ceiling. The candle had burned low.

  "Should this be known to my husband, sir priest..." She did not finish the threat.

  Without turning to her again, he said, "Do you do your own murders, my lady?"

  She cursed, grabbed her smock, and pulled it over her head. She found her shawl where it had dropped in the rushes and walked quickly to the door. She turned to him as though to speak again, but said nothing. The priest turned his eyes to the wall, cursed the cold, the servant who had brought no wood, and the ill luck that had brought him to this place.

  Varnell snuffed out his single candle and crawled sleepily beneath the covers. Voices and music still drifted up from the great hall below, muffled by heavy oak timbers and plaster and merging with the first shapes of sleep. He dreamed he was back in Cambridge in his old chamber before a pile of books and scattered papers. From the corner of his eye he could see a great brown rat munching upon one of the books. The sight disgusted him, and he drew closer to the book and saw that it was the Bishops' Bible in heavy black print and a rich leather cover. The rat ate and ate until the book's cover was completely consumed, and then it began to feed on the text itself. Varnell tried vainly to push the rat away, but the creature ignored him, twitched its whiskers, and continued to eat. He could not make his arms move; they felt pinned to his sides. The rat seemed to grow larger as it ate, larger and larger until it began to fill the chamber, crowding the secretary into one corner, its foul odor making his gorge rise. Weeping with frustration and terror, he awoke, his body drenchedwith sweat. It was a long while before he could fall asleep again.

  Deep in his cups, Saltmarsh leaned heavily upon the table, his arms outstretched. Dark liquor flowed from the comers of his mouth. He thrust out his jaw at the player defiantly. "Say you?" he snarled.

  Samuel Peacham, too drunk himself to be fearful or respectful, sneered back. "A woman's part is no meaner than a man's. It takes more part—part—particular wit, and 'tis not easily won, for few there be that has it, damme." He threw his head back with bleary satisfaction.

  The knight thundered, "Then I say you have it not, for you played Queen Dido most wretchedly and made me want to laugh when I should have shed more tears for the poor lady then Hecuba for her lost children."

  Saltmarsh thrust himself back from the bench with a triumphant grunt. Samuel Peacham had fallen asleep, his head in his plate.

  "More wood, Daniel, more wood," Saltmarsh thundered, "or by all that's holy I'll have your arse for fuel."

  His livery askew, the old servingman limped into the chamber with his arms full of wood. His sober industrious-ness put a pall on the festivities that for an hour past had begun to wane from sheer monotony. Big Tod was nowhere to be seen. Will Shipman crouched by the firelight, his shaggy head resting upon his knees, deep in thought or sleep while Little Tod snored peacefully nearby.

  Suddenly Will raise his head, looked at his companion, and brought his hand down flat on the player's belly. "Up, Little Tod, the feast grows stale."

  Little Tod swallowed a snore and looked around him wildly. Upright but still confused, he said, "Is there trouble?"

  "Anon, I think," the chief player replied, his voice low.

  The men stumbled to their feet and walked unsteadily toward the table where Saltmarsh and Samuel Peacham had finished their quarrel and collapsed.

  Will said, " 'Tis time to bid our host good night and leave, Samuel. We've taken his meat and drink and more

  than we deserved, though we shall thank him nonetheless and pray he think kindly on us when we next pass this way."

  Samuel did not respond, but moaned softly; Saltmarsh looked up vaguely, his eyes red with drink. Little Tod began to help Samuel Peacham to his feet, and then he and Will helped cany the still unconscious player from the chamber. They stopped at the kitchen, where Big Tod had gone earlier with the Welsh girl.

  Will called out at the door. " 'Tis time to bid good night, friend. Say thanks to the wench, for 'twill be some time before we pass this way again."

  From the corner of the kitchen came a rustle of clothing and muffled oaths. Will called out again, this time in a more commanding voice. Then Big Tod responded from the comer, "I come, friends; pray leave me but a moment more, for I would learn this Welsh before I die."

  Will swore under his breath and motioned to Little Tod to move forward. Though he was slight of build, Samuel Peacham was all dead weight; unconscious, he would give them no help, and the men had trouble getting him down the stone steps into the courtyard. There, Will could see Sir Henry's servants had loaded their wagon. He and Little Tod strained to get the unconscious player aboard. Then Little Tod went to the stable for their horse while Will mounted the driver's seat, musing upon the night's business. Within a few minutes Big Tod came bounding down the steps, exuberantly awake and grinning. Will wanted to hear about the girl, but now he was tired and not a little disgusted, although he was not sure about what. Big Tod's story would have to wait until tomorrow. When Little Tod returned with the horse, they hitched it to the wagon in silence. Then Will
let out one last mouth-filling oath, and the wagon moved forward while great clouds of night covered and uncovered the moon.

  Her hair was auburn, thick like his own, and it framed a delicate face with wide-set eyes, thin nose, small mouth. She spoke softly in a voice thick with her Welsh, but an English nonetheless he would readily hear. That is why when Gwen had asked him if he would help her with the tray of plates he had not hesitated to follow her to the kitchen, the cooks having gone to bed an hour before.

  When she invited him to sit with her, Big Tod readily consented, settling with her by the fire.

  She said, "You are wondrous strong."

  "Aye, it helps if there's man's work to be done."

  "Or maid's, 'twould appear," she said with a lilt in her voice.

  "My father was a carpenter," he began, "but I could not abide the work. I went to London when I was no more than twelve and found mischief enough."

  Gwen poured more of the malmsey for them both and said, "I am from the west country. My mother and father are dead. I've but one sister, married now. We never got along. I'm best here."

  "It must be a great thing to serve so grand a lady. Does she treat you well? "

  "Aye, she does that, although every now and then she speaks sharply and calls me slut. Yet God knows I'm honest."

  He looked at her directly. "You're fair. Does Sir Henry leave you be?"

  She looked up at the question, then suppressed a giggle. "He? Well, he might leave a poor girl of his house be when he has such others to do his bidding."

  Interested, Big Tod said, "And who might such ladies be? I should think a woman such as his lady would hold any man to continence."

  "She's cold to him," the Welsh girl replied, shaking her head.