The Shakespeare Mask

by Newton Frohlich

  “I love disguises,” Arthur said.

  “What’s the name of Smith’s estate?” Margery asked.

  “Ankerwycke.”

  “Does he have a wife?”

  “He does.” Again, Arthur patted his stepsister’s hand. “Why don’t you write her a letter? I’ll take it with me.” He turned to Earl John. “Cecil says his wife brought good property to the marriage, a place he’s renovating not far from here. Smith intends to move in as soon as Elizabeth’s queen.”

  Margery looked hopeful, but Earl John shook his head.

  “I don’t want Edward living in Essex till Bloody Mary’s off the throne. Safer that way.”

  A tall man of about eighteen with dark brown hair falling over his forehead stepped into the hall.

  “Here’s Lewyn.”

  Earl John watched William Lewyn stride toward the trestle table.

  “God’s blood, I like that boy. Nothing intimidates him, not even me.” He took a sip of wine and squeezed Arthur’s shoulder. “You know, I haven’t thanked you enough for your efforts. I think Edward and Smith will get along just fine.”

  “Earl John, you don’t have to thank me. Arranging the education of someone as brilliant as Edward is a privilege.”

  O wonderful, wonderful,

  And most wonderful

  Wonderful, and yet again

  Wonderful, and after that,

  Out of all hoping!

  Shakespeare

  As You Like It

  On a cold January morning, five-year-old Edward rode toward Ankerwycke, the twenty-room brick manor house surrounded by acres of pastureland and woods owned by Sir Thomas Smith. Edward sat in the saddle in front of William Lewyn. His legs too short to reach the stirrups, he leaned against Lewyn’s wiry frame to keep his balance.

  “My boy,” Arthur said, riding to his left, “Sir Thomas is a self-made man, something you’ve not experienced before.”

  “What’s a self-made man?”

  “His father was a farmer. Sir Thomas left home when he was twelve, went to Cambridge on a scholarship, took a first in everything, went to Italy, studied at the University of Padua, and when he returned he was placed in charge of Eton, the high school for young men like you. At court, people noticed him.”

  Thomas Fowle nudged his horse closer. Edward liked his redheaded Latin tutor, a good teacher who smiled a lot.

  “Understand all that, Edward?”

  “Most of it.”

  Fowle laughed. “You don’t miss much, do you?”

  “I like stories.”

  Arthur touched Edward’s shoulder. “He can’t pronounce the words correctly until he’s heard them spoken, but he always knows the meaning.”

  Edward ran his fingers through his curly brown hair and straightened in the saddle. Ahead, Ankerwycke’s gate was open. Earl John always said every gate must be locked.

  Arthur raised his hand and the three horsemen halted.

  “My boy, before you stands your home for the next few years. That river sparkling in the sun is the Thames. Across the water is Windsor, the only palace with a heating system worth the name. And downriver are the spires of St. Paul’s Cathedral. When Bloody Mary no longer tortures our land, we’ll visit London.”

  “Promise?”

  Arthur smiled. “Promise.”

  By the time they crossed the last field, it was midday. An elderly servant who’d been taking in the sun in front of the house led them inside to a long wooden stairway. Halfway up, he stopped and turned to face Edward, who saw he was missing some teeth.

  “My lord, your room’s next to the one occupied by Sir Thomas’s father. He’s dying, so keep your voice down. A man about to meet his maker needs quiet.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Edward quickened his pace as they passed that room. He’d seen animals die but never a person. He turned and looked for Arthur, but neither he nor Fowle were in sight. Lewyn squeezed his shoulder.

  “Your uncle and Fowle are sleeping at the other end of the hall.”

  Edward followed the servant to his room. Lewyn unpacked his bag—which didn’t take long—and handed him fresh clothes. He was washing his face when Fowle came in.

  “Sir Thomas is in his laboratory, distilling medicines.”

  Lewyn winked, bowed, and swept the door open. He took Edward’s hand, and together they followed Fowle to Sir Thomas’s library.

  They found Arthur already there.

  “Look, my boy! Look!”

  Bookcases packed with leather-bound tomes lined the walls, floor to ceiling.

  Edward smiled. Upstairs he’d felt homesick but kept it to himself—Earl John said boys don’t cry. This, though—this was a wonderful place. There must be a thousand stories here. And he was getting pretty good at learning to read on his own. Last night, Aesop’s Fables.

  “This collection is the largest I’ve seen outside of Oxbridge,” Arthur said.

  Edward looked around the room. Bookshelves were everywhere, even over the doorways and beneath the windows, and framed maps hung in the few places where there weren’t any. An oak desk and a tall red leather armchair were by the window, a round table covered in books in the center of the room.

  Beneath the table, on a red Turkish carpet, he spied a tabby cat and a flop-eared spaniel snuggled close as kittens. Eyes wide, the animals stared at him. He stared back. Maybe they could be his friends.

  “Fasti.” Arthur took a red leather book from a shelf and pointed to the gold letters on the binding. “It was written by Ovid—you’re going to love Ovid.” He replaced the book and wandered along the shelves, Edward’s hand still in his. “Plautus, Juvenal, Horace, Lucretius, Cicero, Saint Augustine … you’ll love them all.” Arthur’s voice rose with excitement as he pointed to book after book. “Caesar, Chaucer, Homer, Josephus, Heliodorus, Livy, Plutarch, Seneca, Virgil, Apuleius, Castiglione!” He stopped. “I take it back. You’re not going to love them, you’re going to need them.”

  Fowle inspected the shelves on the other side of the room.

  “He’s got books on everything from philosophy and history to astronomy and astrology … angling, poetry, Welsh and Danish customs.”

  Arthur resumed his stroll along the shelves, Edward by his side.

  “My boy, our work’s cut out for us. Most of these books are in Greek and Latin, the rest in French and Italian. Few books are translated into English. It’ll take years to—”

  “Arthur, the printing press is only a hundred years old,” Fowle said. “Give us time.”

  “I know, but in the meantime this young man will soak up languages like a sponge! Then he can read each work in its original language.”

  “It’ll be fun,” Edward said. Lewyn smiled, and Edward smiled back.

  Fowle reached for a book. “Here’s Aesop’s Fables. You were reading that last night.”

  “I liked it a lot,” Edward said.

  Arthur laughed. “When I was five it was my favorite, too.”

  Edward’s gaze moved from shelf to shelf. At Hedingham, Earl John had taught him to ride and hunt and then promised to teach him how to fence and use a spear so he could compete in the tournaments. But Edward had never seen his father read a book. “By the time you’re twenty-one,” Earl John had said, “you’ll know everything you need to take your place in Parliament, manage our properties, and read law at the Inns of Court.” He’d never mentioned this—all these stories, all these subjects, all these languages. Edward ran a hand over one of the volumes—it felt wonderful.

  Arthur plucked a book from a stack on the table and opened it. Edward moved closer and saw a portrait of a man in a suit of armor.

  “My boy, that’s the Duke of Urbino. This is an engraving of his portrait painted by Titian, an artist who lives in Venice.”

  “Who was the duke?”

  “I don’t know much about him except he was murdered. Someone poured poison in his ear.”

  “Who?”

  “Luigi Gonzaga.”

&nbs
p; “Why?”

  “You know, I’m not sure—but we’ll find out, won’t we?”

  He turned to the maps on the walls. Other maps lay in frames on the floor and leaned against bookshelves. More were rolled up and jammed into a wooden umbrella stand.

  “Sir Thomas knows the explorers, sailors, and mathematicians who made these maps,” he said. “ In Windsor, there must be a hundred paintings of things explorers brought back from their voyages—animals, birds, people. When it’s safe, Sir Thomas will take you to see them.”

  Safe. Earl John said Queen Mary was Catholic—just like him and his father. But his mother’s family was Protestant. He wondered if Arthur and Fowle were Protestants, too. Were they afraid? He was about to ask when a brown-bearded man with a big nose entered the room.

  “Sir Thomas,” Arthur said, “please forgive us for intruding. Your servant instructed us to come here. I’m Arthur Golding, and this young man is my nephew, milord Edward de Vere.”

  Edward extended his hand.

  “Milord,” Sir Thomas said, “I regret I was unable to greet you when you arrived. I was in bed with my wife. It’s that time of month.” He turned to the others. “I’m determined to beget a son like this fine fellow. My efforts seem hopeless, but still we halek.”

  “What’s halek?” Edward whispered to Fowle as soon as Sir Thomas walked to his desk.

  “Later,” Fowle said, his face red.

  Sir Thomas looked over. “Milord, when I was provost of Eton I developed a pedagogical technique I’m eager to try out on young nobles such as yourself.”

  “What’s a pedagogical technique?”

  “A teaching technique. I want you to meet people who write and think about important matters, so they’ll inspire you to write and think, too. I’ll explain more about it when it’s time for you to meet them. For now, let’s take lunch. Tomorrow we’ll begin.”

  And begin he did. He’d learned his numbers and he could read, but Sir Thomas taught him so much more—about the world of nature, the medicines he made in his laboratory, and all the languages Edward could imagine: French, Italian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English.

  Sir Thomas also encouraged him to write. Edward liked the stories he was learning in Italian, so he made up one about an Italian girl and a boy his age. They liked each other, but one family was Protestant and the other Catholic, so their families were sworn enemies.

  “It’s hard for someone your age to write about love,” Sir Thomas said. “It might go easier if you model your characters after people you know.”

  Writing distracted Edward from thoughts of home and his father. On the ride from Hedingham, he hadn’t been able to imagine life without him—Earl John was everywhere, even in his dreams. But Sir Thomas gave him new dreams, and little by little he was getting used to life at Ankerwycke. Still, he couldn’t wait to visit Hedingham and tell Earl John everything he was learning.

  “Edward, your first guest is about to arrive,” Sir Thomas told him one morning when he was reading in the library. “Listen carefully and answer all his questions. Mr. Digges is a mathematician. If he likes you, he’ll bring his grandson the next time he comes here.”

  The meeting must have gone well, because Mr. Digges returned the next day with his grandson, whom he called Junior. He was five years older than Edward, who was now eight, but they became friends—a rare experience for Edward. On the few occasions when a boy from some neighboring village had visited Hedingham, he’d always called Edward “milord.” Junior didn’t—he said Sir Thomas had told him not to.

  “Edward, do you know how to skip pebbles on the water?”

  “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  They explored the bank of the Thames, skipping pebbles on the river and talking nonstop. They rode ponies Sir Thomas kept for him. One day after they returned to the stables, they threw themselves on the grass to rest while Lewyn took the horses inside.

  “Last night my grandfather told me something,” Junior said. “Two things, actually. He said people used to think the earth was the center of everything and the sun went around it, but a Polish astronomer in Italy—or maybe an Italian astronomer in Poland?—anyway, he said no, it’s the earth that goes around the sun.”

  “Well, he was right.”

  “Mathematicians and astronomers said he was right and told him to put what he discovered in a book, but he refused. He said if he put it in a book, the rulers would kill him, because if the earth isn’t the center of everything, then they wouldn’t be as important.”

  “Some grownups are stupid.”

  “I know. Grandfather says a lot of people are, especially the ones in charge.”

  “What happened to the astronomer?” Edward plucked a piece of grass and chewed on it.

  “He waited until he was dying, then he put his idea in a book. That way, they couldn’t hurt him.”

  “What if people never found out he discovered the idea?”

  “Grandfather said if you have courage like Copernicus, and you’re lucky—”

  “And die before they find out?” Edward laughed.

  “Right!” Digges, laughed too. “Everything will turn out for the best.”

  Another guest was Bartholomew Clerke, a Greek and Latin scholar Sir Thomas knew from at Eton. Bartholomew was studying at Cambridge, and Edward looked forward to his visits because he told the funniest stories. He said he got all his stories from Italy, where actors played them out right on the street.

  “Edward, I’m translating some of the Italian books I brought back into Latin.”

  “Sir Thomas said I have to master Latin before I take my seat in Parliament, and so I can study law at the Inns of Court.”

  “You also have to master French. All debates in Parliament are in French.”

  Bartholomew’s visits were a perfect opportunity to practice languages, and Edward followed him around like a puppy.

  “I want to write stories someday,” he said, “just like the ones you tell me.”

  “Is that so?” Bartholomew smiled. “And what kind of stories will you write?”

  “Something funny,” he said. “They don’t laugh enough around here.”

  Edward’s most frequent but least favorite visitor was Sir William Cecil. Sir Thomas and Cecil had been classmates at Cambridge and spoke to one another like brothers. Cecil acted like he knew everything, but he wasn’t wise like Sir Thomas. Edward loved Sir Thomas. He didn’t see how anyone could love Cecil.

  “Edward,” Sir Thomas said, “I was never able to get along with Queen Mary. But Cecil knows how to talk to her. I resent his ability to do what I can’t, but I’m also in awe of him.”

  “How can you like and not like a man at the same time?”

  “Most people have at least two sides to them. Your job is to find out on which side their heart feels most at ease.”

  Many a morning Sir Thomas woke Edward before dawn and they went hawking in the fields with Lewyn.

  Sir Thomas and Lewyn would take a portable perch and several hawks to the field and attach leather leg straps and bells to the legs, tail, or neck. To keep the birds quiet, they placed a hood on the head.

  “How old do they have to be before you can train them?”

  “They can be taken from the nest or as fully adult haggards.”

  “What’s a haggard?”

  “A wild female hawk captured after it has plumage. We train it on a long line to fly to our glove for food, then increase the distance. When the hawk responds from a hundred yards, we know we can trust it to fly free.”

  “I’d like to read about it.”

  “Good boy.” Sir Thomas beamed. “I have a copy of a treatise written by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. He lived three hundred years ago, but it’s still the foundation of falconry.” He executed a formal bow in the direction of a bird standing all alone. “Edward, permit me to introduce you to my favorite peregrine. I call her Elizabeth.”

  “Why Elizabeth?�
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  “Because she’s the one female I’ve never been able to tame.”

  That night, Edward used what he’d learned about training hawks in writing a story but applied it to a man training his wife. Usually he showed Sir Thomas whatever he’d written, but he decided to keep this story to himself. It had been inspired by Sir Thomas and his wife.

  During the four years he’d lived at Ankerwycke, Sir Thomas always complained about his wife’s inability to become pregnant. Fowle said it wasn’t Philippa’s fault, and Edward could understand that. But somehow Sir Thomas couldn’t. As kind as Sir Thomas was to him, he treated Philippa as if she were a haggard.

  “I’m taking you on a trip,” Sir Thomas announced one morning. Lewyn saddled horses for the three of them—Fowle was coming, too—and they rode toward Essex.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To Hill Hall, the house I’m renovating. Earl John doesn’t want you to live there yet, so our visit will be brief. But you won’t be afraid, will you?”

  “Why would I be afraid?”

  “A lot of the people Queen Mary burned lived in Essex.”

  Edward was quiet, but as they neared Hill Hall he looked for smoke. Once he thought he smelled burning flesh, but he never saw anyone on fire.

  At last Sir Thomas pointed to a large manor house. When he dismounted there was a smile on his face.

  “I’m going to need those rooms for all my future children.” His smile slipped a little as he looked at Edward. “Come. Let’s look round.”

  Sir Thomas took him to Hill Hall often after that. The best visits were in springtime, when the fields of saffron walden bathed the manor house in the glow of yellow blossoms.

  When Edward was nine years old, Sir Thomas invited him and Fowle down to his library for some important news.

  “Edward, Queen Mary’s dying. When she leaves this world, her stepsister Elizabeth will become queen. Elizabeth’s promised to appoint my friend Cecil as her chief adviser, and since Cecil promised to arrange a position for me at court, I have a plan for you. Fowle, pull that chair closer.”