Death of Kings

by Philip Gooden

  It was the boy-player Martin Hancock who twitted me about a woman he’d noticed among the audience standing next to the stage.

  “I tell you, Nicholas, she was much moved by your plight as Quentin. She was all eyes for you, deserted by your lover in favour of that rich old man.”

  While I was pleased enough to be told that I had touched a member of the audience, I did not quite believe young Master Hancock, particularly because it was he who’d played the faithless young Zanche in our Merry Old World.

  “You mean she was not looking at you,” I said.

  “Oh, her eye was for you and it was open,” said Hancock, deadpan in his double meanings.

  “The one in a scarlet dress, you mean?”

  “No, the one I mean was in something dark.”

  “Describe her more exactly.”

  “She was about my height,” he said, “and my colouring but deeper.”

  “Not fair then?”

  “No but certainly not foul neither.”

  “Well, Martin, I must thank you for seeking out opportunities for me, though I am well enough furnished already.”

  I was thinking of my Nell.

  “Then here comes another piece of furniture, Nick.”

  “What? Where?”

  “The woman I was talking about, the one who was ogling you.

  I turned round and glimpsed through the backs and shoulders of my fellows a slight figure making her way across the Tiring-house. It was the same woman I’d seen coming out of the Southwark doorway with WS that morning. This individual was no stranger to some of our company, however. She seemed to be handing out what looked like sweetmeats or confectionary, almost with the air of a mother rewarding good children. Then she approached Jack Horner and clasped him in a quite companionable way. Jack looked a little uncomfortable, as men sometimes do when they are accosted by a loved one at their place of work.

  “She is already spoken for, I think,” I said to Martin Hancock.

  Before he could think up some indecent reply we were interrupted by Jack, still in his costume. The dark woman followed him at heels.

  “Nick, Martin, my wife here is eager to meet Quentin and his Zanche.”

  Master Hancock affected a coy look while I bowed my head slightly, concealing my surprise that this dark-complexioned woman was his spouse. This added another, uh, layer to my glimpse of her and Master WS together.

  “Oh Zanche I know well enough, but I haven’t seen you before, have I?” she said to me.

  “I am newly with the Chamberlain’s . . . Mistress . . . Horner,” I said, wondering why Martin had pretended to me not to know who she was. “A matter of weeks only.”

  “I thought so. I would have remembered.”

  Her voice was not quite English. Thick and sweet, it seemed to come from down in her dark throat.

  “I hope you approved of our performance,” I said, meaning (naturally) my performance and wondering if it was true that this woman had been looking at me on stage in the manner which Martin had described.

  “Yes, although I am no great lover of comedy,” she said.

  “Isabella prefers the blood and guts and rhyming couplets of the old school,” said Jack, beginning to unfasten the points of his doublet.

  “Women often do,” I said airily, at the same time as the name of Isabella jingled in my head like a bell on a horse’s bridle. Is-a-bell-a. “It is the men who like true love and happy endings.”

  “And the players, what do you prefer?”

  “You should ask your husband. He’s been at this game longer than I have.”

  “It is quite straightforward. There is only one thing that players prefer, and that is whatever brings them profit,” said Jack Horner, now half out of his doublet. He moved away to complete his undressing and to hand his costume to the Tire-man. I had already surrendered my playing clothes. The tiring-house was thinning out. I gazed at Mistress Isabella Horner and she gazed at me. She had a closed, somehow elfish face, with a narrow chin and short, tangled locks of hair. There was something feline about her. Her eyes were as unreadable as a cat’s. Master Hancock had been right: she was about his height and colour. I was conscious of young Martin now, standing a little to one side of us and regarding us both. He had said nothing since Jack introduced his wife, but I had the uneasy feeling that he was storing up every word he heard, every glance he glimpsed between us, probably so as to disgorge them later with appropriate commentary among his ribald young peers.

  “But I ask you now . . . Nick . . . ?”

  “Revill. Ask me what?”

  “Master Revill, what is it you prefer? Blood and guts? Or happy endings?”

  “Happy endings are harder to play,” I said. “And I have noticed that the audience is sometimes more cheerful at the end of a tragedy than they are at a comedy.”

  “That is because the misery of others is often good to behold,” she said.

  “While their pleasure can be hard to watch,” I responded (since we were talking aphoristically).

  But now her fresh-faced, uncostumed husband returned.

  “Well, Nick, are you going to join us? Martin, you will for sure?

  “That depends on where you’re drinking.”

  We younger players often repaired to one of the many alehouses of Southwark after a performance.

  “No tavern, but the pit instead. My wife wishes to be taken there. In fact, I think she came to see the play today only so that we might go to the pit afterwards.”

  “Just as she is no great lover of comedy,” I said, conscious of sounding slightly priggish, “I do not much like the pit.”

  “Then you are no true Londoner, Master Revill,” said Mistress Horner.

  This might have been true but it still stung slightly.

  “It is Sackerson today,” said Jack. “Or is it Harry Hunks? I forget which.”

  “No matter,” said Mistress Horner, all eager to see some blood and guts. “Let’s hurry or they will begin without us.”

  So I and Martin Hancock together with the Horners made up the foursome that now left the Globe tiring-house. It was a fine late afternoon with a couple of hours of daylight left. The playhouse-goers had dispersed in their various directions; many eastwards to the Bridge or straight up to Bank End to catch a boat to the other side. Some were headed westward like us, and probably with the same destination in mind. The day’s pleasures were not yet exhausted; the night’s delights twinkled in the distance.

  The area around the theatre was criss-crossed with ditches, the contents of which – whether liquid or solid or something in between – rose and fell in languid agreement with the river. Because the bridges across them were narrow, hardly more than a few pieces of planking, we were compelled to travel single file.

  Jack Horner led the way across one such bridge with Martin in his wake. As Mistress Horner went ahead of me she slipped, or appeared to do so, and reached back to grasp hold of me. Instinctively, my own hand shot out to save her from the turdy trench. She fell back involuntarily, or seemed to do so, into my chest. At the same time her hands clasped tight hold of both of mine and brought them sharp up against her chest and – to speak a little more pointedly – into the direct region of a nice if diminutive pair of tits. Or so it seemed to me. At the same time, I couldn’t help – simply could not help, you understand – wondering whether Shakespeare had ever felt what I had just felt. Not Master Horner, for he obviously must have done, but Master WS.

  “Pardon, Master Revill,” she said, her voice deep and resonant in her throat. I said nothing. She took some time to regain her balance, and continued to cling close as we made our way across the tiny little bridge. Up ahead of us Master Horner was deep in conversation with young Hancock and hadn’t noticed how close to grief his wife had nearly come.

  “Thank you, Master Revill,” she said when we reached the safety of the far bank of the ditch (all of eight feet away from the other side). Her way of speaking was quite formal, at odds with the apparent
familiarity of her movements. Perhaps I’d been mistaken in thinking that she had stumbled deliberately. But she was slow to disengage herself from my grasp and, naturally, I was slow too to relinquish her. She might, after all, have been about to lose her footing once again and I did not want to put myself to the trouble of saving her twice.

  Our proximity emboldened me to say, “I have seen you before.”

  “I dare say you have,” she said, “although you’ve only been with the Chamberlain’s a few weeks.”

  “It was this very morning.”

  “Was it indeed?”

  “In Long Southwark.”

  “I know it.”

  I waited for some further comment, but none came (and indeed she owed me nothing).

  “You were with . . . a . . .”

  “A bear?” she said. “An ape I was with?”

  “No, neither of those,” I said. “Forgive me for prying.”

  The wooden walls of the Bankside bear-pit loomed up ahead of us. As usual, there was a crowd of loiterers and ne’er-do-wells milling about the entrance. I have always looked down on the crowd that attends the pit, considering that they are drawn by baser motives than the refined men and women who frequent the playhouse. This is high-minded and silly, because often they are one and the same, these men and women. I might also have remembered that the playhouses are recent settlers on these southern shores while the animal-baiting pits are so old as to be native to the ground. Why, the Bankside had been erected before the days of our Queen’s father!

  I hadn’t been exaggerating when I said to Mistress Horner that I had no great liking for the bear-pit or bear-garden. Yes, I’m aware this puts me in the same camp as the Puritans, who loathe everything which brings simple pleasure and excitement into the lives of Londoners. Even so, it can’t be helped. I don’t like the pit, and that’s that. I was keeping company with Jack and Martin for friendship, not for the delight of watching Sackerson or Harry Hunks or whichever beast happened to be bear of the day. And I was keeping company with my fellows to keep company with Mistress Horner, if you understand.

  When I ask myself why it is that I don’t like the sight and sound of the bears and bulls and other animals being tormented, I am forced to conclude that the reason lies with my narrow upbringing in the country. For this taught me that while the beasts of the field are ordained to suffer and endure for the good of humankind – did not God Himself give Adam dominion over them – they are not bound to die for our mere gratification. I know how green and squeamish this must sound. Even so, and you may call me soft-hearted if that’s your pleasure, I have detected in the narrow, pink eye of the bear, as it glances at the next wave of dogs to be unleashed against it, a kind of fear, a species of long-suffering, which would almost persuade one that it had feelings not so far removed from our own. And to see the crowd whoop and laugh and revel in the animal’s discomfiture, you might be forgiven for wondering sometimes which was the baser of God’s creations.

  We paid our pennies and climbed up two storeys into one of the galleries. I kept close behind Mistress Horner in case she should choose to tumble back down the stairs and into my arms. Once in the gallery we pushed forward, while Jack and Martin delayed to place their wagers. The blood and guts which the lady had been afraid we might miss hadn’t yet been spilled. The fights were often timed to begin soon after the end of the playhouse performances. There’s no sense, after all, in offering your audience simultaneous distractions.

  There was a deal of stinky, garlicky breath in the gallery, and much pushing and shoving and cursing. To my hostile eye the people here were definitely inferior to the quick, appreciative individuals who applauded us at the Globe. (Mind you, we were in the cheaper part of the bear-garden.) Even the golden air over the arena seemed to have taken on a reddish tinge, as if it had sucked up some of blood and slaver spilled there over the years.

  Mistress Horner was the most forward of our little group and reached the front first. In her eagerness to get there she pushed and cursed with the best of them. Once she’d gained the wooden barrier overlooking the pit, she grasped it as if fearful that someone was going to play the usurper on her. I was close at her heels. Gazing out and down from our high vantage point I saw rows of hungry, gaping faces. The beaten earth floor of the arena was stained dark in places. In the centre was a scarred wooden stake, well set into the solid ground. Mounds of rubbish lay against the brick walls at the base of the viewing galleries. Thick clouds of flies wove dirty nets around these mounds. Above all, there was the stench of the pit: a compound of blood and sweat, sun-heated fur and tobacco smoke, shit and fear and excitement.

  When the bear-wards led out the great brown beast to the stake in the centre of the ring, a mighty, deep-throated roar rose from the crowd. They were greeting an old friend. His name – “Stubbes!” – was called out with affection, with acclaim. Some of this same crowd would doubtless weep if he were to be mauled to death in the coming engagement. The muzzled Stubbes, secured round the neck by cords which were held firm on either side by two of the bear-wards, shambled on all fours towards the middle of the arena. A long chain also hung down from his neck and trailed clankingly along the ground with him. Stubbes was obviously an old hand at this business, knowing where he was meant to go, and taking the crowd’s cheers and shouts as no more than his due. On his flanks and shoulders were patches of lighter fur and even of exposed, raw-looking flesh which marked the wounds of earlier engagements.

  Once at the stake he was swiftly fastened to it by the chain. The muzzle remained in place. The bear-wards backed away. The crowd fell silent. My mouth was dry and I could feel my heart thudding in my chest. The bear stayed down on all four limbs, casting his head about a little from side to side. I could see his small eyes. He seemed to be scenting out the direction from which his danger might come.

  There was a yowling and yelping, then all at once four great dogs bounded out from a gate on the opposite side of the ring from where we were standing. This is the number that is usually loosed at the beginning of a baiting, the sport being to see how the bear will deal with an attack in force . . .

  Forgive me if I have not the appetite to describe the fight to you now. (It is, anyway outside my purpose here, which is to recount my early encounters with Isabella Horner.) Perhaps I will return to the pit on another occasion, and satisfy the desire that some of you no doubt possess to hear a bloody report.

  I will simply say that at the end of this engagement there lay five dogs, the original four having been reinforced; five dogs still or twitching in a rough circle about the bear and his stake. Two or three other curs slunk around the perimeter of the pit, their fighting mettle quite cowed by Stubbes the bear’s prowess and skill. Nothing – not words or blows, not the sticks or taunts of the bear-wards – could induce them to try their luck once more against the brown foe. Doubtless they might expect a good whipping that night to prepare them for the next session of baiting. Eventually they were called off.

  As for Stubbes . . . he was bloody and only a little bowed. He would live to fight another day. He would be carefully tended by the bear-wards, his wounds given time to heal, while word of his skill and ferocity was allowed to spread more widely through the liberties and suburbs in order that the crowd, and the money wagered, would be even greater next time.

  As for our little party . . . it was obvious that both Martin Hancock and Jack Horner had taken a little tumble on the outcome of the fight. Mistress Isabella Horner wasn’t interested in the wager or, perhaps fortunately for him, in how much money her husband might have thrown away. No, she was interested in the fight. Or, more precisely, she was interested in the blood and gore and slaver of it. As the battle progressed – as Stubbes slashed and tore at the flanks and bellies and muzzles of his persecutors – as they sometimes succeeded, against the odds, in leaving their teeth or claw marks on him – as the howling and the roaring of men, women and beasts rose to new heights – so too did Mistress Horner’s enthusiasm for
what she was witnessing scale fresh peaks. I knew this because, as I have said, I was crushed in from behind by the weight of the gallery crowd and so was pressed against the dark lady, willy nilly.

  This I did not wholly object to, for although she was quite short in stature, she was well-formed in a sinewy fashion. In the crush all were pressed against all. Nevertheless the lady shoved backwards in order to return my, as it were, involuntary push and continued to shove in a manner that was somehow both soft and hard. She was wearing a dark dress of some thin stuff. With that instantaneous and infallible instinct which Mother Nature has given us in such matters, I realised that she could feel and was responding to my own excitement. Not only my excitement at the mounting carnage down below in the arena but the stiffening of my member as she rubbed her buttocks against and around it in a churning motion.

  And all this while her husband and the boy-player were right next to us. But then the whole mob in our gallery was utterly distracted. Like every other compartment in the ring, they were intent on the bloody business among the beasts and were anyway shifting, shoving and shouting so much that they would probably have considered the last trump to be the tooting of a penny whistle. I have no doubt, either, that other encounters like that between Mistress Horner and myself were going on round the ring. In the crush of people and the oblivion of spilled blood (as long as it belongs to another) there is something which inflames the baser senses.

  Or so I persuaded myself afterwards, in the evening. I was not afflicted with the heart-heaviness that normally comes over me after a visit to a baiting. Instead I felt . . . well . . . full, even engorged. Luckily, Nell was keeping me company that night and I remember that she commented approvingly on my energy. Then, as Nell innocently slept, I penned a note to Isabella Horner, having already established as we left the bear-pit that she, unlike Nell, was able to read. What else would you expect of a lady who is to be seen in the company of William Shakespeare? Actually, if it hadn’t been for the way she had conducted herself towards me in the bear-garden I would have left her well alone, judging that she was most likely meat for greater men’s tables as well as being the spouse of a fellow-player.