Shakespeare's Spy

by Gary Blackwood

  I shuddered to think what effect her passing might have on England, which had known no other monarch for nearly half a century, and on our professsion in particular. What would become of us poor players when we no longer had her powerful presence standing like a breakwater between us and the swelling tide of Puritans? At that moment I had an inkling of how the Admiral’s Men must have felt when the stage gave way beneath their feet.

  2

  Every member of the company was, I think, unnerved by having Her Majesty so close at hand. But we were accustomed to adversity. After all, we had acted in inn yards while the ostlers led horses back and forth; we had put up with conceited wights who took seats upon the stage in order to be seen; we had been pelted by hazelnuts and leather beer bottles when we failed to please our audience.

  Though our performance before the queen was not the best we had ever given, neither was it the worst. We recalled a reasonable percentage of our lines, and for those we forgot, we usually substituted something fairly sensible. We even managed to remove the king’s deadly fistula and give it to poor Lafeu.

  By the time we took our bows, it was past midnight, and we were, to a man, exhausted. Luckily the next day was Sunday, which meant we could sleep late. Ordinarily I went to morning services at St. Saviour’s, along with Mr. Pope and the orphaned children who shared our household. All Her Majesty’s subjects were, in fact, required to attend church, or risk paying a substantial fine. But when I woke, it was nearly noon. Mr. Pope, as I later learned, had taken pity on me and told the priest that I was indisposed.

  I scarcely had time to eat before Sam and Sal Pavy came to fetch me for our Sunday outing. In truth, after six long days in the constant company of my fellow players, I would have welcomed a bit of solitude. But I also welcomed the opportunity to see something new, and it was not the best idea to go wandering about London alone, especially those parts of London that appealed most to us.

  Though Sam was not the most reliable or the most responsible member of the Chamberlain’s Men, he could be a good companion—provided he was expected to be neither serious nor silent. I had even learned to like Sal Pavy to some degree. Well, perhaps like is too strong a word. There were things I liked about him: he was talented; he was dedicated; he was determined. He was also vain, quarrelous, and ungrateful. But one of our many duties as prentices was to keep peace among ourselves. So I did my best to overlook his numerous and glaring faults and appreciate his few feeble virtues.

  He and Sam and I got along well enough. Still, I could not imagine us ever truly being friends, in the way that I had been friends with our other prentices, Sander and Julia. It had been six months since the plague claimed Sander, but the thought of his death still made me feel as though I had been struck soundly in the ribs with a blunted sword, and not a day passed that I did not think of it.

  Julia had not gone to paradise, only to Paris, where she could fulfill her desire to be a player. But there was little hope that she would return, unless the queen suddenly declared that women would henceforth be allowed to act upon the London stage.

  Her Majesty was as likely to do that as a gib-cat was to sing sweetly. Though she might ignore the protests of the Puritans, she listened closely to the voice of the common people. And their voice said unmistakably that though any woman was free to watch a criminal get his neck stretched on Tyburn Tree or a toothless bruin be savaged by dogs in the bear-baiting ring, or to dress in rags and beg for alms in the street, or to sell her favors to men for a farthing, she must not be corrupted by taking part in a play.

  I had not lost touch with Julia altogether. Every few months a French sailor turned up bearing a letter from her. These were usually brief and disappointingly impersonal, devoted mainly to what roles she was playing at the Théâtre de Marais. But now and again she let slip some line that made me suspect she was not as happy with her lot as she would have us think. The letters I sent in return were as carefully cheerful as hers; if she was pining for home, I had no wish to make her burden heavier by reminding her of how much she was missed.

  Though the premature winter had hurt our company’s profits, in the city as a whole commerce seemed unaffected. Shopkeepers went on displaying their goods in the street before their shops; St. Paul’s churchyard still swarmed with vendors and buyers; beggars still pleaded with passersby on every corner; ballad-mongers and sellers of broadsheets still waved their printed wares aloft and called or sang out enough of their contents to whet the appetite for more; and we prentices, on the one day of the week that we could call our own, still strolled through the streets, looking for an excuse to part with a bit of our weekly wage of three shillings.

  Sam, the most daring among us, usually led the way, and Sal Pavy and I were content to follow after. On most Sundays, he led us first to the area of St. Paul’s churchyard where the agents of the royal lottery had their booths. And on most Sundays I tried to talk him out of it.

  “You ken, do you not, that these wights must sell half a million chances at the least. That means the likelihood of you winning even one of the fourteen-shilling prizes is … um …”

  “One in fifty,” put in Sal Pavy.

  I cast him a peevish look. “I was about to say that.”

  “No,” said Sam, “it’s one in twenty-five.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Because I intend to buy two chances.”

  “At a shilling each? You noddy! If you kept the two shillings instead, you could save up the same amount in—” I held up a restraining hand in front of Sal Pavy’s smirking face. “Don’t tell me. Seven weeks.”

  “Very good, young man,” said Sal Pavy, in a schoolmasterish voice.

  Sam made a scoffing sound. “You don’t really imagine that I’d be content with fourteen shillings, do you? I’ve got my eye on the big prize.” He leaned forward, his eyes wide, and whispered as though it were a secret known only to him, “Five … thousand … pounds!” Sal Pavy and I burst into laughter, but Sam was unperturbed. “Go ahead and laugh, like the clap-brained coystrels that you are; I care not a quinch. You know what they say: Let him laugh that wins the prize. You see, I’ve been told that I am to win, and very soon.”

  “Ah!” Sal Pavy said. “He’s been told! That’s different!”

  “Told?” I said. “By whom?”

  “By a soothsayer.”

  “You mean”—I lowered my voice—”a witch?“ Where I came from, witches were not openly discussed, for fear one of them might overhear.

  “No, just a cunning woman.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know,” Sal Pavy said. “Someone who finds lost valuables, and tells your future, and so on.”

  “Oh. I thought the city had a law against practicing that sort of thing.”

  “It does. It also has laws against cutpurses and moneylenders—and, if it comes to that, against performing plays within the city limits.”

  “How does it work, then?” I asked Sam, still half whispering.

  “What?”

  “How does she tell your future?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, exactly. She has this ball, made of something black and shiny, and she stares into it.”

  “And it tells her the future? I’d like to see that.”

  “Well, come on, then.” Sam strode off abruptly, heading west on Fleet Street.

  Sal Pavy was staring at me rather contemptuously. “Surely you don’t believe in all that?”

  “Not really,” I replied softly. “But it’s got him away from the lottery, hasn’t it?” I hurried after Sam, calling, “You might wait for us!” The last word, though it was but one syllable, covered two octaves, for my voice broke, as it had been doing lately with alarming frequency.

  Sam turned back with a mischievous grin on his face. “Was that your voice cracking, or were you attempting to yodel?”

  “Neither,” I said sourly. “I’m—I’m coming down wi’ something, I wis.” To support my contention, I coughed a few times, the sa
me pitiful cough I sometimes used on the stage when dying of a chest wound.

  “A likely tale,” put in Sal Pavy. “I can spot a cracked voice as easily as a cracked coin.” He directed an aside to Sam. “Have you noticed he has little hairs sprouting from his chin as well?”

  “Nay!” I protested, feeling my jaw. “I got them all, I’m sure—”

  Sam snickered. “So, you’ve been doing a bit of plucking, have you?” He reached out and gave my face a pat in supposed sympathy. “Poor babby. Did it hurt?”

  I knocked his hand aside. “You two striplings are envious of me manliness, that’s all.”

  “Envious, is it?” Sam said. “Much!”

  “Striplings, is it?” Sal Pavy stood next to me and pulled himself up to his maximum height. “I’m nearer to fully grown than you by a good three inches!”

  “Oh, aye,” I replied. “Only most of it is hair.” Sam and I had taken to cropping our costards closely so that the wigs we donned for our female roles would go on and off more easily. But Sal Pavy refused to part with his golden locks, which were so abundant that he could scarcely contain them beneath his woolen prentice’s cap.

  “You know, I do believe Widge is gaining on you, though,” said Sam. “And small wonder. Did you notice how many helpings of beans he shoveled in last night at supper?”

  “No,” said Sal Pavy, “but I noticed them later.” He pinched his nose and made a face.

  I gave him a look of mock reproach and clucked my tongue. “Master Pavy, I seem to recall when you were too refined to speak of such vulgar matters.”

  His cheeks, already ruddy from the cold, turned a brighter shade of red. “That was before I fell under such bad influences,” he murmured.

  “Talking of food,” I said, “I’m hungry as a hawk. Let’s find a sweetmeat seller.”

  Sam rubbed his gloveless hands together. “A roasted-potato seller, more like. Anyway, you’ve got to wait until we’ve seen the cunning woman.”

  As we continued along Fleet Street and passed through Ludgate, Sam and Sal Pavy went on talking, but I was occupied with my own thoughts. Though I had managed to brush off their jests concerning my chin hairs and my uncertain voice, secretly I considered them no laughing matter. Rather, they seemed to me an unsettling omen, a reminder that I could not go on playing girls’ parts forever.

  In terms of physical development, I had always lagged well behind most boys my age—thanks, no doubt, to a lack of proper nourishment. Now that I was provided with good food and all I cared to eat of it, my body seemed bent on making up for lost time. For an ordinary wight, this was a source of pride, a sign of approaching manhood. But I was no ordinary wight; I was a player, and any pride I felt was overshadowed by a sense of apprehension.

  I had been assured by other members of the company—and even by the queen herself—that I was a capable actor. In most of the parts I was praised for, though, I was impersonating a girl. It wasn’t that I minded doing female roles; I was only acting, after all. But I could not shake the nagging fear that once my voice deepened and my beard began to show, the company might no longer have any use for me.

  I half hoped that the cunning woman truly could see into the future. Perhaps she could give me some hint of what lay in store for me so that I might either put my mind at ease or else prepare for the worst—and I could not imagine a fate much worse than being turned out of the only family I knew, or had ever known.

  Sal Pavy was asking Sam what he meant to do with the five thousand pounds he had been assured of winning. Sam ignored the snide quality of the question. “Actually,” he said, “I’ve given that a good deal of thought. I believe I’ll buy a ship.”

  “A ship?“ I said.

  He nodded smugly. “A big three-master. I’ll sail her to India and return with a hold full of spices and silk. I’ve always wanted to go to sea.”

  “Oh, aye,” I said. “That’s why you prenticed to an acting company.”

  “Well, I wasn’t old enough to be a sailor, and it seemed like more fun than sweeping chimneys or tanning hides.”

  Sal Pavy gave him a disparaging look. “What a good reason to go into the theatre.”

  “Is there a better reason?”

  I thought of Julia, and how desperate she had been to be a player. “Because you love it?” I suggested.

  He shrugged. “It’s all right. But doesn’t it ever strike you that there’s something a bit odd about what we’re doing? I mean, if you think about it, we’re not really doing anything, are we? We’re just pretending to do things. Sometimes I could do with a bit less acting and a bit more action, that’s all.”

  We crossed the stone bridge that spanned Fleet Ditch. Though it lay outside the walls, Salisbury Court was still part of the city proper, and it had its share of legitimate businesses—taverns, printers, booksellers. But it was also headquarters for a considerable number of less respectable concerns—bawdy puppet shows, sleight-of-hand artists, palm readers, astrologers, and the like.

  Sam led us to a tattered, grimy tent set back a few yards from the edge of the road. Before it stood a folding wooden sign that bore no words, only a crude and rather unsettling painting of a huge eye, with rays of what was presumably meant to be light shooting out from it in all directions.

  I had rarely seen Sam appear anything but cheerful and cocky, even in those moments when we stood behind the stage waiting to go on, and when I was trying hard to hold down my dinner. But now he was clearly a bit out of square. He seemed to find it necessary to screw up his courage a bit before he called, in a voice that might have been more steady, “Madame La Voisin?”

  There was no reply. Sam glanced at us rather sheepishly, shrugged, and called out more loudly, “Madame La Voisin?”

  A low, hoarse voice from within commanded, “Be silent, fool!”

  Clearly startled, Sam took a step backward, treading on my foot. “Sorry. She—she must be in the midst of a reading already.”

  “Perhaps we should just go,” I suggested, feeling not a little uneasy myself now.

  “No, no!” Sam said heartily, and then, glancing toward the tent, spoke more softly. “It’s all right. It’ll be worth the wait, you’ll see.”

  3

  We stood shivering in the cold for several minutes before the flap of the tent lifted and a woman emerged. She looked utterly out of place here, with her richly embroidered gown, her starched neck ruff, and her elegantly coiffured hair. Lifting her skirts a little, she brushed past us, leaving a sweet scent from her pomander hanging in her wake.

  “I take it,” said Sal Pavy, “that was not Madame La Voisin.”

  “No.” Sam lifted the flap and motioned us inside. The interior of the tent was dim, and so thick with acrid smoke that I could scarcely see, let alone breathe.

  “Be seated,” said the same rasping voice we had heard before. Stifling a cough, I eased myself onto a rickety three-legged stool. Sam sat on the one remaining stool. Sal Pavy stood just inside the tent flap, shifting about restlessly, as though ready to make a run for it if necessary.

  When my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I could make out a hunched figure whose head was swathed in a number of dirty, moth-eaten scarves. On her hands were a pair of equally soiled kid gloves with the fingertips cut off, allowing the ends of her fingers to protrude. When I wiped my stinging eyes, I could see that her knuckles were clustered with a multitude of small warts.

  On the wooden table before her, cradled between her palms, was a surprisingly clean cloth that concealed something spherical. On the ground next to her sat a black iron kettle—the source of the smoke that threatened to suffocate me. I leaned forward and peered into the cauldron, half expecting to find some eldritch brew of newts’ eyes and adders’ tongues, but saw only glowing chunks of Newcastle coal, with no purpose more sinister than to warm the tent.

  La Voisin’s hoarse voice issued again from the folds of her several scarves. “And what do you young ladies wish of me?”

  Sam gave a fee
ble laugh. “Ladies? We’re no ladies, madame.”

  “Perhaps not today,” she replied slyly. “But sometimes, yes?”

  Sam glanced my way and lifted his eyebrows slightly. “How did you know?”

  “It is my business to know things.”

  “Could you—could you tell our futures, then?” When La Voisin made no answer, Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat and seemed about to repeat the question. Then the soothsayer laid one of her hands on the table, palm up. “Oh.” Sam dug in his purse for a penny, which he dropped into her worn glove.

  “I have told your fate before,” La Voisin said. Then she pointed a finger in my direction. “I will tell his.” She laid aside the cloth, revealing a globe perhaps six inches across, fashioned from some substance that was black as coal; it had been polished until it gleamed darkly, like the pupil of an enormous eye.

  She stared into the ball for a long while. Finally she spoke, in a tone so bleak and ominous that it made me shudder. “I see,” she said, “that you will come into a fortune.”

  Sam’s face took on a look of surprise and indignation. “That’s the same thing you told me!”

  “Not so,” said La Voisin. “What I said was, ‘You will receive more money than you imagine.’”

  “That’s the same thing, isn’t it?” When the cunning woman made no reply, he fished out another coin and clapped it into her palm. “Tell mine again.”

  “As you wish.” While she peered into the ball, I sat weighing the words she had directed at me. A fortune? How could I possibly come into a fortune? I could hardly inherit it. My mother had died in the poorhouse, and I had no notion who my father was. Perhaps, as Sam implied, the cunning woman gave more or less the same prediction to everyone. After all, folk were more likely to come back, and to bring their friends, if she told them what they wanted to hear.

  La Voisin lifted her head but said nothing. “Well?” Sam prompted her.