Shakespeare's Spy

by Gary Blackwood

  “Whist!” I said softly. After making certain no one would overhear, I whispered, “‘A never turned up.”

  “Oh. He won’t be happy if we go without him.”

  “Then ‘a should ha’ been here. Besides, ‘a would only ha’ pestered us to cross over on th’ ice.”

  “It would be a good deal quicker than going by way of the bridge.”

  “Aye, and perhaps a good deal wetter as well. Now that the weather’s changed, th’ ice may begin breaking up at any time.”

  Sal Pavy gave me a smirking smile. “You sound a bit white-livered to me.”

  “I’m hot afeared, an that’s what you mean. I’m cautious, that’s all.”

  “Caution is but another name for fear.”

  “And daring is but another name for stupid.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. You cross the bridge, and I’ll cross the ice, and we’ll see which of us gets to Judith first.”

  I searched his face for some sign that he was jesting, and failed to find any. “You mean it?”

  “Of course.”

  He was clearly issuing a challenge, like the one I had issued several months earlier when I proposed an acting duel to determine who would play the part of Helena in All’s Well. If I ignored his dare and took the bridge, he would most likely follow. But suppose he did not? Even if I ran all the way to St. Olave’s, I might arrive to find him and Judith gone or, even worse, sharing a laugh over my foolish caution, which they would take for fear.

  Whether he was truly serious or only bluffing, I had no choice but to take up the gauntlet he had thrown. “All right, then,” I said, with a nonchalance that was badly damaged by my voice breaking. “Let’s be stupid—I mean, daring.”

  “Good.” Sal Pavy gestured toward the steps that led to the river. “After you.”

  “It was your idea,” I reminded him.

  He could not deny it. With his head held high, rather like a condemned man determined to make a good show on his way to the scaffold, he descended the stairs and, with a reluctance that was hardly visible, stepped onto the ice. He turned to me with a smug look, tinged with relief. “There, you see? It’s perfectly safe.”

  I had no doubt it would be, this close to shore, where the water was still. It was the part farther out, where the current flowed fastest beneath its frozen shell, that worried me. As we shuffled toward the middle of the river, I took some heart in the fact that a dozen or so wights were out there already, fishing through holes they had cut in the ice. Of course, we had no notion how many more had made holes through it without meaning to, and were now down there with the fish.

  “Sam will really be angry with us now, for going without him,” said Sal Pavy.

  “Assuming we survive, you mean.”

  When we had gone perhaps fifty yards, I began to notice dark patches here and there, where a pocket of air or a mass of floating debris had been trapped in the ice. Though I carefully detoured around these spots, Sal Pavy seemed to pay no attention to them—until he put his weight on one and the ice gave way like the trapdoor in our stage at the Globe, which could be used to send an evil villain plunging into the pit of hell.

  Sal Pavy’s cry of dismay was cut off as he dropped into the river and the water closed over his head. My instinct was to run headlong to his rescue; then my reason took over and told me that if I did, I might well join him instead. I flung myself onto my stomach and scuttled along like a crab until I reached the spot where he had fallen through. Sal Pavy had fought his way to the surface—within the circle of open water, luckily, and not beneath the ice—and was clinging with both hands to the crumbling edge of the hole, choking and coughing up water. Between spasms, he called out in a faint and trembling voice, “Widge! Help me!”

  I crept several inches nearer. I could hear the ice creaking under my weight, and expected a new chunk to break loose at any moment. “I’m here! Take my hand!”

  “I can’t! I daren’t let go!”

  “All right,” I said, as calmly as I could. “I’ll take yours, then.” I groped about until I located what I took to be one of his hands; it was hard to be sure, for it was as cold as the ice. I pushed myself forward another few inches and wrapped my fingers around his wrist. It was impossible to pull him to me though; I could get no purchase on the slick ice. “You’ll ha’ to climb up me arm.”

  “I can’t!” he gasped. “My cloak. Too heavy.”

  “Unfasten it wi’ one hand, then. I’ll keep hold of th’ other.”

  “Don’t let go!” he begged. For what seemed like a full minute or more I heard him thrashing about, trying to free himself from the waterlogged cloak. At last I felt his fingers clutch the sleeve of my shirt.

  “Get a good grip,” I said. “I’m going to let go of your other hand now.”

  “No!” he cried.

  “I must, Sal. You’ll need it to pull yourself out. The moment I let go, you grasp me arm. All right?”

  “I’ll try,” he said weakly.

  “Good.” I released my hold on his wrist. He slumped down in the water, and for a moment I thought I’d lost him. Then his other hand slithered forward and seized the fabric of my sleeve. With painful slowness, using me as his ladder, he dragged himself from the river and onto the ice.

  I let him lie there and recover a moment. Then I bent, draped one of his arms around my neck, and hoisted him to his feet. “Come along. We must get you indoors.” As soon as he could support himself, I took off my cloak and fastened it around him. “That may help a little.”

  Through chattering teeth, he murmured something I could not quite make out, but I believe it may have been “Thank you.” By the time we reached the stairs, he had warmed up a bit and was walking and speaking in a more or less normal fashion. He had also resumed his normal haughty attitude. “I can manage on my own from here,” he said.

  “Are you certain?”

  He waved a shaky hand at me. “Yes, yes. Besides, you need to meet Judith. She’ll be wondering what’s become of us.” He fumbled with the cords that tied the cloak together.

  “You may keep that for now,” I told him. “I’ll be warm enough.”

  He gave me a slight, stiff smile. “That may depend,” he said, “on what sort of mood she’s in.”

  I soon discovered that the air was not as warm as I had imagined. There was a stiff breeze off the river. To make matters worse, my doublet and breeches were wet from lying on the ice. Even though I walked briskly—across the bridge, this time—I was cold as a cellar stone before I reached St. Olave’s Church. The place was deserted—which was not surprising, considering how late I was.

  Wrapping my arms about myself, I hurried on to Mr. Shakespeare’s lodgings. I nearly wore the knocker out before anyone answered the door. To my disappointment, it was Mary Mountjoy. She regarded me quizzically, as though she felt she should know me but couldn’t think from where. “Yes? What is it?”

  So flustered was I at the prospect of seeing Judith, I could scarcely get the words out. “I—that is, we—that is, Mistress Shakespeare was to meet us. Me. At the church. But there’s no one at the church. So. Is she here?”

  “No, I’m afraid she’s gone.”

  “Gone?” I echoed dumbly. “Gone where?”

  “Why, to Stratford. She left half an hour ago.”

  23

  In a week so full of distressing developments, I should not have been surprised, I suppose, to be struck by yet one more. I had known, after all, that Judith was likely to leave at some point. I just never imagined it would be this soon. So out of square was I that I thought perhaps I had not heard Mistress Mountjoy properly. “You mean … you mean home? To Warwickshire?”

  “Yes,” the girl replied, pouting a little. “And we were getting to be such good friends, too.”

  “But … but surely her father didn’t pack her off all alone?”

  “Of course not. An old acquaintance of his—a Mr. Quiney, I believe; or was it Quiney? Something with a Q, anyway—was goi
ng to Stratford on business, and let her travel with him. Mr. Shakespeare is accompanying them as far as Uxbridge.”

  “Can you tell me, did she leave any sort of … message, or anything?”

  “For whom?”

  “Well … for me.”

  She gave me that quizzical look again. “I’m sorry, which one are you?”

  “Widge.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “She did?” I said eagerly.

  “No, I only meant, ‘Oh, yes, now I remember you.’ She left no message. In fact, she didn’t say much of anything when she left, not even to me, she was that upset and angry. She did say she’d write back, though, if I wrote her. Is there anything you’d like me to pass on to her?”

  “Nay. What’s the use? As she told me herself, she’s heard it all before, and from better wights than me, I wis.”

  “You look cold,” she said. “Would you like to come in and warm up?”

  I shook my head and turned away. If I was to be miserable, I might as well make a good job of it. It would not be difficult. A whole long afternoon and evening stretched ahead of me, and nothing better to do with it than to sit about feeling sorry for myself. I had neither money nor friends, and even if I had had both, I would have had no appetite for the frivolous pastimes with which we ordinarily occupied our Sundays.

  I might as well go home and work on my play. I had reached the point in the script at which Timon, a destitute and friendless outcast, declares that he hates all mankind. It fit my mood and my circumstances exactly.

  There is nothing like spite to motivate a person. Though my room was nearly as cold as the outdoors, I shrouded myself in blankets and sat scribbling away for the next several hours, giving voice to all the insulting and reproachful remarks that I could not say myself by putting them in Timon’s mouth: “Away, thou issue of a mangy dog!” “Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon.” “I am sick of this false world, and will love naught.”

  But, as gratifying as this was, I knew that if I confined my hero to mere curses, he would not seem heroic, only hateful. I must provide him with some means of avenging himself. Besides, our audience loved revenge. According to Mr. Shakespeare’s notes, he planned to have Timon raise an army and lay waste to Rome—now Athens. But that seemed unlikely. Soldiers don’t fight unless you pay them, and Timon was so poor that he was reduced to living in a cave in the woods and eating roots.

  Well, suppose he gets some money, somehow. Suppose he comes into a fortune, and suddenly all his former friends want to be his friends again, and he just laughs at them. Yes, that was good. But where would he get a fortune, living in a cave in the woods? Steal it? Inherit it? Write a successful play? Dig up gold nuggets while he’s grubbing for roots to eat?

  When this notion first struck me, I didn’t take it seriously; it seemed rather silly, in fact. But the more I thought about it, the more the irony of it appealed to me. I knew it would delight the penny playgoers as well; if there was anything they loved more than guts and gore, it was gold. Certainly it would hold their attention better than watching Timon write a play, or read his uncle’s will.

  Though I had said little to Goody Willingson or Mr. Pope about the play, they seemed to sense my need for privacy and somehow kept the boys from pestering me for much of the afternoon. But boys, like spirited horses, may be kept in check only so long.

  I was just bringing a band of thieves into the script when the boys burst into the room, surrounded me, and took me captive. Though I showered them with curses only slightly less vile than Timon’s, they merely laughed and vowed not to release me until I had played Banks’s Horse with them—a favorite game they had invented in which I impersonated a celebrated gelding who could dance, do sums, and answer questions.

  When I had had my fill of neighing and pawing the floor, they pressed me into a game of Barley Break that lasted until supper. As I was stuffing my mouth with mutton pie, anxious to return to my desk before the Muse grew tired of waiting for me, Goody Willingson said, “Is your writing going well, then, Widge?”

  In trying to clear my mouth enough to answer, I nearly choked.

  “Just paw the table,” said a boy named Walter. “Once for yes, twice for no.” This sent the others into fits of laughter. With a grin made lopsided by my mouthful of food, I gave the table a single swipe.

  “Have you let Judith look at the script?” asked Mr. Pope.

  My grin faded. “Nay. She’s gone home.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, lad. Though I’m certain you won’t agree just now, I assure you it is for the best.”

  I wondered whether, if I had said I was struck soundly on the brain-pan and robbed, he would have told me that it was for the best. In truth, I believe I would have preferred to be beaten and robbed; it would surely have hurt less, and I would have lost nothing but my purse. I wiped my mouth and rose from the table. “An you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back to me play.”

  “Oh, good!” shouted Walter. “What shall we play this time?”

  I worked uninterrupted until the bells at St. Bennet rang compline. I was in the midst of a scene in which the poet and painter come to ask Timon for some of his gold when I heard a faint knock at my door. I did my best to ignore it, but a moment later the door swung open a crack and a soft voice said, “Widge?”

  I turned to see Tetty peering through the opening. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot to tuck you in.”

  “It’s all right, you needn’t. I only wished to bid you good night.” When I held out my arms, she scurried barefoot across the cold floor and, standing on tiptoe, gave me a quick hug. “I’m sorry about Judith.” After considering a moment, she added, “But not very.”

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  “I told you, you must wait for me. I’m growing as quickly as I can.”

  I groaned as I lifted her onto my knee and wrapped my blanket about her bare legs. “You certainly are. You must weigh nine or ten stone, at least.”

  She snickered. “I’m not growing that quickly.” She examined the papers spread before me. “Is this your play?”

  “Aye.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “It doesn’t have a proper name yet.”

  “Then it’s like you, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose it is.”

  “Will you read it to me when it’s done?”

  “I don’t ken whether you’d fancy it. It’s not like Romeo and Juliet; it hasn’t a dell of romance in it.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s all right,” she said. “I expect you’ve had enough of romance for a while.”

  I was reluctant to stop writing, not caring to be alone with my thoughts. But when the words ceased to make sense, I put my pencil down and crawled into bed, resigned to a night of fretting and tossing about. To my surprise, I fell swiftly to sleep and awoke feeling more rested and cheerful than I had for some time.

  Sam, on the other hand, seemed unusually subdued and thoughtful as we walked to the theatre. Even when I recounted our near-fatal adventure upon the ice the previous day, he had little to say. “By the by,” I said, “why were you not at church services yesterday?”

  “I was,” Sam replied.

  “Nay, you never! I looked all over for you.”

  “I didn’t say I was at St. Saviour’s, did I?”

  “Where, then?”

  He gave me a haughty look. “As Father Gerard would say, a gentleman’s business is his own.”

  “Tell that to the deacons when they fine you for missing church.”

  “A pox on the deacons,” he said.

  At the Cross Keys, as we were climbing the stairs to the second-floor balcony, the door to Mr. Shakespeare’s office flew open with a crash that rattled the windows. A hefty, hairy wight who rather resembled a bear burst forth and came thundering down the steps, causing them to shudder and us to fling ourselves to one side, lest we be trampled. Though I had been too busy saving my skin to get a good look at him, I knew that I had seen that bearlike buil
d before, and those bulging eyes, which made him look as though he were choking on something.

  “Who was that unmannerly swad?” Sam asked loudly, before the fellow was quite out of earshot. The man cast us a glowering look.

  When he had exited the courtyard, I said, “Mr. Henslowe, from th’ Admiral’s Men.”

  “Oh. That explains why he was trying so hard to wreck the place.”

  “I believe ’a was angry about something—the script of Sejanus, unless I miss me guess.”

  Mr. Heminges and Mr. Shakespeare confirmed my suspicions. Henslowe had come to demand Mr. Jonson’s play. It was his by right, he reminded them, as he had paid the playwright ten pounds for it, in advance. “Then I r-reminded him,” said Mr. Heminges, “that he had r-refused to perform it, on the gr-grounds that it was full of P-Papist propaganda. ‘And so it was,’ he replied. ‘But I understand that Ben has succeeded in reforming it.’”

  “Will ’a come back, do you wis?”

  “I doubt it,” said Mr. Shakespeare. “But if he does, he had best be armed.”

  I went at Mr. Jonson’s script with a vengeance, determined to be done with it as quickly as possible, in case Mr. Henslowe did decide to return with reinforcements. I was well into the last act when the door to the hallway opened and Ned Shakespeare strolled in. I gave him a cursory nod, assuming he was seeking his brother—probably in order to ask for money.

  “What’s that you’re copying?” he asked.

  “Sejanus.”

  He leaned over the desk. “It looks as though you’re about done, eh?”

  “Aye. I’ll start on the sides tomorrow.”

  “Hmm. That’s too bad.”

  “It is?”

  “Of course.” He slapped me playfully—and rather painfully—on the shoulder. “That means well have to perform it, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s so. Perhaps I should write more slowly.”

  “Well, this will put it off a bit, at least: the sharers have called a meeting of the entire company upstairs.”