“I’ve practiced it,” Sander insisted. “I’ll do it.”
“I know how to crow!” Jack said.
On the stage, Mr. Shakespeare gave the cue in his hollow ghost’s voice: “Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.” Both Jack and Sander opened their mouths. One let out a sound reminiscent of a squalling baby; the other sounded uncannily like a stuck pig. Either by itself would have been startling; together they were positively unnerving.
I shook a finger in the ear that had borne the brunt of the noise. “Do you truly wis that’s how a cock sounds?”
“I suppose you can do it better,” Sander said.
“I’m a country wight, remember? I ken what a cock sounds like, and that’s not it.”
Jack scowled at me. “As it so happens,” he said, “this was a Danish cock.”
Sander and I looked at one another, then broke into fits of laughter. We had to stagger back to the tiring-room holding our hands over our mouths and close the door, lest we infect the audience. It had been a long while since I’d laughed so freely, if indeed I ever had.
By all accounts, Jack did not furnish a single word to assist the poor players, who were forced to invent or to omit whole passages. He was not permitted to hold the book again. Neither, unfortunately, was I—not because I was not trusted, but because our book keeper recovered and resumed his duties. So I had no further chance to carry off the script.
I could not honestly say that I regretted it. The longer I stayed with the company, and the longer I was away from Falconer, the less incentive I felt to complete my mission. I had not forgotten the reward promised me, but that, too, prompted me less and less. All I had was Bass’s word in the matter, and judging from what Chris Beeston had said, his word was not worth much. One thing I did know from hard experience: a master’s promise to a prentice is likely to be redeemed only at the last Lammas, as they say—which is to say never.
When a week went by, and Falconer had made no attempt to contact me, I convinced myself that he had lost patience and returned to Leicester, to report to Simon Bass. Still, I stuck close to the theatre and, in my free hours, to Mr. Pope’s. Though Falconer was impatient, I had the feeling he was used to getting what he wanted, one way or another.
I applied myself to my daily tasks and lessons at the theatre and, to my surprise, began to actually enjoy them. Dr. Bright had trained me as a man might train a dumb beast, through repetition, reinforced by beatings. Here the method was different. We were given credit for some intelligence. We were expected to learn each technique quickly and to practice what we had learned on our own until it became second nature.
At the end of that week, I was, to my astonishment, given a small part to play, that of the Messenger in The Spanish Tragedy. “I have a letter to your lordship,” I was to say, and “From Pedringano that’s imprisoned,” and then “Aye, my good lord.” That was the extent of my role. I swear by Saint Pintle that I practiced those lines a thousand times at the very least. I believe I may have repeated them in my sleep.
Sander bore with me and the infinite variations I employed in saying my lines, and my inability to say the name Pedringano properly, until he could bear it no longer. One morning as I stood before the looking glass in our room saying, “Perigando. Predinago. Pedigango,” he reached the limits of his tolerance.
“Widge! For all the loves on Earth! What will you do when they give you an entire speech?”
I stared at him in dismay. “Oh, gis! Do you think they will?”
Sander began to laugh. “What did you just say?”
“I said, will they give me a whole speech?”
“No, you didn’t. You said, ‘Do you think they will?’ Not do you wis, but do you think.” He slapped me on the back, and for a change, I did not flinch. “My boy, I believe you’re turning into a Londoner.”
“Gog’s bread,” I muttered, not knowing whether to be pleased or alarmed. “I hope not.”
The play was to be put before an audience on Wednesday. Tuesday night I scarcely slept. Toward daybreak, as I sat up, reading in the half-light one of the ballad-sheets on the walls, Sander woke and peered drowsily at me. “What are you doing?”
“Fretting, mostly.”
He clucked his tongue. “It’s only three lines, Widge.”
“All the more cause to fret. An I say them wrong, I’ll ha’ no chance to redeem meself.”
Sander sighed. “Do you want me to play the lines for you?”
“You’ve a part of your own.”
“I can play more than one. It’s done all the time.”
“Nay. Nay, I’m not one to quit. I’ll do it—somehow.”
He yawned and lay back down. After a moment, I said, “It gets easier, doesn’t it? Playing a part?”
Sander did not reply. He had fallen asleep.
Eventually I succumbed to sleep myself and woke with the sun on my face. I shook my head to dispel the dream that had filled it. In the dream, I made my maiden entrance upon the stage, and the audience at once broke into gales of applause and laughter. Pleased at having created such a sensation without opening my mouth, I smiled and bowed deeply—to discover that I stood before them in puris naturalibus, that is to say naked as a worm.
“Oh, Sander, what a dream!” I said. But Sander was not in bed, nor in the room. Then it came to me that if the sun was up, I should be too, long since. I scrambled into my clothing and hurried downstairs. Goodwife Willingson was feeding the smaller children. “Good morning, Widge!” the boys chorused.
I gulped a bowl of porridge, burning my mouth in my haste, and excused myself. “God buy, Widge!” the boys called after me. I paused long enough to wave to them. Their enthusiasm made me smile as I closed the door and set out for the theatre.
A hundred yards or so from the house I became aware of another set of footsteps behind me, even swifter than my brisk pace—some fellow player late for morning rehearsal, I guessed.
As I turned to see, a hand seized the neck of my tunic. I was dragged to the side of the road, hoisted like a sack of grain over a low hedge, and flung on my back in the grass.
17
I sat up, dazed and frightened, to find the dark, hooded figure of Falconer crouching over me like some rough beast over its prey. “Where is it?” he demanded, in that harsh and hollow voice.
I tried to rise. “I—I—I’ve been having trouble—”
He shoved me back. “Trouble? You haven’t begun to learn what trouble is! Where is the script?”
“It was—it was stolen from me wallet. By a thief.”
“The devil take your lying tongue!” He snatched his dagger from his belt and thrust it under my chin. “The truth, now!”
“It’s true!” I cried frantically. “As true as steel, I swear it!”
“Then you’ve made a new copy for me?”
“I’m trying.”
“Trying? You think I haven’t watched your comings and goings? You’ve been at the Globe every day, and you’ve nothing to show for it!”
“I can’t do ’t wi’out being seen!”
He let out a hiss of disgust and let the tip of the dagger drop an inch or two. Gasping, I rubbed at the spot where it had pricked my skin. “Well,” he said, “there’s nothing left to do, then, but to take the book.”
“I meant to, but they keep such a close watch on it.”
“Take it from the trunk. It’ll be kept in the property room.”
“Suppose it’s locked?”
“Break the lock! I want that script, and I am accustomed to getting what I want. Have it for me tonight. I’ll be waiting. Understood?”
I nodded, very carefully in view of the dagger so near my chin. Falconer suddenly lifted the point again and pressed it against my chin. “And mark me, boy. Breathe no word of this to anyone, or I’ll cut out your wagging tongue.” With that he stood, stepped over the hedge, and was gone.
I lay in the grass for some time, my heart clamoring in my chest and my limbs weak as water, before I co
uld compose myself enough to continue on to the playhouse.
When I came through the rear door, Mr. Pope was just making an exit from the stage, his face set in the jolly grin required by his role. When he saw me, he resumed his usual gruff expression. “Ah, Widge, you’ve decided to join us.” He shook his head in mock exasperation. “Give a boy a few lines to say, and he thinks he owns the theatre.” As he came nearer, his face took on a look of concern. “Are you well, boy? You look as if you’d eaten a batch of bad oysters. Sander said you’d been upset, but—”
“It’s naught,” I said. “I ran too hard getting here, that’s all.”
“There was no need. We can manage without you for an hour or two.”
“I ken that. I don’t like it thought that I’m shirking me duties.”
“No one thought that.” He lifted my chin. “What have you done to yourself? You’re bleeding.”
“Oh, that. I—ah—I stumbled and fell into a hedge.”
Mr. Pope pulled his kerchief from his sleeve. “Hold that on it. Now, will you need the morning free to study your daunting part, do you think?”
I flushed. “Nay, I can speak it well enough.”
In the practice room, Mr. Armin was strapping a metal plate to Sander’s waist. “Just in time, Widge.” Mr. Armin tossed a short sword to me. So shaken was I that I dropped it, drawing a derisive laugh from Nick. “We’ll have to practice that,” Mr. Armin said. “But for the moment, you will all be learning how to die properly.”
I had come as close to dying as I cared to for one day, but I kept silent and tried to attend to Mr. Armin’s words. “We’ll be enlisting you prentices for battle scenes soon. Your weapons will be blunted, but there will be no protective tips. So, lest you die too convincingly, you’ll wear a metal plate.” He tapped the one at Sander’s waist. “It is the responsibility of your adversary to see that he strikes this, and not your gut. Of course, in Nick’s case, it may be difficult to avoid.” He gave a wry glance at the pronounced belly Nick had begun to develop as a result of his regular carousing.
“Now, you’ve all seen the small bladders full of sheep’s blood which we use. They are tied flat to the plate, and the point of the sword bursts them. We’ll try that another time. For now, pair off and take turns being killer and victim.” He handed Julian a metal plate. “You and Widge trade blows. Carefully.”
“Are you sure he’s ready for this, Mr. Armin?” Julian asked anxiously as he strapped on the plate.
“He’ll do well enough. Now. Low ward. Dritta. Riversa. Incartata.” I thrust under Julian’s singlestick; the sword hit the protective plate, but to my astonishment, the plate did not stop it. My momentum carried the hilt forward six inches.
“Oh, God!” I cried. “I’ve stuck him!”
But Julian did not appear to be stuck. Indeed, he was laughing. “It’s your sword. It collapses into the hilt!”
I gaped at him, then at the sword. “It’s a trick sword? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“And miss the look on your face?”
“I was afeared I’d slain you,” I said sulkily.
Julian laid an arm upon my shoulder. I shrugged it off. “Come now, no hard feelings, eh? It was a jest.”
We took up our positions again. When I struck Julian this time, he gave a halfhearted groan and clutched at his belly. “You look as though you’d eaten too many sweets, not suffered a mortal wound,” Mr. Armin said. “Trade roles, now.”
I handed my sword to Julian and strapped on the protective plate. In the school of hard knocks where I had become a Master of Dodging, I had also learned to feign injury, as a way of lessening the severity of a beating. The experience stood me in good stead now. When Julian struck me, I gave a howl of agony and crumpled to the floor, my face a very picture of pain and terror.
“Mother Mary!” Julian breathed. “Are you wounded?” I grinned up at him. He gave me an exasperated nudge with one foot. “You sot!”
“Very dramatic,” Mr. Armin said dryly. “No one will even notice the principals, they’ll be so busy looking at you.”
During our rest time, Julian and I sat against the wall, sipping cups of water. “Well,” he said casually, “perhaps you’re not such a bad sort after all, for a country wight.”
I stared at him. “Is that the London way of giving a compliment?”
He smiled. “I suppose it is.”
“In that case, I suppose you’re not such a bad sort, either. For a city wight.”
“Touch. Your point. So, how do you come to be in London?”
“That’s something of a long tale.”
“Just give me a brief summary.”
“I ran away from me master, that’s the long and short of it.”
“And your parents?”
“Me mother’s long since dead. Me father…” I hesitated and then, seeing Julian’s sympathetic look, went on. “I don’t ken who me father was.”
Julian nodded. “We’re birds of a feather, then. I lost my mum when I was small, to the plague. And my da is—” He shrugged. “Well, my da will die of the dropsy one day, I’ve no doubt.”
“The dropsy?”
“One of the words we use to mean hanging from Tyburn Tree.”
“Hanging? Why? What has ’a done?”
“What hasn’t he done, you might as well ask. As far as I know, he’s never murdered anyone, and I don’t suppose he’s ever betrayed one of his fellows. Anything else he’ll do, if there’s money in it. That’s why he lets me prentice here—they pay him a small sum yearly.”
“Aye? Do you think that—”
“What?”
“Oh, I was just wondering whether me master might be willing to do the same—let me stay on an they paid him a bit.”
“You think he’ll come after you, then?”
“Aye, I’m afeard ’a will.”
“I hope he doesn’t,” Julian said. “You’re just beginning to show some promise.”
I felt myself flush. “Do you truly think so?”
Julian grinned. “Well, if you can feign love or compassion half so well as you can feign an agonizing death, you’ll be as famous as Burbage.”
“I’ve had no experience in such things,” I said. “But I’m willing to learn.”
We were kept so busy through the morning that I scarcely had time to dread the afternoon, when I would step onstage and say my three lines. Yet the threat of it hung over my head, along with the more dire threat of Falconer out there, waiting for me to deliver the script.
An hour before the performance I was in costume, not wishing to see my dream come true. I paced about behind the stage muttering “Pedringano, Pedringano” like an incantation.
“Widge,” Sander said, “sit somewhere and practice breathing deeply. I’ll call you when you’re due on the stage.”
“An you forget, what then?”
“I won’t forget.”
Nonetheless, I was unable to sit still. I went on stomping about, repeating my lines and getting in everyone’s way until at last Julian took me by the arm. “Come. You’re going to help me with my lines for Satiromastix.”
It did calm me a bit, having something to do, and Sander was as good as his word, though he got me to the stage with a scant half-minute to spare. “Gives you less time to fret,” he said. When my cue came, I froze, and he was forced to propel me onto the stage.
My actual moment of glory is a blank in my memory. I must have gotten out my lines, Pedringano and all, without disgracing myself or the company, for afterward, in the tiring-room, I was congratulated by the other players as though I had passed through fire—which, in a sense, I had.
“I remember well my first faltering steps upon the boards,” Mr. Pope said.
“I’d no idea they had boards so long ago,” Mr. Armin said.
“Oh, we knew how to make boards well enough. It wasn’t until your time that we learned how to make an audience bored.” There was much laughter. “To return to my story, I was given the part of
gluttony in a play called Nature. I was not so well upholstered in those days, so they strapped a sack of buckram about my waist. Halfway through the play it came loose and descended about my knees, so that I resembled not a glutton so much as a pear with legs.”
“I had much the same experience,” Mr. Phillips said, “save that I was playing a woman, and it was my bosom which migrated south.”
I was enjoying the players’ tales so much that I neglected to undress and remove my makeup. When everyone else was ready to leave, I was still wiping off my face paint.
“Want us to wait for you?” Sander asked.
I hesitated. If I was in their company, Falconer could not accost me again. Yet I could not avoid him forever. He had said I must have the script for him that very night, or—well, he had not made it clear what the alternative was, but I knew it would not be pleasant. “Nay,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Go on wi’out me. I’ll be along.”
When they were gone, I sat staring into the looking glass as I had seen Mr. Shakespeare do, pondering my dilemma. All my life I had done what I was told to do without question, without thinking about the right or the wrong of it. This time I couldn’t help questioning.
I had no doubt that what Falconer and my master, Simon Bass, were asking me to do was wrong. Even a thief, Julian had said, would not betray his fellows. And if I took the script, I would indeed have betrayed my fellows. I had no desire to do so. They had taken me in and shown me kindness and trust and friendship. I had been alone and friendless a long time and had accepted it as my lot. But in the past weeks, I had learned something of what it meant to have friends, and to be a real prentice, not a mere slave. It was a piece of knowledge late to come and hard-won, and one I did not wish to forget.
Yet I had learned what it means to have an enemy, too. As I scrubbed the makeup from my chin, I wiped the spot where Falconer’s dagger had pricked the skin. I flinched. Another piece of hard-won knowledge I did not care to forget, lest it be impressed upon me again, more forcefully and more permanently.
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