The Shakespeare Stealer

by Gary Blackwood

  I turned away from the looking glass. I had been contemplating the matter as if I had a choice. The truth was, if I hoped to save my own skin, I had no choice.

  18

  By the time I shed my costume and hung it in the wardrobe and dressed in my customary clothing, the light coming through the high windows had faded. I stepped from the tiring-room and looked about and listened. The area behind the stage was deserted.

  Cautiously I moved across to the door of the property room. It was unlocked. I stepped inside and pushed it closed behind me, leaving a gap of a hand’s breadth to let a bit of light into the windowless room.

  It contained half a dozen trunks, several of them secured with locks. There was no way of knowing which one contained the play books. I had long since learned to look for the easiest way of pursuing a task. It would be far easier to look in the unlocked chests first, on the slight chance that one of them might hold the treasure.

  I raised the lid of the nearest one. The hinges protested feebly and I halted, fearing someone might still be in the theatre. Hearing nothing, I yanked the lid open and peered inside. Small weapons of all sorts, from bucklers to broad-swords, were piled within. I went on to the next trunk.

  The light was so far gone that I had to lay the lid back and bend close in order to see. I gasped and stumbled backward in horror. The trunk was packed with parts of human bodies—bloody arms, hands cut off at the wrist, severed heads with staring, sightless eyes.

  I knocked against another chest and sat heavily down upon it. Holding a hand over my mouth to muffle my frantic breathing, I gaped at the trunk as though the awful contents might crawl from it. Slowly it came to me that these were mere stage properties, made of plaster and paint, and then I had to keep my hand over my mouth to stifle the relieved laughter that rose in me.

  I was suddenly sobered by the sound of footfalls close by. I rolled off the trunk and crouched behind it. The footsteps approached and halted before the door of the property room. For a moment there was utter silence. I held my breath. Then I heard the door swing on its hinges—not open, but closed. The thin shaft of light was eclipsed. The latch clicked; a key rattled in the lock; the bolt slid into place. Then the footsteps retreated. Finally there was a distant, muffled thump—the rear door of the theatre being closed and locked.

  I crawled out from behind the trunk and felt my way across the black room, banging painfully against racks of weapons and corners of trunks. As I expected, the door was locked as surely and securely as those locked trunks. If I groped about in the dark long enough, I might manage eventually to break into the book keeper’s trunk and liberate the script. But what good would it do me if I was still a prisoner?

  In the end, I made no attempt to force the trunks or locate the play book. If discovered here in the morning, I could contrive some explanation of how I came to be shut up in the property room. But even with my skill at lying I would have a hard time explaining broken locks and a missing script.

  There was one advantage, at least, in being locked up so securely: Falconer could not get to me. There were also several distinct disadvantages: I had no food, no water, no place to relieve myself, and no bed to sleep in. Such discomforts were not new to me, but lately I had become accustomed to regular meals and soft bedding.

  I found by touch a helmet to relieve myself in, and a pile of carpets in one corner of the room to lie down upon and sleep the untroubled sleep of the prisoner who is resigned to his prison.

  I woke in the morning to the sound of footsteps, and the property room door being unlocked. Like a mouse, I scrambled for a hiding place, but I need not have bothered. The door was not opened. When I heard the footsteps climb the stairs, I stole across the room and out the door, and thence out of the theatre.

  The sun had not yet shown itself, and I hoped I might be at Mr. Pope’s in time for breakfast. Fearing that Falconer might lie in wait, I took a roundabout route and came upon Mr. Pope and Sander as they were leaving the house.

  “And where have you been the whole night long, my lad?” Mr. Pope demanded.

  “Well,” I replied, to buy a bit of time, “it’s rather a long tale.”

  “Then you’d best begin at once.”

  “Well, sir, the truth is, it’s…it’s me old master. ’A hunted me down here—’a kenned how I had me heart set on being a player, you see—and ’a tried to force me to return to Yorkshire wi’ him. I went along as far as St. Albans”—such details add credibility to a lie—“where I slipped away, and I’ve spent the night walking back.”

  “Saints’ mercy,” said Sander. “You must be exhausted.”

  Mr. Pope was more skeptical. “You walked all the way from St. Albans? That’s upwards of twenty miles.”

  “Nay, nay,” I said quickly. “I never walked the whole time. A farmer brought me half that way on his cart. I even slept a bit on his load of straw.” I brushed imaginary chaff from my tunic.

  This seemed to satisfy him, and he grew more solicitous. “Have you eaten, then?”

  “Aye,” I said, not wishing to try his patience. “The good farmer shared his bread and cheese wi’ me.” Would that I could have lied so convincingly to my complaining stomach.

  As we walked on, Sander hung back and whispered, “I didn’t tell him you were gone. He just noticed. He was anxious about you.”

  “About me? Truly?”

  Sander nodded. “He takes the welfare of his boys very seriously.”

  I was accustomed to being called someone’s “boy.” Like the term “his man,” it can mean you are the servant, or chattel, of that person. But the way Sander used the word, it implied something more, something better—that I was not merely part of a household, but part of a family.

  My empty belly made the morning’s lessons seem interminable. We were well into them before Nick appeared, looking as though he’d slept in his clothing, and at the same time as though he hadn’t slept at all. Mr. Armin left us to perform our passatas, and drew Nick into a corner, where they had a lengthy conversation. As their tempers mounted, so did their voices.

  “I’m not a child!” Nick was saying. “When will you stop treating me as one?”

  “When you stop behaving as one! Drinking and gaming until all hours is not the mark of a man!”

  “Neither is wearing skirts and prancing about the stage like a woman!”

  “Ah, that’s it, is it? You feel you’re ready for men’s roles, do you?”

  “Well, I—” Nick hesitated. “I’m sick of playing a girl, that’s all.” He rubbed at the stubble on his cheeks. “And I’m sick of being thought a callow boy wherever I go, because I’m forced to shave my beard.”

  “So you feel you’re ready to move from prentice to hired man. Are you quite certain you’ve learned everything you need to know?”

  Nick’s voice faltered. “Perhaps…perhaps not everything.”

  “No, I think not. Come. Let’s try to fill in what you lack, so that when the time comes for you to play a man’s part, you’ll be ready.” Mr. Armin glanced at the three of us, who had been eavesdropping. “You lot have far more to learn than he does,” he called. “Get back to work. Fifty more passatas.”

  As we thrust over and over at the unyielding wall, I whispered to Sander, “An Nick is so much of a trouble, why do you not give him the chuck?”

  Sander gave me a puzzled look. “The chuck?”

  “Aye. Throw him out.”

  Sander stopped to wipe his brow. “Would you throw out your brother, if you had one?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “But if you did?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Not really. Don’t you see? The theatre is a sort of family and, like him or no, Nick is a part of it.” A few weeks before, I would not have understood his meaning, but now I felt I did. “Besides,” Sander went on, “he’s having a bad time just now, that’s all. He’ll come around.”

  “Perhaps,” I said doubtfully. “I’d just prefer ’a didn�
�t come around me.”

  Later, as we were on our way downstairs, Will Sly stopped me. “Mr. Heminges wants to see you.”

  “Me?”

  “Do you know another Widge? He’s in the property room.”

  “The—the property room?”

  “Has anyone checked this boy’s ears? I believe he’s a trifle deaf.”

  “Perhaps you’re not saying things properly,” Julian countered. “You haven’t been drinking, have you?”

  Will grinned. “No more than usual.”

  “Ah, that’s the problem, then. You’ve not lubricated your chawbones.”

  I was not in a mood to appreciate their jests. What business could Mr. Heminges have with me, particularly in the property room? I could think of but one possible topic, and it was not one I was eager to discuss.

  19

  I considered walking on past the property room and out the rear door. What kept me from it was the thought of Falconer. If I had to answer to someone, I preferred that it be the person least likely to cut my throat.

  I halted before the property room door, like a condemned man at the foot of the gallows. Mr. Heminges sat within at a table, writing figures in a ledger. He looked up and beckoned to me. “C-come in, Widge. I’m just d-doing accounts. My least favorite d-duty, but a n-necessary one.” He sprinkled sand on the fresh ink, blew it off, and closed the ledger. “N-now. I understand you were in a b-bit of t-trouble last night.”

  My stomach knotted up. “Aye. But it wasn’t me own fault—”

  “I know that. T-Thomas gave me a full account.”

  “Thomas?”

  “Mr. Pope.”

  “Oh.” How could Mr. Pope have known about my attempted theft? Had he been the one who locked me in the room?

  “This is a serious p-problem, but not an unusual one.”

  “It’s not?”

  “N-no. In f-fact several of our prentices have done the same.”

  “Truly? What did you do to them?”

  “D-do to them?” Now it was Mr. Heminges’s turn to sound bewildered.

  “Were they not punished?”

  Mr. Heminges laughed. “For running off from their m-masters? If we t-took on only those b-boys whose masters have agreed to hand them over, we’d b-be rather short on p-prentices. M-most would as soon hand them over to the d-Devil.”

  It came to me then, almost too late, that we were talking of two entirely different matters. I was concerned with what I’d actually done, and he with the lie I’d concocted to cover it. I hastened to scramble out of the hole I’d dug for myself. I shook my head glumly. “Me master seemed bent on having me back.”

  “This is England, not China. A man has the right to choose his own p-path. If you truly wish to stay on here, and p-prove yourself able, we will stand with you. If your m-master comes for you, we will offer him the usual f-fee to b-buy off your obligation, and he may take or l-leave it. But we’ll see that he leaves you, in any c-case. Does that suit you?”

  I nodded, so taken aback by this offer of kindness where I had looked for wrath that I could scarcely speak. “Aye. It does indeed.”

  “Good. G-go back to your lessons, then.” I turned to go. “Oh, by the by. They tell me you m-managed to deliver your three lines without f-fainting yesterday. We’ll have to try you with four or f-five next time, eh?”

  “I don’t ken, sir. I’m not sure I could bear it.”

  He laughed, taking this for a jest, and I let him. “One more th-thing, Widge. I’ve f-fancied all morning that I smelled something r-rotten, as Mr. Shakespeare says, but my n-nose isn’t what it was. Do you smell anything?”

  I did indeed, but it took me a moment to recall what it was—the helmet I had used as a chamber pot. I felt my face go red. “A dead rat, most like,” I said, and quickly turned away.

  For the second time that day, I had been made to feel that I was among people who cared about me and my welfare. My guilt at the thought of betraying him and the rest of the company came back, stronger than ever.

  They would stand with me, Mr. Heminges had said. But he said it without knowing the true source of my troubles. If anyone came after me, it would not be Dr. Bright nor my current master, Simon Bass, who might be willing to listen to reason. It would be the formidable and unreasonable Falconer.

  I did not wish to endanger anyone in the company, yet my only means of keeping Falconer at bay was to stick close to Mr. Pope’s or to the theatre, where Falconer seemed reluctant to set foot. For the next week I saw no sign of that dread hooded figure, but this time I did not fool myself into thinking that he had gone away. I kept a vigilant watch, sometimes rising in the small hours of the night to gaze out at the moonlit lanes and hedgerows.

  “Widge,” Sander said one day on our way to the Globe. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “Aye,” I said, and felt I spoke the truth.

  “Then will you tell me please why you always glance about so nervously? You look like a dickey bird in a yard full of cats, as Mr. Pope would say.”

  “It’s naught. I’m not used to the city yet, that’s all.” There was some truth in that, too. But it was also true that I no longer found the landscape of church spires and grimy tenements so strange. London speech no longer felt so foreign on my ear or on my tongue, and I’d learned to ignore the clamor of its streets.

  “You know, five minutes’ walk in that direction”—he pointed south—“brings you into the country. And tomorrow is our idle day.”

  The prospect of an afternoon in the fields and woods was tempting—until I thought of Falconer. “I don’t suppose you’d care to come along.”

  “I don’t mind. I’ve nothing against the country.”

  To my relief, Julian agreed to join us. The larger the company, the safer I would be. I stopped short of inviting Nick, though. Not that he would have gone anyway. It was obvious that he no longer considered himself a prentice. He avoided our company, preferring to spend his time with his drinking companions, mostly hired men from the less reputable theatre companies. When forced to rub elbows with us boys, he put on superior airs.

  That morning, during fencing instruction, Mr. Armin and Mr. Phillips were wanted downstairs, and Nick interpreted this to mean that he was in charge. “All right now, line up here and let’s see what sort of scrimers you are.”

  “Take a walk in the Thames,” Julian told him and turned away.

  Nick stepped in front of him. “I said we’ll see what you’ve learned. Would you prefer to demonstrate against the wall, or against me?”

  Julian considered a moment. “Well, I’d say the wall has more wits.”

  “It’s too bad you’re not as quick with your sword as with your tongue. I think you’ve all been playing at girls too long. That’s what you look like, with your mincing steps and your polite little cuts and thrusts. And you—” He gave Julian’s stick a blow with his own. “You’re the worst of the lot. You’d best stick to dancing.”

  Julian’s face, always pale, had gone white, and his eyes narrowed. “I’ll dance on your grave, you sot,” he said, and came on guard.

  Nick smiled nastily, as though this was what he had been waiting for. He brought his stick to high ward, seeming to invite a thrust from Julian. When it came, he stepped aside and struck Julian on the collarbone. Julian staggered, his face drawn with pain.

  Nick stood calmly waiting for the next move. Julian feigned another stocatta, then performed one of the passatas we had practiced so interminably. His stick caught Nick beneath the breastbone. He let out a grunt of surprise and pain.

  His mood changed suddenly. He set upon Julian like a Tom ’a Bedlam, striking edgeblows, downright blows, blows which had no name. “You’ll hurt him!” I shouted and flung my stick at Nick’s legs. It served only to anger him more. “Do something!” I told Sander.

  Sander stepped forward with his stick raised. “Nick! Stop now!” He might as well have told the wall to stop standing there.

  Being small, I had never b
een one to solve a problem by a physical attack. I preferred to talk my way out of things or to perform Cobbe’s Traverse, that is to run. But Nick would not listen to reason, and running would only leave Julian to his fate. He had rescued me, and now he needed my help. My fencing skills were no match for Nick’s, so I fell back on the method of defense that every child of the orphanage learns—catch-as-catch-can wrestling.

  I at least had the advantage of surprise. I threw myself at Nick’s legs, and all his weight collapsed on me. The first principle of wrestling is to hang on to your opponent come what may, so I clung to Nick’s breeches like a leech, though he kicked madly and pummeled my back with his fists.

  I felt his struggles suddenly grow more desperate and lifted my face to see why. Julian had his stick pressed against Nick’s throat-bole. The more fiercely Nick struggled and clawed, the more pressure Julian applied, yet Nick refused to yield.

  “That will do!” a voice rang out. “Let him up!”

  Julian cautiously removed the stick, and I disentangled myself. Mr. Armin stood scowling at us, but under the mask of disapproval I detected a hint of amusement. I wondered how long he had stood observing before he interfered.

  He offered a hand to Nick, who ignored it and got unsteadily to his feet, rubbing his windpipe and glaring at us like some trapped and wounded beast.

  “If you’re quite done trying to kill one another,” Mr. Armin said, “we’ll continue with our lessons. Not you, Nick,” he added as Nick retrieved his singlestick. “They’ll be wanting you downstairs, to rehearse Love’s Labour’s.”

  “What part?” Nick growled, his voice sounding choked and weak.

  “Dumaine.”

  Nick stared at him. “A man’s part?”

  “Do you imagine you can pass for a girl with that voice? It sounds as though Julian squeezed the last drop of sweetness from it.”

  Certainly there was no sweetness in the glance Nick threw us as he left the room.

  “If Nick is to take on men’s roles,” Mr. Armin said, “that will change things for you boys as well. Sander, you and Julian will begin studying Nick’s old roles. Widge, you’ll be given some of Sander’s duties, and his smaller parts. Can you manage that?”