The Shakespeare Stealer

by Gary Blackwood

  He laughed. “It’s true, though. You’ll see. Besides, we still have three days before the performance.”

  I tried to take some hope from this, but secretly I was wondering how far I could get from London in three days.

  Saturday dawned grey and gloomy, in keeping with my mood. Julia and Sander tried to cheer me, but the only thing that might have done the trick was to hear that the queen had changed her mind and would have the Lord Admiral’s men instead.

  Immediately after the performance of Satiromastix, the company set out for Whitehall, on a barge provided by Her Majesty—a gesture not unlike providing the cart to haul a condemned man to the scaffold.

  Julia was asked to come along and assist behind the scenes, on the condition that she dress as a girl. She refused. But as we were climbing onto the barge, she came running down the landing stairs, clothed in her costume from Love’s Labour’s Lost, her skirts lifted so high we could see her ankles. She sprang onto the barge and took a place on the railing next to me, flushed and scant of breath and—something I had somehow failed to notice before—quite pretty.

  “I’m glad you decided to come,” I said. “I can do wi’ a bit of support.”

  She shrugged casually. “You’ll be all right without me. Actually I came along in order to meet the queen.”

  “You lie,” I said, and she laughed.

  I had always thought of Whitehall as being just that—a large hall, painted white. But what lay before us was more in the nature of a small, walled town. I gawked about me like the greenest country lad as we were escorted to a massive square hall with a lead roof and high, arched windows. Within, the hall was as grand as the grandest cathedral.

  “Where is the stage?” I asked Sander.

  “There is none. Only the floor.”

  “Gog’s malt!” I murmured. We would not be set apart from our distinguished audience at all; instead, we would be playing practically in their royal laps.

  It was fortunate that my entrance came well into the play, for I spent the first quarter hour of the performance in the jakes, emptying my stomach of what little supper I had been able to force down. Julia found me there and pulled me like a balky sheep to the stage entrance. “Wait! Wait!” I whispered urgently.

  “What is it?”

  “I can’t recall me first line!”

  “Do you doubt that?” she said.

  “What?”

  “That’s your line, Widge. ‘Do you doubt that?’”

  “Oh.” The cue line came to my ears. Chris Beeston took me by the arm and strode onto the stage with me in tow. Ah, well, I told myself, there’s no turning back now.

  Sometimes in dreams we do things we could never do in everyday life. The moment I stood before that glittering crowd of sumptuously dressed courtiers, I lapsed into a sort of dream. Through some miraculous process, I ceased to be Widge and became Ophelia, except for some small part of myself that seemed to hover overhead, observing my transformation with amazement.

  The lines flowed from me as though they had just occurred to my brain and not been penned by Mr. Shakespeare a year earlier. The audience seemed vague and distant. Only when I had spoken my final line in the scene and swept off the stage did I come to myself again, to find Julia grasping my hands and fairly jumping up and down with delight. “You were wonderful! You didn’t miss a single word!”

  I grinned back at her. “I did so. I forgot to say ‘So please you’ to Polonius.”

  She gave me an exasperated shove. “You sot. Admit it; you were good, very good.”

  I shrugged, embarrassed. “An I was, I owe it to you. I’m only sorry you couldn’t do the part yourself.”

  Her gaze fell. “It can’t be helped.” Then she put on something of a smile again and pulled at my wig. “You’re all askew. Come sit down, I’ll repair you.”

  So in the end it was not courage that got me through; it was a trick of the mind. As I had survived my orphanage days by pretending I was someone else, someone whose parents still lived and were great and wealthy and would someday come for him, so I survived my hour or so upon the stage by pretending I was a wistful Danish girl, driven mad by love.

  After the play, we were presented to the queen and her court, and I was compelled to be Widge again. “What do I say?” I whispered to Sander as we stood in line like soldiers awaiting inspection—or execution.

  “Don’t say anything,” Sander advised me. “Just smile and bow, and kiss her hand.”

  I practiced my smile. It felt as though I had painted it on, and the paint was cracking. By the time the queen approached, my dry lips were stuck so fast to my teeth that I feared if I pressed my mouth to her hand, I would draw blood.

  Mr. Heminges introduced each member of the company in turn. Even had I not known the queen’s countenance from the likeness of her that hung in every inn and shop, I could not have mistaken her. Among all those elegant lords and ladies, she was the most elegant of all, in her bearing and in her appearance. She looked far too young and sprightly to have worn the crown for over forty years.

  Or so I thought, seeing her at a distance. When she stood before me, her face not three feet from mine, I saw that the fair complexion was a layer of white paint, a ghastly mask, through which her age clearly showed, and the red hair the result of dye. When she smiled, her teeth were black with decay.

  “This is our Ophelia,” Mr. Heminges was saying. “Widge has been with us but a few months.”

  I bowed quickly, as much to hide my shock as to do homage to her. She held out her gloved hand, and I touched my lips to it. Now I thought, she will move on. But to my horror, she spoke to me. “What sort of name is that?”

  Pretend you’re someone else, I told myself—someone charming and witty, someone whose voice works. “It’s a—a sort of nickname, Your Majesty,” I said, and the voice certainly sounded like someone else’s.

  “What is your Christian name, then?” She spoke with kindness and, it seemed, genuine interest.

  “I don’t ken. It’s the only name I’ve got.”

  “Well, Widge, if you go on performing as admirably as you did for us, you’ll make a name for yourself.”

  “Thank you, mum—I mean, Your Majesty.” I bowed again, and when I came erect, she had moved on.

  That night in bed, the evening’s events replayed themselves over and over in my head. In the space of a few hours, I had done more than transform temporarily into Ophelia. I had undergone a more dramatic change, from a shabby impostor, a thief and orphan who had been given a task far beyond his abilities, into a reliable, valued member of an acting company who performed daily at the center of the universe.

  The queen herself had said I would make a name for myself. A name? Yes, I needed a real name. I would not be plain Widge any longer. I would be…Pedringano. I said it aloud, grandly. “Pedringano!”

  Sander stirred next to me. “What?”

  “My name,” I said, “is Pedringano!”

  He hit me with a pillow. “Go to sleep, Widge. We have to haul scenery first thing in the morning.”

  24

  Though the company had survived the command performance, our troubles were far from over. We were still desperately short of bodies to fill roles. When Julia gave up the role of Ophelia, she seemed to give up as well all hope of being a player.

  Mr. Heminges offered her a position gathering money at one of the theatre entrances. Though I knew he meant well, Julia behaved as though she’d been offered a job as a dung collector. I understood her feelings, the more so because I’d now succumbed myself to what Mr. Pope called “the siren call.”

  The position of gatherer paid well, and carried a certain amount of responsibility, but it was not the same as being a player. Still, Julia admitted that she would have to make a living somehow. She stuck with it for one week.

  From the stage, I could see her standing just inside the second-level entrance, her shoulders sagging under the weight of the money box, her eyes fixed on the stage, saying sil
ently that she would give any amount of money to be up there with us. I would have given mine as well, had I had any.

  When Monday’s performance came around, she was not in her place. Mr. Phillips said that she had disappeared sometime during the night, taking the few articles of woman’s clothing she owned, and leaving behind all her boy’s garb.

  I tried to understand that, too, but it was difficult. I had been persuaded that she and I were friends, and though I knew little as yet about what friendship entailed, I felt that surely a friend would wish to say farewell.

  Nick seemed to have deserted us, too. Though some of the players had seen him up and about and looking well enough, save for a bandage on his throat, he did not return to the theatre. Sander went on substituting for him in Hamlet, and I for Julia, but the two of us could not hope to fill all the roles both of them had been playing.

  A hired boy took on a few, and Chris Beeston reluctantly agreed to don women’s costume again, and for a time the sharers scheduled the plays with the fewest female roles. But these were only temporary measures. If Nick did not rejoin us soon, a replacement would have to be found. Sander and I were dispatched once again to try and surprise him at one of his customary watering holes.

  I doubted that he would show his face again at the tavern where he had fought the duel, and I was right. The only sign of Nick there was the blood stain he had left on the floorboards. We stopped at three other taverns before we finally discovered him at the sign of the Dagger, and then I had cause to wish we had not.

  As soon as we stepped inside the door, Sander spotted him. “There he is, with a pot of ale in his hand as usual.”

  My eyes had not quite grown used to the dim interior. “Where?” Sander pointed. Nick sat at the far side of the room, gripping a pewter pot as if it were the only stable thing in the room. Across from him sat another familiar figure. His upper body was bent forward, as though to discuss some private matter. His face was shrouded in a dark hood, leaving only a hooked nose and a black, curly beard by which to identify him.

  “Gog’s blood!” I breathed. I backed through the door as noiselessly as I could and ducked into a narrow space between the tavern and the building next to it. There I stood, pressed to the wall, trying to recover my breath, which seemed to have been squeezed from my chest.

  After a moment, Sander came into view, looking about in a bewildered fashion. “Whist!” I called softly. “Over here!” He turned in my direction. “No! Don’t look at me!” I cried, and he turned away again, more bewildered than ever. “Is anyone coming out of the tavern?”

  He glanced toward the door. “No.”

  Fearfully, I emerged from my hiding place and pulled at his arm. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Back to the theatre.”

  “But—but what about Nick?”

  “I’ll explain later. Just come.”

  Good friend that he was, he did not waste time arguing. But when we had put several blocks behind us, he said, “Could you explain, now?”

  How could I? What could I tell him? Would I be a better friend if I revealed the truth to him, or if I concocted another lie? Once again, two paths had opened before me, and I could take the expedient one, or the one that required courage.

  “That man wi’ Nick,” I said. “I ken him.”

  “From the way you bolted, I’d guess you’re not on the best of terms.”

  I couldn’t help smiling grimly at this understatement. “You might say so.” I paused, still considering the other path, then sighed and went on. “’A’s called Falconer. ’A’s been sent here by Simon Bass to steal the book of Hamlet.”

  “Bass? The same Simon Bass who was with the Chamberlain’s Men?”

  “Aye, the very same.” I knew what his next question would be, and I dreaded it.

  “What has that to do with you?”

  “I…I was sent wi’ him. To copy the play.”

  Sander stared at me, his face a very picture of astonishment. “Copy it? How do you mean?”

  “In the writing I showed you,” I said, unable to meet his eyes.

  “The devil take me!” He walked on in silence for a bit, trying, I guessed, to come to terms with this idea. “Have you done it?” he asked finally.

  “Of course not! I made up me mind not to, long ago! Well, some time ago, anyway.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “What a dunce I’ve been! I truly believed you wanted to be a player!”

  “I do, Sander! As God’s me witness, I do now!” He stared at me, and the look of mistrust in his eyes, where I had never seen it, pained me deeply. “I didn’t think of it as wrong at first. I thought of it only as a job given me by me master. That was before I kenned any of you. Don’t you see, an I’d meant to carry it out, I had ample chance. Gog’s bread, I had the book in me hands!”

  He blinked thoughtfully. “That’s so,” he admitted. But the look of mistrust lingered. “All the same, you made fools of us. You and Julia.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words felt strange and foreign upon my tongue. It felt strange, too, to have told the harsh truth for once, rather than an easy lie, yet I did not regret it. “You won’t tell the others?”

  “How can I not? If that fellow is still planning to steal the book, they need to know.”

  “’A won’t come near the Globe himself. ’A’s too canny for that.”

  “Then how—” He paused as the answer came to him. “You don’t think Nick would—?”

  “Aye. I’ve no doubt of it. An Falconer offers him enough money, ’a’ll recite every line ’a recalls, and make up what ’a doesn’t, and we’ve no way of preventing him.”

  “We could tell the sharers.”

  “And what good would that do? They can’t stop him, either, short of locking him up, or cutting out his tongue. All it will do is bring out me own part in this matter.”

  “I suppose so.” Sander shook his head. “I can’t believe that Nick would really betray the company,” he said, though the look on his face said that he found the idea all too likely. “But then,” he added, “I’d never have believed it of you, either.”

  The fact that I had elected to tell the truth one time did not diminish my ability to lie accurately when the occasion demanded it. Upon our return, I told Mr. Heminges that we had failed to find Nick. For a moment, I feared that Sander might contradict me, but he let it go. That, I assumed, would be the end of the matter. Nick and Falconer would come to some mutually satisfactory agreement, and with any luck, we would never see either of them again.

  Knowing Falconer as I did, I should have known better. I should have realized that he would not be content to take to Simon Bass a secondhand version of the play.

  The following afternoon, we were performing Tamburlaine. I was playing several small roles, my most dramatic being that of a soldier who dies a bloody death in one of the battle scenes. I had just finished strapping on my blood bag and rapier and dressing myself and was about to step from the tiring-room, when the rear door of the theatre opened and Nick stepped inside. He let the door close softly behind him and stood gazing about, as if to see whether anything had changed in his absence.

  I ducked back into the tiring-room, my mind in confusion. How could he have the nerve to come here, after selling us out to Falconer? Then, for the first time, it occurred to me that perhaps he had not. Perhaps he had refused Falconer’s offer. Or perhaps there had been no such offer. What if, instead, Falconer had hired Nick to bring me to him? Or what if I had misjudged Nick altogether? What if, in spite of everything, he still felt some loyalty to his theatre family and, learning of my association with Falconer, he had come to expose me?

  I stood against the wall for several long minutes, overcome with anxiety and indecision. The reflection staring back at me from the looking glass appeared grotesque and strange. What was I doing dressed in soldier’s garb, with an oversized sword dragging the floor at my side? What had ever made me imagine that I could impersonate someon
e else, that I could be anything other than Widge, the orphan, the unwilling prentice of some unsympathetic master in some unbearable trade?

  My heart sank, and I turned from the glass. I did not have the courage Julian had. If Nick was here to reveal my secret, I could not bear to witness it. I moved to the tiring-room door and peered out. To my surprise, Nick was gone. If I meant to make good my escape, now was the moment.

  I slipped across the area behind the stage to the rear door without attracting anyone’s attention. In another moment I would have been out of the theatre had not my notice been attracted by something out of the ordinary. The door of the property room, which always stood open during performances to give the players quick access to their properties, was now firmly closed. In the perpetual gloom that prevailed behind the stage, I could see a faint light issuing through the crack at the bottom of the door.

  I hesitated. Was Nick within, searching for the book? Or was it some member of the company—Mr. Heminges, perhaps, seeking a moment of solitude in which to balance his accounts? A faint grating noise came from within the room, and it was not, I was certain, the sound of someone writing in a ledger.

  Knowing full well that I might be sorry, I stepped away from the exit. Carefully lifting the latch on the property room door, I eased it open.

  Inside, in the light of a candle, I could make out a figure crouched over one of the property trunks, lifting some object from it. As the figure stood and turned to the light, I saw that it was Nick, and that the object he held was a play book.

  25

  Before I could retreat from the doorway, Nick lifted his gaze and spied me. His hand went to his rapier, and he drew it from its hanger in one swift motion. “Hold!” he commanded, his voice as faint and rasping as the sound I had heard moments before—the sound of the trunk being forced open.

  I could likely have pulled the door closed before his sword point reached me, but I did not. If I ran, even to bring help, I would be letting Nick go, and the play book with him, and betraying the company as surely as if I had taken it myself.