The Playmakers

by Graeme Johnstone

  “I grew up in Canterbury.”

  “Another coincidence,” roared Budsby. “Young William’s an out of towner, too.”

  “And my father was a shoemaker.”

  “Well, by Jove, that’s amazing. Will’s father works with leather, too. Providence has brought us all here tonight.”

  “Yes?”

  “You are kindred spirits, Christopher and William.”

  “It certainly seems that way,” added Raleigh.

  “Mr Marlowe,” continued Budsby jovially, “I believe that the combined resources of Budsby and Shakespeare could be of some benefit to the well-being of your Mr Tamburlaine the Great.”

  “You mean, you will help me, gentlemen?” said Marlowe, brightening up.

  “Help you? Of course we will. We will make sure everyone in London knows about it,” said Shakespeare.

  “For a suitable portion of the turnover to assuage some necessary expenses, of course …” added Budsby quickly.

  Marlowe looked taken aback, but brightened up when Raleigh nodded approvingly.

  “Then it is done, Mr Budsby, Mr Shakespeare,” said the young playwright, extending a hand.

  “Done, and done,” said Budsby with a smile.

  “And, ah, even at this early stage, do you have an idea how to promote it?” said Marlowe.

  “What is the theme of the play?” said Shakespeare.

  “It is set in Turkey,” said Marlowe.

  “Hmm, something Turkish,” replied Budsby, slowly rubbing the silver top of his stick.

  And at that point the curtain pulled back to reveal Rasa and Emily on stage.

  “Ah! My twins!” said Raleigh, joyous at seeing the girls again.

  “Look at that!” said Marlowe, ogling Rasa’s curvaceous figure.

  Even Kyd was moved to comment. “What a beautiful sight,” he said, his eyes lighting up as the pretty waif-like Emily walked to the front of the stage.

  “You ask do I have an idea?” said Budsby watching their reactions. “I think I might have something up my sleeve …”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ralph Luckston had lived and worked in London most of his life, and had observed just about anything and everything pass by on the muddy road in front of his Whitechapel tinsmith works. Filthy beggars with the most appalling physical deformities pleading for a copper. Blowsy women willing to offer a moment of pleasure for a few pence. Young lads, barely out of their mother’s arms, proudly marching off to fight for a cause trumped up by some Duke or other so he could reap more Court patronage by flexing his muscles against an opponent who had the temerity to think along different lines.

  But the wiry little tinsmith had never seen anything like this before in his life.

  It had started out with a drum beat in the distance.

  A slow, steady, drum beat.

  A beat that even when it was half a mile away and muffled, had an insistence about it that simply demanded attention.

  A beat that, as it got closer and closer, and louder and louder, burrowed inside Ralph Luckston’s brain like an insistent weevil into a piece of hardened ship’s cheese.

  And, on one of the rare moments in his career as an established and respected tinsmith, Ralph Luckston lost concentration. As the infuriating boom-boom-boom approached, he fumbled the precious moment when he was to fix the handle to the small soup pot he was making, threw the lot on the ground, and shouted, “Shit, what is going on out there?”

  His demeanour was not helped by the sudden arrival of his wife, Rebecca, from the back of the works, snapping “Ralph, that language! I’ve told you before.” And she had, too, many times. But that was the beauty of their partnership. He, the diminutive, craggy, and occasionally tetchy craftsman with the usually safe hands who turned out the works of quality. She, the clever, well-rounded, smooth-skinned matriarch who kept the business and the family moving forward with wise decisions and the ability to rein things in when they were getting out of hand. Including Ralph’s language.

  “It’s that bloody …” said Ralph, pointing a blackened finger toward the road outside.

  “Ralph!”

  “It’s that … noise, Rebecca. Hear it! That beating noise. It’s getting to me.”

  Rebecca Luckston cocked one ear. A look of puzzlement came across her broad, open face, as she picked up on the incessant, perfect rhythm beat. She narrowed her dark brown eyes. “What on earth is it?” she said.

  Ralph shrugged his scrawny shoulders. “Don’t know.” He surveyed his ruined creation. “But it’s put me off.”

  A buzzing, chattering noise coming from outside, indicated that whatever it was, it was rapidly drawing a huge crowd.

  The tinsmith and his wife could wait no longer. They stepped out into the street, and gasped.

  Ralph was to tell his friends later that evening in the inn - one of the joys of his and Rebecca’s partnership being she agreed a couple of drinks each night after work was good for him - that when they saw the size of the crowd and the source of the noise, he could only exclaim “Jesus, Mary, Mother of Gladys.”

  “Which only got her madder, and she gave me a punch on the arm!” added Ralph, to the roars of mirth from his three friends sitting around the tavern table.

  “Well, well, it must have been some sight,” said one of his drinking partners, a tall, lean man named Wilson, who ran a granary store on the other side of the river. “Go, on, then, what did you see?”

  “Well,” continued Ralph Luckston, “it was some sort of procession. It’ll probably come over your way too, soon. But you had better be careful - it got me into trouble.”

  “A procession?” said Wilson. “What sort of procession would get you into trouble?”

  “Leading the way was this, sort of, I don’t know, midget.”

  “A midget!”

  “Yes, this horrible little fellow with a squashed-up face, half-lidded eyes, and tiny stubby hands, dressed in purple and orange, with bells on his hat.”

  “Certainly different,” said a second man, a short whiskery chap named Philip Bartles, a business partner of Wilson.

  “Yes, but he was very good at his job.”

  “How’s that?” interjected Wilson.

  “He jumped and bounced and did the most extraordinary acrobatics,” enthused Ralph. “And ever now and then he would rush to the side of the street, leap at the crowd, and draw enormous laughs and squeals. He was frightening, but knew how far to push things.”

  “And what came after him in this procession?” said Wilson.

  “Then came the source of my annoyance.”

  “Ah,” said Bartles, the second man “The banging noise!”

  “Precisely! A young boy - he must have been barely fifteen at most, like some of those poor lads who get sent off to battle. He was beating a huge drum. It was a big barrel of a thing, with a thick hide and lots of trimmings, and made an enormous pounding noise. You could hear it half way up the Thames Valley. No wonder I dropped my tin pot!”

  They group laughed, and Wilson stood and ordered more drinks.

  “And then what?” urged the third of Ralph’s companions, a rough-and-ready part-time labourer named Higgins with scrawny whiskers and a large belly, who occasionally helped both Wilson and Ralph with deliveries.

  “Then,” said Ralph, “came this giant of a man.”

  “Giant?”

  “Well, he wasn’t that tall, but he was broad and powerfully built. It was not the prettiest of faces, but I don’t think you would want to mention that to him!”

  “No?”

  “He looked strong as an ox, bare-chested with huge muscles covered in a thin layer of fat or oil or something to make them glisten.”

  “Ooo-err,” said the listeners collectively.

  Ralph continued with the description of the strong man. “He was wearing baggy red pantaloons, tucked into his boots, and had a big leather belt. And from the belt there hung a huge sword, you know, one of those curved Arabic swords …”

&n
bsp; “Ah, with the big broad blade. A scimitar?” said Wilson.

  “Yes, that’s it,” said Ralph. “Scimitar. And on his head was a turban, with a jewel at the front.”

  “Ahh,” said the second man, “ a bodyguard, for a potentate, perhaps.”

  “Exactly!” said Ralph. “Because behind him, there came a diminutive little girl - my god she was pretty, a tiny little blue-eyed, pale-skinned thing, from the northern borders, I would suggest - dressed in pantaloons and shirt with a light veil draped over her head.”

  “And what was she doing, this pretty little thing from the north?” said Wilson.

  “She had a big basket of rose petals and was gaily throwing them on the road.”

  “Ah-ha, as a lead in to what?” queried Bartles.

  “A magnificent sedan-chair, borne aloft,” intoned Ralph.

  “What do they call it? A litter?” said Wilson.

  “That’s right!” said Ralph. “A litter. It was made of superb mahogany, and trimmed in copper at all the joins, with red velvet lining and cushions. Gold tassels hung everywhere. It was a beautiful piece of work, carried by eight men.”

  “Eight men?” said Wilson incredulously, wiping the foam from his mouth.

  “It needed them. Because sitting on the big throne, in luxurious splendour, was the fattest man I have ever seen.”

  “What?” said Higgins, patting his belly. “Bigger than me?”

  “Much larger than you,” said Ralph. “Huge! Stomach the size of an elephant’s, large bright red face, big whiskers, a magnificent presence. But surprisingly little feet.”

  “So, what was he dressed like?” said Wilson.

  “Like a Sultan. He had a sort of waistcoat made of maroon velvet. Where they got so much material from, I will never know. It was trimmed with gold. He had cream pantaloons also trimmed in gold and little moccasins on his feet.

  “A turban, too?” said Wilson.

  “A big one!’ said Ralph. “Gold with a giant red ruby in the middle.”

  “And what did he do?”

  “He just sat there, smiled benevolently, said, ‘Nice to see you all’ in this huge booming voice, and relaxed while the fan was raised and lowered above him.”

  “A fan?” said Higgins. “Cor, this bloke had everything!”

  “Yes. A fan,” said Ralph. “And that is the reason I got into trouble.”

  “You got into trouble because of a fan?” said Bartles.

  “Well not so much the fan, rather the person carrying it.”

  “What about him, this fellow carrying the fan?” inquired Wilson.

  “Well, it was not a ‘him’ carrying it, but a ‘her’, you see,” said Ralph, starting to blush.

  “Ahhh, a woman,” said Higgins, leaning forward.

  “Tell us more, Ralph,” added Wilson conspiratorially.

  “She was standing behind him on the litter - how those eight men carried it all through Cheapside I will never know - waving a huge fan over the sultan’s head.”

  “What was she like?” said Wilson.

  “She was beautiful. Tall, statuesque, noble, with a superb figure, high cheek-bones, and deep brown eyes.”

  “Was she from up near the border, too?” said Bartles.

  “No, no. She was dark, you see.”

  “Dark?” said Wilson.

  “Yes. Probably from Arabia. Maybe Africa. And she was wearing the most beguiling smile.”

  “So why should this get you into trouble?” said Wilson, taking a quaff from his drink.

  “Because,” said Ralph, leaning forward. “That was all she was wearing - just the beguiling smile …”

  The beer spluttered from Wilson’s mouth.

  Bartles shouted “Naked? In the streets of London? Ralph, you’re joking!”

  Higgins the itinerant labourer intoned despondently, “Bloody hell, and to think I spent all day over at Watford shifting sacks of beans!”

  “I took one look,” said Ralph, “and couldn’t help it. I said, ‘Praise the Lord, now I’ve seen it all,’ and the next thing Rebecca had grabbed me by the left ear and dragged me back in the shop.”

  The three men laughed uproariously.

  “I tell you, I’m lucky to be here, tonight,” added Ralph. “Did I fix that broken pot quickly to get back in the good books!”

  Later, witnesses with a clearer view of proceedings were to state that the beautiful fan-wielding slave, had, in fact, been wearing an outfit, albeit brief.

  But Ralph Luckston was not alone in thinking he saw a naked woman.

  “I make them see what they want to see, and believe what they want to believe,” said Rufus J. Budsby when his loyal band of mummers got together at the end of the day to assess how their first day of promotion had worked out. “And that is what the name of the game is all about!” He laughed the booming laugh, which reverberated through Percy Fletcher’s tavern, while Sarah brought them all a tray of drinks to unwind.

  In fact, Rasa had worn a pair of thin sandals with leather straps that criss-crossed their way up to mid-calf; a Shakespeare-tailored, close-fitting leather thong that supported a diminutive gold-fringe skirt; and a gold medallion on a chain around her neck.

  But that was all.

  And throughout the procession’s long journey through the south of London, observers could not help be taken by the scantily clad, statuesque figure.

  It was all they could do to tear their eyes away from her breasts, bouncing with the rock and roll of the shouldered litter, and take a pamphlet handed to them by Shakespeare bringing up the rear.

  When they finally put their eyes down, they were greeted with the heading: “Now that we have secured your attention …”

  The pamphlet went on to say that the young eminent playwright Christopher Marlowe had written a new work, and it was about to be presented by the leading repertory group, the Admiral’s Men.

  Readers of the pamphlet were urged to come to Blackfriars Theatre and “observe for your pleasure and edification, an immensely powerful play entitled Tamburlaine The Great, a magnificent work set in the exotic land of Turkey, home of emirs, bodyguards, and dusky slaves …”

  By the next morning, advance bookings had started to roll in.

  And in his tinsmith works, Ralph Luckston listened out vainly every day for the incessant beat of the drum …

  CHAPTER TEN

  The spectacular Turkish procession never actually passed Ralph Luckston’s shop again.

  Much to his chagrin.

  Each day, Budsby and Shakespeare mapped out a new route through the streets of London to spread the message about Christopher Marlowe’s play Tamburlaine. They then set out with Soho gyrating, the drum beating, and bare-breasted Rasa waving the fan over the head of the mighty potentate. They even boldly marched beyond the rough and tumble of the south, heading into the toffier north and west where the real money lay.

  Up there, the occasional nose was sniffed, the odd hanky was fluttered, even the word unbelievable was once or twice heard to be muttered in well-educated tones. But, just as in the south where the response was more unabashed, earthy and robust, the final result was still the same - pandemonium and fascination, which was then translated into high returns at the box office.

  “Mr Budsby, I cannot believe you are getting away with this,” Mr Mullins said one morning as he diligently checked the fastenings on the sedan chairs before they set off.

  “Get away? With what?” said Budsby.

  “Mr Budsby, she’s nearly blimmin’ naked. You’re lucky you haven’t been locked up or had the priests tie you to the stake.”

  “Ah, Mr Mullins, we are simply taking advantage of the strange attitudes that pervade the corridors of moral power.”

  “How’s that, Mr Budsby?”

  “Mr Mullins, to you and me, Rasa is a beautiful human being, a woman of unabashed loveliness.”

  “Yes.”

  “And in our little troupe she is an equal among all equals.”

  “I know,
Mr Budsby.”

  “And to most outsiders, a mere sighting of her is enough to make a man’s heart miss a beat and his blood boil.”

  “I won’t disagree with that, Mr Budsby.”

  “Especially if she is wearing something, how shall I put this, on the diminutive side …”

  “Absolutely, Mr Budsby, absolutely, ” said Mr Mullins enthusiastically.

  “But, ironically, those who police such matters and who would normally shut us down in the name of moral propriety, see no reason to.”

  “No?”

  “Because they don’t see her.”

  “Don’t see her? How could they not see her?”

  “The don’t see her … as a real person, Mr Mullins. They see her only as a person with dark skin.”

  There was silence as Mr Mullins pondered this assessment. Finally he sputtered, “You mean ..?”

  “I mean Mr Mullins, that these puritans, these zealots that are convinced their message is the only message, and are never backward in driving it down people’s throats, consider our beautiful Rasa a second-class citizen. A savage. A pagan.”

  “Ah, I see. A native, whose normal state is one of undress?”

  “Exactly, Mr Mullins. Despite the fact that, among other things, she speaks the Queen’s English probably better than half the population.”

  “So, they haven’t come near you?”

  “Precisely. Not a word. Amid the ooohs and aaahs, and the occasional husband being pulled out of the crowd by a concerned wife, by and large, the spreaders of the given word have left us alone.”

  “Amazing.”

  “Yes, but it is interesting to ponder what their reaction might have been if our little Emily, she of the white skin and of the northern borders, had played the role instead …”

  And so saying, the big man signalled the drummer. At the first beat, Rasa slipped out of the door of the tavern, lithely climbed aboard and demurely took up her position. The hired hands bent their backs, lifted the mighty weight, and the crowd-pulling entourage set off again.

  Inspired by what they had seen trouping through London day after day, the crowds flocked to the Theatre, turning Tamburlaine into a triumph for the young Cambridge graduate. With its powerful language, exotic Turkish setting, and potent story line, Tamburlaine quickly and easily lived up to the expectations dangled so enticingly by the entrepreneurs.