The Slaying Of The Shrew

by Simon Hawke

  Without wasting any time, Humphrey rattled off their instructions. They were to proceed directly to the stables, where their horses and equipment would be put up by the grooms, and then immediately set about their preparations for the staging of their play, which was to take place on the morrow, in the late afternoon, following the wedding. It meant that they would not have much time, if any, to rehearse. If they were quick in setting up, then there might be an opportunity to get in one quick rehearsal in the evening. In the morning, they would all be busy greeting the wedding party as they arrived.

  “Costumes shall be provided for you,” Humphrey stated curtly, with a slightly preoccupied look, as if ticking off a mental list. “You shall be receiving them this evening while you are setting up your stage and can then divide them amongst yourselves, accordingly.”

  “What sort of costumes?” Burbage asked, with a slight frown. “I was not aware that we would be donning any costumes other than our own. Surely, there cannot be any time for fittings?”

  “Fittings shall not be necessary,” Humphrey replied. “The costumes are merely simple white robes that drape over the body. You shall be Roman senators, welcoming our distinguished guests as they arrive and helping them disembark, then escorting them up to the house, where my staff shall take over their charge.”

  “Ah, of course,” said Kemp. “As everyone knows, the august members of the Roman Senate always took the part of porters at the docks whenever important guests arrived to visit Caesar.”

  Humphrey arched a disdainful eyebrow at Kemp’s sarcasm and then more than matched it with his own. “If you prefer, we could make you a Nubian slave, strip you to your waist, darken your skin with coal dust, and have you walk behind the guests, carrying an ostrich feather fan.”

  “Methinks I would just as soon serve in the Senate,” Kemp replied, with a sour grimace, as the others chuckled.

  “The schedule of events does not leave us much time to rehearse,” said Burbage.

  The steward’s expressive eyebrow elevated once again. “Well? You are the Queen’s Men, are you not, the self-proclaimed masters of tragedy and comedy? I was informed you were the best players in the land.”

  “Aye, we are proud, indeed, to have that reputation,” Burbage replied, puffing himself up. “Nevertheless-”

  “Well then,” Humphrey interrupted, “Master Middleton has paid for the best, and so he expects the best, and nothing less. Tis in your own interest, therefore, to live up to your stellar reputation. Look to it.”

  “That had almost the aspect of a threat,” Shakespeare said to Smythe as they left Humphrey and proceeded toward the stables. “Do you suppose they might set the dogs on us if our performance is found wanting?”

  “I doubt that Master Middleton would waste his sports upon the likes of us,” said Smythe, with a straight face. “I think it more likely he would dispatch a phalanx of footmen armed with cudgels to urge us on our way.”

  “Well you may jest,” said Shakespeare, “but these moneyed sorts would do just that sort of thing and not think twice of it. I do not trust that Humphrey fellow. He has a lean and hungry look. I much prefer a well-fed man. Corpulence has a tendency to make one indolent and indolent men are much less likely to be moved to violent action.”

  “Like our late King Henry, you mean?” said Burbage. “Now there was a sweet, pacific soul for you. Anne Boleyn found him rather corporal in his corpulence, as I recall.”

  “Aye, imagine what his humor might have been if he were thin,” said Smythe, grinning.

  “ ‘Twould have been much worse, I have no doubt of it,” Shakespeare replied. “Had he been a leaner and more spirited man, like Richard Lionheart, then instead of merely breaking with the Church of Rome, he might have launched his own crusade against it.”

  “Now you know, there might be a good idea for a play in that,” said Smythe.

  “God’s wounds!” said Burbage. “We do not have enough trouble with the Master of the Revels? Do us all a kindness, Will. Should you by any chance decide to pen a play about an English king, then try to choose one whose immediate descendants do not at present sit upon the throne, else we might all end up with our heads on London Bridge.”

  “Sound counsel, Dick,” Shakespeare said. “I shall endeavor to keep it in mind.”

  “And you, Smythe,” Burbage added, “leave the playwriting to Shakespeare and stick to what you do best.”

  “Aye, whatever that may be,” said Kemp, getting down from his seat up in the wagon as they reached the stables and dismounted. “Lifting heavy objects, was it not?”

  “Indeed, I do believe that you have struck upon it, Kemp,” said Smythe, turning towards him. “And since there is nothing heavier than your own weighty opinion of yourself, I think I shall indulge in a bit of practice at my skill.” With that, he seized Kemp and hoisted him high into the air, holding him at arm’s length overhead.

  Startled, Kemp yelped, then started blustering. “Put me down, you great misbegotten oaf!”

  “As you wish,” replied Smythe, and tossed him straight into the manure bin.

  Kemp landed in the odiferous mixture of soggy straw and horse droppings to the accompaniment of uproarious laughter from his fellow players. He arose like a specter from the swamp, bits of soiled straw and dung clinging to his hair and clothing. Outrage and embarrassment mingled with anger and disgust, overwhelming him to the point of speechlessness.

  “I have had my fill, Kemp, of your snide barbs and venomous aspersions,” Smythe said. “That you are more talented than I is something I shall not dispute. The least talented member of this company is a better player by far than I, much as it saddens me to say so. I am quite aware of my shortcomings. Be that as it may, I carry my weight and I work as hard as you do, if not harder, and I challenge any member of this company to say that I do not. I am not, by nature, hot-tempered, but neither will I suffer myself to be abused. The next time you provoke me, I shall put you through a window, and the landing may not be as soft. Find another target for your caustic wit, for I have had enough of it.”

  There was complete silence as everyone waited for Kemp to respond. It was a side of Smythe they had not seen before, and it took them all aback a bit.

  “Well…” began Kemp, awkwardly, “ ‘twas never my intention to do you any injury. I never meant to give any offense, you know. ‘Tis just my way… to chide people a bit, good-natured like. I never knew that it discomfitted you. You should have said something.” He tried to meet Smythe’s gaze, but his eyes kept sliding away. He looked, Smythe thought, rather like a guilty dog that had been caught stealing a meat pie.

  “I have said something, just now,” Smythe replied. “And I trust that there shall be no need for me to say it once again.”

  Later, when they were brought to their quarters in the servants’ wing on the ground floor of the mansion, Shakespeare and Smythe found themselves sharing once again a small room, little larger than a closet. There were always some spare rooms in the servants’ quarters of the larger homes for visitors who travelled with liveried footmen or tirewomen or the like. The accomodations were hardly luxurious, but they were still a sight more comfortable than what most working-class people in the city could afford, many of whom had to crowd together into tiny rented rooms and share sleeping space upon the floors.

  “I was wondering when you would finally have your fill of Kemp and clout him one,” said Shakespeare.

  “Now I never clouted him,” protested Smythe.

  “No, what you did was much worse. Or much better, depending on one’s point of view. You humiliated him. Plucked him up as if he were a daisy and threw him straight into a pile of shit. ‘Twas quite lovely, really. Wish I had thought of it myself, save that I would have lacked the strength to hoist him up like that.”

  Smythe grimaced. “I probably should not have done it. But I was sick of him constantly picking away at me.”

  “Well, rest assured, he shall not do it anymore, but you have made an enemy
for life.”

  “You think?”

  “Oh, aye. You can best a man and he will like as not forgive you for it, but humiliate him and ‘tis a sure thing that he will hate you til he dies. And I suppose that one can say the same for women, when it comes to that. Man or woman, either way, hate shall not discriminate.”

  Smythe nodded. “I cannot disagree. But I do believe that Kemp had hated me right from the very start, or at the very least, disliked me a great deal. I could not have made things that much worse. I had held my temper with him in the past, but that only seemed to encourage him. At least now, I might save myself having to listen to his noise. Nevertheless… perhaps I should not have done it.”

  “No, ‘twas the right thing you did,” said Shakespeare, thoughtfully, as he stretched out on the straw mattress and put his arms up behind his head. “You are a strapping lad, Tuck, powerfully strong, but that strength shall only be respected when there is a threat that it might be employed. If a man like Kemp perceives that he can bait you with impunity, why then you might be twice his size and it shall not discourage him. He was always pricking you with his nasty wit, we could all see that. If you had not thrown him in the shitpile, or else clouted him a good one, ‘twould have only gotten worse.”

  “I think so, too,” said Smythe. “Though, in truth,” he added, somewhat sheepishly, “I cannot claim to have thought the matter through that way before I acted.”

  “Betimes a man may think too much,” said Shakespeare. “Clarity is often better found in action than in thought. Hmm, that’s a good line. Let me set it down ‘ere I forget.”

  He got up from the bed and rummaged in his bag. As Shakespeare searched for his papers and his pens and ink, Smythe took his place and stretched out on the straw bed. “In truth, Kemp was only a small part of my distemper. I keep thinking that Elizabeth is here somewhere and but for our foolish argument, I might have found an opportunity to spend a bit of time with her before we went on tour.”

  “So what prevents you?” Shakespeare asked. “Go and search her out. Or else send word to her by one of the household servants.” “You forget,” said Smythe, “we argued.” “About what?”

  Smythe frowned. “For the life of me, I cannot now recall.” He snorted. “Foolish.”

  “Most quarrels between men and women are over foolish things,” said Shakespeare. “Especially if they are lovers.”

  “But we are not lovers,” Smythe protested. “We have never… Well, we have never.”

  “Then that is even more foolish,” Shakespeare said, impatiently. “I have told you afore this to get that girl out of your head, because she is too far above you, but if you intend to be stubborn about it, then you might as well tup her and have done with it. If you can manage to avoid having your ears and other parts of your anatomy sliced off by Henry Darcie, it might get her out of your system.”

  “Mmm, I see. Was that how it worked for you in Stratford?”

  “Swine. Do I toss your poor past judgement in your face?”

  “Aye, all the time.”

  “Lout. Aha! Here we are!” He brought forth his papers and a small box containing his inkwell and his pens. “Now… what was that line I wanted to set down?”

  Smythe shrugged. “I dunno.”

  “God’s wounds! You have forgotten?”

  “You said you wanted to set it down; I recall that much. You did not say you wanted me to remember it for you.”

  “Argh! I can see that you are not going to be of any use to me at all until you set your mind straight about that girl. Folly. Tis all folly, if you ask me. Go, find her. Find her and make it up to her. Abase yourself before her and tell her what a mighty goose you have been and how you should have known better, but were utterly blinded by your vanity and foolishness. A woman loves to hear a man admit to being a fool; it confirms her own opinion and lends credence to her judgement. Go and find her and plead for her forgiveness.”

  “But… I had done nothing truly wrong,” said Smythe.

  “Did you speak?”

  “Well, aye, but-”

  “Then you undoubtedly did wrong. Either way, it matters not. You shall not mend fences by stubbornly standing on your pride. Go on, get out. Leave me in peace. I must try to somehow make a play out of this dross that I have penned and must now see performed, thanks to your kind offices.”

  “I never meant to cause you trouble, Will. I was only thinking that it might be an opportunity for you,” said Smythe.

  Shakespeare sighed. “I know, Tuck, I know. And that is why I cannot be angry with you for it. I know that you meant well. As I, too, mean well when I tell you to go and tell Elizabeth that you are sorry for your quarrel. I still think that no good can come of this infatuation, but then I am like as not the last who should advise anybody on such matters.”

  Smythe took a deep breath. “I do not know, Will… I am not even certain where to go and look for her.”

  “Well, considering that they are setting up a fair outside,” said Shakespeare, “might not a young woman wish to be among the first to do a bit of shopping?”

  It was drawing on towards evening, but the fairgrounds were still abustle as late-arriving merchants hurried to set up their stalls. Others, whose goods had already been displayed, were making last minute adjustments to their tables or else dickering with guests who had already arrived and were taking advantage of the warm and pleasant evening to peruse the tented and beribboned booths. Unlike other fairs that were open to the public, there was no official opening time. The invited merchants were free to begin selling as soon as they set up their stalls, so long as they refrained from remaining open during the wedding ceremony scheduled for the following day. It was a small enough concession, Smythe thought, considering the wealthy customers to whom the merchants would be given access and they were all doing their best to make the most of the opportunity by arriving early and setting up their stalls as soon as possible. And other than the singular oddity of this fair being held on the grounds of a private estate and restricted only to invited guests, it reminded Smythe of the one held at his village, or at least it did until he got a closer look at some of the goods being offered and heard the asking prices.

  All fairs, large or small, had certain things in common, such as the sale of foodstuffs. Already, Smythe could smell the savory aromas of fresh fruit pies baked earlier in the day and carefully packed up for the journey to the fair. He could smell roast chicken and game birds cooking over braziers, as well as venison pastie. And much like the fair at home, there were merchants here selling bolts of cloth and ribbons, as well as finished goods, but only the very finest kinds.

  There were bolts of three-piled velvet and Italian silk, as well as Flemish damasks and French lace, much finer than anything Smythe had ever seen at the country fairs back home. Expensive pewter bowls and plates and drinking goblets were for sale at one booth, fancy embroidered doublets at the next, and jewelry at the one past that. There were heavy gold rings and enamelled chains and bracelets and brooches all set with precious stones, the work of the city’s finest artisans. There was even an armorer’s stall where Smythe stopped to stare at the highly polished and extravagantly engraved armor of the queen’s own champion on display. Nearby, a booth with weapons laid out on the cloth covered tables and hung up on pegs affixed to slanted display boards drew his attention. He gazed with interest at the great double-handed swords and Scottish basket-hilted claymores, war axes, spiked morning stars and triangulated maces, all of which, in these times of peace, were far more likely to be purchased for display upon some wall rather than for potential use in battle. He paid closer attention to the more practical swords and daggers suitable for daily wear, such as the gleaming Toledo blades and Italian stilettos, their hilts wrapped with fine gold and silver wire; slim and graceful ladies’ bodkins with hilts of bone or ivory and precious jewels set into their pommels and crossguards; purposeful looking swords and knives from the best artisans of Sheffield, as well as elaborately-wrought
cup and basket-hilted French poignards and rapiers and main gauches. Save for a venison pastie, perhaps, or a roast goose drumstick, Smythe saw absolutely nothing that he could afford on his meager player’s pay.

  As he wandered among the stalls, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a familiar-looking hooded cloak of green velvet. It was the same one Elizabeth had worn when they had last seen one another at St. Paul ’s. The day that they had quarrelled, Smythe thought, ruefully. She had often worn that cloak; it was her favorite. He was about to call out her name, but then thought better of it and caught himself in time.

  This was not the yard of St. Paul ’s, he reminded himself. This was a private celebration at the estate of Godfrey Middleton, one of the richest men in London, and all about him, aside from the merchants and their apprentices, were some of the most wealthy and influential people in all of England. It was not a place where Elizabeth would wish to call attention to her friendship with a lowly ostler and a sometime player, assuming, of course, that their relationship had not been irreparably damaged by their foolish quarrel.

  The thought gave Smythe a sharp pang of anxiety. Friendship was probably the most that he could ever hope for with Elizabeth, although he longed with all his heart and soul for something more than that. But Shakespeare was right, she was too far above him. And if their relationship continued, she doubtless stood to lose far more than he did. The smart thing, the best thing, perhaps, would be for him to simply put her out of his mind, but what was simply said was not so simply done. Perhaps Shakespeare was right, he thought, and nothing good would come of it, but good or bad, either way, nothing would come of it at all if he did not go to her and beg for her forgiveness.