The Spy of Venice

by Benet Brandreth

  Susanne pursed her lips. ‘What mischief is this that you’re about, William Shakespeare?’

  ‘May a gentleman not make a gesture to a lady without it being questioned?’

  ‘A gentleman might,’ she responded, but took his money nonetheless.

  When Susanne reached their table she placed the stoup of wine upon it and gestured back at William. The two women watched as William made an elaborate bow in their direction. Hunt’s wife made a feeble gesture of refusal to which William responded, as if it were a summons, by going over to where they sat.

  ‘Forgive me, mistress,’ he said as Susanne returned to the bar with a shake of her head. ‘I fear that I am in part responsible for your husband’s distemper. I foolishly questioned his knowledge of Ovid this afternoon and did not acknowledge my error as readily as I should. I would hope you receive this wine as a small gesture showing my contrition.’

  William unleashed his finest smile in the direction of Hunt’s wife and allowed it to pad over to the daughter.

  ‘So you’re the unmannerly rascal he was railing at this evening,’ Mistress Hunt said.

  The wine was already beginning to take its toll. There was a slight slur to her speech and her eye struggled to focus on William’s.

  ‘I fear so,’ said William.

  He managed to look contrite and wolfish at the same time. It was a combination he had had occasion to master. He was rewarded with a smile from the girl.

  ‘Well, I thank you for your kindness,’ said Mistress Hunt. ‘As to forgiveness, that is for my husband to say, but,’ she drew the stoup of wine towards herself, ‘I shall tell him of your gesture.’

  William bowed graciously to both and retreated to the shadows of the back bar and waited. Sure enough it was not long before all the drink converted itself into a need for the privy. Hunt’s wife rose and wove her way outside. At once William padded back over to the table.

  ‘Your good mother has gone to bed?’

  The girl looked about her. She was not used to the conversation of strange men with handsome features and cunning eyes.

  ‘Forgive me,’ William continued. ‘I did not mean to fright you. It was only that I meant to ask if your father would attend the fair tomorrow also. So that I might make apology to him in person.’

  ‘I do not know. I think my father plans to leave. My mother speaks of staying for the market.’ The girl blushed in her confusion and embarrassment.

  William thought the colour suited her complexion well. Here was a flower kept too long from the light. Let her but see the sun and she’d spring forth a rare blossom. William felt the rush to dare all come upon him in heady combination with the wine he had himself consumed in strong measure. He switched his tone to sincere desire and leaned towards her.

  ‘I pray he does. If only that I might admire his daughter once again.’

  Her bright eyes opened wide.

  ‘Sir . . . you go too far . . .’ she said, leaning in herself.

  ‘To the ends of the Earth, I think,’ said William, ‘to ultima Thule and beyond if it meant I might see you again.’

  Too much? William wondered. Surely so, but one cannot think overmuch on wooing or all seems ridiculous.

  ‘Say that you’ll come to the play tomorrow,’ he said, ‘and I promise you’ll hear words that speak the true extent of my heart’s desire.’

  From the corner of his eye William saw Mistress Hunt open the door and lean unsteadily on the frame at the threshold.

  ‘Tell me your name,’ he urged the girl.

  ‘Alice,’ she said.

  William repeated her name in solemn tones and spun and left.

  Alice squawked as her mother slumped into the seat beside her. She looked up to see if her mother had been witness to William’s lovemaking, but Mistress Hunt was having considerable difficulty seeing even her own nose.

  For certain, neither woman saw William strolling back to the group in the rear of the King’s Hall. Nor the impish grin upon his lips. Nor did they hear him lean into Oldcastle and whisper in his ear, ‘Master Oldcastle, I have a favour to ask . . .’

  A critic, nay, a night-watch constable

  The following morning Anne saw William walk out of the door of the house on Henley Street with relief. He had been more than ordinarily restless that morning, rising even before the children while it was still dark. By the time Anne rose herself he was making ready to depart. He kissed his wife, grabbed the papers that represented his morning’s labour from the kitchen table, danced out the door and strode towards the glove shop.

  Despite the lateness of his going to bed and the earliness of his rising William was full of industry. Much labour had been done in the shop by the time his father entered and was confronted by a beaming William.

  ‘You’re gay this morning, William,’ said his father.

  ‘I am,’ he replied.

  The father stood at the threshold while his son stood behind the counter smiling at him. Eventually the older man shook his head and strode in to join the younger.

  Neither man made comment on the events of the night before. Several times John, having spent much of the previous evening rehearsing angry words in his mind, opened his mouth to chide his son. On each occasion the sight of his son’s eager good mood and energy stayed his breath.

  At noon William begged his father’s indulgence to depart. Such had been his industry the day’s work was done. His father granted his release with relief. William made his way to the King’s Hall for food and the furtherance of his plan.

  Oldcastle had to be shaken awake.

  ‘Dear God, why mock poor fellows thus?’ he said. ‘It cannot be dawn already.’

  ‘Up, Master Oldcastle. It’s past noon,’ said William.

  A groan emerged from beneath the nest of blankets.

  ‘There is work to be done,’ said William as he booted the bed.

  ‘Fie on you,’ Oldcastle responded.

  The fat man rolled onto his side and pulled a blanket over his head. William whipped it away. Oldcastle sat up with a growl. William thrust a beer into his hand. The sound of drinking muffled that of Oldcastle’s outrage. It took William a further half-hour to cajole Oldcastle and the other actors to the yard and show them his morning’s work.

  ‘Arrant nonsense,’ Nightingale yawned in response.

  Oldcastle, looking the brighter for a cold sausage and some hot eggs courtesy of William’s purse, mumbled through a full mouth, ‘I like it.’

  Glanville, the portly player of the lion, had nodded back to sleep. The youth, Arthur, simply shrugged. William waited for the deciding vote.

  ‘It’s well written. Short enough too.’ Hemminges tapped his lips. ‘We’ll do it instead of Murcello.’

  ‘Hold now,’ Nightingale interjected, ‘I worked hard writing Murcello and took great pains to con it.’

  ‘Would that quality in writing were simply a consequence of labour,’ said Hemminges over his shoulder.

  ‘No, it’s a consequence of thought,’ said Nightingale. ‘Consideration, revision, craft. Look at these hatchings.’ He gestured at William’s paper.

  The short scene that William had worked on early that morning was spread out before Hemminges.

  ‘Barely a word crossed out,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s just the uncrafted outpourings of a rank novice.’

  ‘And yet still better than yours,’ said Hemminges.

  Nightingale’s mouth hung open. He gasped for breath. Oldcastle snorted and waggled his hand at him.

  ‘Lord, Ben, is there no safety when players turn critics too?’

  ‘I’ll not be usurped. I write the pieces for this company.’

  Nightingale leaned forward to sweep William’s scribblings to the floor but found his wrist caught by Hemminges in a painful grip.

  ‘Don’t,’ Hemminges said.

  Nightingale snatched his hand back. ‘I’ll have no part of it.’

  He spat on the yard floor, then looked round for support
from Arthur; finding none, he stamped back to his room.

  Hemminges looked over at William.

  ‘There are five parts here and only four of us,’ Hemminges said.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said William. ‘I wrote it, after all.’

  ‘You act?’

  ‘Only at school. If you’ve a better choice, I’d take it,’ William said.

  ‘Fine.’ Hemminges nodded. ‘We’ll take half an hour to learn the piece and then walk it through.’

  Hemminges looked at William. He chewed at his fingertip.

  ‘Remind me why we’re doing this again?’ he asked.

  ‘For love,’ said William.

  ‘For love,’ Oldcastle echoed through a full mouth, clasping his hands over his heart.

  ‘Well,’ said Hemminges, ‘best do a good job then.’

  The play’s the thing

  The town had tested the players’ quality the day before and found it worthy. Though this time they must pay for the pleasure from their own pockets, a good crowd had built up around the little stage. Hemminges and Glanville weaved between the people collecting coins. From behind the curtain William scanned the audience. He found Hunt and his wife and daughter perched upon the same seats as the previous day. Hunt was sitting with arms crossed, gazing at the sky. His wife, looking a little green, was slumped upon the seat beside him. Next to her Alice Hunt was sitting, eager and alert upon her chair like a hunting dog waiting the first flight of birds. William smiled.

  ‘I’d have thought the anticipation of your first step upon the stage would fright you.’

  William turned at Arthur’s whisper. The lad was right. This was to be his first step onto a stage as a player. He wondered at his own lack of fear.

  ‘Perhaps it should,’ said William, ‘but no. I find my thoughts have already gone beyond the playing of the piece to the applause after.’

  ‘A brave conjecture,’ said Arthur.

  Before William could reply he saw Oldcastle stride upon the stage and a hush fall across the crowd. The play had begun.

  Three stories of love Oldcastle promised the good people of Stratford, and a lesson in every one. William knew the form. Each story to build upon the last; a message of ever greater perfection of love. The last scene a rendering of the parable of the Good Samaritan to show God’s love for man.

  William had read Nightingale’s draft of the three stories briefly while waiting for the players to rehearse. It was execrable. It had been no wonder that Hemminges had seized on William’s proffered drama as an alternative to the first of Nightingale’s three stories. Even the finest players could not overcome the stilted nature of Nightingale’s writing. William wondered briefly if that had been the point. Was the tedium of the writing supposed to undermine the message of the piece? He dismissed the thought from his mind. Such subtlety was beyond Nightingale and it was impossible to believe that Oldcastle would hobble himself with such bad writing for a trick but one in five hundred watchers might note.

  In truth he cared not either way. All his mind was bent upon the first story, his draft, the net in which he would snare his partridge. His composure began to fade and trepidation build as the moment he crossed into the light drew nigh. He heard Oldcastle’s words die away. Hemminges marched upon the stage in the guise of King Mark of Cornwall.

  Go now and bring to me, Tristan, my sword

  The closest companion of my heart’s thought.

  There’s none I trust so much as I do him.

  He stands as close to me in love as does

  The sea, the sky. One ends, the other begins.

  William took a breath and crossed the shadow of the curtain onto the stage. He felt more than heard the scrape of chair on floor as his father saw him for the first time. He saw Alice Hunt sit up. Hemminges turned expectantly towards him. William looked out across the craned necks of the crowd before him. He opened his mouth to speak – and his mind went completely blank.

  He had not foreseen the effect crossing the line would have. The same light struck the ground before and after the curtain. The same rough wooden planking stretched from wing to stage. Yet in that single step much changed. A hundred eyes fixed upon him. He was no longer simply the open-mouthed spectator; he was part of the action, the author of it.

  The silence stretched. William’s brain tumbled about. There was a muttering from the groundlings. He saw Hemminges’ eyes roll and Oldcastle’s narrow, urging him on. He could not remember a single word he had written.

  He heard a small snort from the seats. William looked up. Hunt’s expression of grumpy boredom had changed to a smirk of amusement. As the smallest weight can tip the balance of the scales, so that tiny noise made all the difference. William’s mind cleared, the crisis passed. He stepped forward and spoke.

  William had chosen his theme with care. The tragic story of Tristan and Iseult was perfect for his purpose. The unhappy queen and the loyal knight who loves her. The lovers who know that they do wrong but are powerless to resist their attraction. The foolish King Mark, oblivious to the treachery in his own house. William had taken some liberties with the story. In his version King Mark was not the noble figure of legend but a cuckold corpulent from surfeit of meat and drink. A hypocrite glutton who confined the beauteous Iseult to his castle for fear that she would find the wonders of the world too tempting. William had the King come upon the lovers intertwined and slay Tristan with a poisoned sword.

  As William lay dying in Arthur’s lap he made sure that he looked past his Iseult to Alice Hunt. He spoke:

  Wipe dry these eyes of yours that now are wet

  ’Tis that we do not do that we regret

  The bud of love that never daylight sees,

  The fruit of love we see but fail to seize.

  As William closed his eyes he was gratified to see Alice Hunt flutter her own at him. For a moment the corpse of Tristan smiled.

  Voice verses of feigning love

  William took his bow. He was ready to take another but Hemminges, hand upon his arm, hurried him from the stage.

  ‘Enough, enough. Jesu,’ Hemminges said as he bundled William behind the curtain, ‘all the clapping has so swelled your head you’ll never get that hat off.’ He clapped him on the back. ‘Good work, Master Shakespeare. They seemed to like it; though, by God, you came near to disaster at the start.’

  Hemminges turned away to don his costume for the next scene. He did not, therefore, bear witness to Nightingale striding onto the stage, clipping William’s shoulder with his own and sending the newly blooded playwright spinning. William did not care. This petty jealousy from Nightingale was just another kind of applause and equally sweet to him. Besides, he had new business now. He need only find his moment.

  William waited impatiently. When all three scenes were done the crowd began to disperse. There was still haggling to be done in the market. The Hunts gathered themselves and set out into the stalls. William dodged round the back of the stage to avoid his father, who was bearing down upon the curtain behind which he had seen his son disappear. William slipped into the crowd.

  He slid through the knots of people in the narrow lanes between the stalls, scanning for the Hunts. He found them by a stall with bolts of cloth draped across it and hung from the frame. Hunt’s wife fingered them appraisingly while her husband stood bored nearby. As William approached he palmed an apple from a nearby tray. He ducked behind a drape and leaned out to toss the apple.

  ‘Faugh! Filthy children,’ Hunt cried.

  He dabbed at the splashes of mud flung on his hose by the apple’s fall into a nearby puddle.

  ‘God’s will, Matthew,’ said Mistress Hunt. ‘Must you fuss so? Go to the well there and wash. I am not yet done here.’

  His wife waved him away and, muttering to himself, he went. William had hoped only to distract Hunt; this was better still. He spun round the back of the stall and, hidden by the hanging cloth, edged up to Alice.

  ‘Lord, Alice,’ said Mistress Hunt, ‘what is wi
th the squawking today?’

  ‘Sorry, Mother,’ Alice replied, ‘I-I thought I might look over there at the –’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Mistess Hunt, ‘do you not see I am busy?’

  Mistress Hunt had not looked up from her business for one moment’ not even when William’s hand grabbing her daughter’s had caused the young woman to give a squeak of shock. William beckoned Alice toward him and disappeared into the crowd.

  ‘You are too bold,’ Alice said.

  ‘Did I not tell you?’ asked William. ‘For you I would dare anything.’

  A toying smile played on Alice Hunt’s face. She turned away as if to judge the freshness of the fruit nearby.

  ‘You wrote that for me?’ she said.

  ‘For you,’ William said.

  ‘It was pretty.’

  ‘Pretty?’ William felt, unexpectedly, scratched by the compliment. ‘ “Pretty” is a thing of baubles and trinkets,’ he said. ‘It was a thing far greater. A thing of consequence, an enterprise of honourable-dangerous consequence.’

  Alice turned back to William and took a step closer to him. She placed a hand on his arm.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I meant . . . I don’t have your words.’

  William felt, with undisguised pleasure, the presence of her hand clutching the sleeve of his doublet. Noting his gaze she took the hand away and cast her eyes about to see if she’d been seen. William felt the moment ripe. He reached out and touched her arm.

  ‘Say that we can meet tonight,’ he said, ‘in private.’

  Alice shook her head but did not pull from his touch. ‘I cannot. It cannot be. We travel home this day.’

  ‘Then I shall follow you there,’ William promised.

  ‘Foolish, rash boy,’ Alice sighed.

  William held her arm more tightly. ‘You don’t want me to?’

  Alice’s eyes darted everywhere but William’s face. Then they came to rest on his and she spoke smilingly, ‘Of course, of course I do. Oh, oh would that I were free to come with you now.’

  ‘Tonight, sweetling,’ William answered. ‘This very night I will come to you.’