Her Last Assassin

by Victoria Lamb

  The Earl of Southampton nodded, still examining him closely. ‘I was at the Rose with some friends but a few days ago—’

  He was interrupted. A group of laughing young men in rich attire had tumbled through the doorway, coming to a noisy halt behind him. Wriothesley turned to remonstrate with them, and several hooted loudly, slapping him on the back, mocking him for having left the dancing early. She knew a few of them by sight, others from their flirtations with the Queen’s other ladies. Then she saw the nobleman in their midst, the handsome Earl of Essex with a pearl in his ear, and her blood froze in horror.

  ‘I must go,’ she muttered to Will, and turned swiftly away, picking up her skirts so she could hurry.

  Lord Southampton would be offended by her rude departure. But he was a youth, barely eighteen years of age. Essex had the ear of the Queen, and if he were to report having caught her alone with a player, she would almost certainly lose her place at court.

  She was almost at the end of the corridor before Will caught up with her. ‘Stop,’ he insisted, his hand on her arm. ‘For the love of God, Lucy, don’t run from me. Not after that. My heart is still in my mouth from kissing you. Where are you going?’

  ‘Back to the Queen’s chambers,’ she muttered, trying to hide her panic as other courtiers began to fill the corridor. The dancing was at an end, and the court was dispersing, just as she had feared. ‘Before I am missed.’

  ‘You kill me with your coldness.’

  ‘Please, Will …’

  But he would not be budged. His voice grew hoarse. ‘I love you, and I came here to tell you that I cannot live without you any longer. Do not dismiss me like a hound to kennel.’

  Lucy threw the thick veil over her face, though it did little to disguise who she was. Her head wild with misgivings, she led Will to a darkened alcove, letting the crowd pass them by. At least in this jostling throng they would be less easily noticed.

  ‘You must stop coming to court in pursuit of me. If the young Earl of Southampton tells his friend Essex what he saw tonight, and Lord Essex tells the Queen, our lives might as well be over. I am not a free woman, and you are most certainly not a free man. This is impossible, Will, and you know it.’

  ‘Then leave court tonight and come home with me,’ he urged her in a low voice, his hand still tight on her arm. ‘You may never be my wife, but you could be my mistress. No, not like before. That was a mistake. I was too young, I did not know how much I was hurting you. I have a little money set aside now, I could look after you properly.’

  ‘Make me your whore, you mean?’

  ‘No!’ He was abruptly angry, his gaze flaring, releasing her at once. ‘I love you. Don’t cheapen this.’

  Her heart stuttered under his intense stare, suddenly pounding. The offer was tempting. To be Shakespeare’s wife in all but name, to watch him in the playhouse every afternoon, then lie with him every night and not fear discovery …

  But Lucy was only tempted for a second. She would be giving up everything she had struggled to regain after her disgrace. If she followed him tonight, she would throw away her position at court, and very likely be condemned for disobedience and lewd behaviour. And for what? To become a player’s mistress for so long as he wanted her, and after that to become a whore for whichever man would promise to feed and clothe her and keep her off the streets?

  No, a thousand times no.

  She sought for an answer he would understand. ‘The Queen would never permit me to leave court.’

  ‘Then do not ask her permission, simply run away with me.’ His anger had dropped away, like a summer rainstorm that passed as swiftly as it came. Now he was pleading with her instead. Her nerves jangled before the look in his eyes. ‘I need you, Lucy. You understand me. You satisfy me more than any other woman has ever done. Come with me, I will hide you so they cannot find you. I will keep you safe.’

  ‘Hide a Moorish woman in London?’

  Will opened his mouth as though to explain his plan, then shut it again. She felt disappointment as well as relief. He had not thought it out clearly, had he?

  ‘Let us keep things the way they are, Will. I will see you whenever I can, I promise you that. But please do not ask me to leave court. This is where I belong, where my duty lies. If I cannot be your legal wife, then to be the Queen’s lady-in-waiting is what I most crave from this life.’ She hesitated, studying him through the thick veil. ‘I would never ask you to leave the playhouse for my sake, or to seek another trade.’

  ‘That is different,’ Will said wretchedly, but she could see that he had understood.

  Breathing was suddenly difficult. Her vision blurred. She swayed, one hand supporting herself against the wall of the alcove.

  Was this how a broken heart felt?

  ‘I love you,’ she managed, ‘but I cannot be with you.’

  His gaze lingered on hers, his body so close it was hard not to reach for him again. She recalled how it felt to lie naked beneath him, to rock against him in the night, for their hands and lips to touch while he made love to her.

  ‘This is not the end,’ he told her steadily, as though it must be the truth if he had felt it, if he had spoken it aloud. ‘It cannot be the end. We will see each other again, will we not? At least do not leave without allowing me hope of that.’

  ‘I will come to you next time,’ she promised him. ‘To the playhouse. Or your lodgings. As soon as I can leave court without my absence being noticed.’

  ‘You swear it?’

  She could not help smiling at his insistence. Will Shakespeare might be married, but there was no doubt in her heart that he loved her. ‘I swear it.’

  Six

  ‘TAKE THEIR THRUSTS and jibes as a compliment, man. Your fellows attack you because they fear your skill.’ With an absent air, James Burbage helped him off with his dented breastplate, the old theatrical manager still half listening to the cries on stage behind them. Takings were up again: the Rose had enjoyed a full house that afternoon. But Burbage still liked to keep a finger in every playhouse pie, from ensuring the tiring-room ran smoothly to bowing out their most honoured patrons after each performance. ‘Talking of which, is the Shrew finished yet? Summer will be upon us soon and we need fresh plays.’

  That was the question Will had been dreading. He hesitated, easing off his helmet while he considered how to answer. His hair had stuck to his forehead in the hot April sunshine. The cramped tiring-room, where the players disrobed backstage and changed between scenes, was stifling. The tiremen were talking quietly together in the corner, sorting out the costumes for the next piece to be played, some of which would need to be altered to fit the new cast.

  ‘It has not been easy,’ he told Burbage carefully, ‘playing a history by day but writing a comic piece by night. Now I am called “upstart” by my fellow theatricals, as though I keep my quill busy to spite them rather than to feed my family.’

  ‘Your fame grows daily. Let the likes of Robert Green rag at you. He is a lesser star.’

  Will grinned, pouring himself a cup of ale. ‘Hardly!’

  ‘You do not believe me? Why, we even had his lordship the Earl of Southampton sniffing around backstage yesterday, in the hope of meeting Master William Shakespeare, if you please.’

  ‘The Earl of Southampton?’ Will was stunned. He struggled to recall the lavishly dressed, soft-faced youth who had come across him with Lucy at court. The nobleman had mentioned the Rose, yes. But they had barely exchanged more than a few words. ‘What in God’s name could he want with me?’

  ‘The earl is still half a boy, newly released from the cloistered halls of Cambridge University. You are a man of great moment in the city. What do you think he wants? The same thing the merchants’ wives and daughters want when they hang about the theatre door after each performance.’ Burbage laughed, seeing his expression. ‘No, never fear, I do not mean that. He wants your fame to rub off on him, that is all. He will ask to be your patron, Will, to make himself look good before his n
oble friends. For he will be supporting the most popular writer of the day.’

  ‘Kit is that, surely?’

  ‘You surpass Kit with your poetry. He writes a stirring scene for the groundlings, but cannot turn a line as powerfully as you.’ Burbage took Will’s cup away and drank from it, wiping his mouth on his sleeve afterwards. His hair was almost white these days, it had grown so silvered with age. Yet age had given him an authority he had lacked before, with many of the younger players now looking to Burbage for cues on how to speak and gesture, and how to own a stage just by standing on it. Even Will himself was not immune to his eloquence. ‘Depend upon it, this noble youth will wish to fête you and carry you about the court on his shoulders. And if you let him, you will be made.’

  Will considered that possibility for a moment. A wealthy and noble patron to support his writing?

  This could be the chance he had been hoping for. He loved to tread the boards, to see his work played out upon the fierce power and bustle of the stage. But to write poetry, long poems like those by Ovid and Virgil that he had studied as a boy in Stratford – that would lend his career true distinction.

  ‘I wish I had spoken with him,’ he muttered.

  ‘Where were you yesterday? I had Robert stand in for your part, though you were missed by the groundlings. These sudden absences are not like you.’ Burbage looked at him closely. ‘I trust you were ill. Too ill to send word. Or else working on this new comedy and lost in a reverie, so you did not mark the time?’

  Will did not meet his gaze. In truth, he had been with Lucy again all day, walking by the slow-rolling Thames, out beyond the city walls where the woods and fields stretched green and peaceful. He felt more at home there than in the city, reminded of Warwickshire’s damp woodlands. He knew he should not have missed the afternoon performance but it was rare for Lucy to find an opportunity to escape her duties at court, the Queen guarded her ladies so jealously these days. To be with her for a few hours had seemed worth the sacrifice of his pay.

  James Burbage seemed to guess at his thoughts. ‘With lovely Mistress Morgan, were you? You are a young fool. But a fool in love writes better than a fool alone. Only do not make a habit of it. Trust a wily old husband and take my advice on this, my young cockerel.’ He clapped Will on the shoulder. ‘You spend too much time with Lucy Morgan. Soon you will have two wives, and no mistress.’

  Will frowned. ‘Two wives?’

  Burbage hesitated before answering, for it had gone quiet on stage. The final love scene, no doubt.

  ‘You take her too seriously, Will.’

  ‘How so?’

  Instinctively, Will had also turned his head to listen to the players. He knew the scene well, had watched it often enough in rehearsal, had written and rewritten the lines himself. A man making love to a boy dressed as a girl. Out in the wide O of the Rose, a falsetto trembled above the silence of the groundlings; a man answered softly, wooing a youthful apprentice with the shadow of early hair on his chin and rags for breasts swelling out the bodice of his gown.

  ‘A man should visit his mistress with a light heart, and make her no promises,’ Burbage told him in a whisper. ‘Else he will come to dread her company as much as his wife’s.’

  ‘I have no wife,’ Will told him flatly.

  He turned, dipping his hands into the freshly filled water bowl, and hurriedly washed the sweat from his face, then dunked his head. With water dripping down the back of his neck, he straightened, running his fingers through his wet hair to smooth it down.

  ‘Anne is a woman who shares my bed a few nights of the year, and claims to be the mother of my children. That is all.’

  Burbage threw Will a cloth to dry himself. His face unreadable, the old theatrical watched him from under thick brows. ‘I am sorry to hear it, Will. Yet she is still your wife in the eyes of the law.’

  ‘I know that only too well,’ Will replied drily, rubbing at his wet hair with the cloth. ‘Nor am I likely to forget it.’

  Music swelled through the theatre, signalling the end of the play. A jig was played and some of the players danced, their heavy steps thudding and creaking against wood to the rhythmic clapping of the groundlings. Then they heard an excited hubbub of voices and a sound like distant thunder as the crowd moved as one, heading for the doors out into the yard where the stallholders and the whores awaited their arrival, and thence into the busy street.

  ‘I should go to the gate, check that our noble patrons had all they desired today,’ Burbage muttered, tidying away the last of the armour in the properties chest.

  Just as Will was reaching for his plain brown doublet and hose, the doors to the tiring-room were flung open. In poured the rest of the players, sweaty-faced, tugging at their too-warm costumes and laughing at some joke. With them came a tide of other folk, more tiring-men to assist the noisy players off with their costumes, a woman bearing a tray of ale and roast nuts, and the irascible stage-keeper with his book and broom, complaining about the untidy state of the theatre.

  ‘How now, Burbage? Did you receive my message?’

  Will turned, dressed in nothing but his shirt, surprised to hear such a refined voice in the coarse hubbub and banter of the tiring-room. The owner of the voice was a young man with a weary look on his face, his beard fashionably pointed, his eyes heavy-lidded. By his rich doublet and cloak, the soft kid boots on his feet and the large pearl earring he wore, he proclaimed himself a wealthy man.

  It was the Earl of Southampton, the young lord who had discovered him with Lucy at court.

  Behind the youth stood an older man, wearing livery and with a stout dagger at his belt. A fine cloak was draped over his arm. Presumably his servant.

  The Earl of Southampton looked across at Burbage commandingly.

  ‘This is the very man you seek, my lord,’ Burbage told him, and pushed Will forward.

  The nobleman turned to survey Will, examining him from head to toe. An unexpected enthusiasm crept into his expression.

  ‘William Shakespeare?’

  Will bowed respectfully, still dressed in nothing but his shirt.

  ‘You probably do not recall the occasion, but we met briefly at court once. My name is Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton.’

  The young man’s eyes, oddly intense, never left Will’s as he spoke. He did not mention Lucy, but Will felt her unspoken name weigh heavily in the silence between them.

  He hesitated. ‘Yes, my lord, I remember.’

  ‘I left word with Master Burbage here that I wished to speak with you. I take great pleasure in attending your plays, Master Shakespeare, and wish to encourage you in your work, for I have some knowledge of the theatre myself.’

  Will was surprised. ‘You write too?’

  The earl shrugged, a look of boyish disdain on his face. ‘A few little things, mostly to be performed before my friends at university. Nothing of worth.’

  The players around them disrobed in near silence, watching the newcomer and listening with unabashed curiosity, for although the nobility sometimes passed backstage on their way up to the gallery – to avoid rubbing shoulders with commoners in the narrow corridors – they did not often welcome noblemen to the tiring-room after a performance.

  The earl glanced about himself with interest, seeming to enjoy his visit backstage. Burbage had stopped to help one of the apprentices who was struggling with his queenly gown. The rags stuffed in the lad’s bodice had made convincing breasts, and now he stripped off to reveal padding about his narrow hips and arse, a curly red wig sitting awry on his close-shaven head.

  ‘So that is how it is done,’ Henry Wriothesley murmured, turning to smile at Will. ‘We did much the same in the university dramas. I played a woman of loose morals once, and was so convincing, I nearly fooled the Dean when he caught sight of me in the cloisters. He became quite apoplectic and shouted for the porters, thinking a whore had been smuggled into the college.’

  Will grinned.

  ‘Tell me, have you ever thou
ght of writing epic poetry?’ the earl asked, and perched on a side table while Will hurriedly dressed.

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ He fumbled with the fastening of his hose, wishing his clothes were not so humble. ‘Many times. But epic poems do not sell well unless—’

  ‘Unless the poet can find himself a noble patron?’

  ‘Just so, my lord.’

  Henry Wriothesley nodded. ‘Then look no further, William Shakespeare. I shall be your patron, and furnish you with whatever help you require to write a poetic epic.’

  His gaze flashed over Will’s plain brown doublet, then he snapped his fingers at the servant who had accompanied him.

  The man drew a leather purse out of his jacket and threw it across to Will.

  Will caught it and stood astonished, weighing the purse in his hand. So Burbage had been right when he thought Southampton was looking for a writer to support. But this was more than he had expected. The purse was heavy, enough to pay his lodgings for a few months. Or to put aside in the hope of buying a share in Burbage’s theatrical company one day, and so raising himself from humble player to part-owner.

  ‘That purse shall be my first incentive to you. Only for my sake, make it a love poem that you write,’ the earl insisted, standing again. He held a pomander to his nose, for the confined space smelt of men’s sweat and spilt ale, and he seemed suddenly impatient to leave. He gestured to his manservant, who approached and swung the cloak about the young man’s shoulders. ‘For poetry was invented to express love. And let it be written on a classical theme, if you know any.’

  ‘Venus and Adonis?’

  Henry Wriothesley glanced back at him from the door, smiling, though clearly surprised by the speed of his response. ‘An inspired choice. You know the Latin original?’

  Will gave an answering smile. ‘Yes, my lord. Ovid is a poet of great subtlety and range, and the comfort of my quieter hours since I was a boy.’

  ‘I am glad to hear you enjoyed an education in the Roman poets.’ The Earl of Southampton hesitated, looking back at him, then nodded briskly. ‘Send it to me when the thing is done.’