The Shakespeare Stealer Read online

  Sander laughed. “No one gets a copy of the whole play.”

  “But then how do you con your speeches?”

  “Learn the lines, you mean? Oh, you get a little sheaf of paper we call a side, with just your part on it. You’ll see.”

  “But there has to be a copy of the whole play somewhere,” I insisted.

  “Of course. The book keeper keeps it under lock and key. People filch them sometimes, you know. Do their own version. It hurts our box, then.”

  “Box. That’s the money you take in,” I said, recalling Simon Bass’s words.

  “Right. But the worst of it is, they don’t give Mr. Shakespeare a farthing for it. And it is his work, after all.” He gave my new attire a critical glance. “That looks well enough. A bit loose, but clean and dry at least. Let’s go now, or we’ll have Goody Willingson angry with us. She’s the housekeeper.”

  “Does she beat you, then?” I asked softly as we descended the stairs.

  Sander laughed. “Mistress Willingson? She can hardly bear to beat the carpets.”

  “And Mr. Pope? Does he beat you?”

  Sander turned to me with a puzzled look. “Say, what sort of family are you used to?”

  “Family?” I said.

  Mr. Pope was already at the table, along with half a dozen young boys who, I later learned, were orphans Mr. Pope had taken in. The housekeeper showed no sign of exasperation at our lateness. She merely filled plates and set them before us.

  The other boys were well behaved, except for staring at me, the newcomer. I kept my attention on my plate and tried to ignore them.

  “So,” Mr. Pope said. “You’ve run off from your master.”

  I choked down a piece of beef. “Aye.”

  “Will he be content to let you go, or will he come after you?”

  “I can’t say.” In truth, I was certain that, should I really desert, Simon Bass would not let me go lightly. He was a man of business, and I suspected he would not like losing the ten pounds sterling he had invested in me. To such a man, I would not be a runaway prentice but an uncollected debt. And Falconer would be the collector.

  “Well, I can sympathize with you,” Mr. Pope was saying. “I was apprenticed to a weaver myself, before I heard the theatre’s siren call. Most of the members of our company, in fact, were destined for some more respectable trade. Mr. Heminges was to be a goldsmith, Mr. Shakespeare a glover.” He looked sternly about at the young children. “That is not to say that I condone prentices running off willy-nilly from their masters. You will all be prentices one day, and I expect each of you to work hard at learning your trade—just as I expect Widge, here, to work hard at becoming a player.” He turned his gaze on me again. I gave what I hoped would pass for an eager look and turned my attention to my plate once more.

  How had I gotten myself into this? Until today, there had been but one set of demands upon me. Now two threats hung over me, like the buildings in that narrow, stinking alley. Sooner or later, they were sure to meet, and I would be caught squarely in the middle, up to my ears in muck-water.

  The bed I shared with Sander was the softest I had known, and Sander neither tossed nor snored unduly. Yet I slept fitfully. Once I even rose and began to dress, thinking that the most prudent course might be to run away. But I could not think of anywhere to run. I crept back into bed and lay there, contemplating the terrible sorts of fates that seem possible only in the small hours, until matins rang.

  Though it was not fully light, Sander and I dressed, breakfasted, and set out for the Globe. I glanced into each alley we passed, half expecting to spy a cloaked figure waiting to spring on me. But of course Falconer had no way of knowing where I was, and I didn’t think he would haunt the vicinity of the theatre; for some reason he had seemed reluctant to show himself there. Probably he feared that someone would guess his purpose. One thing I was sure of—he was still in London somewhere and still determined to have the script. The thought made me newly determined to have it as a shield against his wrath when he caught up with me, as he surely would.

  We were far from the first arrivals at the playhouse. Men were busy re-thatching the roof. Behind the stage, others were carrying pieces of scenery and furniture upstairs, and carrying new ones down.

  Gone was any hope I had harbored of searching for my table-book. Players stood or sat in odd corners, talking to themselves, making curious faces and sudden gestures, for all the world like residents of a madhouse.

  A ruddy-faced young man gave an unexpected sweep of his arm, striking me on the side of the head. I backed away, ready to apologize for getting in the way. To my surprise, the man was the one to offer an apology. “Sorry. Didn’t see you.”

  He turned to Sander, waving his script. “Mr. Jonson has kindly provided me with thirty new lines to learn before today’s performance. I had difficulty enough recalling the old ones.”

  Sander patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll learn them, Will. You always do. And if you don’t, you’ll make something up.” In a confidential voice, he added, “Something better, no doubt.”

  The man named Will gave a grudging smile. “I suppose so.”

  “So, the performance is on for today? I thought it looked like rain again.”

  “You know how they are.” Will rolled his eyes upward, as though referring to the gods, but I presumed he meant the men who held shares in the company. “We’ll go on unless the stage is under water, and even then they’d likely haul out boats and do The Spanish Armada.”

  Sander laughed. “They’ll be wanting the stage cleared, then. I’ll tell you what; I’ll learn your lines for you if you’ll clear the stage for me.”

  Will waved him away. Sander picked up two brooms and handed one to me. I glanced back at Will, who was mumbling and gesturing again. “Surely that was not Mr. Shakespeare?”

  Sander gave a laugh that held no disdain, only amusement. “Hardly. That’s Will Sly. He was a prentice like us a few years ago. Now he’s a hired man. You won’t see much of Mr. Shakespeare. He’s a private man, and a very busy one. But no—you have seen him.”

  “I have?”

  “He was the ghost in Hamlet.” He pulled back the curtain and let me precede him onto the stage. Bereft of players and properties, it bore no resemblance to a castle in Denmark. It was a mere platform of boards, covered with damp and dirty rushes.

  On the ground, two boys of about nine or ten years of age were gathering discarded beer bottles and mashed fruit. “Samuel and James,” Sander told me. “Our hopefuls.”

  “Hopeful of what?”

  “Of staying on as prentices.” He rolled up his sleeves. “Well, let’s have at it.”

  We spent the next hour sweeping the heavy mat of soiled and soggy rushes onto the ground, spreading a fresh supply from a wagon over the boards, then loading the old ones on the wagon. By the time we finished, I was as limp and wet as the rushes. I sank down on the edge of the stage. “No one told me a player’s life would be like this.”

  Sander gave another good-humored laugh. How could he be so cheerful in the face of such drudgery? “We don’t do this every day. Some days we clean out the jakes and pile it on the dung heap.”

  I shook my head wearily and silently prayed that I might find the missing table-book very soon. “When does a wight get to be a hired man?”

  “When your voice changes. If you’re a good prentice, meantime.” Sander picked up his broom. “Come. Time for lessons.”

  “I already ken how to read and write,” I pointed out as we climbed the narrow stairs I had scrambled down the day before. Even as I spoke, my eyes were casting about for some sign of my table-book.

  “That will be useful,” Sander said, “but these are lessons of a different sort.”

  Behind us as we came up the stairs was a large room in which a group of players were rehearsing some scene. We proceeded past the drapes on which I had snagged myself; I saw no table-book there, either. I would have to return later and search more carefully.

/>   We stopped outside the door to another room. From within the room came the sound of blows, and an occasional cry. I felt a wrenching in my stomach. Whatever lessons lay ahead, they were obviously being driven home with the aid of a willow switch. First hard labor, now beatings. I should have known the theatre would prove to be as heartless and harsh as any other institution.

  12

  I hung back, very nearly resolved to flee and take my chances with Falconer—had I known where he was—or even on my own in that unknown city.

  But just then Sander turned and beckoned to me with such a cheerful and friendly countenance that I swallowed my misgivings and followed him inside the lesson room.

  The scene within was not at all what I had expected. There were no sullen students lined up on benches with slates in their hands. Nor was there any sign of anyone being beaten. The sounds had apparently come from two boys mock sword fighting with wooden singlesticks. One was Nick, the fellow who had been the butt of the players’ jokes the day before, and who had played the queen in Hamlet. The other was the play’s Ophelia, a slender boy no taller than I, and far better suited to playing girls’ parts than the swaggering Nick, who seemed too husky in voice and in build to portray anything but older women.

  On the other side of the room, two players were dancing a jig to a tune played on an hautboy. Nearby, Samuel and James, the two hopefuls, were turning somersets atop a row of rush mats, under the eye of a small, athletic-looking man.

  “Mr. Phillips,” Sander informed me. “He’s our stage manager, among other things. Mr. Armin you already know.” He gestured toward the man who had run afoul of Falconer, and who had stood up for me before the other players. He was demonstrating sword positions to Nick and his partner. He nodded in our direction, and Sander approached him. “Where shall I start our new boy?”

  “Stramazone!” Mr. Armin shouted, and I shrank back, believing we were being cursed in some foreign tongue. The two students made slicing motions with their sticks. “He may as well begin here,” Mr. Armin said, in a perfectly civil tone. Then he shouted, “Riversa!” The two boys cut with their sticks from the other side. “Get him a singlestick.”

  For the next hour I stood in a rank with Sander and the others, facing Mr. Armin and attempting to duplicate his stance and movements. I had never had anything to do with weapons, beyond the mock skirmishes with elder sticks at the orphanage. Before long, my limbs began to ache. I could sense that the others were secretly laughing at my bumbling efforts, and I longed to throw the stick aside—preferably at them—and show them my skill with a pen. But to do so, of course, would be to give myself away.

  I would have to continue to seem a willing prentice until I could complete my real mission here. And when I did, when I had stolen the script from under their very noses, then I would be the one to laugh.

  At last Mr. Armin called a halt, and he and Nick paired off. Nick was armed with a real rapier, now—blunted, of course. They saluted with their swords, their faces smiling and cordial. Then Mr. Armin said “Have at you!” and the two transformed before our eyes into deadly enemies. Their blades clashed and parted and met again with such rapidity that my eye could scarcely follow.

  Sander and Ophelia cheered them on. Their sentiments were obviously with Mr. Armin, but they shouted encouragement to Nick as well. Even with my ignorance of fencing, I could see that Mr. Armin was holding back, giving Nick time to ward and counter. The fencing scene in the play had displayed this same measured pace. As with the play, I was drawn into the drama. Just as I was tempted to shout a word of encouragement myself, Mr. Armin effortlessly caught Nick’s sideways blow on the guard of his rapier, flung his arm outward, and delivered a quick but gentle stocatta to Nick’s unguarded chest. “Touch,” he said.

  Nick’s face, already red from exertion, grew redder. He peevishly flung down the rapier and stalked off. Mr. Arminignored his outburst and approached us. “Do you three feel you’re ready for a real weapon?”

  “No, sir!” we said, almost as one person.

  “Then go practice your passatas,” he said. “We have an audience who pays to see us; we don’t need you lot standing about gawking.”

  As we moved away, Sander said, “Widge is going to need a bit of coaching, I think. Do you want to do it, Julian, or shall I?”

  Ophelia, whose name was apparently Julian, shrugged. “We could take turns.”

  “All right with you, Widge?” Sander asked.

  Unused as I was to being asked my preferences, I took a moment to reply. “Oh, aye. I don’t mind. But Mr. Armin said—”

  “Fie on what Mr. Armin said,” Sander replied, but softly. “I’ve done so many passatas I could do them in my sleep.”

  “Just be sure you do them on your side of the bed.”

  He laughed. “We’ll soon have you doing them in your sleep as well. Now, the first thing we’ll have to show you is the three wards.”

  “Three words?”

  “No, wards.” He held the singlestick at the height of his forehead. “This is high ward.” I copied his stance. He moved the stick to his waist. “Broad ward.” His hand went down near his knee. “Base ward.”

  “You might just as well show him the right way, Cooke,” a voice said. I turned to see Nick standing close by. “Here, let me have that stick.” Sander gave it up reluctantly. Nick planted himself in front of me, a distinctly unpleasant smile on his face. “I’ll learn you properly.”

  “Let him be,” Sander said, not as forcefully as he might have.

  “I’m only going to see that he learns his lesson,” Nick said innocently. “Now then. Widge, is it? You know what a widge is where I come from?”

  My throat felt too tight to speak. I shook my head.

  “A horse. I think I’ll call you Horse, though you look more like an ass to me. Hold your stick like this, Horse—the hand close to the knee, and the tip pointing at your opponent’s throat-bole.”

  With a shaking hand, I tried to mirror his position.

  “Get your point up,” he commanded. I was slow to respond, and he whacked my stick sharply. “Get the point up, I said. Get the point?”

  “Aye.”

  “Aye? Do I look like the captain of a ship?”

  “Nay.”

  “Ah, you can neigh like a horse as well. Now, bring your hoof—I mean your hand—in closer to your leg, else your opponent might do this.” He brought his stick swiftly down on my knuckles. With a gasp, I let my stick fall. “And if you do that, he’ll certainly do this.” He lunged, and his stick struck my breastbone painfully.

  My fear gave way to anger, and I scrambled for the fallen weapon. Laughing, Nick knocked it out of my reach. When I was young at the orphanage, and the bigger boys taunted me, I invariably burst into tears. But finding that it was an invitation to further abuse, I had learned to refrain from tears, whatever the provocation. I even prided myself on it. Now, facing Nick, I trembled with shame and frustration, but I was dry-eyed.

  “Pick it up, Horse,” Nick ordered me. With his foot, he sent it skating across the floor at me.

  As I hesitated, unsure whether I would look more like a fool by picking it up or by letting it lie, Julian suddenly stepped between us, his stick at broad ward. “That’s enough, Nick. We can all see he’s no match for you.”

  “And you are, I suppose.”

  “No,” the boy replied evenly. “But Sander and I together may be.”

  Nick scowled at Sander, who had taken the cue and come up behind him. “That’s unfair odds.”

  “So is you against Widge,” Sander said. “Give him a few months of practice, and he’ll go a round with you, won’t you, Widge?”

  Though in truth I meant to be gone long before that, I nodded. “Aye.”

  Nick pointed his stick threateningly at me. “Study your footwork well, then, Hobbyhorse, for I mean to hobble you.” He gave a token thrust toward Sander, who jumped back. Laughing, Nick tossed the stick aside and swaggered off.

  Only then
did I notice Mr. Armin watching from across the room. “Why did ’a not put a stop to ’t?”

  “I suppose,” Julian said, “he believes a man should fight his own battles.”

  “Then why did you step in?” I said crossly.

  “I beg your humble pardon! Next time I’ll let him put a dent in your stupid pudding basin!” Julian stomped away.

  “A bit of a hothead, isn’t ’a?” I observed.

  “And you’re a bit of a muttonhead,” Sander said mildly. “He was only trying to help.”

  “I don’t need any help,” I said sullenly.

  “Yes, you do. Now why don’t you take up that stick, and we’ll start over. High ward.” As I grudgingly strove to mimic his movements, he said, “Nick isn’t really such a bad sort, you know. He was just testing your mettle. Broad ward. I don’t think Nick is truly mean at heart. He’s just going through a bad time. He’s been a prentice for six or seven years, and now he’ll have to begin playing a man’s part.”

  “On the stage, or in life?”

  “Both, I suppose. Low ward.”

  “That’s as may be,” I said. “But we can scarcely judge a person by what ’a’s like inside. It’s th’ outside we ha’ to do wi’.”

  Sander lowered his singlestick and sighed. “Well, on the inside you may be a very good fencer, but on the outside you stink.”

  “I washed but last week,” I protested.

  Sander laughed. “I didn’t mean it literally, you goose. It means you’re terrible. Come. We’ll try some passatas.”

  It was a long morning. When Mr. Armin finally tired of trying to make us into some semblance of “scrimers”—his word for swordsmen—he passed us on to Mr. Phillips, who worked on our diction—mostly mine—and something called projection, which meant, as nearly as I could tell, shouting more loudly than the audience.

  To my relief, the afternoon was less taxing. The company was presenting a play called Every Man Out of His Humour, which fit my mood exactly. As the book keeper was ill, Sander was given the task of holding the play book and throwing out lines to players who were floundering.