Death of Kings (8 page)

“Absurd,” I said, but without complete conviction. Nevertheless I was angered by Milford’s aspersions. “Anyway there is a difference between borrowing a few figures and
ideas, and taking over another man’s work wholesale. Look.”

I dug out from beneath my shirt the few tattered sheets from the start of the
Courtesan.
Almost straightaway seeing what they were, he made a grab but I held them out of his reach.

“Give them me. They are not yours. I left them behind.”

I was amazed at his impudence.

“Yes, you left them behind when you ransacked the trunk. Tell me, did you ask Allison for the keys – or just take them?”

“Work it out for yourself, Nicholas, since you’ve proved yourself so clever this far.”

“It doesn’t matter. But these few scraps of paper, they are the Book-keeper’s. Or they belong to the Chamberlain’s Company. Or even poor Master Anonymous, a greater
author than you will ever be. For certain, they are not yours, Master Milford.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

For a moment I savoured power. I knew that if I gave these paper fragments to Burbage or any of the seniors then Milford’s budding career as a playwright with the Chamberlain’s would
be finished. It wasn’t so much the plagiary that mattered. No doubt it happened often enough, even if not in so blatant a form. Old clothes are the most comfortable. There is nothing new
under the etc . . . If he’d only presented his
Whore
– sorry,
Courtesan
– honestly, as an old piece reworked, he’d probably have got away with it. But
he’d played the cony-catcher with a whole Company – or with the section of the Company which counted – and for that he was unlikely to be forgiven.

Richard’s face was bright red and his eyes stared hard as he asked the question. It was fortunate that the tavern was almost empty, and that none of our Globe fraternity had wandered in to
join our hushed dialogue. While I pondered my reply, I had the leisure too to wonder at the change in this hitherto quiet and reflective man. I was almost glad that we weren’t alone in some
isolated hole or corner for, in addition to to the fact that he was about my height, weight and age, he had the advantage of his desperation. If this is what it means to wield the writer’s
pen then give me the player’s trumpery sword any day!

“What do you mean to do?” he repeated.

For answer, I tucked the incriminating papers inside my shirt once again. At that he broke.

“Please, Nicholas, Master Revill, say nothing. My life is in your hands. And what is more than my life, my reputation.”

“You’re being silly. You overstate the case,” I said after a moment. “No wonder you must borrow another’s words if that is the extent of your rhetoric.”

Nevertheless, the pause and my words must have given him hope, for he went on, “You see, my
Whore
is about to be staged. No, very well [
seeing the demurral in my eyes
] not my
Whore
but anonymous’s
Courtesan.
She is about to be made an honest lady of. Surely that is an act of charity, of virtue.”

“From
Courtesan
to
Whore
, that is a declension surely?”

He shrugged. “It’s a blunter term, certainly.”

“And for your next piece? Will that be honest and blunt too?”

Never have I felt so severe. Never have I been so uncomfortable. The role of moralist is hard to play. Hard for me, at any rate. Although I can see that one might grow into it.

“There is a strange thing, Nicholas. For you see that, when I said I had been struggling with my own words all morning, that is precisely what I have been doing. My
own
words. I
promise you.”

“Very well,” I said, rising from the bench. “I must return to my cataloguing.”

“Be sure to destroy those sheets,” he said to my retreating back but I did not deign to answer him.

I returned to the Book-keeper’s room, feeling that I’d acted justly in exposing to Richard Milford that I knew the secret of his ‘theft’, and yet unable
to shake off the pulpit-taint, even the priggishness, of my words. By what right did I set myself up to judge a fellow of my own age and one who was in not altogether dissimilar circumstances? My
bent was towards playing, it is true, whilst his was for words, but both of us were fired with ambition, both were hungry for recognition. Perhaps, if I’d been a word-wielder, rather than a
stage-sword-shaker, and found my early efforts not yielding success, I too would have resorted to the same measures. Would have found an old, unnamed play and stamped it with my initials. To
counterfeit coin is a capital crime but to arrogate another man’s words is, at worst, a venial offence. Particularly if the man is dead or unknown. Where was the harm? I had to confess that
most of my anger with Richard had come from the fact that he’d fooled me, had wanted
me
to commend ‘his’ work to WS.

I resolved to say and do nothing more. His secret was safe with me. Let the
Whore
be played before all, let him reap the small reward of a promising reputation. (For sure, he
wouldn’t get much money by it.) Let him go on to produce honest work. I wouldn’t destroy the tell-tale title-page but I would not show it to anyone either unless directly asked about
it, a thing which was not likely since nobody but he and I knew about it.

Besides, I must confess that I was a little alarmed at the fierceness of the man. His eyes had stared, his face was all inflamed when he had tried to grab at the sheets of paper.

I settled down again, cross-legged in front of the chest full of gold, of dust, of forgotten paper.

And yet that was not the end of this difficult day.

I had not been working for many minutes when there came an interruption – and one of a kind which threw into the shade the relatively trivial upsets of the morning.

“In here. We shall be private enough.”

I jumped. There was a shuffling of boot on board in the room on the other side of the wall from the Book-keeper’s office.

“Sit you down,” said a voice which I couldn’t immediately place.

A scraping of chairs, the squeak of a door closing.

“We are private?”

“No eyes but ours.”

“Nor ears neither?”

“This desk is mute, and this table-book is mute. This candle too.
They
will not talk. At least they did not answer when last I spoke to them.”

“This is no laughing matter.”

“I believe you,” said the first speaker.

“Can I believe
you
? That we are private?”

“Sure enough. I have said.”

“You have locked the door?”

“No need. No one will come into Dick Burbage’s room without knocking first.”

“Why isn’t Master Burbage here?”

“This is a quiet day for us, the winter, you know . . .”

“Why isn’t Master Burbage here?” The question was sharply repeated.

“Because he has deputed me to speak for him, for the whole Company if necessary.”

“I expected to see him.”

“And I tell you that, just as you are trusted to speak on behalf of others, so am I.”

“Very well.”

There was a kind of slackening in the visitor’s voice in these last words, as if he accepted and was grudgingly reassured by what he was being told. By now I had recognised the first
speaker as Master Augustine Phillips, a senior share-holder in the Chamberlain’s, a player and a fine musician too, a man for all occasions. He and his guest were sitting in Burbage’s
office, one of a cluster of small rooms back-stage and right next to the Book-keeper’s quarters where I was positioned on the floor, surrounded by scattered manuscripts. As must be evident
from the completeness with which I have given the foregoing exchange between the two speakers, I was able to hear each word that passed between them. These interior walls were thin lath and
plaster. Furthermore, Master Phillips had a beautifully clear voice which could make even a whisper resonate through the air.

“Some refreshment?”

“Later perhaps, when our business is concluded.”

While these preliminary skirmishes to conversation were going on, and even as I listened with an attent ear, I was inwardly considering what to do. It is not altogether a comfortable thing
– nor an honourable one – to be an eavesdropper, even if the blame was diverted in this instance because I had neither wished nor schemed to overhear. But in the next few moments there
was a choice to be made.

I might sneak out of the Book-keeper’s office and creep away altogether from this area of the playhouse, and so shield my ears from whatever important matters the two men in
Burbage’s room intended to discuss. That they were important matters was not to be doubted: there was an anxiety, even a portentousness in the visitor’s voice, which was only underlined
by Master Phillips’ lighter tones. On the other hand, I could draw attention to myself – by coughing, by humming a tune, by any one of a dozen bits of stage business which would alert
my neighbours to my presence. This would be a polite and tactful way of signifying that the Book-room was occupied. As long as I acted now they could hardly consider that I’d overheard things
of significance.

On yet another hand, I could stay precisely where I was, unmoving, silent, alert. And hear what followed.

I ask: what would you do in this situation?

I stayed (as, perhaps, you would have done). I did more than stay. Thinking of Robert Cecil’s ‘mission’ and that it might be important to have a record of what passed between
these two men, I took one of the sheets of paper meant for the task of cataloguing and during the dialogue which followed made some fragmentary jottings.

“Business before pleasure, eh, Sir Gelli?” said Augustine Phillips, referring to the other’s refusal of refeshment.

And now I knew that I was in the right to remain exactly where I was, sitting by a great box of manuscripts in the Book-keeper’s room, and listening out. For, during my interview with
Secretary Cecil, one of the persons he had told me to watch for was Sir Gelli Merrick, steward to the Earl of Essex. I felt the sweat break out on my brow and a strange stir in my bowels to know
that I was only a feet away from an enemy to the state – if such he proved to be.

“You wish us to play for you, I understand.”

“Your usual business only, or a little more.”

“Come, sir, if we are to pretend that this is ordinary business, then you may make your exit now.”

“To be brief,” said Merrick, “our proposal is that the Chamberlain’s Men should stage – a particular play – on a given afternoon. There is not much that is
out of the way of your ordinary business there.”

“No, not much is out of the way there.”

But Master Phillips did not sound to my ears as though he was really assenting to what the other was saying.

“You are players. You are paid to perform.”

“No, Sir Gelli,” said Phillips. “That is not altogether right. We perform and
then
we are paid.”

“The difference escapes me.”

“Never mind.”

“I was led to believe that I would be better received than this, that I would find myself among friends.”

A note of resentment had entered Sir Gelli’s voice. I almost expected him to say that he wasn’t used to being talked to like this.

“You are, sir. You are among friends at the Globe.”

“Then why isn’t Master Burbage here or Master Shakespeare?’

My bowels gave a further lurch or twist to hear these names, especially the latter.

“Forgive me,” said Augustine Phillips, “but they are busy and, as I say, I have been deputed to speak for the Company. Let me hear your proposal once more and, if you please,
do not be coy about naming plays and times.”

“Very well. It is Shakespeare’s
Richard II
that we mean to have done.”

“Ah,” said the other, with no great surprise as it seemed to me. Then, echoing my own words to Sir Robert Cecil, “It is a fusty piece.”

“Very fresh and to our purposes, I think,” said Merrick.

“Not performed for some few years.”

Again, almost the very words I had used. I shivered at the coincidence, even though it was warm in the Book-keeper’s room and I was sweating with the fear of discovery – and of other
things besides which I couldn’t have put a name to.

“And now King Richard’s time is come again. The year, the week, the very day.”

In Sir Gelli’s response there was a species of fervour. I had a sudden flicker of memory from my Somerset childhood and saw myself, alone, on a country track and hearing a far-off rumble
of thunder, and picking up my pace to get home.

“What week, what day?”

“Master Phillips, you must surely understand that I cannot be precise here though in my opinion it will be soon.”

“Because if we are to stage a play, even a fusty, time-warped piece, we must have a little warning. A morning of rehearsal at least. There may be costumes to be looked at.”

“Of course. You will have sufficient time to prepare, at least a day’s warning. If I cannot yet be precise it is because there are many things still uncertain, many things still to
be weighed.”

“This is to be a private performance?”

“Not at all, Master Phillips. It will be open to all. That is the point. You are to advertise it in your usual way, with notices and a fanfare and so on. We wish the people of London to
see King Richard.”

“And Henry Bolingbroke, the usurper.”

“We only wish the play to be seen as it is, with nothing added, nothing omitted – that is important, nothing omitted.”

“And what do we gain from this, in the Chamberlain’s?”

“Oh, now you come to money. I thought that you performed and
then
were paid.”

“Only a fool plays blind,” said Master Phillips.

“We offer you forty shillings.”

“Forty shillings extraordinary?”

“I do not understand players’ talk.”

“I mean, forty shillings in addition to whatever the gatherers take at the door – from the people of London who you think are so eager to see this stale piece.”

“You may charge what you please at the door. You may charge whatever your audience will bear. I tell you only what you will receive from us.”