His Dark Lady (59 page)

Epilogue

The Curtain Theatre, London, autumn 1587

IT WAS THE
fifth time Will had come to the Curtain and paid his penny to see a performance of Kit Marlowe’s popular new play,
Tamburlaine the Great
. Yet he still stood breathless and entranced among the other groundlings when Ned Alleyn, splendidly exotic in red velvet breeches and a jewel-encrusted golden coat that reached almost to his knees, came charging across the stage on his chariot, whip in hand, driving a team of four kings. The ‘kings’ sweated before him in the autumn sunshine, overdressed in the gold-trimmed coats and pointed slippers of the East. One of them stumbled, his crown slipped forward across his temples, and the crowd jeered.

‘Ye pampered jades of Asia!’ Ned cried in his role as the tyrant Tamburlaine, flourishing his long-handled whip above his head, and at once a thousand eager voices called back from the smoky, crowded pit and galleries of the Curtain Theatre, ‘Tamburlaine! Tamburlaine! Tamburlaine!’

Will’s chest hurt. He stared, eyes narrowed to that space where Ned stood, whirling the whip, and he saw … not Marlowe’s play, but his own, and many others besides, stretching ahead into the misty future, with the London mob clapping and stamping their feet for more.

Backstage, Will sought out Kit Marlowe in the crowded tiring-room and embraced him, congratulating him on his first big
success
. ‘I have never heard anything like it,’ he admitted, half sick with envy.

Kit smiled. ‘Why not leave off rewriting old plays and strike out with a new theme yourself?’

‘I have started work on a few things. I have one piece in hand that I am calling
Titus Andronicus
.’

‘The Romans are a fair theme for the groundlings.’ Kit shrugged, a note of contempt in his voice. ‘The commoners love to stare and point at antique spectacle, or weep openly as they did before you and I were born, when the Passion was played in the streets for them. Though we cannot blame them for it. Better be transported for a few hours by some ancient tale to a place where the winters are short and the sun ripens the grapes than look about themselves at this ugly filth and cold.’

‘Aye, but it’s nothing to this.’ He shook his head. ‘Tamburlaine. I have tried, but cannot … cannot reach that pitch.’

‘Poor unlucky Will,’ Kit murmured, looking away.

Ned Alleyn stumbled into the tiring-room, sweating as he stripped off his golden coat and shirt, then called for ale. He stood bare-chested while he drank his fill, his humorous gaze on Will’s face, then wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘What, are you here again, Master Shake-a-scene? I begin to suspect you must be in love with one of us.’

‘You are the best player in all of London, Ned,’ Will told him, enthused by the power and intelligence of Alleyn’s performance. ‘Perhaps the best player on earth.’

‘Oh come, why stop at earth?’ Kit asked. ‘Ned is the best player of all those already in heaven and hell.’

‘Or the best player in the cosmos, perhaps?’ Ned suggested.

‘Indeed. A hard thing to comprehend, but I suspect you may even be better than Tarlton,’ Kit agreed soberly.

‘Oh, no,’ Ned said, lifting the heavy gold chain and medallion from about his neck. ‘Not better than Tarlton. That would be beyond the impossible. Why, I could never make the house laugh just by pulling my breeches down.’

Kit raised his eyebrows. ‘Yet I know a few whores who would swear to the opposite.’

Philip Henslowe hurried past the door to the tiring-room, then stopped, seeing Will there.

‘Shakespeare?’ Henslowe paused on the threshold, frowning. ‘You seem to be haunting the Curtain these days. Have you come to offer me a play? Not another old work rewritten, I hope. London is crying out for the new, the new. Did you hear the crowd today, calling Tamburlaine’s name? They are barbarians themselves, they love to see evil triumph and innocent blood spilt on the boards. Write me another Tamburlaine and I will pay you … what I am paying Kit here.’

‘Which is not enough to pay the cost of parchment and ink,’ Kit murmured.

‘Sorry,’ Will told him regretfully. ‘I owe Burbage so big a purse, I’ve had to promise him my soul for the next few years just to clear the debt.’

When Henslowe had gone away again, Kit looked at Will speculatively. ‘But you are working on something new, aren’t you? This
Titus Andronicus
you mentioned.’

‘Nothing on this scale.’

‘Show it to me,’ Kit said lightly, and turned to assist one of the other players out of his heavy costume. ‘I’ll help you with it, if you like.’

‘Would you?’ Will hesitated, torn between admitting he needed a fresh eye on the play and not wanting Marlowe to know that. ‘I have another idea as well. There’s this piece I culled out of Holinshed. I’m going to call it
The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth
.’

Kit frowned. ‘An English history?’

‘I know it’s not fashionable, but—’

‘Is there more to it than battle scenes and cannon?’

‘Since when has death not brought in crowds?’ Will sighed. ‘You think me mistaken? That I should write the Roman piece instead?’

‘I told you, the groundlings love a good tragedy. And if you can give it to them with some whiff of the exotic East or ancient Rome, they will love you for it.’

‘You sound like Burbage.’

‘Now you are trying to insult me.’ But Kit was smiling. ‘Bring the Roman play over to the Angel some time. We’ll look at the play together, stuff it full with blood and guts as Master Kyd would do, and stick in a violent rape or two for good measure. The Romans
loved
to rape their women. Talking of which, I saw that beautiful Ethiop of yours up in the gallery, a great pearl in her ear, looking untouchable and like the Queen of Sheba herself.’

‘Wait.’ Will caught hold of Kit’s hand as his friend turned away. ‘You mean Lucy?’

Marlowe arched an eyebrow at Will, who was feeling sick. ‘The one who married the unfortunate Jack, yes. You did not tell me she was one of the Queen’s ladies. No wonder you do not bring her to the taverns any more. Such women are too expensive for a mere playwright to keep.’

Will’s grip tightened. ‘Forgive me, you saw Lucy at the Curtain today? In the gallery?’

‘I believe so.’ Kit looked at him, surprised. ‘Your black mistress was seated in a private box with several other ladies of the court, all hooded or masked. You know how they love to pretend not to attend the common play. But I recognized her at once. Even now she has been married and is past her best, she is quite unmistakable.’

Will realized that he must be staring at Kit like a lunatic. He struggled for some semblance of control. ‘Lucy … She is no longer my mistress,’ he managed.

Kit’s tone was dry. ‘Is she not?’ he asked, and glanced down. ‘Then why are you breaking my hand?’

Will left Kit Marlowe with the briefest of apologies and hurried to the back door of the Curtain. The crowd outside had almost dispersed after the performance, but some of the merchants’ ladies were still waiting in the shadows there, smelling of perfume and attended by their servants, no doubt hoping for a glimpse of Ned Alleyn. Feverishly, Will began to run down towards the city walls, knocking into people in his haste, and staring wildly about himself as though touched in the brain. He had heard of Jack’s death, of course, but by the time he had reached the Parkers’ house his friend had been long buried and Lucy vanished. He had tried at Goodluck’s place many times, but not found her there either; it was locked up as though deserted. One neighbour had suggested she had gone abroad for her health. Another had claimed she was back in the Queen’s favour and had returned to court, ‘Good riddance to the whore!’ But he had not been able to get word of her at court,
lacking
the nerve and funds to bribe guards as he had done before. Even if he could have paid to find her quarters, he was not sure of the welcome he would have received.

Now Kit Marlowe had seen Lucy at the Curtain, watching
Tamburlaine the Great
from a private box with the other court ladies.

Peering down every lane and alley in the dying light, Will cursed himself for a fool. What was he doing? If Lucy Morgan was in truth back in the Queen’s service, surely she would have left in a grand carriage or been carried on a litter?

He came to a halt and groaned aloud, ignoring the bemused looks of passers-by. Where was the court lodging this month? At Whitehall? At Chelsea or Richmond Palace? Even if it was Whitehall, the nearest palace, Lucy would never have returned there on foot, not in this dirt, with flies everywhere, and the stench of open ditches on either side.

Then, suddenly, there she was, ahead of him in the street, turning to stare, her face half-hidden behind the protective edge of her cloak.

‘Lucy!’

The other women with her looked at him in astonishment. One giggled, another shook her head. He thought he recognized her disapproving friend, Cathy, among them, though she might have been a servant in her plain gown and cap. Lucy herself stood out from the others like a black pearl dangling from a white throat, her face drawn with pain, her dark eyes accusing him of past sins, her mouth so alluring he could hardly tear his gaze from it.

Lucy took a step backwards as he lurched towards her out of the growing dusk. ‘Will?’ She seemed horrified to see him. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Kit told me you were at the play today. I had to come after you, I had to see you again.’ He grasped her gloved hand and drew it to his mouth, barely aware of what he was doing. ‘My lady, my dark lady. I never thought to see you again. When I heard about Jack’s murder, I went there straightaway. But the Parkers told me …’

She withdrew from him, flinching.

‘Forgive me, forgive me. I never wished ill on you or the child.’ He thought bitterly of his own son, Hamnet, and the boy’s faithless
mother
. Perhaps Lucy’s stillborn child had been his only true heir. ‘They said a murderer came in the night.’

‘Master Twist,’ she whispered.

‘And then Goodluck took you away. I tried to visit you at the house in Cheapside, but it was empty.’

Lucy nodded. ‘The Queen allowed me to return to court.’

‘And now?’ He gazed at her in silence a moment, unable to believe she could not feel the same overwhelming desire that pricked his body just at the sight of her. ‘You are more beautiful than I remembered, Lucy. My heart and soul are broken in the mere act of looking at you. I thought you were gone for ever, stolen away in the night by that pirate Goodluck. But now you are here before me, solid flesh a man may touch and kiss. I must have dreamt you back into being, for I cannot imagine waking so lucky.’

‘Are you mad?’

‘If it is madness to be in love, then yes. Most likely, yes,’ he agreed, and saw Cathy hide her smile behind her hand.

Will became aware of other presences in the shadowy lane, men who stared at their little group as they passed. Their faces seemed to mock him. He seized Lucy’s hand again. She was a woman. Perhaps she could not understand desire, or not until she was caught within its maelstrom. Yet there was no time to woo her with words. The smoky autumn afternoon was drawing in, a chill in the air. Soon night would fall and Lucy Morgan would melt back into his past as though they had never found each other again.

‘Come apart with me a moment,’ he said tightly. ‘I need to speak to you privately.’

Lucy hesitated, then threw a pleading look at the other women. They drew aside, talking among themselves but still watching her. ‘Not here,’ she whispered. ‘There are too many eyes …’

‘Then come to me, Lucy. Tomorrow at midday. I must rehearse a play in the morning, but then I can be yours until about three in the afternoon. I am still at my old lodgings, though the door has been painted blue now. You remember the way?’

She was watching him. ‘Yes.’

‘Beg time from court,’ he urged her. Would she come? Doubt hit him again, euphoria fading as she hurried back to the other women. ‘Do not fail me. Tomorrow, midday.’

Lucy came late to his lodgings the next day, though she knew the way well enough. Indeed she had passed the end of this street many times and thought of his little room, the bed with the red coverlet where they had lain so often. But it had been hard to slip away from court unnoticed, and in the end it had been Cathy, disapproving but willing to help, who had distracted the guards on the gate while Lucy disappeared into the crowds beyond. It was utter madness to be here again, standing at his door like a faithful dog. Would she never learn? Yet part of her had hungered for Will Shakespeare as soon as she had seen him again in the street, that flame still burning as violently despite everything.

So she knocked at the battered door with its coat of blue paint and stood waiting, her hood pulled forward, averting her face from passers-by.

He answered the door bare-chested, his skin damp, drying his hands on a rag. ‘Lucy!’

She stared. This had been a mistake. ‘I should not be here. I cannot be seen with you, Will. Nor with any man. If the Queen should hear of it—’

‘What does the Virgin Queen know of love?’ Will stood back and reluctantly she entered his lodgings, though half wanting to run away down the street and never see him again. That would be the wise thing to do.