Mask of Night (7 page)

“No, he is famous for his wife. She is the nonpareil of beauty.”

I couldn’t tell from WS’s tone whether he was being mocking or not (though I rather think he was serious), nor could I tell from the expression on the landlord’s face whether he was pleased to have his wife referred to like this. Probably not as, if anything, Davenant’s expression grew longer.

“Take care you make your pieces boring and long-winded,” he said to Shakespeare.

“Come and see for yourself.”

“Perhaps I will. But I would still have your audiences desert you half-way through and come down to me for liquid refreshment.”

“We’ll do our worst,” said WS.

And seemingly content with this, the landlord turned round and made his way to another corner of the tavern, probably to abuse more of his customers.

WS, however, didn’t seem offended by Davenant’s comments. Instead, he said, “He is a good fellow although a dry one. You get used to him in time.”

“And his wife?” I said, greatly daring.

“No, you wouldn’t get used to her, not in a lifetime,” said WS. “Not Jane Davenant.”

This was more than interesting and I waited for details. But nothing was forthcoming. Since WS seemed about to get up and move away, and being reluctant to lose his company, I ordered another drink for each of us and turned the talk back to the subject of the Constants, the Sadlers, and the ancient feud between the two families. From what the playwright had said, it seemed as though there was no violent objection to the marriage of Sarah and William from either side.

“So what’s the difficulty then?” I said.

“Oh, there should be no difficulty,” said WS, “but our play will serve as a kind of warning, a gentle warning.”

“Shouldn’t they have a comedy at a wedding? I realize that
Romeo and Juliet
is about two families at war and two young people who want to marry. But it’s a tragedy.”

Even as I said these words I thought that it was foolish to be defining Shakespeare’s own work to himself, but if the playwright was annoyed – or amused – at my presumption he didn’t show it.

“I don’t usually believe that we can learn anything at all from plays,” said WS, “but, in the case of the Constants and the Sadlers, Hugh Fern considers that it might be . . . instructive . . . for the two sides to watch a piece in which things go wrong . . . ”

“So that they can avoid any actions which might lead to a similar conclusion?” I suggested.

“Yes,” said WS. “Tragedy can be averted sometimes.”

“Otherwise it would not be tragedy, but fate,” I put in.

“Perhaps . . . ” he said, apparently unwilling to discuss my interesting insight. “Besides we are being well paid for this. My old friend Hugh Fern has prospered since he came to this town. He is doing better than if he had become a player, much better. Being a good friend also to the Constants and Sadlers he is ready to subscribe to a private performance of my piece in the hopes of providing the two families with some diversion – and a very gentle warning. And the Chamberlain’s with some cash.”

I was always a little taken aback by the nakedness with which Shakespeare and the other shareholders referred to money. They made no bones about it. As if he could read my thoughts WS now said, “You know what our motto is in the Chamberlain’s?”

“Our motto?”

“It is ‘You pay, we’ll play’.”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“That’s because I just invented it, Nick. You ought to be a bit more wary of what you’re told.”

I must have looked a little crestfallen because WS put his hand on my arm and hastened to reassure me, “But it ought to be our motto. I’ll have a word with Dick Burbage. Perhaps we could get up a coat of arms. Money-bags on an argent field.”

“And are you playing in this story of the Montagues and the Capulets?” I said quickly.

“I’ve played Friar Laurence more than once. I may do so again on this occasion. We’ll see.”

It may seem odd that Shakespeare didn’t know whether he’d be playing or not, but life on tour was more improvised than the scheduled playing at the Globe. The seniors had a rough idea of what we would be doing – and evidently the private production of
Romeo and Juliet
had been settled on before we left London – but we lesser mortals were kept in the dark.

“Have the other parts been allotted yet?”

“What are
you
going to do, you mean?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.”

Ever since finding out a few minutes earlier that we were to perform
Romeo and Juliet
, a hope had been jumping around in my breast. Not so long ago I’d played the betrayed lover Troilus in Shakespeare’s bitter tragedy of the Trojan war, and before that one of the youthful lovers in
Midsummer Night’s Dream
. Could I now expect to take the part of Romeo the lover?

Apparently not, from what WS said next.

“Dick Burbage will play Romeo Montague – although I can see by your look that you think he’s too old.”

“I wouldn’t be so presumptuous. Never entered my head.”

“That’s only because it’s already on its way out the other side,” said WS. “What we have in mind for you, Revill, is Mercutio, kinsman to the Prince and friend to Romeo.”

“Who dies in a sword-fight? Half-way through the action.”

“But not before uttering a deal of words. He is a witty, brave man. Somewhat fanciful. The pivot of the action in the first half in some ways.”

“Well, that’s good,” I said, not knowing what else to say since I figured that Shakespeare was delivering a compliment here.

By this time the evening had worn on a bit and WS announced that he should return to the Golden Cross Inn for a conference with Burbage and Pope and some of the other shareholders, no doubt to make the final preparations for our presentations in the inn yard and wherever it was that we were scheduled to play
Romeo and Juliet
.

I wandered out into Cornmarket, not having any conference to go to myself, not wanting to retire to bed just yet and not wanting to search through numerous Oxford taverns before I stumbled across Abel Glaze or Jack Wilson or some other of my fellows to drink with. Instead, I’d walk the streets in this busy, relatively well-lit area.

Mercutio . . . hmm. Kinsman to the Prince and friend to Romeo Montague. I struggled to remember the production of
Romeo and Juliet
which I’d seen not long after arriving in London several years before. At the time I’d thought that my ambition to join the players might be furthered by hanging around playhouses and seeing as many dramas as possible. I smiled to remember my greenness then. And wondered whether I appeared much more experienced now. But I must do surely . . . to be offered a part like Mercutio. He is a whimsical fellow, given to flights of fancy. He is a pivot, in some ways. He is teasing and changeable. Half-way through he dies in a sword-fight. I couldn’t recall the details exactly but the fight begins somewhere between joke and earnest. All the same, Mercutio dies. Well, I would give them a good death.

And hot on the heels of this thought came another one, quite a different one. I’d been intrigued back at the Tavern when Shakespeare mentioned his boyhood friendship with Hugh Fern, and of how they’d both started out from the Warwickshire country to make their fortunes at the same time. And then there’d been that reference to poaching deer, to shooting the hart . . .

Now, I had little doubt that William Shakespeare was a great man, whose work and reputation would outlive his mere earthly existence by many years. I wondered whether anyone had yet thought to amass biographical scraps, the materials for a life of WS, for the edification and entertainment of future ages. I wondered whether N. Revill was the man to undertake this task (and in the process of memorializing a great man win a little reflected glory for himself).

In the middle of these thoughts, these dreams of mortal glory, I realized that I hadn’t been paying attention to where I was going. Dazzled by Mercutio and then by the notion of writing about WS, I’d taken three or four turns and was now lost.

Wherever I found myself it was well away from the busy thoroughfare called the Cornmarket, away from noise and light and people. Instead I was in a dark and silent place, between high walls. Under my feet was close-packed earth, not the cobbles of a street. Overhead was a swath of night sky, glimmering with fitful stars. A breeze crept down this walkway and made me shiver. As my eyes grew more used to the dark, I saw that the walls were pierced by a few remote, high windows. I reached out for the nearest wall. The lower part was covered with a creeper that felt dead to the touch, last year’s growth. I supposed that I was standing outside one of the colleges, or rather between two of them. The walls were more like those of a castle or a palace than a place of learning. I wondered what it would be like to be on the other side. I imagined scholars in lofty towers, surrounded by books and manuscripts, piercing the secrets of the heavens or turning their gaze inward on themselves.

These high-minded imaginings were interrupted by a strange shuffling sound from behind my back. I strained my ears. The sound resolved itself into that of feet, several pairs of feet moving uncertainly over the ground, together with an intermittent whispering. I shivered again although there was no draught of air this time. The shuffling feet were moving towards me, in the direction I’d just come from.

Honest citizens of Oxford? Possibly . . . although if they were honest citizens why were they whispering and slinking down a dim alley instead of sitting snug inside their dwellings or drinking the evening away in a tavern? Honest? I did not think so.

What I thought was that I had better make myself scarce. Not wanting to go forward, since I’d no idea what lay ahead, I looked about for a place to conceal myself. Luckily, the wall on one side was buttressed by thick ribs of stone, giving this spot an even more fortified appearance. The darkness was naturally thickest at the base of these buttresses and I made myself small where the nearest of these met the wall.

Looking back towards the mouth of the walkway, where there was a break in the surrounding darkness and from where the shuffling was emanating, I made out a confused mass of shadows, two or three, breaking apart and merging again into a single mass. The only certain fact was that they were advancing. I could tell this more by sound than sight. There was no moon, only the faintest star-fall. Even though I was able to see so little, there was some aspect to their appearance which was already provoking fear in me. I don’t mean the fear of being found out in the street after dark by some ruffians who’ll lift your purse or, if you’re truly unlucky, deprive you of your life. That fear is, so to speak, a reasonable fear. What I experienced now was something deeper which took me back to the nightmares of childhood. And the nightmare grew worse as the shapes grew larger and more questionable instead of clearer.

What were they?

Then from overhead there was a sudden scraping sound. Instinctively I looked up at the noise. A frail light hung swaying in the air. It took me a moment to realize that the sound was a window being opened and that the light was a lantern being thrust out at arm’s length, no doubt by the occupant of the room, curious about the movement and noise in the alley.

After a few seconds the light was withdrawn and the window closed with another scrape. Perhaps the lantern-holder hadn’t been able to see anything from his position high up above the ground. Perhaps he had seen something, and did not want to see more.

But I had seen. I wished that I hadn’t. I wished that I too was high up behind a wall, in a secure room.

For what the flickering, uncertain rays of the lantern revealed was that these shadows creeping towards my hiding place had no heads – or no human heads. Instead they possessed great beast-like snouts which wagged in the night air while, waving in front of each shape, was a thin extension like the horn or feeler of an insect.

This vision lasted only a moment but it set my heart thudding and made my hair stir. I might have tried to groan or to cry aloud but something swelled in my throat and choked off any sound. I’m not sure what happened next. I think that I closed my eyes, in order to shut out the slightest glimpse of the scene, benighted as it all was. I was more terrified of seeing than of being seen. I could not help hearing though. The padding of feet, of several feet, tentative but continuous, turned into a kind of slithering in my ears and made me to wonder whether I had dropped through the surface of the earth into a pit of monsters.

What saved me was a curse. Not loud and not mine, but issuing from the snout of one of the creatures now processing past my hiding-place at the foot of the buttress.

“God’s bones,” came a muffled voice, “but it’s dark enough. And cold enough.”

No more. But the oath and the workaday comments were enough to tell me that the creatures which were creeping past were human after all. Neither more nor less than human. Three humans to be precise. I stayed where I was, huddled up in the corner between buttress and wall, scarcely breathing, scarcely thinking, only listening until the last shuffle and slither had faded into the night.

After a time I unwound myself from my corner and stood up, stiff but shivering, in the alley. Now that I’d collected myself slightly, the scene reminded me of something but, in my still frightened state, I couldn’t think of what.

Then I turned about and – walking more and more quickly before breaking into a run – I chased down winding walks and around corners until I emerged once more into Cornmarket, more by accident than intention. I slunk back to the Golden Cross Inn and up the stairs to the room where some eight or nine of us run-of-the-mill players were bedding down together. Since my fellows were either snoring after the day’s journey or not yet returned from carousing in town there was no one to talk to or be questioned by. This was just as well because I couldn’t have guaranteed the steadiness of my voice. I claimed an unoccupied corner in one of the three beds, recognizing the bulk of Laurence Savage next to me. He was well away, breathing easily. On the far side of him lay Abel Glaze, also well settled. But I stayed awake for a long time, staring at the low ceiling across which floated dark, devil shapes with snouts and insect horns.