Shakespeare's Scribe (23 page)

“Nay!” I cried. “I don't believe you! You didn't lie to me then; you're lying to me now, so I'll go back to the Chamberlain's Men! You want to be rid of me!”

Jamie Redshaw did not reply at once. He got stiffly to his feet and brushed himself off. I could barely make out his dark form, silhouetted against the stars. “Well,” he said, “as I've told you, I use whatever means I may.” He turned away, then, and I heard his footsteps moving off through the damp, dead leaves, heading toward the highway.

I wanted to call out to him, to go after him, but I was afraid that, if I did, Nick and his friends might find us. In any case, I could not have found the words. There were so many questions tumbling through my mind, I could never have hoped to choose just one. Even if I had, and even if he had answered it, I would have had no way of knowing whether or not the answer was true.

Perhaps he had told me one true thing, at least. It was no doubt best to let him go back to his life, and I to mine. Whether or not we had the same blood in our veins, it was clear that we were cut from different cloth, he and I. If I stayed with him, I knew he would expect me to live by his rules, to behave and believe as he did, and I was not certain that I could, or would even wish to. But the heart does not always want what is best.

In the end I stayed where I was, curled up in the leaves at the base of the beech tree, partly because I was too exhausted to go on, partly because I feared that, if I came out of hiding, I might encounter the company of thieves, and partly, I think, because I still harbored some faint hope that Jamie Redshaw might return for me.

27

W
hen it grew light enough to see, I found the road that would take me to Oxford and London. I was not certain how much help I could be to Sander and the boys. What they needed mostly was money, after all, and I had next to none. But I thought I might manage to find some sort of work. And in any case, I had nowhere else to go.

After I had walked along for an hour or so, a cart came by, loaded with casks of ale. “Going to Oxford?” asked the driver. I nodded. “There's room on behind if you care to ride—and if you care to help me deliver these kegs when we get there.”

In Oxford I got a ride with another carrier, under the same conditions—that I help him unload his freight. By the time we reached London, three days after I left Cheltenham, I was so stiff and sore from being jostled about in wagons that I felt as though I'd been beaten soundly.

I took my leave of the driver at St. Paul's. I was shocked to see how quiet the courtyard of the cathedral was. Ordinarily the space was filled to overflowing with the booths of booksellers, stationers, and other vendors, and with folk come to buy their wares or just to mingle. Today there were perhaps half the usual number of sellers. The few folk who patronized them were not standing about casually, looking over the goods, as they normally did. Their movements were much more deliberate. They headed straight for a particular booth, made a hasty purchase, and departed again, avoiding as much as possible any contact with other customers.

Most of the business was at the booths of the apothecaries, and the liveliest trade was in plague remedies and preventatives—amulets filled with arsenic and mercury, tonics made of borage and sorrel juice, salves of egg yolk and swine grease. So far as I knew, no one at Mr. Pope's was in need of such nostrums. All the boys did, however, suffer from a chronic case of sweet tooth, so I stopped at a candy seller's stand and parted with a
few of my own pennies in exchange for a bag of marchpane. I was so starved, it was all I could do to keep from eating the candies myself.

As I headed south toward the Thames, I noted that the traffic in the streets, too, was unusually sparse for such a pleasant summer's day. Many of those I passed were holding wadded kerchiefs up to their mouths and noses, like folk downwind of a dung heap; others wore twigs of rosemary in their hair. Though I put little trust in such measures, at the same time I felt uneasy, vulnerable, going about as I was with no means at all of countering the contagion.

Every so often I came upon a house that had been boarded up, and a cross nailed to the door, often with the words
LORD HAVE MERCY UPON US
scrawled beneath it. I hurried past these with a shudder, as though expecting some dread demon to spring from them.

At the embankment by Blackfriars, where ordinarily a dozen wherry boats were gathered, awaiting passengers, there were now but four. The wherryman who took me across instructed me to toss my penny into an iron pot that, he said, he would later place over a fire, to drive off the venom.

“The venom?” I said.

“That's how the plague is passed on, you know—through a poison, like snake venom, that seeps through a person's skin.”

“Nay,” I said, “I didn't ken that.”

He leaned forward, but not too close. “Here's another tip for you,” he said confidentially. “Don't bathe.”

“Ever?” I said.

He shook his head emphatically. “It opens up the pores, you see, makes it easier for the venom to get in.”

“Ah. Thanks for sharing that.” I stifled a cough. It was obvious the man was following his own advice religiously.

After all the signs I had seen of the plague's presence, I was half afraid to arrive at Mr. Pope's lest I find a cross and a plea to God upon the door. I was relieved to see that the place looked the same as always—from the outside, at least.

When I stepped through the doorway, the boys, who were playing in the main hall, spotted me at once and descended on me like wild Irishmen, crowing with delight. As I fought to keep my balance under their onslaught, Goodwife Willingson came trotting from the kitchen, calling, “Whist, boys, whist! You'll disturb the master!”

I drew the bag of sweets from my wallet and dangled it over their heads. “This is for those who are quiet!”

When they had returned to their play, their mouths full of marchpane, Goody Willingson came to me and, seemingly about to break into tears, clasped both my hands in hers. “Thank the Lord you've come at last, Widge. I've been at my wit's end these past several days, what with Mr. Pope being ill, and scarcely a morsel of food to put on the table, and—oh, that's not the worst of it.” She bit her lip and hung her head, as though she couldn't bear to go on.

“What?” I urged her. “What is it?”

“It's … it's Sander,” she said. “He's gone.”

I could scarcely believe I'd heard her right. “Gone?” I said. “How do you mean?”

“He went off a week or more ago, and he's not returned since.”

“Did ‘a not leave a message of any sort?”

“No, nothing.”

“Did ‘a take aught wi' him? Clothing? Food?”

“Not that I could tell.”

I put a hand to my head, which had begun to throb. “Perhaps … perhaps ‘a went out to try and find work.”

“Well, he'd found something already, that's the thing. For a week at least he'd been going out several hours each day, but he was always home by dinnertime, bringing with him a few shillings or some food.”

“Do you ken where ‘a was working?”

She shook her head. “He never said. I suspect it was some lowly task he didn't care to admit to.”

“That's not like Sander, though, to be so secretive.”

“He's not been himself, lately. He's been distracted, like. To tell the truth, I believe he was hurt and disappointed that the company didn't respond to the letter he sent asking for help. I told him it might well have failed to reach you.”

“It reached us, all right, but at the worst possible time. You see … every bit of money the company had was stolen.”

She put a hand to her mouth in distress. “Oh, Law! They've sent nothing with you, then?”

“Nay. In truth, they did not even send
me
. I … I had a falling-out wi' them.”

“Oh, Widge, no! What was the cause of it?”

“I'll tell you about it later.” I dug from my purse the few coins that remained to me. “Here. That may buy a little food at least. Is Mr. Pope still under a physician's care?” Goody Willingson nodded. “How is ‘a?”

“Up and down, like Fortune's wheel. For a time he seems to be getting his strength back, and then Dr. Harvey comes and bleeds him, and he takes another turn for the worse.”

I frowned. “How often is ‘a bled?”

“Every few days.”

“Gog's malt! It's a wonder the poor man has a drop of blood left to let! Has either of you asked this Dr. Harvey to leave off the bloodletting?”

Goody Willingson's look of surprise was as profound as if I'd asked whether they'd renounced their allegiance to the Queen. “Why, no! I'm sure the doctor knows what's best for him.”

“Perhaps. I'll go up and see him.”

“Yes, do. But mind you don't say a word about Sander. I've not told him yet. It might be best, too, if you don't mention the stolen money. We don't want him to fret.”

When I looked in on Mr. Pope, I found him so weak he could scarcely talk. He had been such a vigorous man, despite his age, that it was shocking to see him so helpless. I sat by his bedside and, to spare him the effort of asking, told him all the things I was sure he would want to know about how the company was faring.

He reached out unsteadily to pat my hand. “I'm glad you're back,” he whispered. He closed his eyes, then, and I thought he had gone to sleep. But as I rose to leave I heard him say, “Widge. Where is Sander?”

“‘A's just … gone out,” I said, casually. “When ‘a returns, I'll send him up.”

As I stepped out into the hallway, I saw Tetty's slight figure sitting on the top step of the stairs, looking down through the balustrade at the boys playing in the hall below. I sat down next to her. Without turning, she said somberly, “You came back.”

“Aye,” I said. “I had your picture to remind me.”

“Good. You won't leave again, will you?”

I hesitated. I was not sure myself what I would or should do next. Finally I said, “Not for a while, anyway.” I fished from my wallet some sweets I had saved for her. She accepted them as gravely as though they had been physicking pills.

Around a mouthful of marchpane, she asked, “Why did Sander leave?”

“I don't ken, exactly.”

“Was it because we were bad? Some of the boys complained when there wasn't enough food.”

“No, no,” I assured her. “‘A would never stay away over such a trifling thing. There must be some more drastic reason.”

In the morning I went looking for work, and found nothing. With the rising death toll had come a corresponding drop in business for the city's merchants and tradesmen. They were more inclined to let help go than to hire more. As I went about Southwark, I inquired of every familiar face I encountered whether they had seen Sander recently. No one had.

That afternoon, on a whim, I went by the Globe Theatre. All the entrances were locked. The only windows at ground level were those in the tiring-room. I grabbed the sill and hoisted myself up to peer inside. The place was, of course, as empty as a granary in May. Through the open tiring-room door, I could just catch a glimpse of one of the stage entrances and, beyond it, a small section of the stage itself.

The sight sent a stab of something through me—I was not certain what, but it was akin to the feeling I had experienced upon seeing again the orphanage in York where I had spent my early years. It was, I think, the curious sensation one gets when seeing a familiar place from a new perspective—from the outside, as it were, rather than the inside.

I had had no desire, of course, to be inside the walls of the orphanage again. But the sight of the stage filled me with a fierce longing. I dropped to the ground, wishing that I had not taken that look within. I knew that, in a month or so, when cool weather reduced the threat of the plague, the company would return and the theatre would reopen. What I did not know was whether or not I would be with them.

I sat on the steps outside the rear door of the theatre for a long time, hoping without much conviction that Sander might somehow be drawn back here. Finally, fearing that Goody Willingson and Tetty and the others would think that I had deserted them, too, I rose and, heavy-hearted, made my way back to Mr. Pope's.

28

T
he following day the physician returned to see to his patient. Dr. Harvey was a gaunt man with pasty skin. In truth, he looked as though he had been administering his bloodletting cure to himself, and had overdone it. Goody Willingson obviously knew the procedure well; she had already fetched a bowl. Dr. Harvey laid his patient's right arm across the rim of the bowl. Both Mr. Pope's forearms were dotted with small scars from previous bloodlettings. As the doctor opened his medical case, I got up the nerve to open my mouth. “Excuse me, sir,” I said.

He gave me a cursory glance. “Who are you?”

“Widge, sir.”

He selected a narrow-bladed scalpel from the case. “What's happened to the other boy, the tall one?”

“Sander.” I glanced at Mr. Pope. “We … we don't ken, sir.”

“What do you mean, you don't
ken
?”

“I mean, ‘a's been gone a week; we don't
know
where.”

“Hmm.” The doctor took out a tourniquet and tied it about Mr. Pope's upper arm to make the veins stand out.

“I ha' a question,” I said. “I understand that Mr. Pope's condition seems to grow worse after ‘a's been bled.”

“That's not a question,” said Dr. Harvey.

“All right, then.
Should
his condition grow worse after ‘a's been bled?”

“Yes, yes, that's to be expected. The patient always feels a bit weak at first from loss of blood. It's only temporary.”