Shakespeare's Scribe (6 page)

“Well,” said Jack grumpily, “why don't you sleep in the stable, then?”

Sal Pavy flushed. “Perhaps I will.” He disappeared from the doorway.

As we stretched out upon the lumpy mattresses, I said, “A room to himself and a feather bed. Do you suppose that's so?”

“I never heard of a prentice having it that soft,” said Sam. “Of course, they may have given him a separate room just to be rid of him.”

“I hope he does sleep in the stable,” growled Jack. “Him and his airs. Thinks he's better than the rest of us.”

“And perhaps,” said Sam, “being an ass, he'll feel more at home with the horses.”

By the time morning came, I heartily wished I had slept in the stable. What with Jack's vigorous snoring and the bedbugs and other vermin that infested the straw mattress, I spent a restless night. The sharers evidently fared little better, for when we sat down to breakfast in the main hall of the inn, Mr. Heminges proclaimed, while scratching irritably at his bug bites, “F-from now on, we use our own m-mattresses and bedclothes.”

When Sal Pavy entered the room, Sam called out to him, “Well, how were the horses?”

Sal Pavy pretended not to have heard. He looked well rested and had taken care to put on his cordial face again.

“The horses?” said Mr. Armin.

Sam nodded emphatically. “He slept in the stable, didn't you, Sal?”

“I did,” Sal Pavy admitted blithely. “I don't care for crowded rooms. I believe them to be unhealthy.”

Out of the corner of his mouth, Will Sly murmured to me, “Particularly when they're filled with wights who would very much like to strangle you.”

I snickered. “Well, ‘a does have a point, though.”

“How's that?”

I nodded in Sal Pavy's direction. “You don't see him scratching, do you?”

The rain truly had let up now, but the surface of the road still resembled porridge more than earth. We made such slow progress that, by the time we reached the outskirts of Reading, its church bells were ringing compline.

Weary though we were, upon our arrival at the George & Dragon we retrieved our wool mattresses and bedclothes from the carewares and spread them on our bed frames, having deposited the inn's bedding in a pile in the hall. Though we had the luxury of a larger room this time, and no bedbugs, Sal Pavy still did not deign to bunk with us. No one seemed to mind. Though he was amiable and cooperative in the presence of the sharers, when he was in the company of hired men and prentices alone he showed his true colors, and they were not attractive ones.

In the morning, after breakfast, we cleaned the mud from ourselves as best we could, given the limited washing facilities—a ewer of lukewarm water and a bowl—and dressed in doublets and breeches taken from our costume trunk, for these were the only unmuddied garments we had. Then we donned the blue caps and capes that distinguished us as the Chamberlain's Men, and set out for the town hall.

We were forced to wait half an hour outside the mayor's chambers before he could see us, but the time passed quickly, for we were once again in good spirits with the prospect of a performance ahead of us, the first one in over a week. We occupied the time with jests and with stories of past triumphs and debacles, such as players like to tell.

Mr. Shakespeare's brother Ned held the floor longer than anyone, recalling the circumstances that had led him to leave his family home in Stratford. It seems he was caught by Sir Thomas Lucy's gamekeeper in the act of dispatching one of the lord's deer. He hinted that, in addition, he had gotten a prominent landowner's daughter with child. As a result of these trespasses, he no longer felt welcome in Stratford and had come to try his luck in London, only to be kicked out into the countryside again.

His monologue was cut short by the arrival of the mayor, a heavyset fellow dressed in gaudy scarlet clothing and adorned with gold chains of office so numerous and weighty that they would surely have brought a less brawny man to his knees. Mr. Heminges stepped forward
and gave a slight bow. Just as it did when he was upon the stage, the stutter that ordinarily plagued him disappeared. “The Lord Chamberlain's Men at your service, sir.”

The mayor shook hands with him and the other sharers, smiling broadly as though delighted to have a company of such renown in his city. He seemed especially honored to greet Mr. Shakespeare. “Your reputation has preceded you, sir,” he boomed.

“Has it?” said Mr. Shakespeare. “Would that it had secured us better lodgings, then, and perhaps tacked a few handbills up around town.” The mayor laughed, but it sounded more dutiful than amused.

“We'd like to begin setting up as soon as possible,” Mr. Heminges said, “if you can direct us to where we are to perform.”

The mayor's smile grew a trifle stiff, and he rubbed his beefy hands together in a way that, had a player performed the gesture on stage, would have demonstrated obvious unease. “Well, the fact is, there's been a … a change of plans, you might say.”

“Oh?” said Mr. Heminges.

“Yes,” the mayor went on uncomfortably. “You see, we've had some … problems. Illness, you know. In point of fact, the plague. Twelve deaths in the past week alone. In view of this, I—that is, we—that is, the town council have decided to ban all public gatherings.”

“Including plays,” said Mr. Heminges.

The mayor nodded emphatically, setting his wealth of chains jangling. Unexpectedly, the sound set a shiver through me, for it called to mind the clanging of a bell heard long ago in the streets of Berwick, a doleful sound that was always accompanied by the cry of “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!”

7

O
ur brief stay in Reading was not a total disappointment. The town councillors had authorized the sum of eighty shillings to be given the company—a reward, as it were, for
not
performing our plays. Mr. Heminges was obviously insulted and would, I believe, have turned the money down had not Mr. Shakespeare's practical sense prevailed. “John,” he said, “I'm afraid we cannot afford to be overly scrupulous. This will pay for a week's lodging.”

So we took the money, but, like a coin tested with the teeth for its gold content, it left a bitter taste in our mouths. We moved on to Basingstoke, where, to our dismay, we found the situation much the same. The mayor here seemed less concerned about spreading the plague, though, than about offending the church. The clergy of the city, he said, were preaching that the source of the plague deaths was not corrupted air but corrupted morals, and were singling out the bands of traveling players as a particularly evil influence.

Apparently the Earl of Sussex's Men had performed at the Guild Hall a few weeks prior; handbills advertising a matinee of
The Malcontent
were still stuck to buildings and trees. The mayor said that shortly after their departure the number of plague deaths had begun to rise.

“But that doesn't m-mean that Sussex's Men were
responsible
for the p-plague!” protested Mr. Heminges, so upset that his stutter was surfacing.

The mayor refused to listen to reason. Again we were offered money to move on; this time the bribe was only sixty shillings. “Well,” sniffed Will Sly indignantly, “I should certainly have thought we had amongst us at least five pounds' worth of corruption.”

Two days later, in Newbury, we encountered the same attitude, and with even less reason. There had been no plague to speak of, and the authorities were determined to keep it that way. This time Mr. Heminges refused to accept the paltry sum offered us not to play. “F-fie on them!
We've a license to p-perform, and perform we will, whether they l-like it or no.” I had seldom seen him so cross. Normally he was as tolerant and even-tempered as Sander. He turned to the rest of the sharers with a look that dared them to challenge him. “Are you w-with me?”

Mr. Armin held up his hands as if in surrender. Mr. Phillips nodded quickly. Mr. Shakespeare toyed thoughtfully with his earring and then smiled slightly. “You're right, John. We are not beggars; we are players. Let us not play according to someone else's script.”

“They'll never let us use the town hall,” Mr. Phillips said.

“Then we'll s-set up our stage in the street,” Mr. Heminges declared.

While the hired men unloaded most of our equipment from the carewares and stored it in the granary of the inn, we three prentices were sent through the town with preprinted handbills announcing a performance of Mr. Shakespeare's
Love's Labour's Lost
. On each sheet we had printed in ink 2
O'CLOCK TODAY ON THE SQUARE
. Some we handed out to shopkeepers and passersby; others we tacked to trees and fences and the sides of buildings.

We spent most of the morning getting our lines fixed in our heads. Though we had performed the play many times at the Globe, this was a special gypsy players' version, with all the excess parts trimmed away to make it suitable for traveling.

Even though Mr. Shakespeare had reduced the number of speaking roles from nineteen to thirteen, there were but ten of us in the company, so some of us had to double up. Sam, for example, donned a wig and dress to play Maria, then doffed them to play Moth. I played both Jaquenetta, my usual role, and Rosaline, the part usually played by Sander. Luckily for me, the two of them never appeared in the same scene.

I believe Sal Pavy's lot was the hardest. Though Ned Shakespeare was new to the company, he had at least acted with an adult company before. Sal Pavy had not. Nor had he ever had a part in one of Mr. Shakespeare's plays. Worse, he had been given but two scant weeks to con half a dozen different roles.

In my early days with the company, when I was coaxed into playing the part of Ophelia in
Hamlet
before I was truly ready, my friend Julia had made certain that I did not disgrace myself; she had gone over and over my lines with me until they stuck in my head. Though I did not care for Sal Pavy's company, I felt it would be right for me to follow Julia's example.

I found Sal Pavy sitting alone in a corner of the courtyard with his eyes closed. He was silently mouthing his lines. “Excuse me,” I said. “I thought perhaps you could use some help.”

His eyes opened slowly. The look he turned on me was distracted, irritable. “Help?” he said. “With what?”

I gestured at the partial script he held in one hand. “Why wi' your part, of course.”

“Oh. No, I need no help.” He closed his eyes again. “And if I ever did, I would certainly ask someone more competent to give it.”

I had not truly expected him to be grateful, but neither had I anticipated that he would insult me. “How would you ken,” I demanded, “how competent I am or am not? You've never even seen me perform!”

“You're quite wrong,” he replied calmly. “I saw you only last month, in
Titus Andronicus
. You were … how can I put it kindly? …
dreary
.”

I was not a violent person, but if I had had a sword in my hand at that moment, I would surely have thrust it through his heart—or at least considered it. When I recounted the scene for Sam, he shook his head in disgust. “The lad has a bad case of swollen head, all right. I recommend we give him a dose of the same medicine we give to Jack.”

Several times in the past, when Jack had gone beyond the bounds of his duties as a hired man and insisted on pointing out our shortcomings, we had retaliated during a performance by replacing some crucial cue line with a line of our own invention. It was like throwing a lead weight to a wight who could not swim. We always rescued him eventually, but not until he had gone under a time or two.

The notion of giving Sal Pavy the same treatment was appealing; there was no doubt that he deserved it. But I reluctantly shook my head.

“Why not?” protested Sam. “It'll be great fun!”

“Because. Mr. Armin said we should make him welcome.”

“Yes, well, that doesn't mean we're obliged to cheerfully accept his insults.”

“‘A never insulted you. Let it pass, all right? It's not worth creating ill will over.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “You sound like Sander.”

“Good,” I said. “I meant to.”

As two o'clock approached, we set up our makeshift stage atop the wagon beds and then returned to the inn to get into our costumes. As usual, Sal Pavy was not among us. “I expect he has a nasty case of stage stomach,” said Mr. Armin, “and is somewhere vomiting his victuals.”

“A little fear is good for a fellow,” said Mr. Phillips. “It keeps him from getting over confident.”

As we headed for the town square, Sal Pavy caught up with us. He certainly did not look as though he had spent the last hour or so puking and agonizing. He looked, in fact, as cool as a cowcumber.

“Don't tell me,” Sam said. “You got dressed in the stable.”

“Yes. I'm accustomed to having a modicum of privacy.”

“Weren't you afraid the horses would look at you?” Sam teased. Sal Pavy ignored him. “I suppose at Blackfriars you had your own private tiring-room?”

Sal Pavy smiled smugly. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

A crowd of a hundred or more townfolk had gathered before the wagon-stage, drawn by the notes of Mr. Phillips's pennywhistle. While the rest of the company went behind the striped curtain we had suspended at the rear of the stage, we prentices passed among the audience with our caps in our hands, calling “One penny, please”—or rather Sam and I did. Sal Pavy stood off to one side, silent and un-moving, with his cap held in both hands as though he found the prospect of actually soliciting money too demeaning. “Another thing he's not accustomed to, I expect,” Sam muttered.

As I reached the rear of the crowd, I heard a commotion from down the street and glanced up to see a body of eight or nine men striding purposefully toward us, wearing grim looks on their faces and carrying cudgels in their hands.