The True Prince (11 page)

Something else soon became clear, too. Even though the fight seemed in earnest, I noticed the older man was pulling his thrusts. Though both showed some skill, he was easily the better swordsman and could have ended the contest in short order. “They don't mean it,” Gregory murmured in my ear. “Or at least, one of them doesn't.”

Some among the spectators had glommed onto the same suspicion, for a voice called out, “Stop playing with him, Corporal! Finish him!”

The young gentleman made the mistake of turning his
head, leaving a hole in his defense as wide as Newgate. The so-called corporal slipped through it and caught a button at the point of the rapier, then sliced it off with the dagger, all so quick the boy scarcely had time to turn around.

“Do you yield?” asked the corporal. His voice was hard, with a curious accent that sounded familiar, though I couldn't place it.

Up until now, the gentleman had behaved rather like a brat demanding his own way; I half expected him to stamp his well-shod foot and whine that it wasn't fair. Instead he sheathed his rapier, straightened his clothes, and bowed with seemly dignity. “I yield the match. But not the honor of my Lord Essex, whom God grant that I may anon be privileged to defend, with better wit and spirit.”

This was a pretty way to concede, and the onlookers murmured their approval as his opponent also bowed, low enough to retrieve the severed button and offer it back. “The privilege was mine, Lord Mustard.”

The young man turned a deeper shade of crimson and drew his rapier again. “I told you never to call me that!”

“Of course, my lord. Forgive me.” The corporal retrieved his cloak, which Kit had folded into a bundle for him, bowed again toward the gentleman, and backed away toward the Buckingham Tavern, his show of humility as thin as water. Smirking companions followed. At this timely moment the servant arrived, riding one horse and leading another. Flinging
his velvet cape over one shoulder, the young gentleman swung into the saddle and jerked on the reins. I knew somewhat of horses, having been a stable boy most of my life, and winced to think how the poor creature's mouth must feel. Heedless of all obstacles, the two turned west, scattering dogs, carts, and people before them.

“Lord Mustard,” Robin repeated, once they were out of sight. “He must be a member of the Condiment clan.”

“Near cousin to the Earl of Horseradish,” Gregory suggested.

Scowling, Kit turned to us as we broke out in giggles. “Will you be helping pull this load? Or would you prefer to ride it instead? One idler on this team is enough.” That last remark was aimed at Davy, who perched on the front of the cart. Kit knocked him off with a back-handed swipe and picked up the tongue. Gregory rolled his eyes at me and stepped behind to push.

The Company slated three familiar plays before the first performance of
Henry IV
on Thursday, a wise plan since we needed the time to accustom ourselves to yet another theater. Confusion was certain, but Richard Burbage took it very hard when he couldn't find his favorite black doublet for Tuesday's performance of
The Duke of Navarre.
Costumes had to be carefully watched; the Company laid out more money to dress their players than they did to pay them. “It's worth thirty pounds, if it's worth a farthing!” Master Burbage repeated as he turned
over the tiring rooms of the Swan, with all the stage keepers and apprentices pressed into searching for the doublet. Since no one would admit to moving it, he had no one to blame.

“But you won't need it until Thursday, sir,” ventured Kit.

Master Burbage backed out of the wardrobe crate he'd been pawing through. “Do you object if I take a notion to wear it
today
, Master Glover?”

Irritation made him sarcastic, and Kit knew better than to reply. An hour's search turned up no black damask doublet with gold braid and piping, and our chief player had to make do with a scarlet one. As far as I could tell, his performance did not suffer, but he was in a foul mood for the rest of the day. The missing costume was only part of it—a fly's weight in the ton of his theater troubles—but his irritation spread to all before the day was done.

When I told her of the missing costume that evening, Starling said, “I'll wager a shilling I can find it.”

“If I had a shilling, that would be an easy win. We turned the tiring rooms inside out.”

“But without me,” she said. “I'll find it.”

A good thing I didn't bet, for two days hence she did find it. But under circumstances that provided no answers, only raised new questions.

THE NEW ROBIN HOOD

nd where did you find it?” Master Burbage demanded, with a look that mixed relief, puzzlement, and irritation.

Starling made another little curtsey. Just as we were completing our final preparations for
Henry IV
, she had caught us on one corner of the stage and handed over the missing garment. Her manner was not quite like herself: more hem and haw than common, though Master Burbage's imposing presence could wring hems and haws out of the Lord Mayor of London.

“In truth, sir,” said she, “I found it—most unlikely I know, but as I had searched everywhere else, it seemed worthy, yet—I found it in the garderobe, sir.”

He almost dropped the black doublet; then he frowned, brought the rich goods up to his expansive nose, and sniffed. The garderobe was a little room attached to the
theater on the south side, for the use of players who must relieve themselves during a performance. Since our old Theater had an outdoor privy, we thought this a wonderful convenience, though no amount of lime could keep all the odors at bay. “I do detect a whiff of the necessary about it,” Richard Burbage said. “Dare I ask where—”

“It was rolled up and wrapped in sacking,” she explained, “then stuffed under the eaves, where the ceiling braces are.”

He stared at her long and hard, but decided against asking further questions. Shaking out the garment, he gave it a closer inspection. The doublet, limp and wrinkled, put me in mind of a once-stout king suffering from a wasting sickness. “Seems whole, though worse for wear,” Master Burbage concluded. “There's a tale here, but all's well that ends well, eh? Many thanks, maid.” He fished about in his purse for a penny, which Starling took with another half curtsey. All of us knew that the doublet was not accidentally stuffed in a privy by careless movers, but Master Burbage chose not to comment.

As soon as he excused himself to dress for the play, I said, “It wasn't there the other day—someone would have found it.”

“No doubt.”

“So—what are you thinking?”

She was a quick thinker; from the moment she found the doublet, her thoughts could have circled the globe at least once. “First of all, why leave it in such a suspicious place?

There must have been no other choice. Whoever took the garment may have smuggled it in under his own clothes, then slipped into the garderobe to take it off. And then—perhaps he heard footsteps approaching, or feared he could not slip it back to the wardrobe unseen.”

“Was it someone in the Company, then?”

“Well, it stands to reason. Any outsiders would be noticed in the tiring rooms. Perhaps a hired man?”

The Company had hired four extra players for the week, all of whom had worked for them before. My first thoughts ran to the question
Who?
But what I asked was, “Why?”

She made a shrug. “Someone may have wanted to do a bit of acting off the stage—impress a lady, or gull a gentleman. Perhaps there's no harm done … except for a rip on the left side of the doublet. A clean slice. It's mended, but not well.”

“That could have been done on stage. In the course of a battle or murder a knife could slip.” Costumes were damaged that way often enough, even with blunt weapons.

“But the thread looks new and the tailor didn't know his business, unlike our excellent Master Stewart—” Abruptly, she noticed that the doors of the theater had opened to admit the public. “I must go, and you must dress. We will talk later.” She hurried to the rim of the stage and turned back again.
“Esperance!”

I smiled, a little anxiously. “Aye—
Esperance.
” This was Hotspur's saying: the motto of the Percy family, meaning
“Hope.” She used it to wish us well, and that was a wish well taken.

No matter how much the Company likes a new play, performing it for the first time is like meeting in the flesh a person one has known only by hearsay. However carefully planned and wrought, no work acquires the spirit of life until the public breathes into it. Would that motley crowd of canons and clerks, housemaids and horseboys, tradesmen and trollops breathe good or ill?

We need not have feared.
Henry IV
not only came to life, but leapt up and danced, with Sir John Oldcastle in the lead. From the moment a well-padded Thomas Pope waddled onto the boards, the audience began to fall under his spell. Their affection grew and grew, bursting into full-blossomed love when Oldcastle and his fellow rogues accosted the Canterbury pilgrims and then were surprised and routed themselves.

Howls of laughter followed Pope, Kempe, and Cowley off the stage, the three of them chortling like schoolboys as they brushed past Will Sly and me. “They have set us a hard scene to follow,” Sly remarked, then squared his shoulders and strode onto the stage with a letter in his hand. I feared that Oldcastle and his crew had claimed all the good will of the audience for themselves, but they soon were cheering Hotspur as well, as he debated with his letter in lively terms. When I entered as his wife, I caught their high spirits.

Lady Percy wants to know why her husband is so preoccupied.
Midway into my long speech, I made a snatch at the letter, a move we had not rehearsed. He held it behind him, and over his head, and out to one side, with a teasing affection that Will Sly the player had never shown for me. We were the picture of a playfully loving couple at cross-purposes: I determined to know his business and he just as bent on hiding it, even when I seized his little finger and threatened to break it. “Do you not love me?” I teased. “Do you not, indeed?”

“Oooooooh!” This came from the ground and galleries both, a response of all the husbands who had heard this ploy from their wives.

Fleetingly, I wondered if my mother had ever said it, a thought that sobered me a little. Sly followed my mood, ending with a promise that I would know all soon enough: “Will this content you?”

Once off the stage, he cuffed my shoulder lightly. “Well played, boy. I'd have sworn I did love you.” He strolled off for a chat with Shakespeare and Heminges, leaving me in a glow—through which I caught sight of Kit's stricken face as he went on stage for the Boar's Head Tavern scene.

Whatever happy disease our Company had caught passed him by. He was playing Ned Poins as though the young man felt his mother looking over his shoulder, even while carousing with Prince Hal in the tavern. The audience didn't ridicule Kit; in fact they barely noticed him, especially after Oldcastle appeared. The prince demanded to know what happened to the
stolen money, and Sir John obliged him with an outlandish tale of how he was set upon by four, seven, and eleven men in buckram suits—the number grows as he tells it. Finally, when the prince revealed himself and Poins as the “men in buck- ram,” Sir John was dismayed only for a moment. After a pause of exactly the right length, Master Pope exclaimed, “By the Lord—I knew ye as well as he that made ye!” A roar from the crowd greeted this monumental gall, as he went on to explain how he couldn't bring himself to kill the heir to England's throne: “Thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules, but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter—I was a coward on instinct.” Behind the stage, Masters Heminges and Condell nodded to each other and smiled.