The True Prince (24 page)

Since the fall season began, we had performed Part One of
Henry IV
twice, and today we were doing it again. The play
was still pulling in happy crowds and helping to build anticipation for Part Two, now less than two weeks away. By now it needed little rehearsal except for brushing up the scenes in which Ned Shakespeare had taken Kit's former part. Ned showed little brilliance as a player, but he had a youthful enthusiasm that suited him well for Poins. Kit was nowhere in evidence while the first scene was being rehearsed. “Can't bear to see Ned carry off what he could barely pick up,” Gregory murmured to me as we sat on one corner of the stage to watch.

I made no reply, but was struck once again with the mystery of Kit's failure in the part. It made no sense, especially knowing that he had real experience in planning robberies. “We may do it as secure as sleep,” Ned gushed to his companions. “If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns; if you will not, tarry at home and be hanged.”

Thomas Pope, as Falstaff, thumped Ned on the back and turned to Augustine Phillips: “Hal, wilt thou make one?”

“Who, I rob?” replied the prince. “I, a thief? Not I, by my faith.”

Not I. Not I … The words echoed in my head. Prince Hal had his limits; perhaps Kit did, also. Perhaps he was being pushed in directions he did not wish to go. I knew he had set up at least one crooked dice game—and cheerfully, too—but if he was unwilling to do more, could they force him?

“Hark,” Gregory said in my ear. “A storm brews in the east.”

I looked toward the northeast corner of the stage, where some of the chief players gathered. A servant in blue livery stood by, having delivered a letter which John Heminges was now reading. The contents had frozen him, or so it appeared; only his eyes moved, sweeping across the paper.

Richard Burbage plucked the letter from his friend's hand and perused the lines. On him they had the opposite effect; instead of freezing, he erupted in a blaze of profanity, followed by, “We won't—I care not how much gold is in it—We will not!”

This outburst was sufficient to break up rehearsal, and calming him took some time. Once he was quiet, the chief men huddled together for a short council in the first gallery, after which poor Cuthbert was sent out with messages. We muddled through a few more scenes and made ready for a performance with Rumor's fiery tongues spreading havoc among us the whole time. Just before two o'clock more blue-coated servants arrived, one with a wooden chest and another with a bound manuscript. Throughout the performance Master Shakespeare could be seen in his writer's closet off the main tiring room as he read through the manuscript, shaking his head and muttering curses.

“It's a play,” Gregory told me, from what he had overheard.

“Commanded by someone at court,” he added later, “just like that putrid
House of Maximus.
”

As the performance was ending, he speculated, “I wonder if it's by the same author?”

Worse than that—it was the same play, with the title and some lines changed. The Company saw fit to tell us this much when we gathered in the tiring room: the performance had been requested by a prominent personage who was seeking this favor for the love and regard between himself and the Company. And paying handsomely for it, too. “It had better be a lot,” Gregory whispered.

According to Master Burbage's outburst, no amount would be enough, but there must have been other considerations— perhaps the Company could not afford to offend any more gentlemen at court. As John Heminges began handing out the sides, Master Will gave us one curious instruction: “When you speak your part, pray leave out any references to brooks, or cobs, or hams, or old castles. Simply do not speak them. Is that plain?”

It was anything but plain. The performance was set for Monday—our first day at the Swan—and with so little time to prepare, all players would take their previous roles. I hoped that my part had been eliminated, but no such luck. Nor had Kit's. Under the circumstances, no one was surprised to see such an important part settled on a hired man; it was the response of the hired man that caused a stir.

“No, sir,” Kit said firmly when his side was offered to him. “I will not take it.”

John Heminges stood with the scroll in his hand, stunned. “What's that?”

“I will not take this part, if you please, sir.”

“I am not offering it to you, Master Glover. I am laying it on you. You have no choice.”

Kit's eyes flickered as though seeking a way out. “My answer is still no. Sir.”

“Come with me.” Master Heminges dumped the box of scrolls on Henry Condell, then drew Kit aside. Richard Burbage joined them presently, and I was reminded of the old days (not so far back) when they would band together to straighten out their most gifted, most difficult apprentice. Together they broke him. When the Company dispersed that evening, it was with the understanding that Kit would play Adrian. He would receive a bonus for it but, judging by his face, that was no consolation.

A quick scan of Silvia's part that night turned up a few references to brooks, and one to an “old castle.” Speaking around them would not be difficult, as long as I stayed alert. But I began to understand the reason for Master Will's instruction: the entire play was an insult to the Brooke family. Whoever wrote it must have held an enormous grudge. We were already in bad odor with the Lord Chamberlain and his son for our portrayal of Oldcastle; if we performed this play as written, we might as well bathe in a sewer. Leave out all references to brooks, cobs, hams, and castles? With right good will!

Two days passed—dreadful days, while I expected the Welsh Boy to ambush me at any moment and the Company
fretted their coming ordeal with
The House of Maximus
. The play was now titled
A Son's Revenge
but remained as putrid as ever. In fact that's what everyone called it now—the Putrid Play—as though calling it by its right name would bring us further ill fortune. Kit went through our one rehearsal like a sleepwalker, which made me feel all the worse.

Our rehearsal broke early on Saturday because Shakespeare, Heminges, Kempe, and both Burbages had arranged a meeting with Giles Allen—though none of them seemed to expect much good to come of it. I watched them go, wondering if this would be the day Davy jumped me. Shortly thereafter, Kit went by with his cloak rolled up and tucked under his arm.

I found myself staring at the cloak. Why was he carrying it, on a cold day? It looked too big a bundle for just itself— suppose there was something inside?

At that moment my mind flashed with a recollection of him, last spring, handing a rolled-up cloak to Corporal Tom after the fencing match with “Lord Mustard.” Suddenly I knew—
I knew
, as surely as if I had seen through the wool— what must have been inside the cloak: a doublet of fine black damask, needed to outfit a robber. A few weeks later I had seen him leave the Curtain after John Heminges dismissed him from the Company. He'd carried a bundle under his arm then, too, and shortly afterward a black satin doublet was reported missing.

He did it
, and he's doing it again! I thought. Willingly or not, he is smuggling costumes to his criminal friends, and how long might it be before the consequences come down on all our heads?

I scrambled upstairs to the tiring room to fetch my cloak, then dashed out of the Curtain and caught up with Kit on the Shoreditch Road. “I'm bound for the Bridge,” I panted. “May I walk with you?”

“As you please,” said he with something of his old regal manner. He spared me hardly a glance, though I stole many sideways looks at him. He still chewed his fingernails.

We walked for some time in silence, as a brisk wind sprang out of the west and made me pull my cloak tighter around my shoulders. He kept his tucked under his arm. “Aren't you cold?”

“What do you want?”

I wanted to knock him to the ground, sit on him, and shake out the contents of that bundle. But what I said was, “Nothing. I'm on my way to the Bridge, that's all.”

He made a noise, between a laugh and a grunt.

After a moment, I tried another tack. “Where are you staying these days?”

“In hell,” he replied, with a stagey drawing-out of vowels.

I suppressed an angry sigh; this seemed to strike an overly tragic pose. “Is that the only place that would take you in?”

We had reached Bishopsgate. Watchmen were lighting
torches over the portal, and by their sputtering light his features twisted in a bitter expression. “Yes.”

The word reproached me—after all, I knew not what demons were driving him. “Kit … What's happened to you? If I could help—”

He turned away and stalked through the gate. I followed a moment later, berating myself for mangling the conversation. On the other side of the portal, always thick with strolling musicians and peddlers, I spotted him in front of a puppet motion: a little booth enclosed by curtains, within which the puppet master was trying desperately to hold a thin crowd with the antics of Punch and Judy. As I drew closer, Mr. Punch was attempting to sell their baby to a roving Egyptian. Then Judy appeared and the battle developed into a tug-of-war. The play was neither kind nor clever, yet for the moment Kit appeared to be entranced by it. However, as soon as he sensed my presence, he whirled around to face me. In the torchlight his pale face leapt like a flame, his eyes flinty sparks. For an instant I thought his remark about hell might be true, in spirit. If he didn't live there, it lived in him: burning, restless, caged.

“Help me?” he burst out. “
Help
me? That's what you want, after coming out of the provinces and pushing me out of my place in scarcely more than a year?”

I swallowed a mouthful of wind. “What— How so?”

“I see you've learned to act innocent, too. Or perhaps you
started with that and used it as your staging ground to conquer all.”

“What are you talking about? The Welsh Boy's the one who pushed you out of the Company. I know now how he baited you—”

His hand flew up, so swiftly I flinched, but it was only to silence me. “Soft,” he said. “That music …”

I recognized the thumping refrain of the Robin Hood ballad, sung in a pleasing baritone voice to the accompaniment of a single flute and drum. On the west side of the gate, a tiny stage had been formed by laying two planks across a pair of barrels. On it stood the singer, a young man with an aged face, and perched on the platform at his feet a child in a motley tunic and a parrot's mask, beating upon a hand drum.

The audience drawn by the refrain grew in number as the singer embarked upon new verses:

The gathering crowd laughed and cheered, welcoming the appearance of Maid Marian. The mention of yellow sleeves
indicated that “Robin” had changed his garb from black and gold. I glanced at Kit's folded cloak. Sleeves could be taken from one garment and laced to another and would be easy to smuggle. The ballad singer spun a tale of Marian posing as a lady whose son has been stolen away by kidnappers: “The scorpion whips of cruelty/Have stolen my child!” she cried. A vain, boastful knight called Sir Flatter rides to her rescue (once she has promised a reward) and takes her up on his saddle, whereupon Marian pulls a dagger and Robin charges out from the surrounding forest. The token they demand is Sir Flatter's watch, in its pearly case.

Kit turned abruptly and shouldered his way through the crowd. I watched him with a sickening weight in my stomach: Could the ballad be predicting an event that had not even occurred? Did that cloak contain a pair of yellow sleeves? I hesitated, then decided to follow a little farther.

Kit turned west on Threadneedle Street, headed toward Cheapside. I kept him in view while hanging back as far as I dared. Dusk had fallen, held at bay here and there by lamps in doorways; shopkeepers were boarding up their stalls and street vendors cried their last cries for hot mutton pies or periwinkles alive-o.

A curly-headed child ran past me, dodging cart and horse as deftly as a rat. His clothes flashed like a rainbow in the gray
light; it was the little parrot from the singer's platform, without his mask. He pelted on toward Kit—then swiftly snatched the rolled-up cloak and made off with it. All that remained of him was a childish laugh and a mocking salute: “Hail, Marian!” I recognized the voice in a heartbeat.

Kit bolted in pursuit of the Welsh Boy, and I closed in behind—with no second thoughts this time. Davy led us a grueling chase down many a twisting side lane, through a crowded courtyard, across busy streets. Our twisting route led us in the general direction of the river, but all of it soon blurred for me, as I tried to ignore the knifing pain in my side. A high stone wall scrolled out beside me; I spun around the corner and almost ran into Kit.

He was holding on to Davy's motley tunic. The boy wriggled like an eel, landed a hard kick on his capturer's shin, and got away, diving into a narrow opening in the wall. His hard soles clattered on stone steps, fading away as they sank out of hearing.

Next moment, I heard a high-pitched scream, abruptly cut off by a thumping sound, like a full bag of oats striking a hard floor again, and again, and again.

I shall hear it forever.