The True Prince (25 page)

THE GENTLEMAN PLAYER

e stood at the top of a long set of steps built into the slope that led down to the river. Walls narrowly enclosed both sides, and cold air gusted from it like the stony breath of a cave.

My voice trembled, not just from exhaustion. “D-d-don't go down there. S-suppose it's a trap?”

Kit's arm was in my grasp, a fact I did not realize until he peeled back my fingers. “I think not. And I need my cloak.”

His calm voice steadied my jangled nerves. I went with him to find a torch and stayed with him as he lighted it from a householder's lantern. He never spurned my company— perhaps he was secretly glad for it, especially when we entered the dark passage and went down about thirty steps.

The steps ran along one side of a house, enclosed on the other side by a wall. The building had probably once
belonged to a wealthy merchant or church official, but now it had fallen into neglect. On the way down, the torchlight flashed on two shallow recesses, each with a small door. The steps ended in a little courtyard paved with rough-cut flag- stones heaved up by sprouting weeds. A sagging gate led to the riverbank, so near we heard the cries of ship pilots as they took soundings.

The Welsh Boy sprawled faceup on the stones where he had fallen, his neck oddly bent to one side. Kit swept the light over him, and even a glance was enough to confirm he was dead.

My first thought was that he would never threaten me again. Then a pang of guilt: how had this child become such a foe that his death meant my liberation?

“Waste no pity on him,” Kit said, as though reading my thoughts. “He was more beast than boy.” His cloak had been flung across a stone bench—in a way it could not have landed if it had merely fallen from the boy's hands. Someone had thrown it there. Kit tossed it over one shoulder, then bent to retrieve something from under the bench.

“Bring the light closer,” I said, my throat so tight the words could scarcely pass. “I think—there's something around his …”

He came over and stuck the torch in a bracket on the wall. The light fell rudely upon the boy's startled face, with its scarred cheek and blue eyes beginning to dim. Around his neck, cinched tight, was a doubled string. Kneeling, Kit pulled
the end of the string loose, revealing the knot that tied it into one large loop.

“Where did that come from?” I whispered. “Wasn't it the fall that killed him?”

“Aye. His neck is broken.” Kit looped the end of the string through his fingers, and I remembered Davy weaving his endless figures, casting his malevolent spells.

“Kit—what deep plot is this?”

“Plot?” He spread his cloak on the ground and placed on it the object he had retrieved from under the bench: an ordinary shirt, not a stolen costume. He rolled shirt and cloak together, stood up, and tucked the bundle under his arm. “What plot?” The hinge on the little gate squealed as he opened it and stepped through. “I'll leave you the torch—pray don't follow me this time. You were never here. And I am nowhere.”

Next instant, he was swallowed up in the river mist.

I turned to face the stairs, rising into darkness, and remembered the two recessed doorways I had seen on the way down—perfect places to wait, concealed, for a hapless victim. In my disordered state I could not help wondering if someone was now waiting there for me. Would Kit regard my death with the same uncanny calm he'd shown the Welsh Boy's?

One thing sure: I was not going up those steps.

After picking my way across the bank, I scurried up to Thames Street, where by good fortune a gentleman from France hired
me to light his way to Cheapside. When I reached home, a penny richer, Starling met me, waving the ballad about Robin and Marian that she had bought at Bishopsgate. At that moment Master Condell was calling for Jacob to carry a message to the Heminges house, so I offered to carry it myself and asked her along for company.

“I know all about the ballad,” I told her, as soon as we were outside the gate. “Something has happened. You must tell no one of this, especially … Well, you know.”

“I am not in communion with anyone called You Know,” she sniffed. “If you mean Master Finch, he only sought me out one time, and I've not heard from him since the night you—”

“Be that as it may. You have my drift. And here's my tale.”

I told her of my walk with Kit, and of hearing the ballad, and of Davy snatching his cloak. When I came to finding the boy dead at the bottom of the steps, she halted abruptly and covered her mouth with both hands. “Oh, poor Davy! Why?”

“I'm not certain. He is—or was—a cunning little creature in his way, but not reliable. He talked too much and made foolish mistakes.”

“But still, if they wanted to be rid of him, they could have chosen simpler ways to do it.”

“I know. It seems as if he was placed at Bishopsgate to wait for Kit, then snatch his cloak and lead him that merry chase. But nobody told Davy how the scene was staged to end. Someone was waiting for him on the stairs. Dark Tom
I'd wager. A trip or a push is all it would take, with time to follow him down and make sure he was dead, and wrap that string around his neck … but I still don't know what that was for.”

“A signal to Kit? ‘Do what we want or this will happen to you'?”

“Perhaps. They do want something. When we got to the bottom of the steps, someone had searched his cloak.”

She made a gasp and grabbed my arm. “Looking for a pair of yellow sleeves! Recall what the ballad says, about Robin wearing yellow sleeves to honor his maid.”

“That was my suspicion, too. But there was nothing wrapped up in the cloak but a shirt.”

“Tom or whoever it was may have already taken them. Though if they got what they wanted, why leave a warning for Kit?”

“Perhaps they want more. Think of it: Who else of their band could play Marian? Davy is too young, and Tom would never be convincing. But Kit would have to shave, and so far, he hasn't.”

We walked a few steps in silence, then she said, “So someone still has ‘expectations.' He's put himself in a pretty bind.”

“The trouble is, I may have bound myself with him, after this night. If Tom got a good look at me, he would recognize me from the archery butts.”

She stopped and made another gasp, and the next thing I
found myself bound in was her arms. As I was holding a lantern, this was a little awkward, but I didn't mind. Just then a pair of men came around the corner of Aldermanbury Street and headed our way. Starling let me go as we heard John Heminges's voice saying, “… all in all, though, it pleases me. Now our course is decided, and we may proceed with a clear conscience— Hold! Who's there?”

I named myself and handed over the message. “Very good, Richard; my thanks. Now go home and get a good night's rest. Tomorrow is another moving day.”

His preoccupied manner, shared by Master Shakespeare beside him, told me nothing about their meeting with Giles Allen. Starling remained uncommonly silent during our walk home, but at the door she held back and whispered, “Will you report this? Davy's death?”

I sighed, knowing already that this question would keep me awake tonight. “I probably should, but … Kit told me not to. ‘You were never here,' he said. What do you say?”

She paused a moment to consider, then touched my cheek, but her answer was not a model of clarity: “Look to your safety.”

The following afternoon, as we packed our carts once again for a move to the Swan, Robin ventured to ask about the meeting with Giles Allen. Master Heminges hesitated, then unloaded his news along with a box of costume jewels. “No harm in
telling you now. The landlord has made up his mind which side of yes-and-no he prefers. It's no.”

Robin's face fell as he took the box. “Is there no more use in talking, then?”

“None at all. After you finish loading that cart, you and the other boys may take it on to Southwark.” Master Heminges resumed his packing as Robin turned away, biting his lip in a manner picked up from Kit.

I relieved him of the box, saying, “Don't take it so hard. They've only given up on the landlord, not the stage.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Are they sunk in despair? They have a plan in mind, or I'm an onion. Do I look like an onion?”

“No. Though you smell like one, betimes.”

“The same to you.
Esperance
, as Hotspur would say.”

“Esperance,”
he repeated, looking a bit more cheerful.

“Hope” was a word equally meant for me, for I was still in a quandary over whether to report a murder. That evening, as we were arranging the last of our properties in the tiring room of the Swan, one of the hired men arrived in a high state: “Have you heard the news?” My heart stopped.

But the news had nothing to do with the Welsh Boy. It seemed that Ben Jonson, whose
Every Man in His Humor
had been one of our more successful plays that season, got himself embroiled with a player from the Admiral's Company. The two had met on a Finsbury field that very morning, and Jonson had
killed his rival. Now he was being held for manslaughter and could be hanged.

“Another good playmaker cut off before his time,” sighed Richard Cowley, in a feeble jest. “Pray
you
don't provoke any hot-headed players, Will.” No one smiled; Master Jonson's fiery disposition had landed him in prison before, and he had emerged with no apparent scars. But this time he might emerge only to face the hangman. It made a sad beginning to our week at the Swan—and we still had the Putrid Play to perform on Monday.

That morning we arrived to find stage keepers setting gilded chairs in one of the “gentlemen's rooms” in the first gallery. This happened only when some prominent personage planned to attend. Every face wore an anxious look as we gathered for rehearsal at nine o'clock, especially the faces of those who had leading parts—Ned Shakespeare, and me, and … where was Kit?

I am nowhere.

Rehearsal began without him, as Richard Burbage muttered about heavy fines while his brother read Adrian's lines from the prompt book. By ten o'clock the chief players were considering a substitute play, and at half-past Master Will sent a message (“to Essex,” Gregory whispered to me), expressing our deep regret that his request could not be honored, due to Adrian's unfortunate absence. At eleven we were all on stage, waiting for the chief men to decide which of our plays would
be brushed up and outfitted within three hours. They sounded almost cheerful, for an air of relief had swept the entire Company. I even overheard Richard Burbage say, “God bless Kit Glover—whether he meant to or not, he's done us a good turn. If I see him again, I'll toss him a shilling—”

At that moment one of the stage keepers hurried up to inform him that we had a visitor. Directly after, my jaw dropped as a young gentleman in yellow silk strode to the very center of the stage and introduced himself as Philip Tewkesbury, Baron of Wellstone…. Lord Mustard!

He looked in fine health—not as if he had fallen prey to Robin Hood—perhaps the anonymous message sent by Starling and me had done him some good. But his presence here had nothing to do with that. He had heard of our dilemma from his good friend the Earl of Essex and was here to propose a solution. “We long to hear it, my lord,” said Master Heminges, though his eyes suggested otherwise.

“Very well.” Philip Tewkesbury peeled off his kidskin gloves and used them to fling gestures around the theater as though he owned it. “'Tis a matter very close to my heart that this play go forward. Therefore, if no player in the Company can be found to take Adrian's part, I propose … myself.”

For a heartbeat or two, none of us caught his meaning. Then I heard a distinct groan behind me, and Augustine Phillips left the stage, perhaps to tear his hair in private.

Robin whispered, “How can he walk in and claim a role of that size? How does he know it?”

Gregory and I looked at each other as the reason became clear. “Because he wrote it,” we said together.

Meanwhile, Lord Philip was insisting that he knew the play “as well as any man here.” Master Will stepped forward and explained with the greatest tact that performing before an audience was much harder than it looked, and the Company would be sorely grieved if the gentleman met with some misfortune on their stage—