Fools and Mortals. Bernard Cornwell
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‘You want to play the hero?’ he sneered.
I said nothing to that. His son Richard, who I had seen crossing swords with Henry Condell, always played the hero in our plays, and there was a temptation to think that he was only given the best parts because his father owned the playhouse’s lease, just as it was tempting to believe he had been made one of the company’s Sharers because of his father, but in truth he was good. People loved him. They walked across Finsbury Fields to watch Richard Burbage win the girl, destroy the villains, and put the world to rights. Richard was only three or four years older than I, which meant I had no chance of winning a girl or of dazzling an audience with my swordplay. And some of the apprentices, the boys who were capering onstage right now, were growing taller and could soon play the parts I played, and that would save the playhouse money because apprentices were paid in pennies. At least I got a couple of shillings a week, but for how long?
The sun was glinting off the puddles among the yard’s cobblestones. Elizabeth Carey and her grandmother, holding their skirts up, crossed to the stage, and the boys there stopped dancing, took off their caps, and bowed, all except Simon, who offered an elaborate curtsey instead. Lady Anne spoke to them, and they laughed, then she turned, and, with her granddaughter beside her, headed for the Theatre’s entrance. Elizabeth was talking animatedly. I saw that the hair had been plucked from her forehead, raising her hairline by a fashionable inch or more. ‘Fairies,’ I heard her say, ‘I do adore fairies!’
James Burbage and I, anticipating that the ladies would walk within a few paces of the gallery where we talked, had taken off our caps, which meant my long hair fell about my face. I brushed it back. ‘We shall have to ask our chaplain to exorcise the house,’ Elizabeth Carey went on happily, ‘in case the fairies stay!’
‘Better a flock of fairies than the rats in Blackfriars,’ Lady Anne said shortly, then caught sight of me and stopped. ‘You were good last night,’ she said abruptly.
‘My lady,’ I said, bowing.
‘I like a good death.’
‘It was thrilling,’ Elizabeth Carey added. Her face, already merry, brightened. ‘When you died,’ she said, letting go of her skirts and clasping her hands in front of her breasts, ‘I didn’t expect that, and I was so …’ she hesitated, not finding the word she wanted for a heartbeat, ‘mortified.’
‘Thank you, my lady,’ I said dutifully.
‘And now it’s so strange seeing you in a doublet!’ she exclaimed.
‘To the carriage, my dear,’ her grandmother interrupted.
‘You must play the Queen of the Fairies,’ Elizabeth Carey ordered me with mock severity.
The young maid’s eyes widened. She was staring at me, and I stared back. She had grey eyes. I thought I saw a hint of a smile again, a suspicion of mischief in her face. Was she mocking me because I would play a woman? Then, realising that I might offend Elizabeth Carey by ignoring her, I bowed a second time. ‘Your ladyship,’ I said, for lack of anything else to say.
‘Come, Elizabeth,’ Lady Anne ordered. ‘And you, Silvia,’ she added sharply to the grey-eyed maid, who was still looking at me.
Silvia! I thought it the most beautiful name I had ever heard.
James Burbage was laughing. When the women and their guards had left, he pulled his cap onto his cropped grey hair. ‘Mortified,’ he said. ‘Mortified! The mort has wit.’
‘We’re doing a play about fairies?’ I asked in disgust.
‘Fairies and fools,’ he said, ‘and it’s not fully finished yet.’ He paused, scratching his short beard. ‘But mayhap you’re right, Richard.’
‘Right?’
‘Mayhap it’s time we gave you men’s parts. You’re tall! That doesn’t signify for parts like Uashti, because she’s a queen. But tall is better for men’s parts.’ He frowned towards the stage. ‘Simon’s not really tall enough, is he? Scarcely comes up to a dwarf’s arsehole. And your voice will deepen more as you add years, and you do act well.’ He climbed the gallery to the outer corridor. ‘You act well, so if we give you a man’s part in the wedding play, will you stay through the winter?’
I hesitated, then remembered that James Burbage was a man of his word. A hard man, my brother said, but a fair one. ‘Is that a promise, Mister Burbage?’ I asked.
‘As near as I can make it a promise, yes it is.’ He spat on his hand and held it out to me. ‘I’ll do the best I can to make sure you play a man in the wedding play. That’s my promise.’
I shook his hand. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘But right now you’re the Queen of bloody Persia, so get up onstage and be queenly.’
I got up onstage and was queenly.
SATURDAY.
The weather had cleared to leave a pale sky in which the early winter sun cast long shadows even at noon, when the bells of the city churches rang in jangling disharmony. High clouds blew ragged from the west, but there was no hint of rain, and the fine weather meant that we could perform, and so, when the cacophony of the noon bells ended, our trumpeter, standing on the Theatre’s tower, sounded a flourish, and the flag, which displayed the red cross of Saint George, was hoisted to show we were presenting a play.
The first playgoers began arriving before one o’clock. They came across Finsbury Fields, a trickle at first, but the trickle swelled, as men, women, apprentices, tradesmen, and gentry, all came from the Cripplegate. Others walked up from the Bishopsgate and turned down the narrow path that led by the horse pond to the playhouse, where one-eyed Jeremiah stood at the entrance with a locked box that had a slit in its lid, and where two men, both armed with swords, cudgels, and scowls, guarded the old soldier and his box. Every playgoer had to drop a penny through the slot. Three whores from the Dolphin tavern were selling hazelnuts just outside the Theatre, Blind Michael, who was guarded by a huge deaf and dumb son, was selling oysters, and Pitchfork Harry sold bottles of ale. The crowd, as always, was in a merry mood. They greeted old friends, chatted, and laughed as the yard filled.
Richer folk went to the smaller door, paid tuppence, and climbed the stairs to the galleries, where, for yet another penny, they could hire a cushion to soften the oak benches. Women leaned over the upper balustrade to stare at the groundlings, and some young men, often elegantly dressed, gazed back. Many of the men who had paid their penny to stand in the yard had no intention of staying there. Instead they scanned the galleries for the prettiest women, and, seeing one they liked, paid more pennies to climb the stairs.
Will Kemp peered through a spyhole. ‘A goodly number,’ he said.
‘How many?’ someone asked.
‘Fifteen hundred?’ he guessed. ‘And they’re still coming. I’m surprised.’
‘Surprised?’ John Heminges queried. ‘Why?’
‘Because this play is a piece of shit, that’s why.’ Will stepped away from the spyhole and picked up a pair of boots. ‘Still,’ he went on, ‘I like being in plays that are shit.’
‘Good Lord, you do? Why?’
‘Because then I don’t have to watch the damn things.’
‘Jean,’ someone called from the shadows, ‘this hose is torn.’
‘I’ll bring you another.’
The trumpeter sounded his flourish more often, each cascade of notes being greeted by a cheer from the gathering