The Playmakers (11 page)

And by the time the curtain went up, Budsby
had confided in Will that he would be relieved once they got out of
Norwich and were back on the road.

It being a sizeable town, they did four days’
solid business there, the good folk perhaps seeking some
alleviation from the hectic atmosphere that pervaded. But on the
fifth morning, Budsby surprised all by being the first awake, and
with the aid of Soho he rapidly got the troupe together, and at
nine o’clock the wagons turned onto the road to London.

“Let us not include this place on our
itinerary ever again,” he said to Soho as they flicked the reins of
the horses.

Even this did not make him feel secure. The
troupe was not its usual chatty self, and there was a tension in
the still air as they slowly plodded along the rough road through
the forest.

It perhaps did not surprise him then, when
nine miles out of town, they turned a corner to find a tree freshly
felled across the road.

He was perhaps even less surprised when, as
soon as the wagons were forced to a halt, three men materialised
out of the forest. Those same three faces he had been glimpsing
during the nervous stay in and around the testy town of
Norwich.

It almost seemed routine that they were armed
with swords, and that they demanded that he, “Hand over any
atheists on board”, and that they would kill him if he didn’t do
so. It almost seemed predictable that his troupe was frozen with
fear, and that when Budsby got down from the wagon, the lead
bully-boy, the one with the bad teeth and constant leer, held a
sword to his throat, and shouted, “We know what you travellers are
like - liars, thieves and atheists!”

From one of the rear wagons, there came a
mighty shout, and Max - Big Max, Hercules the Gentle Giant loved by
all - jumped down and began running toward the three men, ready to
come to the rescue.

This had had happened before, the sight of
the shouting muscle-man putting to flight even larger gangs of
would-be robbers, usually starving, poorly-armed villagers. But
what happened next shocked even travel-weary, worldly-wise
Budsby.

A fourth and then a fifth gang member
suddenly emerged from the forest behind the running Hercules, and
chased him, one striking him a savage blow in the back with his
sword.

Hercules suddenly stopped in his tracks and
turned on his assailants. It could now be seen that his back was a
mass of torn flesh and spurting blood. He reached out and grabbed
one and hurled him headfirst into the wheel of a van, splitting the
skull open, and killing him instantly. But before he could do
anything else, his other foe plunged the sword deep into the
muscled stomach.

“No!” shouted Budsby, as the assailant pulled
the bloodied sword out, and Hercules fell to his knees.

The big man grabbed at the gushing wound with
both hands, tipped his head high to heaven, groaned and fell
backwards in the dust dead.

If that was a gruesome enough change to
events, then the next scenario was a total shock.

The fifth gang member - the killer - came
rushing up to within ten yards of Budsby and Soho, shouting, “We
know you harbour atheists, and they’ll get the same! By the grace
of God, hand over …”

His voice was suddenly stilled in
mid-sentence. He stopped in his tracks. He let out a sort of
gargle. Blood began to spew from his mouth. His eyes rolled back in
his head, and he slumped forward, dead at their feet.

A long spear sticking out of the man’s back
glistened in the morning sun.

Budsby stared disbelieving at the spear, and
then down the line of wagons to see its source. A figure was
hurtling towards them. A recognisable figure. It was short, squat,
and wearing a chain-mail vest, shiny helmet, and unusual protective
leggings made from thick, oxen leather. This time the metal-gloved
hand was swinging the long sword. And just as on the first day they
met Samuel Davidson, he was ready to carry out his duty.

He charged down the length of the wagons,
jumping the dead bodies of Hercules and the fourth gang member,
screaming at the top of his voice.

Soho pulled the spear out of the back of the
dead killer, and suddenly the bullyboy with the sword at Budsby’s
throat figured he’d had enough. He started to run while the other
two held their swords high, ready to engage in battle.

And if Samuel Davidson had proved on stage
that he was a man of strength, then that day, he showed he was man
of agility, too. He made them look fools as, with nimble steps and
timely tumbles, he avoided their wild, panicky swipes.

But two against one is not the best of odds,
and just when they were mounting a combined attack, Soho regained
the initiative by cleverly sticking the spear out and tripping
one.

A savage, crunching blow from Davidson’s
sword saw this man’s arm severed, and he rolled on the ground
screaming. The second could not avoid a lunge to the stomach, and
crumpled to his knees.

Budsby and Soho looked on in horrific awe as
their saviour finished the two off with ruthless blows to the
neck.

The only sound was the runaway bullyboy
crashing through the forest as he fled in fright, and the wails of
the twins as they jumped from their wagon and threw themselves on
the dead body of their beloved Hercules.

After they had buried the Gentle Giant in the
forest, it was a long, slow, sad trip to London, punctuated only by
Samuel Davidson’s explanation of his presence.

He had wanted to join them so much, and
become the deputy of his newfound friend Hercules, that he had
thrown in his job with de Vere, walked to Norwich, sneaked in under
Soho’s guard the night before, and hidden himself in the back of
the ramshackle maintenance van.

“Well, you did tell me to make my own way to
London …” he whispered, tears running down his cheeks.

And when they finally did get to the city of
their dreams, one of the first jobs for Shakespeare was to scour
the East End and find the widow of the mighty Hercules.

In a tiny little room in Whitechapel, he
handed over to her and his two daughters the big man’s share of the
profits from the Grand Tour, generously boosted by donations from
the troupe.

And with tears in his eyes, a large, embossed
leather belt …

CHAPTER SIX

William Shakespeare had never seen a
prostitute before. Well, not a London prostitute anyway. And
certainly not one that was approximately the age of his mother.

Back in Stratford he had heard of local girls
who had what was called “a bad reputation”, and who earned a few
pence with local lads by giving them a bit of a treat in an
alleyway up against the wall. And in the bigger places such as
Liverpool he had witnessed desperate young women, sometimes with a
brace of starving children huddling in the cold outside, anxiously
plying their trade among drunken sailors in rough taverns.

Now, here was the real thing. A battle-weary
veteran, rouged, lipsticked and wigged up, brazenly lifting the
low-cut red dress to entice him into the doorway with a
vein-encrusted leg and a well-rehearsed spiel.

In broad daylight.

On a main road, too!

“Not that Commercial Street, Spitalfields, is
the most salubrious of addresses,” Shakespeare said to Soho, as
they passed by the opportunity of “a quick one, sir, only six pence
- nine-pence if you want to include your little mate there. No,
wait. Let me have another look. Oh, dear, a shilling at least with
a head like that …”

But the rough-and-tumble London suburb, home
of dissenters, zealots, and others who did not comply with daily
city life, was all the Rufus J. Budsby Troupe of Mummers found it
could afford when it finally escaped the clutches of angry Norwich
and reached Nirvana.

Deflated by the death of their strongman,
their expected triumphant march into the biggest city of all soon
degenerated into a tragedy of epic proportions.

It had been many years since Budsby had left
the capital with two wagons, a handful of acts, a booming voice,
and hope in his heart. Having made a relative success of it in the
countryside, he was shocked on his return to find how filthy and
disease-ridden his former home town was, how expensive things were,
and how uncompromisingly difficult and diffident the people had
become.

He soon found that his verbal skills, so good
at encouraging villagers and farmers to hurl their precious coppers
on stage, had far less impact on the hardened denizens of the
street-wise city.

They giggled at his old-fashioned hat, they
sniggered at his all-encompassing cape, they guffawed at his
wind-blown whiskers. Worse still, they laughed at his acts. But,
alas, not when they were supposed to …

Cynical, bored and having been exposed to all
manner of entertainment, they merely burst into laughter when
Viktor The Supreme made his scripted, professional error and
dangled by one hand from the wire. Instead of willing him back to
safety, they urged him to fall and kill himself.

On the opening afternoon, on a little patch
of highly valued green, the sight gags were treated with disdain,
the acrobats with a yawn, the fire-eater with a shrug of the
shoulders.

And the Siamese twins?

“We got a pair down our way wot’s more
unbelievable than that,” came a voice with a distinct Southwark
snarl.

“And I would believe it,” whispered Budsby to
Shakespeare.

To his credit, Samuel Davidson put on a fine
display as the replacement of the lamented Hercules. In fact, too
good a show. Among the challengers that failed was a sizeable,
menacing, but uncoordinated monster who, it turned out, was the
principal bully for the low-life who ran the major prostitution
ring in east London.

The big fellow was laughed off stage, angrily
lashing out at his giggling tormentors with bunched fists as he
scurried red-faced back into the crowd. But he turned up after the
show, accompanied by a diminutive, oily-skinned man with weasel
eyes.

In malevolent tones, the little man advised
Budsby and Shakespeare that if
his boy
or,
in fact, anyone else who was associated with his business was
similarly humiliated in public again, then the four-sailed tent of
Mr Mullins would, sadly and mysteriously, go up in flames.

“Mr Budsby, you are in business, too,” he
said, his dark weasel eyes darting from side to side. “You
understand. I have an image to maintain,” he added gravely, before
slinking off into the dark.

Viktor The Supreme stormed off, “to join real
circus in Italy,” the acrobats and jugglers dispersed in search of
regular jobs, and the twins figured that while they would hang
around, it was time to try a new act.

When the troupe woke up the next morning,
they discovered to their horror that all sixteen horses had been
stolen overnight - rumour later having it that the much-travelled
flesh provided the base ingredient for a flourishing new pie
business in Romford.

And so, on this day in late September 1587,
after passing up the offer of the Commercial Street prostitute,
Shakespeare and Soho hurried on to a tavern hidden away in the back
alleys of nearby Smithfield. Their mission was to meet with Mr
Budsby and the others remaining in the rapidly unravelling troupe,
and attempt to answer the question “Now what?”

“Now what, indeed?” said Budsby, placing his
tankard carefully on the table and gloomily staring into its
contents. “We are steadily working our way through our reserves of
cash, under threat from Spitalfields’ criminal element, our
performances are despised, and our horses are being served on
dishes throughout Greater London as we speak.”

“Pie, anyone?” said the only serving wench in
the room, approaching with a tray of food.

“Not for me,” said Budsby gloomily. “Alas, my
poor horse, he served me well.”

Shakespeare smiled, and clapped him on the
shoulder. “Ahh, Mr Budsby, even in the darkest of moments, it is
pleasure to be part of, and in your company.”

“Here, here,” said Samuel Davidson, lifting
his tankard.

“To Mr Budsby,” chorused the ‘twins’ who were
no longer twins. Soho opened his mouth and emitted no sound, and
they all raised their tankards, drank heartily, and slammed them
down.

There was silence.

In fact there was a long lingering silence,
and Budsby began to look around the room.

It was pleasant enough. Indeed, quite
pleasant. Clean, bright and comfortable. Recently rejuvenated,
obviously.

The ale was good, and the service from the
one single wench quick and friendly. Indeed, he had never been
offered food like that before. But where were all the
customers?

Shakespeare began to look around, too. The
same thing puzzled him. He had been in many a tavern over the
years, none of them anywhere near this for style and cleanliness,
yet they were always jammed to the rafters with noisy, jostling
customers. This was almost eerie.