The Playmakers (42 page)

The Shakespeare staring back at him looked
tired, drawn, worn out. There was little life in the eyes, a
worried frown across his forehead, a downward curve of the lips
giving him a sad appearance.

“What a miserable face,” William
whispered.

It was a sad face, a dejected face, a
depressed face.

“What a face,” he said loudly. “But one day
it will be a happy face, as I introduce my son Rufus Christopher
Soho Samuel Shakespeare to the crowd for his first performance on
the stage.

“Then again, maybe he should become an
accountant and enjoy life …”

“Or a strong man,” came a voice.

Shakespeare turned to his right at the sound,
and was overjoyed to see Samuel Davidson walking down the corridor
to him.

“Samuel,” he cried. “Samuel. I didn’t know
you were coming back.”

He rushed forward and the two embraced.

“I thought …” continued Shakespeare.

“You thought I would be over there forever?”
said Davidson.

“Well … who knows when this will all
end?”

“Who knows? But I had had enough … enough of
life on the road, enough of being the courtier to the Queen of
Nubia, enough of wearing black make-up.”

“So, they decided to let you go?”

“Christopher has been writing some sort of
sonnet or somesuch, not a play, mind, and had missed the last
courier with it, but expressly wanted to get it back to Sir Thomas.
Really important, he said. So Soho and I ...” and here the big
man’s face began to crumble.

“Yes?” said Shakespeare slowly.

“Soho and I,” said Samuel, drawing a deep
breath, “Soho and I offered to bring it back, and come home for
good.”

“Excellent,” said Shakespeare.

“But …”

“Samuel, what’s wrong?”

“But, Mr Shakespeare. There’s only me that’s
come back.”

“What?”

“Soho … perhaps he was doing the cartwheels
because he was so happy that we were coming home.”

“Cartwheels?”

“On the Pont du Garrard, or something like
that,” said Davidson, his bottom lip trembling. “One of those Roman
water bridges, in France. He fell off, Mr Shakespeare, fell off,
and now he’s dead.”

William staggered backwards. The back of his
head hit the looking glass, and he turned around to stare into it.
Soho? Dead? Not Soho. He was indestructible. He could survive
anything. He could bounce from danger to safety in an instant.

William was about to say something like, “Did
he suffer?” when in the looking glass, he detected a movement
behind him and turning around all thoughts of Soho and of a future
for his own son drained away, as he saw the looks on the faces of
Margaret and the doctor standing at the bedroom door.

They were both sombre, the doctor looking
professionally concerned, Margaret dabbing at her eyes with the
corner of a handkerchief.

“I’m sorry,” said the doctor. “The Plague …it
comes, it goes … it has taken her, and the baby was not strong
enough to survive by itself … I’m sorry.”

It was tribute to the character of William
Shakespeare that, after he had pushed past them, rushed in and
knelt by the bed and hugged the dead bodies of his wife and child
in tears, he went back to the theatre - knowing he had to be there
at the end to receive the plaudits of the Queen and thus maintain
the subterfuge of the great Marlowe plot - and took his bows,
weighed down by the death of his new son and of his wife.

Indeed, through his tears when he left the
room, he took no notice of how the doctor, silently and stealthily
packing his potions away in his bag, reached across the table to
pick up a bottle, revealing on his left forearm, as his sleeve slid
upwards, a nasty looking tattoo of a coiled snake …

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The death of his de facto wife and newborn
son was the cruellest of body blows to William Shakespeare.

Now thirty-four, he had experienced what he
felt was his fair share of trials and tragedies throughout his days
at Stratford, travelling the countryside with his mentor Rufus J.
Budsby, and ultimately setting up business in London. There had
been the sudden dissolution of his engagement to Anne Whateley and
her subsequent tragic suicide. There had been his rapid-fire,
forced marriage with Anne Hathaway, and the resultant birth of
children amid the turmoil of an on-again, off-again, but basically
loveless marriage.

There had been moments of despair when the
travelling mummer group faced bankruptcy, and had been almost
overwhelmed by tragic personal circumstances, such as the roadside
killing of the gentle giant, Hercules, by brigands at Norwich and
now the distressing death of the troupe’s favourite, Soho, on the
Gard River in France.

There was even the
time,
thought William ruefully,
that they
had had their horses stolen overnight, thus providing a very
profitable source of meat filling for an enterprising east London
pie-maker. Successful as that project had been for the horse
thieves and the baker, to William, that was not the Shakespeare way
of doing things
.

William stopped for a moment, and looked up
from kneeling at the side of the cold, unmade bed, where only a few
hours before the love of his life and their new baby had lain.

“The Shakespeare way of doing things?” he
shouted to the empty room. “What is the Shakespeare way of doing
things? Hey? Can anyone answer that?”

There was no answer, but the agonised
Shakespeare pursued the query. “Can you, God? Or whoever it is you
call yourself? Can you answer the question, ‘What is the
Shakespeare way of doing things?’

“Well, I can. I will tell you.

“The Shakespeare way of doing things is to be
controlled by others. That’s it. To be manipulated by forces, seen
and unseen. Mainly unseen…” he said wanly, tears rolling down his
cheek. “Mainly unseen. Never in control of your own destiny. That’s
the Shakespeare way of doing things.

“Picked up, probed, pushed, and packaged.

“Packaged into something that I am not.

“In fact, I do not know what I am.

“There is no word to describe me!

“Charlatan, perhaps.

“Fraud, maybe.

“Usurer, possibly.

“After all, I am user of other people’s
talents, especially that of my good friend, Christopher. What word
is there to describe me?”

“Friend!” barked a mighty, booming voice.
“That is a word describing you, just as a beginning. Friend. And
believe me, young man, I can tell you that, in the pantheon of
human traits, there is no better characteristic than loyalty.”

There was silence as the big fellow shuffled
across the polished wood floor. Through his tears Shakespeare
noticed for the first time that Budsby was not moving with his
usual smoothness and agility on his otherwise dainty feet. The news
of the death of Soho, his unique performer and partner right from
the earliest days had shocked, battered and exhausted him.

The big man came up to Shakespeare and put a
huge left hand on his student’s shuddering right shoulder.

“Friend,” intoned Budsby. “Loyal friend.
Business partner. Hard worker. Actor. Producer. These are just some
of the words that do you justice.”

Shakespeare stared up at the big man, his
bottom lip quivering.

“Lover is another,” continued Budsby. “A
gentle, beautiful lover for Sarah. Giving her a love that fulfilled
her life, absorbed her every hour. And there is one more word
…”

“What is that?” whispered Shakespeare
slowly.

“A son,” said the big fellow gently. “You are
like a son to me. No, wait, not like a son. You are my son. You
have been my son since the day we met by that cold stream outside
Stratford and forged a bond that has taken us on this extraordinary
journey through life, a journey one moment of which I shall never
regret.”

More tears began to well in William’s
eyes.

“And I am here,” said Budsby quietly, “to
help share the burden of my son’s grief.”

Shakespeare got up and embraced the big
fellow, the tearful droplets cascading down his cheeks.

“Thank you, Mr Budsby, thank you,” he
whispered. “But even if I do not know what I am, I know what I have
lost. I have lost the love of my life, and the child of my dreams.
That is what I have lost.”

“You have not lost their memory, their image
and their enduring love, that will stay with you forever.”

“It’s not fair,” said Shakespeare suddenly.
“The Plague! I did not know that it was still with us.”

“Sir Thomas said that it comes, it goes,”
said Budsby.

“That’s what his lunatic doctor said,
too.”

“There are always isolated pockets of it
suddenly appearing,” said Budsby. “You will remember the terrible
time in 1593 when thousands were dying?”

“I remember,” said Shakespeare sorrowfully.
“We were trying to get plays on stage, written by Chris…”

“Written by you.”

“Written by … me … and the theatres were
closed down to stop the sickness spreading among the
audiences.”

“Yes, well, the Plague never entirely goes
away. It’s insidious. It takes a handful of unfortunate souls here
and there, and then it disappears for a while. And no doubt in our
time, unless there is some great leap forward in the thought
processes by those pompous fools that call themselves healing
physicians, there will be another massive outbreak of it again one
day, and many more will die.”

There was silence as the two battle-hardened
warriors of entertainment looked at each other.

“William, I…”

“Yes?” said Shakespeare, eyeing him
carefully. He knew the old man well, and could see that something
was worrying him, something more than the personal tragedy of his
adopted son.

“There is something you should know,” said
Budsby gravely.

“What?”

“Our position is still not entirely in the
clear.”

“What do you mean, not in the clear? We
answered the Queen’s challenge, did we not?”

“Indeed we did. We certainly did. The echo of
the applause is still ringing through the rafters at The Globe. It
was a cruel irony that this dreadful personal tragedy should strike
at your moment of triumph when you have handled Elizabeth’s
fourteen-day dare with such ease, thus stamping yourself forever as
the consummate writer of these times.”

“Yes, but,” said Shakespeare, waving his hand
dismissively, “it wasn’t me that wrote it, you know that. It was
all Christopher’s work.”

“And therein lies the rub. Christopher, he,
ah, that is …”

“He’s what?” said Shakespeare, his tone, for
the first time in the conversation, lifting from melancholy into
anxiety. “Christopher is all right, isn’t he? There is nothing
wrong?”

“No, no, he is fine. He couldn’t be better,
he’s writing well. In fact, that is the problem, he is writing too
well.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you will remember, around about the
time of Christopher’s, um, death - and I use that word advisedly -
we published those two love poems.”

“Venus and Adonis, and The Rape of Lucrece?
You call them love poems? Dirty poems is the phrase I would use.
Dirty poems.”

“Well, William, I am an old man from the old
school. I use the word love because I find it hard to use words
such as f… f... f…”

“Fornication?”

“Filth was the word I was searching for,”
said Budsby with a wry smile.

“But they went on and on about people having
intercourse,” said Shakespeare. “And I do not mean of the verbal
kind. I felt so embarrassed to have them published in my name. Even
the title of one of them, with the word ‘Rape’ in it, made me feel
awful.”

“We had no choice!” said Budsby gravely.
“Lord Burghley has been trying to curry favour with the young Earl
of Southampton and his family for ages, and got Marlowe to write
the damn things and dedicate them to the little upstart. You know
Burghley, he’s always up to something.”

“Yes, and usually no good. I was staggered
when the pages came back from Christopher and were published.
Anytime someone says to me, ‘I love your two poems, Mr
Shakespeare,’ and gives me that knowing, leering wink, as if to
say, ‘Lot of activity between the sheets!’ I don’t know which way
to turn.”

“Well, there’s more.”

“More! More poems?”

“No, no. The sonnets.”

“The sonnets? I thought they were going along
the same line as the poems.”

“Yes, well,” said Budsby, running his chin
with a big chubby hand. “Sort of.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, again, Burghley has gotten Chris to
write them …”

“In my name.”

“In your name. Yes, William, in your name.
And again, they are directed toward the young Earl.”

“He’s only a boy.”

“Not even twenty,” said Budsby. “But Burghley
has some sort of marriage idea in mind, and is trying to encourage
it with these words. I believe he sees a joining of the Southampton
family with his own, via a union in marriage to some niece or
other.”