The Playmakers (43 page)

“And?”

“And, thus, they are of a very romantic
nature, too.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, er, Christopher has chosen to bury
suggestions in the verses.”

“Suggestions? Such as what?”

“It could be interpreted that the, er, writer
is in love with the recipient.”

William stared blankly at Budsby as the
concept sunk in.

“You mean, it could be deduced that I, as the
writer, am the lover of the receiver of the poem, the Earl of
Southampton?”

“That is one interpretation,” said Budsby
evenly. “But there are many others. It is difficult to pin down
sometimes whether the writer and the lover are male or female, and
who is loving who. And who is doing what to who. At other times it
seems more straightforward.”

“Well, I hope people see the straightforward
parts.”

“The story-line is made more complicated in
the latest verses that have just arrived. The ones that Samuel
brought with him, along with the news about Soho.” The big man
began to shake visibly.

William began to feel weak. God, he thought,
can this situation get any worse? He started to breathe deeply -
huge gulps of air, as the big fellow steadied himself with his
ever-present Blackwood walking stick.

“Burghley,” said Budsby slowly, “Burghley and
Sir Thomas have already read them, of course. Samuel went straight
to them first. In these stanzas we now have the appearance of a
third character - a mysterious person simply called the Dark
Lady.”

William looked straight in the eyes of his
mentor.

“Dark Lady?” he said slowly. “There would be
no mystery about a Dark Lady. That it is obviously Rasa. Surely, he
has based that character on Rasa, his African girl friend and
would-be Queen of Nubia. She is a dark lady, so she must be the
Dark Lady.”

“I wouldn’t argue with that, my friend,” said
Budsby evenly. “But only a handful of us know that.”

“So?”

“The man in the street will read them with
the eyes of the casual observer. You and I look at them with a
certain insight. But Sir Thomas and Lord Burghley have been reading
them with the eye of the spy, and believe that in those sonnets our
young Christopher is telling the story of his fake death!”

“What?”

“There are hidden message in the words
outlining the whole conspiracy.”

“You are joking!”

“I am not. Read them, my friend. He’s buried
messages in layers of words. He talks of arrest, and bail, and a
stabbing. It’s all there. It’s jumbled up, but if you read it, it
tells the story. The whole story of deceit, lies and
cover-ups.”

There was a long silence as William tried to
take all this in.

“So, he is trying to give the game away?”

“No, no,” said Budsby, and for the first time
the big bassoon laugh started to emerge. “Not at all. He knows that
the ordinary person will not tumble to this. All he is doing is
letting people in the know - people like Burghley and Walsingham
and you and me - that he is still around, that he is a force to be
dealt with, and that no matter what happens, he is still …”

“Yes?”

“The writer.”

William looked blankly out the window.

“So, what do we do?”

“We have to ride above this, William. You
have to ignore any innuendo or suggestion about you and the
Earl.”

“Ignore? Ignore! You read it one way and it
says I am having an affair with him, and I am supposed to ignore
it! Easy for you to say.”

“You can do it. You are in the best position
of any person to do so - you are William Shakespeare, the writer,
the premiere author of these times, the literary colossus of
England, the man who stands above and beyond the rest of us. You
are so big, so famous, you can ride above it, leaving the gossipers
and their malicious tongues babbling harmlessly in your wake.”

There was a long silence.

“Yes, well maybe … we’ll see.”

Shakespeare looked at his aging mentor. Just
as he had earlier noticed for the first time that the small feet
were no longer as dainty as they used to be, he now noticed that
the old man’s once beetroot-coloured skin was getting greyer,
losing its life.

Shakespeare looked down at the bed again, and
the tears began to well.

“At least Christopher has his lover with him
– alive. And he wines, and he dines, and he gets plenty of
money.”

“Indeed, he does. Sir Thomas ensures that he
receives his just desserts for his efforts. In fact, it is
interesting to watch the ebb and flow of his work. You can see the
pattern - when his finances have been almost exhausted, he is
inspired into action to redress the state of his empty purse.”

“Not only that, he has entry to the best
possible places for research for the plays.”

“That is also true,” continued Budsby. “The
collections of books of kings and queens. The libraries of the
monasteries. As the private secretary to Her Majesty, the Queen of
Nubia, he is being allowed access to books of such historic
profundity. Books about wars, and kings, and dukes and heroes. And
about villains, and powerful families, all written by a steady hand
with a sharpened quill hundreds of years before the latter-day
printing inventions of Herr Gutenberg and our own Mr Caxton.”

“And the cities he gets to. You and I are
recognised in our careers as being experienced travellers. But our
concept of an exotic port-of-call is thrilling places such as
Taunton, Sheffield, and, dare I say it, Norwich.”

The big fellow winced at the mention of the
east England town that had come in and out of their lives and
brought them so much distress.

“Whereas,” continued Shakespeare,
“Christopher visits Verona, Venice, Padua.”

“And puts those visits to great effect,”
added Budsby quickly. “Look at the incisive detail that goes into
his plays - he knows the streets, the canals, the statues. He knows
the people in these cities, the cut of their clothes, the tenor of
their accent.”

“Exactly. It is working for us, Mr Budsby.
Sir Thomas’ plan is succeeding beautifully. So, why is Christopher
putting cryptic messages in these sonnets and risking the rack for
all of us if the plot comes undone?”

“Consider his position, William,” said Budsby
gravely. “As far as the rest of the world is concerned, he is dead
and buried in a desolate Deptford cemetery. Can you imagine what
that means to him?”

“Well, I guess there would be moments of
frustration.”

“Moments of frustration. Oh, my boy,
sometimes your rural naivety leaves me breathless. Frustration is
hardly the word for it. As far as he is concerned, he is alive and
well. He still has his hands, his arms, his head, his heart, his
ability to write.”

“And he is continuing to do that.”

“Yes, but not in his name, William, not in
his name! He is creating - creating material as good as ever - but
the words appear in your name. That is a different thing. Writers
have an ego, an ego that needs to be preened.”

“We send him messages about the success his
plays are having!”

“I’m sure that gladdens his heart. But for a
playwright, there is no substitute for standing at the rear of the
theatre and watching as his work unfolds up on stage.”

“Yes. I see.”

“He needs to listen to the crowd and see how
they will respond with applause, or laughter, or tears.”

“I remember when he used to do that.”

“The lines go through his head, and he waits
in anticipation. There is a joke coming up. Will they laugh? There
is a moment of tragedy looming. Will they draw their breath in?
There is a resolution of a conundrum on the horizon. Will they
nudge each other and say, ‘I told you so’? And when they do, when
any or all of these things happen on cue, an astonishing feeling
goes through the writer’s body. A feeling that you and I will never
experience in our lives. A warm, exhilarating feeling of triumph
that is indescribable.”

“But he is living in splendid luxury in
Europe. He is staying at the castles of princes and kings. They
welcome him and Rasa with open arms, and feed him the best of wine
and food.”

“Splendid as his treatment may be, that does
not replace the comfortable feeling of being at home, in his own
surroundings, being fêted by his own people, savouring his
success.”

“Success? He gets paid handsomely. More than
I do. And half my money will now go back to Stratford!”

“Where your wife … er, that is, your real
wife … will no doubt begin investing it wisely, so Walsingham tells
me. I gather that on the basis of his canny nose for a bargain, he
is already surreptitiously directing her to purchase a property
called the New Place - in your name, of course.”

“She will put it in my name only because the
law says she has to put it in the name of her legal husband. If she
could put it in her own name she would.”

“Nevertheless, it is intriguing that it
should be called New Place, suggesting a new beginning sometime.
Who knows what might happen and how you may benefit from that in
the future?”

William was too tired to reply.
But,
he thought,
if half my proceeds
are going there, it is surely not worth discounting …

“Well, yes, we shall see,” concluded Budsby
eventually. “Meanwhile, we must concentrate on events here in
London.”

“In what way?”

“We carry on, dear William,” said Budsby.
“Despite the tragedy, and the innuendo, and even Christopher’s
secret messages, we carry on like the old troopers we are,
maintaining the image that is required, and striving for the result
that must be achieved. The show must go on. And, indeed …”

“Yes?”

“Of all our great productions, William, this
is the show that must truly go on forever …”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“Do you remember that time when the square of
St Mark’s flooded?”

“How could I forget?” replied Rasa. “You
tipped your hat upside down, dropped it in the water like a little
gondola, and watched it float away with glee, clapping your hands
like a child.”

“I was still a child in those days in Venice,
and I am still a child now.” Marlowe leaned forward and kissed
her.

There was a silence as the two lovers stared
deeply into each other eyes.

“But Christopher, you are thirty-nine,” said
Rasa, brushing the tip of his nose gently with her forefinger. “It
is time you grew up.”

They each fell back on the long grass on
which they were sitting, lay looking at the dank sky, and laughed.
They laughed the hearty laugh that had kept them together through
the highs and lows of their ten-year European odyssey.

“Is it really that long?” she said
eventually.

“Madam, I am shocked at your
inquisitiveness,” he replied in mock horror, raising his head and
peering quizzically down at where the beautifully cut but now
increasingly tatty blue trousers covered his groin. “But if you
really must know, yes, it is that long. Although, people in the
know tell me it is getting a bit shorter as the years go by.”

“Not that, silly,” she said, punching him on
the arm. “You men and your manhood. You think of nothing else. I
mean, is it really ten years since we left England?”

“Almost to the day, my love. Let me see now,
I died … oh, how I hate using that word ... I died, as far as the
rest of the world is concerned, on May 30, 1593. And, as it is now
April 4, 1603, then it is not quite ten years of sheer,
unadulterated drudgery being stuck with you for every moment.”

“You, you!” said Rasa, punching him again,
and laughing.

“I am only joking, my love. It has been a
wonderful experience. A grand, exotic, wild journey. A journey
almost beyond belief. But a journey I could only have completed
with you by my side, and no one else.”

“Then, this is it, we are completing it?
There is to be no more?”

There was silence as the lovers stared at the
sky. The leaden clouds only added to the sombreness of the
moment.

“No more,” said Christopher quietly. “Our
time has come.”

For most of the time on the road, the pair
had carried off their roles as the monarch of Nubia and her loyal,
albeit quirky, private secretary, with flair and diligence, milking
it for all it was worth. They had been housed as guests in the most
fashionable of places, given access to books, documents, libraries
and tales of the court, which provided Christopher with the
story-lines to write his plays.

Gossip and information about the tangled
political and religious links, amalgamations, and plots that
stretched across Europe, had been gathered and sent back to the
master-spy, Walsingham, in London.

In turn, each play produced a handsome
royalty, organised by Sir Thomas, and the regular arrival of a bag
of gold coins was looked upon by the itinerant duo with great
enthusiasm. It paid the mammoth bills of keeping such an entourage
on the road in between the city-states. The transport costs,
feeding people, buying new costumes.