Shakespeare's Rebel (6 page)

He hadn’t lost any weight, from what John could see – the struggle his three followers had to squeeze past him showed that. They managed it eventually, contriving to slouch menacingly in the little space they were allowed, hands resting on the pommels of their rapiers and poniards. Sir Samuel D’Esparr was quite tall for a wide man but he obviously did not like peering through shoulders. ‘Down,’ he commanded, and his hounds obeyed, descending the stairs and forming a half-circle at their end while their master remained above, and spoke. ‘Why, if it isn’t an old comrade! I did not recognise you at first. That beard. Those . . . clothes. Still, Time will have her way with us all.’ He patted his swelling stomach. ‘How fare you, Master Lawley?’ He did not wait for a reply. ‘Yet beshrew me for asking such a civil question when I have caught an intruder. More – caught him alone with my
wife
.’ He glanced over. ‘Has he frighted you, my dear?’

‘Frighted? No. Surprised, but—’

‘Surprised, eh? Surprised my
wife
.’ Again he overemphasised the word. ‘Can a gentleman allow such an affront? Nay.’ He leaned over the railing. ‘Tomkins, some correction may be required.’

John had been studying the men-at-arms. Two of middle years like himself, and one younger, they looked capable. At his best he would not wish to take on three capable men – and with a head like a forge, a throat like a lime kiln and his hands imitating St Vitus, he was far from his best. Besides all, he must not brawl – not now he’d learned that Ned was above an inn when he should be across the river in a palace.

Yet if he had sized up his men, they would have done the same for him. They did not rush to obey. There were ways to end this without blows. Bravado had worked in the past . . . at least half the time. ‘I have already had dogs set on me for her,’ he said, his hand settling on the pommel of his backsword. ‘I will not suffer it again. So know this, Despair: once I have done with them, I will also do for you today . . . and dance the Tyburn jig happily for it tomorrow.’

The men looked up at Sir Samuel, who shifted, spoke. ‘Od’s heartlings, but what a man of violence it is. Whatever did you see in him, dearest chuck?’

‘I forget.’ Tess took a pace closer, putting herself a little between the armed, undrawn men. ‘And I see nothing in him now but a memory. Yet for that, I would not see him corrected. He meant no harm . . . and he was
leaving
.’

This last was directed straight at John. He relaxed his grip on his weapon, as did the men before him. ‘Well,’ drawled the knight, ‘if you say he offered no affront. And I can afford magnanimity, can I not.’ He beamed. ‘As I retain possession of the field, eh?’

It was tempting, to act. He could have done so too, with the dagger between his shoulder blades. Yet once again his new-found near sobriety saved him – and he had other weapons to cut with. So he let his gaze fall on to the scarves the louts wore, then their fuller expression in the tangerine that strained the buttons of the knight’s doublet. ‘Still, I wonder what my lord of Essex would say if he heard you’d assaulted his master of fence.’

‘Rumour says that unlike his true and loyal servants e’en now rallying to his standard, John Lawley skulks in taverns to avoid his duty,’ Sir Samuel sneered.

John smiled. ‘ “Skulks”?’ he echoed. ‘Well, rumour is just that. Whereas the earl will likely remember who was at his right shoulder when he stormed the walls of Cadiz . . . and who was in a ship’s hold, shitting in a bucket.’

It didn’t help that Tomkins, the eldest lout, tried to conceal a laugh within a sneeze. The blow struck, and the high-pitched voice pitched higher. ‘I had the flux,’ Sir Samuel squealed. ‘All know that!’

‘All know that flux wastes a body. And that you returned to England fatter than when you set out.’

Sir Samuel’s face had gone a strange colour, and he reached for his neck folds as if he did not have enough air. It was Tess who spoke for him. ‘Enough, John. Go now.’

‘Not until I have seen my son.’ He took a step towards her, lowering his voice. ‘Tess, for pity’s sake. He plays before the Queen in a few hours. If he must assume the rank of gentleman, let him do so tomorrow at the least. Do not let the name of Lawley—’

The choking man had recovered enough to bleat. ‘His name will be D’Esparr,’ he said. ‘D’Esparr, I tell you. And he will not disgrace it in consorting with scum.’ He gripped the railings before him. ‘Her majesty will have to be disappointed – as will Master Burbage when he has to find another pair of buttocks to plunder!’ His voice rose higher to little less than a shriek. ‘The son of Sir Samuel D’Esparr will not a base player be! And you, sirrah’ – he jabbed a finger down – ‘I will not insult the earl whose man you profess to be by giving you the thrashing you deserve. But I will call the Bankside Watch and have you placed in the stocks for trespass! Call them! Call them!’

Froth was falling on to the men below, as if the vast and pallid orange fruit Sir Samuel had resolved into was being squeezed. At Tomkins’s nod, the youth ran up the stairs and passed the raving knight into the tavern. ‘Go, John,’ whispered Tess. ‘Think of me and not him. If you have ever loved me, go now.’

It was a sharper weapon than any man there possessed. John looked at Tess, sighed. She was a battle he would fight another day. There was a more pressing need now.

‘I go, lady,’ he murmured. ‘But I vow I will return.’

‘Do not . . .’ she called, but to his back, for he was already slipping the bolts on the garden gate. Without a backward glance he was through, pursued by insults, which faded as he ran down the alley, turned right onto the street and sharply into the first doorway – of a well-known brothel, Holland’s Leaguer. He had done the abbess a few favours in the past and so was known, and admitted by the doorman without question. Some lolling trulls called to him but he ignored them, took the flights to the upper floor, climbed the ladder into the attic. There was only one reason he frequented the house, and he made use of it now.

Pushing open a hinged wooden casement, he looked at the one opposite, only a long arm’s reach away in the eaves of the Spoon and Alderman. ‘Ned!’ he called softly. ‘Are you there? Ned?’

A latch was lifted. John smiled. It was fortunate he did so with his mouth closed, for it was not a face that appeared but a bucket; flung, or at least its contents were. Failing to dodge anything that came his way hardly mattered on that cloak. ‘And good to see you too,’ he said, keeping his eyes shut as liquid slid over them.

It appeared that his son was displeased with him.

‘Oh, is that you, Father?’ Ned replied. ‘Alack, I thought I heard a familiar rat in our gutters that will ever be gnawing at them.’

No apology, no true attempt at a lie. On that angel’s face, caught between his parentage, her green eyes under his black thatch, there was a studied innocence, one that would read in the playhouse galleries but his fellow players would know to be false. This close to, and even in the gloom under the jutties, John could see what backed it: rage, scarcely suppressed. It was the savage blood, passed down from his own line, prone to break out under certain provocation – or none. Counting himself lucky not to have taken the bucket as well as its contents, he wiped the stinging liquid from his brow and said, ‘Well, Ned, this is a fine stew we are in.’

‘We?’ his son echoed. ‘I have heard of the one
you
have been swimming in. Dived in, as I heard, the very night I was accepted into the Chamberlain’s Men. Did you not think, Father, having taken me thus far, to stay around and see how I progressed? Or did jealousy put you to it?’

Jealousy? Aye, it was so – though not of his son but of a knight named Despair. Ned’s elevation and the news of Tess’s betrothal had blended into a session at the cockpits, some successful birds, a full purse – and a tankard of double double brought to him in a moment of triumph. That one pint of strong ale had become seven, rendering him helpless to resist the bottle of Ireland’s finest aqua vitae when it was produced by all his new friends.

Still, the causes of his debauch – or his excuse for it – mattered not. Nor that here he was a month later reeking of piss – his son’s? His love’s? His rival’s? And indeed there was little to be gained now in trying to counter the moral judgement of a twelve-year-old. Only one thing concerned, and he spoke to that. ‘Ned, you are to play before the Queen in less than three hours.’

‘Oh, that!’ The shrug was as studied as his look. ‘I am, of course, sorry to disappoint the Queen, who no doubt will weep not to see my Welsh princess . . .’

‘Welsh?’ John frowned. ‘What is it you play?’

‘A tired old work, some three years gone.
The First Part of Henry the Fourth
,’ Ned replied, then raised a hand against his father’s interruption. ‘However, I am sure her majesty will forgive me my absence when she hears that I am to be a gentleman.’

It was the least convincing of his deliveries. Ned was trying to be insouciant and failing. John looked closer. There was a bruise on his son’s cheek, a fresh one judging by its colour. His eyes were red-rimmed. He . . . vibrated with passions. It was not every day that a young man performed before a queen – especially when it was the first step in a career he’d dreamed on all his life. So John asked, quite casually, ‘And is it your desire, Ned, to be sent away to school, and thence to university?’

Another shrug. ‘It is my mother’s. And the wish of the man who is to be my father. I am not of age and can do little against it.’ He leaned closer, his expression softening. ‘You know she was never happy with my course. You thought to keep your training of me secret, but she knew. And . . . acted.’

The pun was intentional. Ned was versed in them, the trade of the player. And John cursed himself now for not realising how he would force Tess to act – not only for her son, but for her whole life.

Nearby a bell tolled the quarter; across the river the players would already be readying another – though learning a role in Welsh would be hard at short notice. Yet, however pressed, John knew he could not rush here – his son had been coerced enough this day. So he asked, cautiously, ‘You did not answer me, Ned. We know your mother’s thoughts. What are yours? I will not force you to something you do not wish to do.’ He raised his hand. ‘I know! I cannot
force
you. But you stand at a crossroads now, lad. I can help you if you choose a direction. Help . . . or leave you to your choice.’

He had leaned a little over the alley. Needed to see what was in his son’s eyes. Saw there a doubt he recognised – and recalled. For he’d had it too, had stood at this same crossroads, at near this same age. He had chosen to leave the town of Much Wenlock where he’d been born; chosen to join the players. And despite all it had led to, and every crossroads choice since, he had never regretted it. That one, at least, he had never regretted.

He watched the struggle in his boy’s eyes. Then saw them flick behind him, and panic enter them. ‘They call me,’ he hissed. ‘Sir Samuel’s man is at the bottom of the attic ladder and says I am required to attend below.’

‘Then I fear the choice must be swift. The gentleman awaits below, the player above,’ John said and, slowly, reached out his arm.

Ned hesitated. He turned again, to the commands John could now hear. The knave had to be climbing the ladder. Then Ned looked again at his father, and a different expression came into his eyes, a different accent to his tongue. Not the future gentleman. The youth, raised on the streets of Southwark. ‘A poker up ’is arse,’ he said. ‘Stand by, I’m comin’ over.’

Relief gave John strength. He reached, grasped, hauled, there was a moment of dangling and then Ned was across and in his father’s arms. They hugged briefly, his son’s nose wrinkling when pressed against John’s cloak.

A shout broke them apart. ‘Heya!’ yelled D’Esparr’s lout, Tomkins. ‘Give ’im back!’

Neither Lawley needed prompting. They took the ladder and then the stairs three at a time, the younger only slowing when a half-open door showed a couple carnally entwined. Seizing his collar, John dragged him on. As it was, they emerged from the brothel just as the first tangerine-scarfed man burst from the inn.

‘Paris Garden Stairs, and by the swiftest route,’ John said.

‘This way,’ cried Ned, running down an alley. John let his boy lead, keeping one ear on their pursuers, one hand on his sword . . . and half a mind on his stomach, which was protesting in lurches at this sudden exercise.

They burst into a small square, packed with stalls and the people attending them. It being the day before Lent, many were selling meat, for it was the last day that the fish laws – three times a week – would not be strictly enforced. Men and women crowded around braziers, gorging, and John’s mouth flooded with saliva. He had not eaten much for too long. Yet there could be no pause, with his fleet-footed son ahead and pursuit close behind. ‘Here,’ Ned cried.

The alley beyond was thick with folk and thickened further when the pursuing cries changed from ‘Stop!’ to ‘Stop, thief!’ Ned’s progress was halted by two burly apprentices, offal pies in one hand, cudgels drawn in the other.

John drew too, reached Ned in two strides. Whirling his sword above his head, he bellowed, ‘Stop, thief!’ as well. Dividing the apprentices with a slice of his blade, he shoved his son through the gap – into a stall of dead animals, feathered and furred, directly before them. ‘Under,’ Ned yelled, dropped and rolled on to the cobbles, disappearing instantly.

John, whose knees lacked the springiness required, was stooping to follow when a yell turned him back. A flash of tangerine bore down on him with all the speed of youth.

‘Gotcha!’ the youngest of D’Esparr’s louts cried, which he shouldn’t have because he hadn’t. His reaching hand was bent sharply against its inclination, the youth drawn down till his face was level with John’s, who drove his head sharply forward, planting a Southwark buss on the bridge of the nose. The youth screeched, fell back, leaving John to sheathe then crawl beneath a fringe of dripping carcasses, as more tangerine burst through the crowd.

A different colour confronted him on the other side – the stallholder, a huge negro, who jerked him up by his collar. John was not small and yet his toes scraped. Clutched in his other hand, Ned’s feet did an imitation of the Tyburn jig above the cobbles.