The Secret of the Rose (14 page)

“Master Henslowe will have thy head for stepping foot out of the playhouse in that gown,” I warned him. “If Master Green does not take it first.”

He nodded, as if he hardly cared.

“Robin? Art ill?”

“Thou wast right.”

“About what?”

He shook his head in amazement. “About the playhouse. Didst hear them?” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Yelling for Catholic blood?”

I should have been triumphant. But how could I, seeing the white misery on his face under the gaudy paint?

“’Twas—’twas but one play, Robin,” I said awkwardly, keeping my voice low as well so that those around us would not hear.

“’Twas my first time on the stage. They all expect me to be glad for it.”

“Thou didst not write the speeches.”

“I played my part.”

“I wrote the play out myself,” I countered. “Every word. I am at least as much to blame as thee. Thou didst not even have a line to speak.”

“I was onstage.” Robin looked ready to melt with guilt. “Thou wast right. I should never have stayed here.”

I sighed and said to my little brother for the first time in our lives, “No, thou wast right.”

He blinked.

“Thou hadst no other choice, Robin. Nor I. Where else could we have gone?”

The two of us could have begged for crusts of bread
like the old veteran and his little son by St. Paul’s churchyard. Or I could have become like that woman under the sign of the cardinal’s hat, selling myself to keep off hunger. I knew London better than I had six months ago. There were worse things than being a player or a playmaker’s servant, and I had seen them.

We were safe, Robin and I. We had bread and clothes and beds at night. We were only doing what we must to keep ourselves alive.

God keep thee safe, Rosalind,
my father had said. Perhaps, strange though it might be, the playhouse and the playmaker were God’s way of answering the prayer.

“’Tis not truth, Robin,” I told him. “’Tis pig’s blood and false speeches. And who is…” I had meant to finish Master Marlowe’s sentence.
And who is harmed by it?
But as I thought of the groundlings shrieking their blood-thirst, I could not say it. Instead, I reached out to grasp Robin’s arm, feeling the solid flesh and bone beneath the slippery satin.

“We must survive,” I whispered to him, my voice low and fierce. “We must go to their churches, take part in their plays, and keep the truth in our hearts.”

Robin nodded and put his hand into mine, clasping it as if we had made a bargain.

“Get thee within,” I said, with a faint attempt at a smile.
“And let no one see thee, or thou’lt have a beating for risking that gown.”

Once Robin had gone, I made my way toward the bridge, passing groups of people walking slowly and talking. None noticed me as I slipped by. Just another servant boy, all but invisible in the slowly gathering dusk.

“Murdering papists.”

“They’d kill us if they could.”

“Spying for Spain, all of them, no doubt.”

“And the Pope has ordered it. He said it would be no sin to kill our queen.”

“Anyone might be a secret Catholic. Any neighbor, any servant, any friend…”

“God defend us!”

I felt cold reach all the way down my spine, a chill settle into my stomach. Hugging my arms across my chest, I hurried through the streets.

’Tis all dissembling…Pig’s blood and false speeches…And who is harmed by it?

Meaning only to comfort Robin, I’d found Master Marlowe’s words in my own mouth. And they had seemed true enough. No player had been injured on that stage, not so much as bruised. They would perform again tomorrow, none the worse for having their throats slit today.

Robin and I must survive. Surely it was no sin. Surely no one could blame us for only trying to live.

But as the sun faded behind clouds, and the early dark of a winter evening gathered, I thought of the groundlings, shrieking for the deaths of Catholics, and remembered my old neighbors, tearing my home apart. And one of them, it must have been, had whispered a word in the sheriff’s ear. Who? Hugh Forrester, the father of Robin’s friend Hal? Our maidservant, Joan? Master Crabbe at the school? Someone had seen my father cross himself, had glimpsed a lighted candle through our windows, had caught a whisper of a Latin prayer, and that had been enough.

They’d kill us if they could…. Anyone might be a secret Catholic. Any neighbor, any servant, any friend…

There were no neighbors or friends with such suspicion abroad.
We are all harmed by it,
I answered Master Marlowe in my mind.

MAY 1593

Spring came at last, and warmth with it. A haze of green softened the fields outside the city, and the hawthorn hedges bloomed white with their own snow of blossoms. It was on such a sweet, sunlit day that I went on my regular errand to pick up Master Marlowe’s linen from the laundry.

Mistress Pieters’s small shop was full, and everyone seemed to be talking, not waiting to be served. I squeezed my way inside and listened to scraps of conversation until I could catch Mistress Pieters’s eye.

“…Spanish hunting us at home and the English here…”

“…warned them, but no one cared to listen…”

“Stay home tonight, who knows what might befall?”

“Richard?
”

Mistress Pieters looked astonished and not well pleased to see me.

“I’ve come for Master Marlowe’s collar and cuffs, please, mistress,” I said, uneasy. I rather wished I could retreat out of the shop and come back another time, but it was impossible. The chatter had ceased and all eyes turned to me, and they were not friendly eyes, either.

“Indeed?” Mistress Pieters said at last, and her fair cheeks flushed red. “Master
Marlowe’s
collar and cuffs?” She all but spat his name and, rummaging in a basket, snatched up the fine linen and threw it at me. “He has a nerve, to send you here today for these!”

I stared at her, bewildered, and held out the coins in my hand. “Mistress? What is it? I do not—”

“Thinkst thou we have not been by the church and seen what thy master has done there?” she snapped. “Take his property and begone! And I’ll have none of his money, either. Tell him not to send thee to this shop again!”

Baffled, I left, feeling unfriendly gazes and angry thoughts prickling along the length of my spine. I had to fight the urge to break into a run as soon as I reached the street.

What on earth had Master Marlowe done? Mistress Pieters had said something about a church. But Master Marlowe had not set foot in a church since I’d been in his service.

That is, he had not set foot inside a
Protestant
church.

They were all Protestants, these Dutch. My stomach began to tighten and I walked quicker.

I had wondered if Master Marlowe might be a Catholic himself. Surely not. Not the man who’d forced me to swear on my saints to save my life. Not the man who had written that play, who had painted Catholics as bloody murderers for every Protestant in London to hate. Unless…
’Tis all dissembling, Richard,
he had said to me. How deep did his dissembling go? And what was the truth he was trying so hard to hide?

Something struck me in the middle of my back, something soft and slimy. I spun around in surprise, and the next missile hit over my heart. I gagged at the smell of ripe horse dung.

Who had thrown it? I looked around wildly. The woman walking by in her neat white coif, who snatched at her two children’s hands to hurry them along? The wealthy man in the loose green gown and the tall black hat?

I was ready to run, when something stung the backs of my legs. Now I seemed under attack from two directions at once. Which way did safety lie, and which way danger?

“Playmaker’s boy!”

It was a mocking hiss, with malice behind it. I whirled around again, and a pebble hit my cheek. I jumped back, covering my eye, and was about to flee—any direction
must be better than standing still, a cowering target—when I heard a loud, angry voice.

“Wilt cause trouble in the streets, today of all days?” The speaker was a tall Dutchman. He had hauled a boy of Robin’s age out of a dark alley, and now he wrenched a stone out of his upraised hand. The boy protested in quick Dutch, pointing at me, but the man snapped back at him in English. “Get thee home!” he ordered. His eyes met mine over the boy’s head, and I knew the order was in truth meant for me.

The last time I had seen this man, it had been in the streets near the Rose, with mud and blood dripping from his fair hair.

I took his advice and ran.

In Broad Street, by the Dutch church, I was forced by a crowd to slow my steps. People clustered about the doorway of the church, but they seemed to be neither going in nor coming out. In my present mood, a crowd in front of a Protestant church was nothing I cared to encounter. But still I hesitated.

Thinkst thou we have not been by the church and seen what thy master has done there?
Mistress Pieters’s words seemed to imply that Master Marlowe had made some mark or left some sign that could still be seen. And now that I looked more closely, I realized that the crowd was
thickest around a paper pasted up by the church door. A libel. Someone had written a message and posted it on the wall of the Dutch church for all of London to read. Presumably, from what Mistress Pieters had said, that someone had been Master Marlowe.

It was dangerous to stay. I might be recognized as Master Marlowe’s servant at any moment. And had I not been warned, more than once, to pay no heed to my master’s affairs?

But what if this libel revealed something of the elusive truth under Master Marlowe’s dissembling?

“Richard! Thank God. Come back out of this mob.”

I nearly shrieked aloud as a hand fell on my arm, and wrenched free to turn around and look up at Master Marlowe’s face.

“Peace!” he snapped, pulling me a few steps away into an alley. “Dost want all London to hear thee?” His face twisted with disgust as he took in the state of my doublet. “Didst fall in the street? No matter. Go thou and read what it says, then come back and tell me.” He was frowning anxiously, his lips thin, his face drawn.

“Read it?” I choked out, bewildered. Had not Master Marlowe written the libel himself? Why did he need me to tell him what it said?

“Of course, read it!” He gave me a shove back toward
the church. “I dare not go myself, too many know my face. But none will notice thee. Hurry!”

Now I understood nothing at all. Had he written the libel or not? I slipped out of the alley and made my way toward the church. Everyone was trying to do the same—get close enough to read the paper or listen to someone else read it aloud. Soon I was packed in, bodies on all sides of me, and I could see nothing over the broad shoulders of the man in front of me.

“What does it say?” I asked a man beside me.

“How can I see?” he answered impatiently. “Here, move on, if you’ve read it once!”

“Something about those immigrants,” said a woman’s spiteful voice from behind me, and a sharp elbow nudged me in the ribs.

“Who asked them to come here?”

“Not enough jobs for true Englishmen, and bread costs so much….”

Well, I might not be able to see over men’s shoulders, but there were some benefits after all to being short and thin. Using my shoulder as a wedge, I wormed my way in between the two men in front of me. There were grumbles and cries of “Wait thy turn,” but I ignored them, pushing farther into the crowd. I even thought of dropping to my hands and knees and crawling between legs, but didn’t try
it for fear of being trampled. At last I wound up with my nose nearly pressed against the libel pasted to the church wall.

I had to push myself back a little to gain space in which to read. When I did, I saw that there was nothing unfamiliar about what the libel said. It was not, thank every saint, about Catholics. It only declared what those behind me in the crowd were saying, what I had heard a mob of apprentices shout at a Dutch stranger in the streets—that foreigners were vultures, devouring honest English workers like a glutton eats his dinner. Only the libel said it in rhyme. And the last few lines made me realize why Mistress Pieters had thrown me out of her shop, why she had refused to touch Master Marlowe’s money.

Paris Massacre
—that was nearly the name of Master Marlowe’s new play. And across the bottom of the libel was a bold, black signature:

Master Alleyn, on the stage, a bloodthirsty tyrant in his
red doublet with the fur trim. Another play by Master Marlowe.

It was easier making my way out of the crowd than it had been to push in. People, eager to read the libel for themselves, made space to let me pass. I rushed back around the corner into the alley where Master Marlowe waited.

“God’s blood, where hast thou been?” he demanded. “Thou couldst have run to St. Paul’s and back. Well, what? What does it say?”

Stumbling, I repeated what I could remember of the rhyme. Master Marlowe grew pale as he listened. When I told him what the last lines said, and what the signature had been, he closed his eyes for a moment, looking as young and frightened as Robin.

“They want to kill me,” he said shakily, but not as if he spoke to me. “I did not think ’twould come to this.”

“Who?” He did not seem to hear me. “Master, what is happening? Did you write that poem?”

“Oh, so thou thinkst so, too?” He was aware of me again, and his voice was savage. “
I
am the one inciting every idle apprentice and layabout beggar in London to bloody riot?”

“’Tis a forgery,” I realized. “Someone else put the name of Tamburlaine to it.”

“God’s teeth, of
course
’tis a forgery,” he snapped. “Thinkst thou I could rhyme as ill as that, even if I tried?”

“But someone meant—”

“For pity’s sake, peace. Aye, someone meant everyone who saw that to think I am a bloodthirsty murder-monger. And now, if there’s a riot, who’ll be blamed?” He ran both hands through his hair, as if trying to force his thoughts back inside his skull. “I must—I must out of London. Richard. Get thee to my rooms, pack my clothes.” He put out a hand to forestall the questions he saw gathering in my face. “
Now,
Richard!”

As I ran toward Master Marlowe’s lodgings, one ridiculously simple thought squirmed free from the confusion and bewilderment seething in my brain. If Master Marlowe were determined to go on a journey, at least his collar and cuffs were clean.

Master Marlowe left London that afternoon. For the country, he said, I did not need to know where, and I was to tell anyone who asked that he had been there two weeks at the least. He tossed a handful of coins on the table for the rent and my keep, snatched up the bag I had packed with his belongings, and was gone, his heels clattering down the steps.

There was no riot after all, though stories drifted in
and out of Mistress Stavesly’s shop with the customers—a Dutchman had been killed, or had killed two Englishmen, or had only been threatened; a shop had been burned, or perhaps only plundered, the goods taken or broken. No one seemed to know which tales were true, if any, and I certainly did not dare set foot in the Dutch neighborhood to find out for myself.

There was little for me to do. I kept Master Marlowe’s lodgings clean, and went on errands for Mistress Stavesly, and taught Moll to play simple games, winding string into patterns around our fingers. The sky was fresh and blue, the breezes sweet with spring, but to me the air in the city seemed dense and close. It pressed on my lungs, making it hard to breathe. No one else seemed to notice it, but I could not rid myself of the sense of a coming storm.

It had nothing to do with me, I reminded myself often. Master Marlowe had warned me. I had obeyed. His troubles, his white, frightened face, were none of my affair.

Master Marlowe had been gone perhaps a week when I saw a second libel, pasted up on the wall of a grocer’s. The shopkeeper was scraping it off, to the indignation of those who had not read it yet.

Across the street, I hesitated. I wanted to know what the libel said, if it were another forgery set to blame Master Marlowe. But I was not far from Bishopsgate;
anyone in this crowd might know me for my master’s servant. I tugged my hat down lower over my face, just as a dark-haired, thin-faced man on the edge of the crowd caught my attention. Surely I had seen him before. Then I remembered. Master Marlowe had laughed at him.
A few coins to clink in thy purse and thou canst afford to cast off old friends,
he’d said. What had his name been? Thomas Kyd?

Kyd turned his back on the crowd, walking away from the scene and passing someone else I knew. My heart lightened at the sight of a tall, lanky figure with tousled yellow hair, and I hurried across the street to tug on Will’s shoulder. “Will! Did you read it?”

“Richard!” Will turned around with a start that seemed almost guilty, clutching at the basket he carried over one arm. “Come away from this.”

“Nay, take yourselves off!” the grocer was scolding the watchers as Will put a hand on my arm and drew me down the street. “You’ll keep my customers away. Have you no homes to go to?”

“What did it say?” I asked Will anxiously.

“The same as the others,” he answered.

“Others?”

“Aye, ’tis the third I’ve seen myself. Good that he’s taking it down. The city does not need such poison.”

I dreaded to ask, and yet I needed to know. “Was it…signed?”

“Nay, of course not. Who would sign such a thing as that?”

I sighed with relief. Not “Tamburlaine,” then. Maybe these libels were not, after all, meant as an attack on my master. Maybe the mention of his plays had been coincidence, no more.

“Leave that be!” The grocer’s angry voice rang out in the street behind us.

We stopped and turned in surprise to see a skinny young man in a patched doublet running with a torn and ragged piece of paper in his hand. He was looking back over his shoulder at the grocer and so did not see Will and me until he had plowed straight into us, sending all three of us sprawling into the gutter.

The stranger did not lose a moment, but scrambled to his feet again. “’Tis truth!” he shouted, waving his fragment of the libel defiantly, as if it were a weapon or a banner. “You cannot silence it!” And he took to his heels. The grocer was not inclined to chase him farther and leave his shop unattended, so he was in little danger.