The True Prince (22 page)

Master Will chose to begin the play with a curious device: a character called “Rumor” who appears, as the author put it, “painted with tongues.” Rumor is spreading false reports about the battle of Shrewsbury, with the result that Hotspur's father first hears of it as a victory for the rebels. “But soon enough the truth reaches him,” explained our reader, “and he must deal with disaster on two sides—the death of his son and the blow to his rebellion. He determines to fight on, even though—”

A stirring at the back of the stage interrupted him. Someone had joined us, a tallish presence in the shadows that moved forward until it stood at the edge of the lamplight. Beside me on the wardrobe trunk, Robin made a gasp and dropped the beef rib he was holding. We all recognized our
visitor and yet he seemed changed enough to be a stranger, standing with a worn cap in his elegant hands and a growth of silky black hair on his upper lip.

“If you please, sirs,” Kit began. “Pray forgive the interruption, but … I wish to be taken back.”

Starling and I had much to talk about that night. “Is he up to mischief?” she asked.

“I wish I knew. He's accepted hired man's terms—housed and fed at his own expense, taking any role the Company assigns to him and subject to dismissal whenever he's no longer needed—all for seven shillings a week. It's a mighty fall, yet he took it humbly. And ‘Kit' and ‘humble' are two words I never thought to join.”

“Even a king may be humbled,” she said. “Look at Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, eating leaves and grass. Suppose Kit has fallen out with Captain Penny?”

“Then he could have offered himself to any other company in London and they'd have taken him gladly, on better terms. But he comes back to us, only ten days after the Welsh Boy left. It's almost as if Kit is supposed to be a replacement.”

“If that's so, they must have known each other all along.”

“Aye, and if
that's
so, they may have been forced to work together. I would wager anything that Davy was the little girl who helped waylay Sir Biscuit in his boat, and Kit may have been the corpse.”

She thought about this, then shook her head. “Whoever played that part had to be strong enough to turn over a wherry by himself. I don't think Kit could do it.”

“Then he must be serving some other purpose. Davy over- stepped himself by getting in trouble, so Kit had to come back.” I struck the bench we were sitting on. “But
why
? Merely to steal costumes?”

“Perhaps someone still has ‘expectations' of him. But what might the Company expect? Were they willing to take him back?”

“John Heminges absolutely opposed, Richard Burbage a little less. Most of the others seemed inclined to give him one more chance. The one who spoke most round for him was Master Will.”

“He's always liked Kit. Spoiled him, I think.”

“I wish they'd turned him down. I wish he'd go away.”

“Well, it does no good to fret.”

“Who says I'm fretting?”

“Your poor thumbnail. You've gnawed on it for the last ten minutes.” I resolutely put both hands on the bench. After a pause, she said, “If you would know more, you know who to ask.”

I gripped the bench. “I want
nothing
to do with Bartlemy. And after our scrape in Whitefriars, he'll want nothing to do with me.”

“What you will. But it may fall out that you have no choice.”

Kit showed himself on time Monday morning, accepted three small parts in that day's play, and performed them faultlessly, with little effort and no passion. He played a messenger, a groom, and a captain of the guard—drudge work, the sort of roles handed to the lowliest apprentice or the newest hired player. His mere presence in such roles felt uncanny to me, like performing with a ghost—the ghost of the best boy player of London.

The only fire I saw in him occurred in the tiring room, when Robin cornered him after the play. I paused, on my way to the stairs, as Robin was pulling out every trick of persuasion he knew to interest Kit in an adventure: “slipping out,” as they used to do, to find a bear fight or a dice game. But Kit, as I well knew, had grown far beyond pranks. Though his back was to me, the very set of his shoulders signaled resistance, until he reached out and seized Robin by the shirt. I could not hear the few words he put directly in Robin's face, but I saw that face fall so hard it hurt. I continued on toward the stairs, my anger toward Kit boiling up again.

Evening rehearsals lasted only long enough to walk through the next day's play with speeches cut to a few lines. Hired men were not usually required, and Kit left directly after changing his clothes. Robin suffered through the rehearsal, and when it was time to walk home, his eyes were still reddish. We were halfway to Bishopsgate before I ventured to speak. “About Kit …”

“I know,” he muttered fiercely. “He's changed. It seems I'm supposed to change as well, but I'm not ready. Change is working on me without my consent.”

Kit was not his only grief; his own body was threatening to betray him. Rapid growth had tricked him out of the Juliet parts and might yet grow him right off the stage. He had seen it happen over the years with other apprentices, many times.

“You're doing well with the comic parts,” I said, in an effort to cheer him. “They could support you for years.”

“Aye—years of playing Juliet's nurse.”

“That's no disgrace. Will Kempe and Richard Cowley have made a noble living of clowns.”

Robin only snorted. “All well for you. Your voice has already changed, and you'll probably never be much taller than a woman.”

If I were still living in Alford, a statement like that would have earned him a punch in the stomach. “I resent that. You might at least say a
tall
woman.”

He didn't smile, and I turned serious. “You can't stop what you're changing into. If it happens to be a clown, then why not be the best clown London has ever seen? Embrace it.”

“If it happens to be a clumsy lout, should I embrace that?” Suddenly he flung out both arms, bashing me in the chest. “Come, O croaking voice, hair on chest, feet like barges—I embrace thee!”

We had been speaking low, to keep our inmost thoughts
from Masters Heminges and Condell up ahead. At Robin's outburst they jerked their heads around in unison, with looks we could only meet with sheepish grins until they returned to their conversation.

“As for Kit,” I murmured, “I would just—”

“As for Kit,” Robin stated firmly, “from now on he can do all his changing by himself.”

The next morning after rehearsal Master Shakespeare called me over to him. “Well?” he asked. “What think you of the fate of our lovable rogue in Part Two?”

I had hoped he would forget our conversation on this subject—or, failing that, would not stoop to ask me this particular question. “It pleases me well enough. I think.”

“I hear an unspoken ‘but' hanging over your judgment. Is the rogue not justly served?”

“Aye, but … at such a cost.”

He sighed explosively. “Come now, boy—are you so innocent?” While I gaped, he went on, “Justice
always
comes at a cost.”

“Aye, sir. But still, one should feel satisfied at the end, and not … sad.”

“All change is sad, even if it is change for the better. That's because something must be left behind, and oftimes it is a thing you never expected to miss.”

This formed such a neat commentary to Robin's troubles
that some days passed before I recognized its aptness for mine. The next two weeks felt a bit like my early days as an apprentice; there was that same sense of groping to find my way. Kit's new attitude was far more unnerving than his former one. The old Kit was surely something I had never expected to miss, but now I did. His cross-grained character had sharpened and stretched me and made me a better player. And perhaps I had done the same for him, to a lesser degree. Now I looked back with longing to the days when we struck sparks off each other on the stage.

Taking parts that he had once played came especially hard, with him standing by in some trifling role. In the middle of September the Company staged a return of
The Merchant of Venice
and assigned me the role of Portia: one of those keen, witty women Master Will liked to give the best lines to. Kit had created that part, and I kept trying to play it as he had, instead of finding the way myself.

And if that were not enough, I had to worry over what his presence meant to the Company. Already a month had passed since the last adventure of “Robin Hood”; it was time for another if they were keeping to the pattern. I couldn't convince myself that the gentleman bandit had retired, but neither could I determine what to do. “Perhaps,” Starling said after one of our fruitless talks on the subject, “if you won't speak to Bartlemy, you should speak to Kit.”

This made perfect sense, but ill use. There was a barrier
around him, a wall of glass that none could penetrate. I intended to return his brooch in its velvet pouch any number of times, but somehow never carried through. And I was not the only one to find him unapproachable: late one Saturday evening he brushed aside a friendly invitation from two of his fellow hired men to join them in an archery meet at Newington Butts.

“I'm no archer,” he replied shortly, as he gathered his things and started for the door.

“Go to! We saw you there, one Sunday last month; did we not, James?”

“Aye, with your soldier friends …”

That was all the conversation I heard as they left the theater, but it was enough to start the wheels of speculation in my head.

Newington Butts? Sunday? Soldier friends?

Every Englishman is supposed to own a bow and a full complement of arrows and keep in practice enough to help defend our shores in case of invasion. Over ten years had passed since the last attempt at invasion, and archery practice has fallen off. Even so, Newington Butts remains a popular spot for a Sunday afternoon. It lies below Southwark—quite a little walk for a Londoner, but when I arrived, with Harry Condell's borrowed bow and quiver over my shoulder, the field before me was well populated with archers lined up before a long row of targets.

My purpose was to see if this might be a meeting place for “Robin Hood” and a merry man or two. It seemed a slim chance, based only on the broken arrow I had found among Davy's things and chance remarks from two hired players— Starling agreed on the slimness, but also agreed that it was worth a look. She planned to come along, until Ned Condell fell off the front gate and cracked his head on a flagstone and screamed he would die if she didn't stay to tend him. Starling was too soft-hearted where the boys were concerned, but I assured her I could carry out this mission alone.

A low stone wall separated the bowmen (and women) from bow-less citizens merely out for a stroll. I walked slowly along this boundary, surveying the other side as though seeking an acquaintance or a favorable spot. It was a perfect September day, scrubbed and shining, and I counted myself wise for venturing out—when suddenly before my eyes was reason to count myself lucky as well. On the opposite side of the wall, nocking bowstrings and comparing shots, stood Peregrine Penny and another man whose streaky beard I recognized when he turned to take a drink from a bottle. I could not have asked for better confirmation that Davy was in league with Penny, as here was his so-called uncle.

Forcing an air of unconcern, I took a seat on the wall, my back to them, and pretended to sharpen the point of one of my arrows. The air was filled with tiny zings, as each missile sped from its string and thumped the straw-packed targets. General
cries of “Well shot!” and “A pox on wayward bows!” made the conversation behind me difficult to hear. But Penny's voice stood out enough for me to gather that they were wagering shots, and he was losing money. Finally he announced, “My throat caves in a parching thirst! Where's that bottle?”

They paused to take a drink, and their voices came a little more clearly. I sharpened a few more points and sharpened my ears as well for any useful words that might come my way. They came in patches, amongst the
whizzz
and
thonk
of arrows all around, but in a sudden gap I heard Penny say, “Patience, Tom! Leave him to me. I know his humor: air and fire mixed in such a balance he can be made to go off like a cannon, in any direction he's pointed.”

I missed the first part of the reply, but then the man called Tom must have turned his head: “… have reason to fear cannons, if ever a man does.” Something in his voice—the hard tone, the curious accent—made me think I had heard it before.

The captain laughed, a strong and manly laugh that made light of troubles. “I can do without a finger or two. But we must keep Tewkesbury in our sights.” While he took another drink, his companion said something I could not hear, and the sputtering that followed sounded like a gulp of ale going down the wrong way. Penny's voice came after, thick with scorn. “‘Evil eye,' say you? That's so much Welsh fog. Blow it back to wherever it was you picked up your light-fingered brat.” A single blast from the field horn signaled a break in the shooting
to allow for arrow gathering. “And speaking of him, where
is
the little goose turd?”