Muse of fire, p.20
Muse of Fire, page 20
Cecil fixed him with a look. ‘You are loyal, then?’
‘I am.’ And he was. That part was true – though his loyalty to Cecil was partly born out of the fear of retribution directed against him if he was not. He knew one more thing, too. If it looked as if Cecil might fall, he would have to appear to be just as loyal to a new master, whether that was Essex, Southampton or Mountjoy, if he did not wish to be swept away with him.
This seemed to satisfy Cecil, though Will still doubted he was telling him the truth. Was Cecil lying to Will, or to himself, to try to ease the guilt on his own conscience?
It crossed Will’s mind that Cecil had acknowledged what a fine intellect Marlowe had and how he had enjoyed his company. Perhaps he had used Kit, as he now seemed to be using Will, as someone who possessed an intellect that was at least close to being his equal? Someone who could understand and perhaps even console Cecil, when he confessed the burdens of a great office of state? That might explain why he confided in Will now. It also gave Will little solace to know that he was just as expendable to Cecil as his old friend.
‘There is a rhyme about me, did you know that?’ asked Cecil. ‘They sing it in taverns.’
Will did know that. In fact, there was more than one rhyme about Cecil that was sung in taverns. He was blamed for everything amiss in London these days, from the high price of bread to the scourge of corruption, and the queen’s seeming disregard for the state of her loyal subjects. All of this was laid at Robert Cecil’s door. He was the evil at the centre of the court, the pygmy, a deformed schemer who would stop at naught to enrich himself at the expense of others. Will did not wish to admit he knew of the existence of a rhyme in case Cecil made him recite it and it turned out to be a different one.
‘My lord, I did not.’
Cecil recited it himself then. ‘Little Cecil trips up and down, he rules court and crown.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a popular ballad with many additional verses. I would be flattered, if powerful men at court did not use such ditties to show the queen I am grown too grand. They ask Her Majesty who is really the ruler here? If she were ever to seriously question that herself, I would be finished, and they know it. Meanwhile, Essex behaves like an emperor, and she dismisses it as boyish zeal. In time, she will learn who is really her most loyal subject, mark my words.’
Will had noticed a change in the way Cecil spoke of late. He would never have dreamed of sharing a confidence with a lesser man like Will before, but now he sounded vulnerable, quite possibly for the first time, as if wounded by events at court and, most damagingly, the queen’s failure to see Robert Devereux’s faults. There was something else here too. With his father gone, Cecil had lost his only confidant. Who else around him could possibly understand the nuances of the power struggle he was caught up in? His agents were all ruthless and capable men, but Will could not imagine William Wade or a man like Robert Poley being someone to confide in. Was this why Will was allowed to hear so many of Cecil’s private thoughts about the queen, the Earl of Essex and his many other enemies? Perhaps. Every man needed someone to hear him out and offer some sympathy for his plight. Otherwise, he was entirely alone.
‘Uncover this nest of vipers for me. Find me the murderer before I am undone by my enemies. You must unmask this killer, Shakespeare.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘If thou rememb’rest not the slightest folly that ever love did make thee run into, thou hast not loved.’
—As You Like It
Avisa surveyed the necklace with seeming dispassion while Will waited for her reaction. He had spent time choosing it, and not an inconsiderable sum of coin acquiring it, in the hope she might see him in a new, more affectionate light than she had on their previous meetings of late. The last one had been a brief but admittedly urgent coming together, which had taken him slightly aback, since her need for him had seemed so wanton, even more so than his for her, and he would never have imagined that was possible. When it was over, she had seemed sated enough but in no mood to stay with him, excusing herself by explaining her husband was near, though Will happened to know he was not. He had assumed she was angry with him for some reason – his inability to be with her more often, thanks to the demands of the Theatre and Robert Cecil, perhaps? The necklace was meant to serve as recompense, but now it appeared she had no response.
Eventually she said, ‘I wonder, Will, how is it that a man who supposedly understands so much, actually comprehends so little?’
It was as if she had been reading his mind, but he had hoped this lack of understanding did not extend to the choice of necklace, which he had felt sure was a good one, but now it seemed it was not. ‘You do not like it?’
She sighed. ‘It is a fine necklace, but pray tell me, when and where am I supposed to wear it? And, if it is worn, how am I to explain my coming by it? Should I say I found it in the street perhaps, or that an aunt I have never mentioned before died suddenly and left me it in her will? Or should I simply confirm the suspicions of many at court, that it came from my lover, a man who, in cuckolding my husband, seeks to add further humiliation to his name by branding me as his property,’ she held up the necklace, ‘with his choice of jewellery?’
‘That was never my intention.’
‘Intentions are rarely as harmful as consequences, Will. The consequence of me wearing this’ – she held it loosely in her hand and at arm’s length out towards him – ‘would be the ruination of myself, my husband and quite possibly my lover, if he were identified by it. Though I suspect that, of the three of us, his disgrace would be the lesser and more temporary. The outward show of disgust at you would be replaced in private by nods and winks, then chuckles between the men at court over your amorous antics. Yes, I’m certain of it. Meanwhile, I would be branded a whore, my husband a feeble cuckold, and you a rake. Respectable men would bemoan you to their wives, while secretly envying your conduct.’
‘You speak as if I see myself this way, and I do not.’ But he reached out a hand and took the necklace back from her anyway, knowing it would be as foolish to insist she keep it as it had been for him to buy it for her in the first place. What had he been thinking? Of course she could never wear it, except perhaps alone in her bedchamber while admiring it in her looking glass, and what would be the point of that? He had been a fool, again, and hadn’t that always been the way of it whenever he was besotted with a lady? It was as if he would forever be unreasoned by them. And to think he wrote of love, while having so little understanding of it himself.
It was the same with the court. He had been attending it for a number of years now, to perform in front of the queen or secretly conduct business for Sir Robert Cecil, and yet in many ways it was still a foreign land to him. Sometimes it felt like a place where he spoke only enough of the language to get by. He knew he would never understand its subtleties and unwritten rules well enough to ever consider himself a true courtier. It worried him that he was unable to navigate its intrigues as well as someone like Avisa. Though not born to this world, she had adapted herself to it quite naturally. That was something Will had never been able to do. What chance would he have of making his way towards the truth about Lady Anne and her killer in a world he could not fully comprehend? The court was like some labyrinthine maze Will was becoming trapped in, and it might very well prove to be his undoing. Will realised even Avisa could see that now and it gave him little hope for their future. She thinks I am a child playing an adult’s game, he realised, and she is right.
* * *
Will was right about one thing, though. The men of the company did indeed agree to work on the theatre, for they were as invested in the enterprise as Will and his fellow partners. None could imagine a life beyond the stage and, if the Lord Chamberlain’s Men ceased to be because of the absence of one, then they might easily starve.
Everyone did what they could, all being directed by Peter Street, who supervised everything. The warmer weather helped both their spirits and the endeavour. The ground was softer, and the prospect of working outdoors for hours on end a more pleasing one than when they had torn down the old Theatre in the middle of winter. First, they built a bridge across the ditch to grant easier access for the carts. Street had promised them that the theatre would not just be reborn but would emerge as an even grander building than before. He explained how he wanted to add to the existing materials to make a three-storey building with twenty sides that resembled a circle. He would use the English oak timbers from the Theatre, and limestone plaster, with a roof fashioned from water reeds. There were plenty of those close by, thanks to the marshy ground. He assured them that, when it was complete, the new theatre would accommodate an audience of more than three thousand, and it would be their job to fill it, every day.
Next, they drove wooden piles deep down into the soft, marshy earth, to make a foundation and dug trenches filled with limestone to strengthen them. Then they hauled the timber posts for the walls from the wagons and planted them firmly into the ground, which was a backbreaking job. They added oak groundsills that were placed horizontally as base timbers, before they started on the brick walls, then the wattle and daub was added and it was all plastered with lime and sand. It pleased them to watch the building start to take shape. No one more so than Will, who had a perfect view of proceedings. He had been wondering where he should live, since his business would soon be on this side of the river. It had seemed pointless to stay in Shoreditch and cross it several times a day. The land they had leased came with a house large enough for Will’s needs, so he had decided to take up residence there right by the theatre. Now it was the first thing he saw each morning, the last view he had before retiring every night, and he took great pleasure in watching the building steadily grow.
With a play about Agincourt to write, a playhouse to rebuild, Avisa quarrelling with him, and the small matter of a dead noblewoman likely involved in treason against the queen, the very last thing Will needed right now was another argument with Will Kempe, but it couldn’t be avoided. Not after the company’s latest performance at the Curtain. Henry IV had been written by Will two years ago. It was meant to be a historical play, with some comedic elements specifically written for the benefit of Kempe, who played the hugely popular character of Sir John Falstaff. The problem was not that he delivered his lines poorly, for they were well received, but that he continually upstaged the other actors, most notably Richard Burbage, playing Prince Hal, the future Henry V, while Kempe was not meant to be speaking but they were delivering their lines.
‘Kempe, your constant improvising and bawdy asides are a distraction,’ Will told him. ‘The groundlings forget what the play is about, when all they do is wait for your next pulled face or lewd comment, none of which are in my play. Stick to the words I write for you, I pray thee.’
‘I do not mind reciting most of your words,’ Kempe replied, ‘but your play can be improved with some new ones, particularly from a master of commedia improvviso,’ he said grandly, his final words spoken in the accent of an Italian nobleman. Kempe always considered himself a serious scholar of their commedia dell’arte and liked to regale the rest of the company with stories of its rich history of improvisation and exaggerated characters. To Will, there was nothing more boring than a comedic actor who took their art almost as seriously as themselves. ‘You should learn that a writer is not the attraction on a stage, Will.’
‘It is not just me, Kempe. You are putting Richard off.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘You are putting me off,’ agreed Richard. ‘You do put me off. I almost forgot my line last night while you were miming a fart.’
‘Did I not get a laugh from the groundlings?’
‘Any man can get a laugh from the groundlings by miming a fart,’ explained Will.
‘Could you? I rather doubt that.’ Kempe was being quite imperious now. ‘And as for you, Richard Burbage, are you not perhaps taking your performance a little too seriously, when you ought to be putting more effort into entertaining the groundlings? They are our patrons after all. I keep them happy, you send them home downcast.’
‘We have been performing tragedies and historicals, man!’ Richard argued. ‘You can’t give them farts in a tragedy.’
‘I knew you would be on his side,’ Kempe deflected, ‘whether you agree with him or not. It is because he is your friend.’
‘He is my friend, and I do agree with him,’ Richard replied. ‘Both of those are true. But we are not always of one mind about everything. You have witnessed our quarrels.’
‘However, on this point, you are in union?’ Kempe noted with some scepticism. ‘That point being me.’
‘On the point of you being an ass, yes?’ Richard informed him.
‘Then what is your solution?’ He folded his arms and stared at Will.
‘You know the solution, Kempe. We have discussed it before, endlessly,’ Will told him. ‘Stop mugging and gurning your face at the crowd while Richard is speaking. Do not wave your arms around so much, nor wail loudly, or interrupt your fellow actors using words that were not put on the page by me but dreamed up by you.’ He took a breath. ‘And finally, at the end of the play, cut your jigs down to five minutes and not five and twenty.’
William Kempe listened and appeared to hear him out. He made a show of paying attention to every word and of thinking on them all, as if he might be persuaded by Will’s reasoning. Then he announced solemnly, ‘That I cannot do,’ before making to leave.
‘Which part?’ demanded Richard.
‘Any of it!’ snapped Kempe. ‘So go, do your worst, rid yourselves of me from your company if you like? I shall certainly prosper, whereas you shall not. Who gets most applause when the play is done? Is it the writer?’ He screwed up his face and pretended to consider this? ‘No! Is it the dramatic actor, Richard Burbage? No! Is it perhaps the comic performer, William Kempe, who is most loved by the groundlings and most talked about in the taverns afterwards? Yes! Yes, I think it is! What are the Lord Chamberlain’s Men without William Kempe? I tell you… nothing!’ And with that he stormed from the room, making his exit like the practised actor he was.
‘God damn that man!’ Richard shouted after him, but he was already gone. Richard sighed deeply. ‘It’s true though, Will. He is too popular for us to be rid of him. We cannot banish him from the company, much as we might want to. If it be known that we had, the groundlings would all take his side and turn against us.’
‘You are right,’ admitted Will, but he had no intention of dismissing William Kempe from the company. He had just had a far better idea.
Chapter Thirty
‘How poor are they that have not patience.
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?’
—Othello
Cecil was in better spirits that morning than the last time Will had seen him, which was just as well, as he had little new to tell the queen’s spymaster about the death of Lady Anne. Distracted by the building of the theatre he may have been, but Will had not ceased his quest to discover the truth about her death, for he knew much rested upon it, including his own wellbeing. It was not for want of effort, but every time Will made a discreet enquiry, into Anne’s movements on the night of her death, her friendships at court, her brother, her father or the possibility that she may after all have had a powerful suitor, it all seemed to come to naught. Weeks passed with little for Will to report back to Cecil, other than gossip that could never be proved or wild speculations around conspiracies involving Anne, of the kind that only an eccentric or a mad man could have believed. Still there was no breakthrough, and Will was glad to find the Secretary of State distracted by seemingly endless Catholic plots and the increasingly woeful situation in Ireland. Cecil was still desperate to find the killer of Lady Anne but seemed to accept that, despite Will’s best efforts, proof of this remained elusive. That was not to say he would ever forget the task he had set Will, nor forgive him if he failed to complete it. Today though, Cecil was preoccupied with other matters.
‘He has made knights,’ he told Will. ‘Against the express orders of the queen.’
‘Who has made knights?’ Will asked, for that was surely only the queen’s prerogative.
‘Essex. He has created thirty-eight new knights during his wasteful campaign, and the queen has finally lost patience with him. She has said he only draws his sword in Ireland to create knights. She paces up and down, rages at his lack of progress and even stabs at the arras with a rusty sword of her own in fury, as if it was the rebel leader himself she was dispatching. She has sent Essex a direct order to engage with O’Neill in battle and finally put paid to him and his rebels. We shall see if he manages that.’ Will could tell that Cecil seriously doubted this. ‘He has called on her for reinforcements, but they have been denied, because the Spanish are rumoured to be planning an invasion, so we must keep men here.’
Will wondered who might be responsible for those rumours of a Spanish invasion reaching the queen’s ear? It might harm Essex’s army to go without reinforcements, but it wouldn’t hurt Cecil’s position if the earl failed in Ireland.
‘The queen held a modest garter celebration this year, due to the cost of the war in Ireland,’ he went on. ‘Then she learned Essex’s only act of any note so far during his Irish campaign was to hold an opulent pageant in Dublin at great expense to her. She would have appointed Essex the Mastership of Wards.’ This was a valuable and influential position at court that controlled the lands and monies of orphaned heirs below the age of majority. Those wardships could be sold to the highest bidder or given as rewards to followers. ‘But since she learned of his profligacy, that honour has instead fallen to me.’ No wonder Cecil was in a better humour. He’d been granted an important position and, better still, had snatched it from his bitterest rival. ‘I shall make good use of this,’ Cecil told him.
