Muse of fire, p.24
Muse of Fire, page 24
‘I think it was more than that.’ But she was in a good mood and merely teasing Raleigh. Then she asked Will, ‘And what were those lines you recited about my general?’ She almost blushed to recall them and Will knew exactly what she wanted to hear.
He began to recite the lines he had carefully written just for her, performed by the chorus that he himself had played throughout the performance.
‘As by a lower but by loving likelihood, were now the general of our gracious Empress, as in good time he may, from Ireland coming, bringing rebellion broached on his sword. How many would the peaceful city quit, to welcome him!’
The queen was thrilled anew by that prospect of her favourite, the Earl of Essex, returning from Ireland in triumph and all of London turning out to welcome him home. She applauded Will’s words like an excited young maid. ‘A fine sentiment,’ she told him, but then a shadow seemed to fall on her face. ‘There is one small but most important fault I must lay at your feet, though?’
‘Your Majesty?’ What inaccuracy had the queen noticed, what seditious word would he have to change at her behest?
‘Why no Falstaff? Wither Sir John? Your actors told us of his death, but even this happened away from the stage.’ She seemed quite appalled.
‘That was my failing, Your Majesty.’ He exchanged glances with Richard Burbage, who gave him a rueful look to remind Will he had predicted this reaction from the queen. ‘I thought not to diminish King Henry’s greatest triumph by accommodating that lewd and bawdy knight on the field at Agincourt.’
‘Well, that was a great loss,’ she told him. ‘Forgivable perhaps, if it was done to respect the memory of King Henry, but I would wager a good number of wretched, lowly men were accommodated in his army that day.’ She frowned at the memory of her favourite character. ‘Bring him back to life, damn you. I’d like to see him in a comedy of his own. What if Falstaff were to fall in love? What mischief would ensue?’
‘The devil’s mischief, Your Majesty, but it is a most excellent idea and, like Lazarus, I shall indeed resurrect him.’ The work would be a small price to pay to avoid the queen’s displeasure.
‘Splendid. Can you bring him back from the grave by the time I arrive at Windsor? The thought of it would make me most merry.’
Oh God, how many weeks did he have left before the drains were clogged here at Whitehall and the whole court would have to move to Windsor instead? And to think he had only just finished writing Henry V. It was never-ending.
‘For Your Majesty, of course.’
The queen departed then and most of her courtiers went with her, but one of Essex’s men, Sir Henry Cuffe, approached Will. ‘The mention you made of his grace, my master, shall not go unnoticed, nor unrewarded. I will write and he shall hear of it.’
Will was assured and he gave a little bow in reply, though he was not sure he wanted to be rewarded by the Earl of Essex or even associated with him. The lines he had written were for the queen’s satisfaction, not Essex.
‘You are to be congratulated, Master Shakespeare. The queen was impressed by your play and the words you gave King Henry were most eloquent.’
‘Thank you, good sir.’
‘Or did you?’ His tone was one of amused incredulity.
‘What say you?’ Will did not understand, but his instinct told him this was a challenge of some kind.
‘I merely ask whether it was you who really gave King Henry his words.’
‘None other.’ Not this again.
‘You are the son of a merchant, are you not?’ There was some disbelief in his tone.
‘I am.’
‘Then how could a man such as you have written a play like that one?’
‘A man such as I?’ Will was telling himself not to rise to the insult, but it wasn’t in his nature to allow it to pass without comment.
‘Low-born, barely educated, untravelled, untested in battle and yet you lay claim to an understanding of matters that even a great lord like mine might struggle to master.’ He leaned in as if confiding. ‘So, tell me clear, who is masquerading behind you, sir? Who is the real poet Master Shakespeare pretends to be?’ He almost winked at Will then, as if he alone had discovered the writer’s secret.
‘This again?’
‘Is it Southampton?’ the squire asked. ‘Or the Earl of Oxford, perhaps? Who really wrote your plays? Francis Bacon? Now there is a wise man. Come, tell me, and it will go no further than myself and my master, who will be greatly amused to discover the truth of it.’
‘I wrote them all, damn you,’ he snapped.
‘I refuse to believe it.’
‘You might refuse to believe that the sun comes up in the morning, but it will still rise, whether you doubt it or no.’
‘It is not possible for a man of your quality to have conjured up such a masterpiece.’ He was getting angry now. ‘So stop your pretence and tell me plainly, who wrote it, if not you?’
‘No one wrote it, if not me, for I wrote it, and you sir will be struck if you continue to doubt me on the point.’
Will’s fury took the steward by surprise, but he quickly recovered. ‘Keep stating it if it amuses you to, but I know the truth of it and so does most of the court. Will Shakespeare did not write Will Shakespeare’s plays.’
Before Will could strike him, deride him or contradict him further, Cuffe turned his back and was away.
* * *
Will should have been in a fine mood that evening, but the encounter with Cuffe had left its mark. Most of the court believed he did not write his plays? That was likely not true, but what if even some of them thought it? Truly, Will wondered how many idiots must there be at court, if a good number believed him a fraud?
‘They used to say Marlowe wrote my plays,’ he told Richard, who was in a far better mood, having been patted on the back by half the court for his most excellent portrayal of King Henry. ‘As if he would have the time or the inclination, much less the lack of vanity needed, to put my name to his words, even if he wasn’t dead. There are dullards in London who cannot conceive that I alone write what I alone write. Now this servant of Essex thinks them penned by Francis Bacon or the Earls of Oxford or Southampton.’
‘Every actor and writer in London knows you write your plays, Will, and they are published in your name. If they were written by another, he would want his name on them instead. Why would he bother elsewise?’
‘I’m even asked it in taverns,’ Will continued glumly. ‘Prove that you wrote your plays, they say. I always reply in the same way: Prove that someone else did – but, of course, they never can.’
‘Of course they cannot.’
‘Then why do they believe it?’
‘So that they can tell themselves they are so wise they know something their fellow man does not. You are not the only victim of these fools, Will. There are a good number of men in London who believe that the queen’s strong and manly rule means she cannot have really been born a woman and is in fact a man. They cite her unmarried state as proof of it.’
‘She has not married because she wishes to have no master. ’Tis all.’
‘Not to those men. They say they will not be convinced until the queen stands naked before them. Even then, they would say she had her manhood snipped off as a child. If you have the proof, you can easily convince a wise man of something, but never a fool.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘Stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood.’
—Henry V
Will and the Burbages were granted but a little time to enjoy their triumphs or dream of the fruits that might come from them, before, once again, disaster struck.
‘Giles Allen is suing us,’ Cuthbert announced when they arrived at the Globe that morning. ‘I knew he had taken this too quietly.’
‘A curse on that bastard and his entire kin!’ cried Richard.
Giles Allen had taken his time to devise a suitable plan for vengeance. They would have loved to have been there the moment Allen arrived after his Christmas festivities to find nothing but a bare patch of soil on the land that once housed a theatre. It almost did not matter that they failed to witness his reaction because so many others did, and the tale of it soon swept through their part of London. Giles Allen’s rage that day became legendary and was much talked of. He railed, he swore, he sacked the men who were supposed to be guarding his property and kicked the clerk’s arse all the way down the street before dispensing of his services. Then he returned to the empty site and began a loud rant against the Burbages, Will, the authorities and even God for deserting him. This was of such length it attracted a sizable audience. Men even left taverns to come and look at, then laugh at, the man whose pride had undone him, till he was left with naught for his troubles but the bare land he claimed to be of such value because he could build anything he liked upon it. Everyone knew the truth, though. He had been too greedy and hoped the Burbages would eventually surrender their theatre to him, so he would keep both the building and the land. Now he had nothing, and he had left that street roundly mocked by all and jeered on his way.
Now he was back and using the law to get his revenge.
‘How much does he want to finally leave us be?’ asked Richard.
‘Eight hundred pounds.’
‘Eight hundred! The man’s mad! He’ll never get it.’
‘He will if a court decides he is right and we are wrong,’ Cuthbert said flatly. ‘I have read his deposition.’ He waved a copy of it at them. ‘He accuses us of riotous assembly and arming ourselves with unlawful and offensive weapons, daggers, bills, axes, and the like, before congregating at the Theatre in a riotous, outrageous, and forcible manner, contrary to the laws of the realm. He further states that when we attempted to pull down the Theatre, diverse of Her Majesty’s subjects, going about their business in a peaceable manner, attempted to intervene to prevent this and were met with great violence, before the pulling, breaking and throwing down of that same theatre, to the great disturbance and terrifying of all Her Majesty’s subjects who were near.’
‘Did any of that happen?’ asked Richard in disbelief. ‘Any of it at all? I don’t recall, and I was there!’
‘That’s quite an account from a man who wasn’t,’ acknowledged Will. ‘He should write a play.’
‘It matters not whether it happened or nay, only whether a magistrate believes it so,’ Cuthbert told them.
‘Then we’ll need witnesses to disprove his account,’ offered Richard.
‘Do you really think Allen hasn’t procured witnesses of his own, who will swear that his account is a fulsome and truthful telling of the events he has described?’ Cuthbert pointed out.
‘Our witnesses will contradict him,’ said Will.
‘And they will be disbelieved, for all of them will be members of our company.’
‘Then what should we do, brother?’ demanded Richard.
‘There is, in truth, not much that we can do, except appear at court to answer his accusations and hope for a miracle.’
‘What miracle is that?’
‘That the word of a troupe of degenerate actors will be believed above that of a hand-picked band of well-bribed gentlemen, for if it is not, Giles Allen will be awarded his eight hundred pounds, our new theatre will fall into his hands, and we shall all be ruined.’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
‘When valor preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with.’
—Antony and Cleopatra
Will had finally come to a decision and he chose to side with the man who had ordered him to find Lady Anne’s killer.
Robert Cecil stared at the coat of arms on the fine silk handkerchief. Will had just finished giving him his account of the masked ball, which Cecil himself had apparently not attended, presumably to avoid the public humiliation of being ignored by all of the fair ladies at court. Cecil had listened to Will’s explanation of the popularity of Lady Anne and how she had danced with all of Cecil’s enemies but only one had given her a favour, which she had accepted. He had then produced the handkerchief, explaining that he had found this among her belongings. Cecil had taken the handkerchief, unfolded it and examined the design at its heart.
‘She took a favour from the Earl of Essex?’ Will could not tell if he was surprised or disgusted by this unexpected turn of events.
‘My understanding, Lord, is that men often give favours such as these to ladies they wish to see again privately.’
Cecil seemed to stiffen. ‘I have heard this said,’ he conceded.
‘Since the Lady Anne was killed not long after this masked ball, most likely by someone she had arranged to meet…’
‘You think Essex to be the most likely murderer?’ He finished that thought for Will. ‘It would not surprise me.’ But Anne going so willingly to the assignation that led to her death seemingly did surprise him.
‘What then should we do about it?’ asked Will.
Cecil thought on this for a while, then said, ‘There is naught we can do until Essex returns from Ireland. When he does, he can perhaps be confronted with the evidence of a liaison with Anne, possibly even her killing. Even when he doubtless denies this, it might be enough to damage him in the eyes of the queen.’ Then Cecil admitted, ‘But I am hoping for an even bigger crime to be levelled at his door.’
‘What bigger crime, my lord?’
‘Treason.’
‘How so?’
‘The situation in Ireland is very grave.’ He sounded serious, but Cecil must surely have been gleeful, though he hid it well. ‘Essex still ignores the will of the queen to take on the rebels in pitched battle. Instead, there have been skirmishes at great cost to us. The earl lost five hundred men in one of them alone, and hundreds more at an engagement by the River Slaney. He has marched his men from town to town, castle to castle, claiming small victories while never once engaging O’Neill’s rebels in open battle. Many of his men have died of disease. He is running out of ammunition and victuals and there is scarce enough left on the land for his men to live off. Now the rains have turned every field into a bog, and he blames those conditions for his failure to subdue the rebels. He has been in Ireland three months and achieved nothing. No rebel leader has surrendered, nor any territory fallen to his control.’
This was evidently the latest news from the Privy Council meeting. Cecil must have felt compelled to share it with someone he could tut about it safely to, but he wasn’t done yet.
‘If that were not enough, we have just been sent word that he dispatched Sir Conyers Clifford to lift a siege at Collooney Castle. Clifford went through a pass in the Curlew Mountains with seventeen hundred men. There, they were ambushed by rebel forces and routed, with half their number killed, including Clifford. The Irish rebels cut off his head, then delivered it to the besieged castle to frighten its defenders. Irish casualties from this battle are said to be light.’
‘It would be hard to imagine the Earl of Essex overseeing a bigger disaster had he planned his entire campaign in favour of the Irish. The whole court is in uproar at this wasteful loss of English life and the queen is most distressed. I said Ireland would be Essex’s undoing and I have been proven right.’
Will wondered if Cecil had taken a moment to grieve the loss of those eight hundred or so Englishmen slaughtered in that ambush, or had he simply seen this not as a dreadful defeat for the realm, but a great personal victory for him over his enemy.
‘I see no way back for him from here,’ he told Will.
* * *
Will did not have to wait long for word about the Earl of Essex’s final attempt to subdue Hugh O’Neill and his Irish rebels, nor did he need to hear it directly from Sir Robert Cecil, for within days, news of it was all around the court. In his eagerness to hunt down O’Neill and engage him in a major battle, Essex had taken four thousand of his men to Ardee. The opposing forces had quickly mustered to meet him on the opposite side of the river, with twice as many men as the weary English. Inferiority of numbers forced Essex into a four-day stalemate until O’Neill himself met with the earl to ask for the queen’s mercy, but not without conditions favourable to the rebels. These included the right to hold onto every piece of territory they had seized so far. There was astonishment at court when the earl accepted these terms and agreed a treaty with England’s bitterest enemy. There was general alarm when it was learned that his meeting with O’Neill had been a private one, and there were no other witnesses to the agreement they had made that day. The overriding question was: why? What had the two men agreed between them that was so secret it could not be shared with even their closest advisors? To some, this seemed like consorting with the queen’s enemies, perhaps even to plan a rebellion, and it was not long before Robert Cecil’s creatures started to spread rumours that treason had been committed.
The only thing that quelled the queen’s fury at all was her sheer disbelief that this could have happened without her agreement. Surely the word from Ireland was mistaken. She had immediately written to Essex to demand his version of events, while forbidding him to give up his position in Ireland or to return to England. Even now, despite everything, he would still be given the chance to explain himself.
Chapter Forty
‘Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet.’
—Romeo and Juliet
Even Will had a premonition that Avisa was here to bring an end to their affair and though he was disappointed that she wanted to talk with him at the inn and not immediately retire to bed, it little surprised him. Avisa was cool, she was distant, above all she was adamant. John Florio was going abroad, to Italy, and she was leaving with him. Though she could probably have invented a pretext to stay at court by the queen’s side and continue their affair, he could already see she had no appetite for that.
