A serpent in the garden, p.7
A Serpent in the Garden, page 7
‘I enjoyed your Henry VI,’ Marlowe told Will, ‘even though I recognised a line or two.’
Will blushed at that. ‘I meant it more in tribute than in theft.’ He had in fact taken a couple of lines verbatim from Marlowe’s work, a common enough practice among playmakers influenced by one another and working at speed.
Marlowe smiled. ‘Writers never steal, Will. They borrow, then they adapt. We all take from Ovid and Plutarch and where would we get our stories without Holinshed’s chronicles?’ Warming to his theme, he added, ‘Writers mine their own lives too and those of others. Be proud of being a magpie. Henry VI was a hit, a palpable hit. How many arses? Come on, tell me.’
‘Eight hundred,’ Will answered, ‘on its second night.’ That had been the peak of London’s interest in his first play, and a moment Will did not get to enjoy for long before the theatre was closed, following the riot.
‘That’s good, Will,’ said Marlowe, ‘though not as good as Tamburlaine’ – and he smiled mischievously – ‘or Faustus. But it really is not bad, you know, for a first play.’
* * *
The gathering became more boisterous with the arrival of Thomas Kyd, another playmaker Will envied, second only to Marlowe in acclaim, thanks to a series of plays that included the hugely popular The Spanish Tragedy. He was far better known in London than Will, another handsome bastard to boot and already quite drunk. This made Kyd all the keener to regale the assembled poets and actors with stories of his rivals, living or dead, keeping them entertained with tales of oafishness, lewdness or plain ill luck, which the throng enjoyed, while competing with each other to throw in embellishments they claimed to have witnessed with their own eyes. Kyd had to ever raise his voice further to drown them out.
‘They say Robert Greene tried to buy a coat of arms once,’ and there was some mirth at this pricking of his late rival’s pomposity. ‘Imagine him forfeiting twenty pounds for a piece of heraldry that wouldn’t change a single man’s opinion of his low worth.’
Richard noticed Will was the only one not laughing, which puzzled him as Will had been a target of Greene’s barbs, until he said quietly, ‘I would like a coat of arms one day.’
‘Whatever for?’ asked Kyd. ‘Why, they are a device entirely designed to remove money from fools and make them feel better about their base origins.’
‘Then I plead guilty to being such a fool, for it would make me feel better.’
Unfortunately, Kyd was too drunk to notice how seriously Will meant this, and he continued with his mocking.
‘What would you have on your escutcheon, Will? Let us consider it, shall we?’ Kyd pretended to do just that, with a hand against his chin. ‘Instead of an iron gauntlet, a pair of folded gloves.’ There was some laughter from the men around him, for they all knew Will’s father’s profession. ‘And in place of a sword, a sheep!’ Will’s father had also dealt in wool before he lost his money. ‘A damn fine and fair-looking one at that!’ And Kyd mimed a vulgar gesture of tupping that same ewe.
The laughter was raucous now and Kyd revelled in it, until Will rose angrily to his feet. ‘Enough!’
A hand was pressed against his arm then by Richard, while Kyd looked alarmed. ‘Calm yourself,’ Richard cautioned.
‘You can all laugh,’ growled Will, ‘since none of you ever watched a father brought so low he was shamed by it.’
‘I meant nothing by it, friend,’ said Kyd, who looked genuinely worried now. ‘It was a jest.’
‘You hear that, Will?’ said Richard. ‘’Twas but a jest.’ Then he leaned in closer and murmured, ‘Remember Knell?’ and the mention of a man they both knew, who had given his life up cheaply in an argument begun in a tavern, seemed to take some of the heat from Will then. He waved a hand dismissively at Kyd but it was a gesture that meant he realised he had overreacted to the slight.
‘Sit down, Will,’ suggested Marlowe. ‘You have naught but friends here. My own father was a shoemaker, so I will have buskins on my escutcheon and the arse of a cow.’ There was grateful laughter at Marlowe making light of it all.
Will did sit down then. ‘You’re a Cambridge man,’ Will reminded Marlowe. ‘And do not need a coat of arms to give you standing.’
‘I was only at Cambridge thanks to a scholarship and can scarcely lay claim to being a gentleman at all.’
‘Then what do you lay claim to being?’
He flourished his hand and dipped his head, like an actor taking a bow. ‘Marlowe.’
‘A part you are at least used to playing.’
‘And it is a part,’ Marlowe agreed, ‘which is most adaptable, depending on the audience. I may be a writer but I am always a player. It is all pretence, Will.’
‘And yet you navigate those waters, between the worlds of theatre and court, more naturally than all others.’ In Will’s limited experience of the court, during appearances in plays put on before the queen, he had deliberately kept his mouth closed except when performing and had avoided eye contact with his monarch, while witnessing the humbling effect she had on other, far nobler men than he, as they cowed before her.
‘I do not try as hard as they do,’ explained Marlowe. ‘They give off an odour in front of the queen, a stench of fear or desperation. The waters at court are still treacherous but I try to wade into them as if I don’t give a damn whether I drown or not.’
‘But you do give a damn?’
‘Of course, and when I see the queen, I do what all men do.’
‘And that is?’
‘Shit themselves,’ Marlowe said, and Will laughed. ‘The woman has the power to end all our lives with a short, spoken word. Most men are too frightened to say anything to her, for fear of ending up on the rack or in a gibbet.’
‘But not you, Kit. Does she favour you?’
Marlowe didn’t answer at first. ‘I interest her,’ he allowed then. ‘At least I did.’ Then he added vaguely, ‘I was able to do her some service once.’ He was both enigmatic and guarded but the inference was not lost on Will. ‘Perhaps I still interest her and will gain advantage from it, shamelessly. There goes Marlowe,’ he intoned in the voice of another, ‘the queen’s favourite, her creature, and she is his muse.’ He seemed amused by this notion.
Will wasn’t sure quite why he felt the need to urge caution then, but he did. ‘Be careful the queen does not take too much of an interest in your words and deeds, Kit. There is danger in that.’
‘Quod me nutrit me destruit.’ Marlowe responded.
‘That which nourishes me destroys me.’ Will pondered its meaning with a definite sense of foreboding.
* * *
At what they hoped to be the right moment, Richard and Will led James Burbage away from the main body of revellers to tell him of Will’s encounter with Sir Robert Cecil. They had chosen a public place in the hope it would contain his fury. As he talked, Will wondered if James had consumed enough ale to blunt his senses.
James Burbage took the news about as calmly as a man can when it has just been explained to him that, through no fault of his own, his life and livelihood, and those of his family and entire company, were now in peril thanks to the actions of another. At first, he stared at Will in something like disbelief, then he sat down heavily to finish hearing him out. When Will was done, he went for a while without saying anything until Richard and Will could bear his silence no more.
‘Father?’ urged Richard, to bring the elder Burbage out of his trance.
‘My God, Will,’ James said at last, ‘you might have just killed us all. Robert Cecil is quite possibly the most dangerous man in the kingdom, apart from his father. I’d say he is even more dangerous in fact, having not yet achieved the status he believes his by right, so he will be in a hurry to attain it. It is said that the queen listens to none but him now. You must mark everything he says and be mindful of other meanings. His questions are never innocent and he will almost always know the answers to them already. He sets traps with his mind and baits them with words.’
‘He sounds like a devil,’ said Will.
‘The devil waits forbearingly to greet you in the next life. Cecil will send you early to him from this one.’ James explained how Cecil’s father had trapped Mary, Queen of the Scots, with a plan of his own making, to prove her treachery to the queen. Then he persuaded Elizabeth to cut off her own cousin’s head. ‘Still, even our dread sovereign’s hand trembled when she signed the death warrant. The thought of killing another queen anointed by God gave her pause, so she entrusted the warrant to a member of the Privy Council to delay carrying out the sentence. But William Cecil did not hesitate. When he discovered the warrant had been signed, he took it upon himself to see the execution through. Mary was killed that day on his word, not the queen’s. Her Majesty was furious and Cecil might have followed Mary to the block but was only cast out of court to do penance instead, until such a time as the queen was in peril again and needed him back. It did not take long.’
James Burbage believed that Robert Cecil had been trained by his father since birth, with Francis Walsingham, the queen’s late spymaster, and the most ruthless man in England as his other tutor. ‘Do you honestly believe your life means anything at all to Robert Cecil? Your worth lies only in what you can do for him.’
‘Then what must I do?’ Will asked helplessly.
‘He asked you about the Earl of Southampton, did he not? The bigger the man he brings down, the more favour the queen will bestow upon him. This is a strategy he learned from his father. Elizabeth more greatly fears an enemy who has land or money enough to raise an army against her, and so she should.’
‘But I am of low birth and no consequence to him.’
‘You have lately commanded the attention of the earl, and Cecil asked you about Marlowe whose influence over the masses I think he fears.’
‘Most of the groundlings don’t understand that plays are written, let alone remember the writer’s name,’ said Will. ‘They think the actors make up their lines on the spot.’
‘That was once so,’ James countered, ‘but there are more companies now and the audience has a choice. They wish to know who wrote this or that play. Was it the man who wrote Tamburlaine or the one who brought us The Spanish Tragedy? That is how the multitude makes its choices these days.’
‘Ask your son and he will tell you it is the actor that is the draw.’
‘He would say that. He is an actor, whereas you are—’
‘A writer, for the most part. No one wants to clasp a writer’s hand when the play is done or perch upon his knee in a tavern then whisper how warm his words made them. They applaud the musician, not the lute.’
‘A woman might, but Robert Cecil does not overlook the writer of the play. He knows words have power. If he dislikes what is written, he will silence the writer.’ There was a burst of laughter then, and Will turned back towards the noise and his laughing friends.
‘Kyd and Marlowe are loud and bend to no one, and Nashe is impudent,’ said James. ‘They will not have escaped the notice of a man like Cecil and nor shall you.’
Will thought for a while before confiding, ‘I think Kit might have done service for Cecil. How long ago I know not, but he still goes abroad.’
‘On whose service does he do that now?’ wondered James. ‘The queen’s or some other power?’
‘Kit is no traitor nor an agent for another power. He is outspoken when at his wine and oft proclaims there is no God, but for sport, I think, or perhaps to uncover men who concur.’
‘So he can denounce them?’ asked James. ‘Or join them?’
‘Is it not a clever way to draw secrets from a man’s heart,’ argued Will, ‘by acting as if you share them?’
‘That is a dangerous game. Kit could easily lose his life at the hands of those same men, or others who want them dead.’
‘Then likely I am wrong,’ Will concluded, ‘for Kit is no fool.’
‘What exactly does Robert Cecil want from you, Will?’
‘He wishes for me to spy on the Earl of Southampton.’
‘And what does the earl expect from you?’
‘I can only think a play or a sonnet,’ he replied while privately recalling the earl’s exact words: ‘I shall make use of you Master Shakespeare, though perhaps not in the way you imagine.’
‘He is a generous patron,’ admitted James, ‘but this earl has been linked to Catholic plots, albeit without proof. He is a known recusant, yet still liked by the queen, though I believe he has of late fallen out of her good favour.’
‘What if this great lord wishes you to spy for him too, Will?’ asked Richard. ‘In exchange for his patronage?’
‘I would refuse his entreaty.’
‘Just as you refused the great Robert Cecil,’ James retorted.
‘That was different. Cecil is an agent of the crown.’
‘You did not know who he was,’ James reminded him. ‘He merely said that he was the queen’s agent.’
‘Then we saw him ride behind her on the progress. He is who he claimed to be.’
‘Whatever the Earl of Southampton asks of you, it will place you in danger,’ James continued. ‘That danger is doubled now that Cecil has asked you to spy on the earl. Either man could cut you down.’
‘What then can I do about it?’
‘A man cannot have two masters. You must choose one,’ James told Will, ‘and hope that he destroys the other.’
‘But which one should I choose?’
His answer was immediate. ‘The strongest.’
Chapter Twelve
‘Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man’
— King John
Three of them rode in the carriage. Marlowe was there of course, and Thomas Nashe, who Will knew less well, though they had spoken once of collaborating on a play. Marlowe and Nashe had visited the Earl of Southampton before and spent a good part of the journey regaling Will with tales of his legendary hospitality. ‘Eat your fill,’ said Marlowe, ‘and you won’t have to buy any more food for a week.’
‘Eat it?’ said Nashe. ‘I brought sacks full home with me and you should do the same. A poet needs sustenance and the earl provides it.’
‘And are you both providing payment,’ asked Will, ‘in the form of poetry?’
Marlowe shook his head. ‘Last time I gave him “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”. I am told that someone, I know not who has the impertinence, has prepared a reply to it.’ He snorted at the temerity of someone picking up that gauntlet while possessing only a fraction of his talent. Then he turned to Nashe. ‘It isn’t you?’
‘Not I,’ Nashe laughed at the notion.
‘Nor I,’ Will assured Kit, before asking Nashe, ‘Then what will you give him?’
‘A trifle.’ Nashe was evasive.
‘And what will this trifle involve?’ Will had increasingly begun to doubt the quality of his new sonnet and sought to discover if Nashe was more confident about his own work.
‘A restless youth’s infatuation,’ he said vaguely.
‘With?’
‘The object of that infatuation.’
‘A love poem then?’
But Nashe feigned boredom at this point. He turned to look out of the carriage to end Will’s questions. ‘We shall not get much further before nightfall.’ Will took his hint and asked no more.
The carriage had been provided for them by the earl and Will wondered how many of his guests would have been afforded such an honour. ‘We are not the only ones,’ Marlowe had assured him. ‘Carriages will have been sent out to collect anyone the earl deems amusing.’
‘Imagine being able to do such a thing.’
‘It is as nothing to the earl,’ Marlowe replied. ‘They say the income from his land alone is worth a thousand a year.’
Will could hardly conceive of such a sum, but it crossed his mind that the fifty pounds he needed to become a partner in the new company might be something the earl would barely miss.
* * *
An hour passed and the rocking of the carriage sent Nashe off to sleep. Will fell gloomily silent and Marlowe noticed. ‘What ails thee, Will? You seem discouraged.’
Will had been so before his appointment with Robert Cecil and now had even greater concerns. He could recall every threatening word of Cecil’s, as well as the dire warnings about the man from James Burbage, but could reveal none of this to his friend.
‘In truth, you are the worst man to ask me that.’
‘I am the worst man?’
‘For you are the best man,’ Will explained, ‘in this carriage, this county or on this sceptred isle.’
‘Mmmm.’ Marlowe thought on this. ‘Sceptred isle is good.’
‘I might use it. Lately though, I cannot find the words, and that is why I say to you, most clumsily, that you are the worst man to ask what ails me.’
‘The words won’t come?’
‘They did. They used to, easily. I spent months writing lines or parts of scenes with others, while trying to convince James Burbage I could pen a whole play for him one day and, when finally he allowed it, the words tumbled from me and fell upon the page.’
‘Your Henry VI?’
‘The very same.’
‘Old Burbage speaks well of it.’
‘Does he? Not to me.’
‘Well, he would not,’ Marlowe said. ‘Because he bought it from you and, if he wants another, can never admit its merits. If James Burbage inflates your worth, he drives up your price. So, instead, when you have completed your next play, he will tell you that it is rough and unfinished, needing many changes, till you begin to doubt every word of it. Then, with some reluctance, he will offer you the same sum as he did for your previous play, as if helping you to survive because he likes you.’
‘He has said much the same to me already, before reading even a word of it. He has told me I am but a boy in the theatre and it takes a man of experience to mould plays into a shape that’s pleasing to an audience.’
‘And yet you know Burbage to be no fool. Do you think he would really buy a bad play from a poor writer then spend weeks moulding it? Privately, he told me your Henry VI was good enough to rival even the great Christopher Marlowe.’ They both laughed easily at this.
