The dead men, p.41
The Dead Men, page 41
And that, of course, would be without our two new travelling companions, lurking, watching, big as bears.
Having taken an unconscionable time to tie up, unload, rub down and generally make comfortable their horses (while Henry, Alembert, Martin, Saul and I – still no sign of Lucy and Blanche – went back and forth from the wagon, unloading tent and blankets), they folded their arms, and for a good five minutes watched in apparent amazement as Alembert and I, kneeling on the ground and our heads bent hopefully over a handful of dry moss, amused ourselves with one of us blowing, and the other striking sparks. Our progress from smouldering moss to little twigs to something that Prometheus might recognize is generally attended with far more failures than successes; the whole progress has been known to take an hour. It was not, thank God, raining, though it was bitter cold, and by now so dark I could not even see where our handful of moss lay on the ground. I merely struck sparks in the direction of Alembert’s nose.
‘I think they try to make a fire,’ we heard Kaiser comment, wonderingly.
‘Oh,’ answered Jagiello. ‘Is that it?’
They both plunged off into the trees. We heard them crashing round us, then Kaiser reappeared, hid from the waist up behind a double armful of thick-stalked bracken. He walked into the centre of the clearing, opened his arms and let the heap fall on the ground. Jagiello, reappearing behind him, let fall upon the heap an equal armful of timber. ‘I cannot wait,’ said Alembert, under his breath, sitting back, mopping his brow, ‘to see how they intend lighting that.’
Kaiser took a step back. He plucked one of the wooden cartridges from the bandolier across his chest, pulled out its stopper with his teeth, and shook its contents across the pile, like seasoning. Jagiello pulled the pistol from his belt, loaded it, primed it, took aim and fired. The pile went up like a beacon. Martin clapped his hands. ‘That’s how to do it!’ he exclaimed.
‘Well now,’ said Henry, coming closer, rubbing his hands together over the warmth. ‘That is a blaze! Andrew, the pot!’
Our cooking pot has been with us through thick and thin; thick and thin too, what usually emerges from it. Blanche is our cook, and it is not a role that she is happy with. We assure each other that so long as we are certain she has got the contents boiling before she doles them out, all will be well; nonetheless we are all frequently afflicted with loose bowels – all save Saul, that is, who must have the stomach of a jackal, and has even been known to finish up our leavings. Henry says Blanche needs encouragement, providing this with many lip-smacking, squinteyed compliments as he attempts to swallow the last spoonfuls down (‘No, no, my dear, I could not eat another bite’); Alembert has been heard to wonder why we do not simply ask her to poison us outright, and so be done with it. The truth of it is, none of us would dare suggest that we might make a better cook than she; the task fell to her, and she despises it, yet will not give it up. Much about Blanche presents this same conundrum. She seems to hate her life with us, yet it is unthinkable that she would follow any other; her own bad temper (I maintain) makes her miserable, yet should I try to lure her into any other mood, all I get is all that same temper shot at me.
The canvas flap of the wagon lifted, and there was the lady herself, Lucy peeking out behind her. They must have seen the fire.
She let herself down from the wagon, shook out her skirts, as women do, taking the measure of things, then stalked across the clearing as if toward the finest pension in France. I remember this same straight-backed walk of hers, exactly, from when I first clapped eyes on her in Southwark, stalking across the yard of the Tabard, the pilgrims’ inn – as proud and as disdainful as a queen, looking to neither left nor right, while the frank stares of the multitude muddled in her wake.
She went straight to the cooking pot, lifted its heavy lid. The usual unsavoury odour welled up from within. Blanche smiled, apparently well satisfied, and went next to our box of foodstuffs. What, I wondered, might be added to her witch’s brew tonight? Bitter aloes? Toadstools? Mud?
Onions, it would appear. She sat herself upon the ground, began to slice them into her lap.
Lucy, meanwhile, stood hesitating at the wagon’s end. Lucy is a pretty creature, plump of cheek and bright of eye, and her hesitations generally provoke one of us to come to her aid, generally Alembert, it being generally understood between us that there is a general understanding (much to Blanche’s loud-voiced scorn) between them. Like calls to like; contempt brings only contempt in its turn, the root of most of Blanche and Alembert’s fallings out, which are many; those fair of face (Lucy, our leading man) draw together, it would seem.
But not tonight. As Lucy scanned anxiously across our camp, Kaiser was there to help her down. ‘Oh, my!’ said Lucy, faintly, seeing his extended hand. ‘Well, I suppose –’ and down she stepped, all a-blush.
Alembert (thank God, back turned) was warming himself at the fire, discussing with Henry whether his final soliloquy as Leontes ‘had, you know, quite enough weight. I thought perhaps if I were to deliver it in armour, and were crowned, and maybe with attendants…’
‘Oh, quite, quite,’ I heard Henry saying. ‘Speak to Andrew.’
Jagiello had approached our cooking pot. Removed the lid, and sniffed. Martin sidled up to him; God forbid a stranger, knowing no better, should offer criticism of our cook. ‘It’s not as bad as it smells,’ Martin informed him, earnestly.
‘It couldn’t be,’ came the reply. He crossed to where he had tethered his horse – the creature gave a snort, as if to welcome him – I saw him opening his pack; when he returned he carried two squat bottles by the neck in one hand; and in the other, a pair of pheasants. ‘Here,’ he said, dumping this booty upon the slumped, if not slumbering, Saul. ‘See what you can do with that.’
Our cooking pot lies pushed off to one corner of the clearing; in moving it, I contrived to tip the thing over – in the morning I foresee a patch of bare, of poisoned earth. Those two lie out there beside the fire; Saul is under the wagon, Lucy and Blanche, with Martin between them, cocooned at the other end of it; I (hunched in a blanket) sit here on one of our hampers. The lantern by which I write is growing dim, its candle burning low; I would have more light did I remove the candle from its prison, but we all have a great horror of naked flame. This wagon is our ark, our world, and so much of it composed of pasteboard, gauzy tulle, glue, paint, a fire would wipe us out. Henry and Alembert are just the other side of us, roofed under canvas. Sometimes I hear Henry coughing. He is old, he is certainly too old to sleep outside, yet will he let us tell him so?
I never saw such quantities of stars. I feel like the lone sentry, left upon the walls.
I have a cramp. I must move.
There, I heard it again. They are most definitely still awake.
I heard their voices, a deep murmur, impossible to catch the words, I’m not sure that they’re even speaking (now) in English.
There is an owl. There are things moving, in the woods. There is another world out there. I do not think that we belong in it.
A strange pair. Kaiser one almost warms to – affable, voluble, full of questions: How long had we been in Germany? Where had we travelled? What had we seen? Perhaps it was nothing, how he had helped our Lucy down; Alembert had not marked it, that’s for sure. Martin had sat as close to our new companions as he could, as we ate, fascinated by them, spellbound. Fascinated by that damn great horse as well, he sidled close to it; the creature raised its head and took a lazy snap at him. ‘Come away from there,’ Jagiello commanded; Martin obeyed at once.
Otherwise, Jagiello has hardly said a word. As Kaiser talked, he only leaned forward, now and then, to tend the fire. He has another scar on his forearm, I saw that. Oh, there’s something dark about that man, yes, very dark.
He’s talking. Jagiello. Out there. His voice has a basso rumble, puts the hairs up on your neck; now there would be a good voice for an auditorium that would horripilate an audience most satisfactorily, even Alembert at his finest would be hard put to match it. What a thought, those two, Jagiello, Kaiser, costumed, motley, burnt cork, rouged, disguised, acting.
My candle is a ruined Schloss, in miniature, poised above a lake of molten wax. The wick is bending over, the flame it dips, it dips again, I think this time it’s going out; God, what will I do, if I should hear them stir, approach?
ONE GREAT ADVANTAGE of Rotwelsch – it sounds so bloodthirsty, even the most determined eavesdropper is deterred. ‘Is he still awake in there, d’you think?’ Jack asks.
‘Who, Herr Andrew?’ Zoltan casts a glance over his shoulder. ‘So it appears. Too scared to blow out his candle, probably.’
‘It offends me,’ says Jack, ‘that we should be so misjudged.’ He lets himself roll onto his back. ‘So,’ he begins, ‘you are over Madame Ava I see.’
‘By no means!’ comes the affronted reply. ‘I practise gallantry, is all. If I cannot woo Ava one way, I will win her the other.’
Jack tries not to let the laugh escape, but he is unsuccessful.
Zoltan’s tone grows sharp. ‘If you say she is too old for me, we shall be comrades no longer.’
‘She is too smart for you, I know that.’
A sigh. ‘Yes. So I must mend my ways. I must content myself with gallantry, for its own sake. Besides –’ (another sigh) ‘– a man may lie to himself, he may lie to his enemies. He cannot lie to his cock.’
A moment’s pause, then Jack lifts himself up onto one elbow. ‘You don’t mean it.’
‘With Ava,’ comes the reply, ‘I would be as a phoenix. A phoenix made of iron. But with any other women – soft as the dove. She is all I desire, Jacques. I knew it as soon as I saw her.’ A pause. ‘You understand not one word of this, I know. We all know it. Your heart is proof, as well as the rest of you.’
Right.
He has slept, these last few weeks, with his hand through the grip of his sword, as if he were intent on slaughter even in his sleep. The ribbon woven through the guard is fraying now; so small and fragile no-one seems even to have noticed it is there.
SCRITCH, SCRITCH…
…They did not kill us as we slept (writes Andrew Frye). I must admit, this morning, over-reading what I wrote last night, I am put to the blush. In the daylight, all is changed – and a day so fresh and clear that far beyond us, on the horizon, I swear I can make out the white-topped bulk of mountains. Kaiser, when I woke, was already up, he and Alembert were standing by the fire, rubbing their hands over its remains. In fact every gesture Kaiser made, Alembert aped it – the hand to the face, stroking the fine moustaches (the one), skidding off the naked upper lip (the other), the contrapunto stance, with hands on hips. Alembert’s voice appears to have dropped a good half octave too.
It is often in this portion of day I find my Muse most willing to come to me. Into the trees I went, chose one, stood watering its roots, encouraged by the sound of the tumbling river behind me, and running dialogue, as on a scroll, back and forth within my head. I buttoned up – and walked straight into Jagiello coming back up from the water’s edge, riding his horse, leading Kaiser’s, and with ours following behind him in a line, obedient as ducklings. They looked unusually shiny, suspiciously as if someone had rubbed them down. He gave me a nod as he passed, but that was all. A strange fellow, taciturn, without a doubt, but I would not like to misjudge him, scarred and forbidding though he be. Besides, it was evident even last night, it is Kaiser who is in command, and he appears to have a liking for us – a most civilized man, if I am any judge. I’d like to know his story, but I doubt I’ll have the chance to get it from him. Prague is a day away at most.
I’ll put this by but keep it close, I think. I never know when and what amongst my scribbled thoughts will come in useful. I am forever urging Henry that we might try adding Much Ado to our repertoire – well, now I have my forest, and a model, perhaps, for Don John too. Of course Much Ado has two great parts for women in it, so I would have to don a gown, but then I’ve not much of a beard, I can speak high, I have done such parts before. I also have, so Blanche informed me once, a woman’s arse. It cut me to the quick.
Blanche would make a lovely Beatrice. Certainly a better actress than a cook.
Henry would not hear of it, of course. A woman on the stage?
A shame. If she were Beatrice, I might play Benedick.
I am of course in love with Blanche. I never used to be; indeed it is a mystery to me how my fascination – even, I confess it, my fear of her – changed like the chameleon and became this ache, this fire. Yes, the how is a mystery, but I can tell you to the minute when: it was in Regensburg, after the father had left us, poor man. We were all much affected by his speech (Lucy, indeed, was in tears), and I turned to Blanche and said, ‘That was so sad a story,’ at which she, turning on me, replied, ‘Was it? Evil was done, the evil-doers went unpunished. It happens everywhere, a hundred times a day. It was a pointless story.’ And as a parting shot, ‘No doubt you will put it into one of your speeches.’
I tell you, there is a rage in that woman as deep as the sea, and ever since Regensburg, I think I know why it is there. I don’t know who he was, the London scoundrel who did her wrong; all I know is that it has become my fate to suffer with her. It is – oh, if this is love, it is torment akin to hers. It is agony.
I must add here unexpected news, received but moments past from Alembert. Kaiser, he reports, believes we might find lodgings in the same place he and Jagiello intend putting up, and, indeed, this season of the year, nowhere else. Prague being over-swelled with folk – its newcome Saxon overlords, those visiting the city for the Christmas markets, and then all those for the Prince-Bishop’s great Twelfth Night feast, and without lodgings previously reserved, we risk finding none. But at the sign of the Black Swan (says Alembert), Kaiser assures him we will be welcome.
I am by no means as cheered as Alembert at this. I had thought one more day and we were done with our new companions. I must admit some of the sparkle of the morning came from this thought; now it has gone off. I am not at all sure what Blanche will make of it, either, though Henry, I am assured, thinks it a fine idea, most generous.
I think I will keep this to hand a while longer; I anticipate I may yet need to unpack my thoughts in words.
Oh. We are off…
POETIC LICENCE.
Andrew Frye of the Pilgrim Players does not of course commit all this to paper in one single go. In fact he will still be scratching away at it that very night. Prague, he will write then, is a weary blur… for now, however, he takes his place at the front of the Players’ wagon, on his horse, and when Prague comes into sight at noon, he gasps at it, as do all of its visitors, as he takes in quite how completely it is two places at once – the shining castle on its hill, with the palaces of the nobility ranged all about it (that of His Grace the Prince-Bishop amongst them); and opposite, divided from it by the river, the Old Town – lower, darker, a place of smoke and shadows, pierced by alien spires. In between it and the Pilgrims, seemingly half the population of the world. There is, to begin, the Saxon camp, on either side the road, and on the road itself carts and wagons like the Pilgrim Players’ own, plus herders, drovers, folk of every caste and die, some walking, some riding, some (the littlest) on piggy-back, and all moving slowly down the road together to the city gates, above which flies the flag, striped green and white, of Saxony. ‘Christ,’ Alembert demands, riding up beside him. ‘This sea of folk! I’d no idea!’
‘Our audience,’ Andrew answers. He feels, of a sudden, buoyant. Why should Prague, this great city, not be good to them?
‘Not our audience,’ says Alembert, darkly. ‘Look there. Damnation!’
Ahead of them at the gates, unmissable in their silver and scarlet, the wagons of Duke Leopold’s company of players. Well, of course, thinks Andrew. Within a moment, he is utterly cast down. Duke Leopold’s men, ahead of us here even as they have been ahead of us right across this country.
The scarlet and silver wagons are so large, they seem to swagger as they roll. ‘I do think,’ Alembert continues, bitterly, ‘the gods might have let us have a moment more to relish our arrival.’
‘Don’t tell Henry,’ Andrew says, lowering his voice.
Neither of them notices the boy sat watching from the bank beside the road, hands clasped about his knees. They do not mark his spiked hair nor his pointed fingernails, nor do they see him stand of a sudden, and head off at a run toward the distant woods.
PRAGUE, ANDREW BEGINS. On the bed behind him Alembert is already a-snore, while on a mattress on the floor Martin sleeps in the sort of flattened-out exhaustion only ever achieved by the young. Outside in the courtyard the Black Swan itself, beating the air with its wooden wings, squeaks a little on the chains that hold it captive. Hanging modestly beneath the board, the sign, announcing
STEFAN SAFRAN
(Then another line, but all blacked out, and followed by)
KARTOUNKA
The blacked-out line used to read A BRATA. And brother. Stefan Safran, Kartounka, has had a bad year.
Prague.
Scritch, scritch, goes Andrew’s quill.
…Prague. My notebook must forgive me; there will be no elegant description of Prague. Prague is a weary blur. It took us all day to gain the city gates, and even then there was a moment when I feared we would be turned away. There I sat with licences and passes stamped and sealed and all to hand, but we all know bureaucracy – the incomprehension, real or feigned, the necessity for bribes here and douceurs there, all very real indeed. And this was such an interrogation as I had never seen before, the guards beneath their flag of green and white demanding what is this and what is that of every soul, and being in that unpleasing wanton mood to boot, when sudden power makes men capricious. But lo, just as we gained the gate, a gang of wandering Gypsies descended upon it and proceeded to make such a nuisance of themselves, what with mobbing the guards and clambering aboard the waiting traffic, that when it came to us, the sentry merely stuck his head in the back of the wagon, squinted at us, squinted a moment longer at Kaiser and Jagiello, and decided that he’d done his duty.
