Mistress Shakespeare (18 page)

As soon as the play began, I saw why scandalous comments had leaked out about
Doctor Faustus
. Why was Kit’s work not censored like everyone else’s? Not only did the main character, a German scholar, practice black magic, but he summoned up Mephastophilus, a devil whose master was Lucifer! Faustus promised his soul in trade for twenty-four years of wishes from the devil and began to enjoy a life of sin. A clown named Robin, Faustus’ servant, also summoned up a minor devil in his bumbling way, but somehow the comic relief of that did not belong in this tragedy. If Kit asked me what I thought, I’d tell him that, I vowed.

Yet it was as compelling as
Tamburlaine
had been, and, I assumed, would have a good moral at the end to boot when Faustus had to go to hell for his life of licentiousness. Kit Marlowe should heed his own writing, I thought. I wagered he did not have to do one bit of research for the characters of Faustus or the devil.

Near the end of the drama, Faustus had Mephastophilus summon up the beautiful Helen of Troy to impress a group of scholars. Each scholar spoke, warning Faustus he was in danger of eternal damnation for his terrible bargain.

When the third scholar spoke, I jerked on my cushion. That voice, ringing out deep and clear . . . Despite his cap, wig and ruddy coloring from face paint—devil take us all, it was Will!

I gasped so loudly, people looked my way. He had several more lines. How long had he been in London and not let me know? And these theatre passes—from Kit or Will?

I gripped the railing of the gallery so hard my hands went numb. In the last scene, the devil carried Faustus’ soul to hell, and the scholars found his bloody limbs scattered on the stage and decided to hold a funeral for him. Will spoke the play’s final words, the moral, though not one so pious as another playwright might have used.

“Anne! Anne, are you all right?” Maud kept asking as the players danced their closing jig and took their bows. Will’s footwork was superb. It took me back to our cavorting days, to how we danced in the meadows those weeks we courted before disaster struck—before my soul was taken from me as surely as Faustus’ had been.

My feelings were a jumble. I was proud of Will and happy for him. He was here. He was on the stage. But I feared and hated him too, especially when he looked straight up at me and, despite my own costume, smiled and nodded. Yes, he’d known exactly where I’d be sitting.

I was still too stunned to speak. When my friends pulled me to my feet during the thunderous applause, I stood frozen. Then I saw Dick Field farther down the first row and knew Will had sent the tickets, however much these four gallery seats must have cost him.

Furious, fearful I would throw myself at him, I mumbled something to my friends and pushed ahead of them through the exiting crowds. I knew Will would be waiting below, the conquering hero, but I’d have none of that. I’d not bounce back into his arms only to be deceived and deserted again.

I was right. He had managed to dash outside; his eyes were skimming the people pouring out. He saw me, smiled and dared to motion me to him. Rather than tear right by, I saw my salvation as surely as Faustus had chosen his own devil.

“Kit!” I cried when I saw Marlowe being congratulated by friends. “Kit, it was wonderful!”

I could hear Will’s words from here—my name, once, twice. I did not look askance. Marlowe saw me coming and, whether he recognized me or not, opened his arms as I hurled myself into them. I could barely glimpse Will out of the corner of my eye and did not turn to look. Maybe now he could grasp the terrible pain of what he had done to me.

“My favorite lady-lad!” Kit cried.

In my rising hysteria, I gave no thought to my own predicament if I went off with Marlowe and his fellows. All I wanted was to get away from the power of Will’s eternal allure for me, to bury the agony I had fought so hard to hold at bay or turn to loathing. Not once looking back, I let the laughing Kit lead me off into the crowds.

 

 

 

Uncertain where I was,
I awoke with the most crushing head pain I had ever felt. It was agony to even open my eyes. I knew I was not home in my bed for this one felt like a featherbed, not a chaff-filled one. Dark—dark in here—but where was here? In faith, I felt as if I were with Faustus in the dimmest reaches of hell.

I racked my pounding brain to recall where I could be. Had Maud taken me to her room? And then it hit me like the weight of the world. I had gone drinking in a tavern with Kit Marlowe. He and his raucous fellows had talked of plays, people and politics, and I had drunk it all in—and drunk so much—and . . . and that was all I could recall.

I tried to move my legs but was like one sodden with sleep, lead-footed, trying to run from a nightmare’s fiend. Was Kit in bed with me? At least I yet seemed to be fully garbed. What was that stuff Kit’s friends had been drinking, that elixir they called dragon’s milk? They had vowed it would turn any day-hired, walk-on actor into a well-paid performer at the royal court.

Then I realized someone was whispering. Someone distant, thank God, more than one person—men. Yet Kit’s voice stood out.

“But with the Scot’s queen separated from her head and King Philip separated from his fleet, why must I still keep it up? I’ve no time or patience for such anymore!”

“Do you not think others will still plot to overthrow her?”

I fought harder to clear my head, to concentrate on what they said.

“But I’ve got London at my feet now, man.”

“Let’s just say you’ve made a Faustian bargain and must play by the original rules. If you have London at your feet, ’tis partly because your work is treated by Tilney with a gentler hand than most. You’ll have to go to France, he says.”

“Tell Wally the Spider to bugger off! I’ve served him well and—”

“Keep your voice down. You’ve been given free artistic rein when that could all change with the stroke of a pen. It just so happens sodomy is a capital offense. You’ll do what’s best or there may be an arrest.”

“Rhyming couplets, are you now, Mercer?”

Mercer! The man who had questioned me once before. And here Kit Marlowe—like the company of the Queen’s Men—was a spy for the queen, or at least for her spymaster Walsingham, if that’s who Wally was. I knew I now had two reasons to flee before Kit came to bed, if he had not been here already. But I didn’t feel sore in places I would if he’d assaulted me, only, for the first time in my life, so sodden drunk I was not certain if I could move.

I slid carefully to the far side of the bed. It looked like a curtain separated me from the men. My shoes were missing. My head throbbed when I lifted it so I could slide off the bed. Nausea racked me. I tried to hold back the taste of bitter bile. I could only pray there was another door out of here, but only shifting shadows stretched out from each wall and corner.

I saw a window and made for it, sliding across the floor in my stockinged feet. Pitch black outside; no noise in the streets. A curtain covered the window too; I pulled it aside. A full moon; the light of it hurt my eyes and made my head pound even harder. I turned aside for a moment and gasped. Kit stood right behind me!

No, not Kit but his portrait hung there, and a strong shaft of moonlight struck it on the opposite wall. He looked bored and daring in it with his arms crossed and one corner of his mouth quirked in dislike or disdain. He wore the same black and red-slashed padded doublet from the first time I’d seen him. I dragged my eyes away from those of the portrait, which seemed to pin me right where I was.

Dangerous, I knew, to be about the streets at night, especially in Shoreditch, if that’s where I was. But more dangerous to stay in that bed. If I escaped his clutches again, had I given away anything to Kit so he could find me?

The window was ajar this warm September night; I shoved it farther open and froze when it gave a little squeak. The men’s whispers hissed on. If they discovered my flight and Mercer realized what I had heard, would he insist they silence me? And then Will would never know what became of me. Maybe he’d question Kit Marlowe someday, maybe . . .

I was not on a high floor as I had reckoned when I’d seen the moon so clearly without eaves or thatch. This chamber was on the second floor, so if I could get a good hold on the lower window ledge, then drop carefully below . . .

Not taking time to find my shoes, I stood on a wooden coffer and shifted shoulder-first through the narrow window. I shoved one knee and hip out, then the other. Concentrating on each move, I tried to ignore my pounding head pain, the dizziness and nausea that assailed me.

The window ledge hurt the inside of my fingers when I hung from it. I could not tell what was under me, but now—now! I dropped hard to the packed-dirt alley, fell on a stinking pile of refuse and vomited into it.

I lay there but a minute, sweating, slippery, hating myself. I had to hurry home, and I’d have to avoid the night watch to keep from being fined for a curfew violation. My friends would be beside themselves with fear for me, whether they thought I’d gone off with Kit Marlowe or was missing somehow else in deep, dark London.

Feeling not only physically ill but sick to the depths of my soul, I lurched to my stinging feet and stumbled toward home. No bones were broken, but my heart was, and I blamed Will.

CHAPTER TEN

I never told Maud or Jennet,
both of whom were waiting for me when I dragged myself home, that I had actually been in Kit Marlowe’s bed or knew about his spying. Noising the latter around could get me arrested or worse. I only told them I’d gone to a tavern with Marlowe to celebrate the triumph of his play, had gotten drunk and stumbled into an alley on the way home where I’d slept for a while. They helped me clean up and vowed not to tell John, who had gone to bed and didn’t know I was missing.

The next morning—mid-morn, it was, I knew that much—I lay abed feeling at least half as sick as I had the night before. I rehearsed everything in my throbbing head again: the shock of seeing Will, my desire to hurt him, the mess with Kit. The summer sun pouring in my window made my head ache much more than the moonlight had last night.

Jennet came in carrying a tray with a few items—bread, cheese and a tankard of ale, it looked to be. She was big with child; I pictured Anne Hathaway carrying twins. Will had a son and two daughters—all men longed for a son.

“Jennet, you should not be toting trays up those stairs,” I chided gently. My voice sounded rough. I’d seldom spoken last night in the tavern, but when I had, I’d been forced to pitch my tone low and yet raise my voice to be heard over the babble there.

“Nonsense. I’m fine this time, and after how you helped me last time, it’s the least that I can do. Now, I know you’re still feeling a bit rocky, but Maud told me that this warm posset with chamomile and borage would help you.”

I knew enough about Maud’s herbal remedies by then to realize that, though chamomile was standard brew for stomach complaints, the borage was to help lift one’s spirits. Maud had said that it purged melancholy, but she’d also mentioned it could comfort the lunatic person. At that thought, I did not know whether to laugh or cry. I had no doubt acted as if I’d lost my mind when I saw Will on the stage. I’d been insane to throw myself at Kit, however much I wanted to hurt Will. And if lunatics were even more maddened by moonlight, the shaft of it that had burst into Kit’s bedroom had perhaps made me more demented—such were my rambling thoughts the morning after.

I sat up against the headboard and let Jennet put the tray upon my lap. “And something else for you there—under the posset,” she whispered, twisting her apron over her distended belly with both hands as if she were wringing out laundry.

It was a note, not sealed but with a blue ribbon around it. I could almost wish it were from that demon Kit, but I instantly recognized the handwriting.

“He’s waiting in the alley,” Jennet blurted as I simply stared at the note as if it would bite me. “He won’t step in unless you give permission and says he must be off to play practice, but he longs to see you. At least to have you read that note.”

“No.”

“Anne, I can’t read it to you. The man’s been out there nearly since dawn, and he won’t take food or drink.”

“Tell him not to be late for play practice, though I have seen he is a fine actor without a bit of rehearsal.”

“Won’t you read the note? He says he would have sealed it but someone dear has his seal ring. Now, I know you told me—”

“Perhaps he wants the ring back, and I should toss it out the window.”

“Oh, Anne, for heaven’s sakes! You told me how dear he’d been to you—how much—how . . . I’m sorry. I know both of you yet long for each other and—”

“That doesn’t matter. Tell him to go back to his life and do his best and that will be enough for me. Tell him not to come back here or try to contact me again.”

As she flounced from the room muttering, I was tempted to make her return the note to him, but my wretched curiosity got the best of me. I had never been able to turn down knowing what that man was thinking or writing. I pulled off the ribbon and picked up the piece of parchment, folded in quarters. My hand shook as if I had the palsy, just as Will’s right hand sometimes did when he used to sew gloves, do his scrivener’s work and write for hours on his own. The paper was warm from the mug or perhaps from his hand. It crinkled loudly in mine as I opened it.