Seven Will Out: A Renaissance Revel (44 page)

To dig the dust enclosed here.

Blessed be the man that spares these stones,

And cursed be he that moves my bones.

“Very nicely recited, Dolly,” Anne Shakespeare said. “I thought I did as good a job with that epitaph, if I do say so myself, as my husband would have done. Those little couplets of mine certainly served their purpose, at least until now. That little warning has put off the curious from disturbing that grave for nigh on four hundred years now and holding.”

“And Emilia and Helena, having been led by you to think the manuscripts and letter were destroyed, never thought to look for either of them. At least, that is what I am assuming,” I said, despite Douglas Sheffields’s repeated warnings against assumptions.

“Correct, Dolly,” Emilia confirmed. “Helena and I went to Anne Shakespeare as soon as we’d heard of her husband’s death, and she told us that she’d destroyed the covenant letter and the royal manuscripts to protect her claim to fame as the wife of the age’s greatest playwright. She was a convincing liar. It occurred to neither one of us that she might have spared, or hidden, the documents.”

“Of course, I was devastated, Dolly, at this turn of events,” Helena admitted. “I was devoted to my mistress and queen in her lifetime and to her memory posthumously. I had sworn to her that I would bring the authorship of those plays to the light of
day. Yet with the manuscripts and the covenant letter destroyed, or so I thought, there was no way I could do so.”

“You couldn’t have just come forward with your story?” I asked. “You’d have had Emilia to back you up.”

“Yes, and England’s new monarch to wear us down,” Helena said.

Chapter One Hundred-Fifteen

A Man of Parts, a Change of Heart, and a Departure

James I of England, and VI of Scotland, was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. He’d been raised in her absence in the melee that was the Scottish court, living through the deaths of several of his regents while he was of tender years. His keepers and educators played some major mind games with him, particularly as pertained to his mother, the monarchy, and religion. It wasn’t the typical life of a prince and a king, and he grew up to be not the typical monarch.

“King James was an unusual man, to be sure,” I began. “He was conformist enough to bring the world the standard King James Bible, and maverick enough to make waves in the political arena by engaging in questionable relationships with rather unsavory male favorites. A man of mixed parts, I suppose one would have said in his day.”

“Yes, Dolly, and he—like his mother and his predecessor Elizabeth—was an author,” Emilia reminded me. “His
Basilikon Doron
was a bestseller in our day.”

“A work directing his son in the proper comportment of royalty, was it not?” I asked.

“Yes, Dolly, and let me remind you of the tenor of its first book,” said Helena.

Remember, that as in dignity he hath erected you above others…A moat in another’s eye, is a beam into yours: a blemish in another, is a leprous boil into you…Think not therefore, that the highness of your dignity diminisheth
your fault but by the contrary your fault shall be aggravated according to the height of your dignity…

“I get it,” I said. “King James was all about the pomp and circumstance of the monarchy. His own mother and his predecessor engaging in common playwriting, which was not a distinguished pastime for the regal male, let alone the female, would not have sat well with him, or with the Puritan element that was becoming so prominent in England then. It would have been well beneath the royal dignity.”

“King James was a great patron of the theater, of course. But in our day, there was a world of difference between being a behind-the-scenes patron and being involved in the dirty business of the nuts and bolts of making theater happen. And of course, there was a world of difference between what a man and a woman could get away with socially.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Then of course, there is what James had to say to his son about the literary arts in the third book of the
Basilicon
,” Helena continued.

“‘Use a plain, short, but stately style…and if your engine spur you to write any works, either in verse or in prose, I cannot but allow you to practice it: but take no longsome works in hand, for distracting you from your calling…’” Emilia quoted aloud.

“‘Longsome’ is as good a word as any to use when describing the Shakespearian, or royal, plays. Short and pithy is not what comes to mind when one thinks of Shakespeare. Except for some of the insults, of course,” I said. “So you had plenty of
reason to think that old James would not approve of the role that his mother and the rest of the royal playwrights played in producing the Shakespeare canon.”

“‘And because your writes will remain as true pictures of your mind, to all posterities; let them be free of all uncomeliness,’” Helena said, quoting again from the
Basilikon
. “Think about the content of those royal plays, Dolly!”

“Agree,” I admitted. “The lowlife proclivities and horn-doggery of Falstaff alone would have been enough for James I to blackball Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I as authors under the
Basilicon
criteria.”

“Exactly,” said Emilia.

“And of course,” I considered, “there are the mommy issues James I had with Mary, Queen of Scots. He was raised to despise her. However, her DNA and his relationship to her were what qualified him to achieve his life’s ambition: the crown of England. He had to have been conflicted about that, as he was about so many other things. Muddying the waters even further by bringing up the question of his mother’s playwriting activities was probably the last thing he’d have wanted.”

“We thought so too,” Helena said, and Emilia nodded. “And so, when my time came, I went to my grave, carrying the burden of having failed my mistress and queen in the task she had given me regarding those plays.”

“Imagine Helena’s joy when she arrived here on the other side, to which I had preceded her!” Anne Shakespeare said, beaming.

“You came clean with Helena once she arrived in the afterlife? And told her that the covenant letter and manuscripts, though hidden, were not destroyed?” I asked Anne.

“I did. You see, my husband, Will, and I had preceded Helena—as had all the royal authoresses, of course—to the Great Beyond. Not to mention Catherine Willoughby, Baron Hunsdon, Susan Bertie, Jane Dormer, and Robert Dudley. Word does get around in the afterlife, you know! Everything about the channeling of the royal plays was aboveboard once we all got to this side of the great divide.”

“Well, everything was once
I
finally got here!” Emilia reminded Anne.

“So, there you all were, or I suppose I should say, here you all were, with the truth out in the open. That didn’t amount to very much, did it?” I asked.

“Well, we waited a few generations to see if something would give with that second-best bed,” Anne said. “Will’s and my direct line gave out with our grandchildren, and from there the bed went into the Hall family through Will’s sister, Joan. Eventually, though, we lost track of the bed.”

“And of course, thanks to that epitaph of yours, no one has ever thought to exhume old Will and the covenant letter,” I said.

“Correct, Dolly. We eventually concluded that only some one-in-a-million quirk of fate would ever bring the true authorship of the royal plays to light. The authoresses were disappointed, of course. I was not. At least, I was not until you came along and did what you did for Henry VIII’s six wives.”

“What did that change for you?” I asked.

“You setting the record straight about Henry VIII’s wives made the royal authoresses realize that they finally had a real chance of receiving credit for their plays. At last, someone—you—had appeared on the horizon with the skill set needed to
get the job done. You would play the final part in the drama of the revelation of the authorship of the royal plays!”

“I guess I will take my place with Catherine Willoughby and all the others who had a part in the saga of the royal plays. It is an exciting prospect, Anne!”

“The job you did with the wives’ stories also helped me to understand that, after the passage of four hundred years, things have changed on my side of the issue as well. I’ve come to realize, over time, how much more desirable it would be for me to see the plays properly attributed than to see them continue to be credited to my husband, Will.”

“How is that so?” I asked. “You wanted so much to remain known as the wife of the man who wrote the greatest plays of all time!”

“What you did for the six wives, Dolly, was to take them from being women memorable for their wifely status to being women memorable for their own lives, fates, personalities, and accomplishments. It made me realize that I could be more than just a reflection of Will, in posterity’s eyes, if the truth comes out.”

“Because?” I asked.

“Because,” Anne said proudly, “if the truth comes out, I will be known as the woman who pulled the wool over the eyes of the historical and literary worlds for centuries and centuries! How clever people will think me when they realize how my beautifully simple plot stymied the world from learning the truth about those plays. I can go down in history a second time, not just as someone’s wife but as a real and active player, in my own right, in the drama of the Shakespeare—now to be known as royal—plays.”

“Well, I’ll be,” I said, “a monkey’s uncle, or perhaps a bunch-backed toad. The historical reputations of so many people are riding on my outing the Shakespeare plays. Without a doubt, I certainly do have my work cut out for me!”

The sun was fully up save for a sliver of a shadow. My time in this place, I knew, was over. I took a last look around the room, kissed Helena, Emilia, and Anne good-bye, and took a deep breath.

“‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep,’” I said. “Good-bye to you all. Wish me luck back in the real world!”

“You know what to do now, Dolly, to get back home,” Helena said. “At least, that’s what Elizabeth told us. The same thing you did last time you were here. She told us to remind you in case you forgot.”

“How could I?” I said as I raised my skirts an inch or two and peeped down at my cordovan slippers. While they were not the ruby footwear of my last visit here, they were, if one was limited to selecting strictly from the primary colors, for all intents and purposes red. I clicked my heels together slowly, three times, and spoke my last words in that place: “There’s no place like home!”

And behold, it was all a dream
.

Chapter One Hundred-Sixteen

Arise and Surprise

They say that “journeys end in lovers’ meetings,” and this one was no exception; I opened my eyes to find myself peering directly into Wally’s.

“What happened?” I asked groggily.

“You fainted as you were ascending the steps to the stage to give your commencement address.”

“Gadzooks!” I said. “What about my underwear—or should I say, the lack thereof? Tell me I didn’t throw a shot at the academic universe as I went down for the count!”

“You didn’t, dear; I had the situation under control. Didn’t you hear me calling out to you as I crested the audience and came to your aid?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t. What did you say?”

“I said something to the effect of ‘don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.’ I meant it literally and figuratively!”

“Well, thank goodness!” I said, looking around. I appeared to be in an emergency room, behind a curtain, and I was now wearing a hospital Johnny coat.

“They must have caught me going commando, though, when they changed me from my doctoral robe into this hospital gown,” I said, cringing with embarrassment.

“No, they didn’t,” Wally told me. “I suspected the whole commando situation, and just in case, as we were leaving the house, I slipped some of your undergarments into my inside jacket pockets and a little sleeveless dress of yours into a satchel. I learned in the Peace Corps that it pays to be prepared for every contingency.
I declined the ambulance for your trip here and transported you in my own vehicle. I got the outfit onto you in the car, before I carried you in here.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I was thanking my lucky stars that we made it here without having an accident or getting pulled over,” Wally said. “I’d have had quite a time explaining to the police about the semiclad unconscious woman in my car, and the bra and panties in my pocket!”

Wally chuckled as he said this, and then his face relaxed into a broad grin. He had, in fact, been grinning ever since I awoke. I had expected something a bit more like concern from him, quite frankly. This kind of insensitivity was not at all like my Wally, and I called him on it.

“You seem awfully happy for a man whose wife is in the emergency room.”

Wally was saved from having to explain himself by the entrance of the hospital doctor. He, too, was grinning from ear to ear.

“Wally Rolly!” the medic said excitedly, pumping my husband’s hand in greeting and ignoring me completely. Wally, being a physician as well as a veterinarian and an engineer, among other things, occasionally did locum duty at the local ER, so he was fairly well known to the area’s medical community.