He had quickly learned that since the audience was near all round them, below in the pit that lapped the platform and in the boxes above it, it was not possible to disguise all blows. Better to give lustily, to hold back little . . . and to kill with a hard slap of the side of the blunted broadsword straight into the gut. No matter that it was armoured there – a blow, a step in, a sawing blade and his own screaming as he folded over it created the illusion that a chink in the armour had been found. It was always the victim who made the strike look good. And John gave Burbage’s victorious final blow its due reverence. The audience gasped as he hit the platform hard, blood spilling from the sheep’s bladder he wore beneath. The French fled, dragging dead Rambures with them by his ankles, a red trail left behind. Trumpets announced the triumph of England.
Speeches followed the action. John waited in the tiring house while Henry wooed the French princess, a scene of charm that the audience enjoyed as much as he. So the applause at the end was warmer than had been expected from the play’s early reception.
He took his bows, his salute reaching from the topmost gallery to the toe of the lowest groundling, content. He was back among the players. Even if it was only as fight master and substitute, a chink had opened, one he could surely widen. Not only this one, for if this theatre day did not proceed quite as those of old – with pots of ale in carousing company – he had hopes it would end in an inn nonetheless. In the Spoon and Alderman, with his feet just a little further under Tess’s oaken table.
XV
As You Like It?
The press was thick when John and Ned exited the Globe, for their own lingering audience was immediately swelled by that of the nearby Rose. Excited chatter filled the air as the two crowds met and compared experiences. John, taller by a head than most there, was able to see to the doors of the other playhouse, noting that a larger audience than their own was spilling forth. ‘What played there, sir?’ he asked of a prosperous-looking gentleman in an emerald velvet doublet, an equally well-clad lady on his arm.
‘The Shoemaker’s Holiday,’ came the reply, accompanied by a loud guffaw. ‘Man, Alleyn had the crowd in a roar from his very first words. Have you come from the Globe?’ On John’s nod, the man continued, ‘What piece?’
‘Henry the Fifth.’
The man grimaced. ‘Ach, I’ve seen it. ’Tis tired, sir, tired. I’m for a comedy, and the Admiral’s Men play them superbly.’
‘We play a new comedy tomorrow, sir. The ink scarce dry from Master Shakespeare’s quill.’ Ned produced a playbill from the stack in his satchel. All the players had them, for distribution that night and on the morrow.
The man took it, his wife studying over his shoulder. ‘As You Like It,’ she read. ‘Is it amusing?’ she asked.
‘Oh aye, ma’am,’ replied Ned. ‘A hilarious tale of a country girl who spurns her clod suitor because she is in love with a courttrained clown.’
John smiled. Ned’s role in the piece was minor. But he remembered how he’d once described Medea from the point of view of his personation of the second sentry.
‘And you play, do you, boy?’ the lady asked.
‘Aye, mum,’ said Ned, dropping into a courtesy, speaking on in a rural voice, eyelids fluttering. ‘Oy be the maid, see.’
‘Oh, Geoffrey, let us to it. It sounds charming.’
Man and wife melded into the crowd. ‘I wonder if Master Shakespeare knows how his whole plot revolves around Audrey the milkmaid,’ John said.
Ned grinned. ‘Oh, I am sure he’ll realise when he sees me perform it.’
They moved on, seeking. Both were hungry, and they were assailed on all sides by higglers, some behind carts, others with trays. They could choose from a great variety of beasts – finned, furred, feathered – prepared in dozens of ways. It being September, there was an abundance from the fields and little of it would be salted – they would have enough of that in the winter to come. Ned was keen on poultry, but that was richer than John’s purse. So he sought out a familiar stall where the humble pie was made from only the freshest deer entrails, and the seasonings rich in nutmeg. One apiece, followed by a hunk of crumbly cheese and an Orange Pippin, sent down with a mug of cider, did the trick.
‘Well, Father,’ said Ned, licking his fingers clean, ‘shall we to the birds?’
John shook his head. He was as fond of cock fighting as his son. But his purse would certainly not stand any wagers, and besides, he had his responsibilities – and his instructions. ‘Nay, lad,’ he said, ‘for you know the conditions your mother imposed on your continuing at the theatre. They include your early return home and no dalliance.’ He laughed at his son’s frown, pulled him from the ground by his collar. ‘Besides, do you not still need to study your role for the morrow?’
‘I learned that in less than half an hour,’ Ned snorted. ‘I would they gave me something more to prove my mettle.’
‘From what Master Shakespeare has told me, he has such an advance in mind.’ John pushed his son back into the crowd. ‘They are pleased with you, lad.’
‘Aye. I only hope . . .’ He broke off, chewed his lip.
‘Hope?’
‘You talked of my mother’s conditions. She still sees my time with the players as short-lived. As soon as Sir Samuel returns from war . . .’
He again left his sentence unfinished. Both knew what that return could mean. ‘Would it be so bad then, to be a squire’s stepson?’
John asked the question softly. He had long ago learned with Ned that if he tried to persuade him to one course he would straightway choose the other. Obstinate as an ass, his son, and he had an idea where he got that from – his mother! So he had not spoken out against Despair once during the summer. He had simply let his son fall fully in love with playing.
As he had. ‘What? To get all my excitements from chasing dumb creatures across a field? To live in’ – he shuddered – ‘Finchley!’ Ned looked around at the thronging, raucous street. ‘Southwark is the only home I’ve ever known. And my future is with the Chamberlain’s Men.’ He turned and gripped John’s arm. ‘I cannot leave that, Father. You must see to it.’
He placed his hand over his son’s. ‘I shall try,’ he replied. ‘There is still time. Irish wars drag on. And war itself brings dangers – even to fat knights who hide their bulk behind others and try to avoid them.’
His grin was not matched by Ned’s. ‘I do not know, Father. The time may be closing. My mother had another letter.’
John slowed his stride. The Spoon and Alderman was in sight, the spire of St Mary Overies rising behind and as if from it. ‘What news?’
Ned halted, looked around. No one stood near. He had learned, as everyone on London’s streets had that summer, to keep his voice low. Men had disappeared who voiced rumour as news too loudly. Boys too. ‘Sir Samuel says little . . . save that he may soon be home. For it appears that the Vice-Regent has brought the rebel to a reckoning.’
John frowned. Whispers of a battle would have been on the streets, and all Cecil’s spies would not have been able to contain them. ‘What sort of reckoning?’ he asked, his voice as low as his son’s.
‘A meeting. Tyrone has submitted, kissed the royal ring. A truce has been negotiated.’
‘Truce?’ John frowned. A truce was not submission. A truce was a parley between equals who both had reasons not to fight for a while. It did not sort with the rumours that had come – of an English army chasing through bog and forest an enemy who would not stand and fight but just kept building its own strength while its opponent’s wasted. And it did not sort with Essex, who would hurl himself unarmoured into a hundred foes if he could win glory that way. He had been sent there not to negotiate with traitors but to bring back ‘rebellion broached on his sword’ – words Will had been wise to cut from the play they performed that day.
Something was amiss in Ireland. John did not truly care what. Others’ kingdoms could go hang. He had already sacrificed enough for them. All that concerned him no
w were his own – his son before him and the woman he loved. If truce meant Essex’s return, it was bad enough news, for he would be held to some sort of account for his absence. But Sir Samuel returning to claim his bride was far, far worse. He had not endured the thirstiest summer in a dozen years only to lose the prize.
‘Come, lad,’ he said, ‘I must talk with your mother.’
But then he did not move. There was a low tavern immediately to his left, the Larkspur, as filthy as the Spoon was clean. He’d frequented it often in the past. The thought came sudden, and hard: he could send Ned ahead, go in and have one whisky. Only weak ale and small beer had washed out his mouth since Shrove Tuesday. He licked his lips. One, then. One would sharpen his wits for the interview that lay before him.
‘Father?’
He looked down. Why was his son looking at him that way?
‘To Mother’s?’ Ned asked.
‘Yes. Yes, come on,’ he muttered, stepping forward again. The first steps though were strangely hard, as if his ankles were held in shackles.
They took the alley down to the rear of the inn, the tumult of the street reduced to a hum. Before them to the south lay fields, stretching away to distant hills whose ridges were dotted with windmills. Every yard of the land was cultivated, and in this late summertime, fecund with crops. Women moved along the rows, gleaning leaves for the sallets that most, save for the very rich, would eat. Others collected cabbages, beetroot and cucumbers – it was the pickling time, the strong savour of vinegar or verjus in each man’s nostrils. The sight was calm contrast to the streets they’d left. John sighed. He had grown up in fields like this. It was . . . unexciting. Was that what he needed?
‘Father?’ Ned had extracted the key from its hidden place in the crevice between bricks. ‘Shall I?’ he said, pointing the metal at the door.
John took a breath. It was all the bracing he would get. He nodded.
Ned turned the key, opened the door. John saw into the garden, the ordered contrast to the sprawling exuberance behind him. Standing in the middle was Tess, a basket of vegetables before her. She was wearing her pickling frock.
She smiled. ‘Welcome,’ she said.
They entered. Ned replaced the key outside, locked the door again with another within. ‘How went the play?’ she asked.
‘Well enough,’ the two Lawleys answered as one. Ned ran to her, gave her a hug, which seemed to surprise her. ‘Greengage?’ she said. She pulled two from the basket, threw one across to John. Ned took his, ran for the inn’s back door. ‘Off so quickly?’ she called.
‘I have my role to work on,’ he replied, taking the stairs two at a time. ‘Father,’ he called back, ‘I’ll see you at the play tomorrow?’
‘That you will. ’Tis a promise,’ John replied.
A nod, and their son was gone. ‘He is in a hurry.’ Tess raised a hand to pull a curl of tawny hair off her forehead. ‘To get somewhere – or to leave us alone, would you say?’
John did not reply. Instead, he looked at the greengage, a bloom like fairy dust upon it. He wiped it on his doublet, bit into the soft flesh. It was as sweet as its promise. It wasn’t whisky, but it would have to do. ‘He cons other roles as well as his own,’ John said, separating flesh from stone with his teeth. ‘He hopes, like many do, that the actor above him will break something so he can step in. He would be Juliet, ready to encounter her Romeo.’
Tess stooped, picked up one of several baskets that lay at her feet, each crammed with produce from her garden. ‘The players will not revive that, surely?’
‘Why not?
‘It is hardly in keeping with the times.’
‘Surely a tale of such love, begun with a single look, is timeless?’ She had reached for another basket. ‘Here. Let me.’ He gathered the three there, threading his arms through the wicker handles. ‘The brewhouse?’
‘Aye.’ She nodded, headed towards the huts behind the inn.
He followed. ‘You did not answer me.’
‘On a tale of timeless love? No, I did not.’
‘Why?’
‘You know why.’ She glanced back at him, one thin eyebrow arched. ‘Really, John, you were not wont to be so brazen.’
‘I know not what you mean.’
She snorted. It was almost the exact sound Ned would make, rich in scorn. ‘Nor such a poor dissembler.’
At least his look of hurt made her laugh. She turned away, pushed the brewhouse door open. Damp warmth filled his face as she led him past the tuns where new brews fermented beside the casks of the near ready. Ducking through hanging wreaths of drying hops, they came to other barrels. The sharp tang of vinegar cut through the malty fug.
He put down his load, resumed his quest. ‘Why do you suspect my words?’
‘Because there is design in them.’
‘Design?’ he queried, eyes wide. ‘What design?’
She looked straight at him. ‘You try to woo me anew, with memories of that first wooing, of a more innocent time. As if it could erase the memories of all the years that followed.’
Those years were not when he wanted to dwell. It was time for a new tactic, one that had worked, on a few glorious occasions, before. ‘Innocence is hardly what I remember of those times,’ he said softly.
‘Nor I.’ She smiled. ‘Though before I first saw you, I considered myself innocent enough.’
Her tone of voice! The laugh had returned to it. A better course, sure – though there were rocks here he could easily still founder on. Gently, he thought, then said, ‘Is it only in my memory that the first look wrought such devastation?’
‘You know it is not.’ She shook her head. ‘Love at first sight only becomes a problem when it is reciprocal.’
‘As ours was.’
She hesitated before replying. ‘As ours was.’
She sighed, then bent to the baskets, removing cucumbers, laying them on the table. Carefully, he thought. There’s hope in that sigh. ‘What did you say the French called it, Tess? It was not a phrase I’d heard before. Nor felt, certain.’
‘Coup de foudre,’ she said, still bent, not looking up. But she had stopped sorting.
‘That was it. A strike of lightning,’ he murmured. ‘We were scorched by it, were we not?’
‘Scorched. Yes.’ She unstooped now, looked at him, then above him. ‘I had not known desire till then. Had not been armed to deal with it, beyond precepts and counsels, just so many cold words.’
‘I remember few words, for I was struck dumb. I remember following you to the river bank. I remember . . . taking your hand there.’
‘Another lightning blast. Have not the alchemists dreamed of harnessing the bolt’s power to transform one metal to another?’ She laughed. ‘It changed me, certainly.’
Her voice had lowered still further. He wanted to reach out to her again, see if his touch still possessed that lightning. But he had worked slowly all summer to get her here, to slip past the strictures, slide beyond the ring she wore. He must not rush it now. ‘I did not know I had such an effect. I never had before. There had been women . . .’
An eyebrow raised. ‘Many women.’
‘Not so many.’ He rushed to cover his error. ‘None that transformed me as you did.’ He stepped a little closer to her. ‘And I knew I’d discovered in a moment what those alchemists had searched for through centuries.’
She did not move away. ‘And what was that?’
‘The philosopher’s stone. The quintessence of life itself. Not in what each made. In what we made together.’
Their faces were close enough now for him to take in all that he had not, in an age – the meadow green of her eyes, an exact shade, streaked through with swirls of copper; the scent of her, cutting through the fug in the hut, reminding him of riverbanks, of clean flowing water. The grass he’d laid her on, the bulrushes that had hidden them.
‘Well, sir,’ she said, not withdrawing, only that one eyebrow lifted a little higher, the husk fully restored to her voice. ??
?I thought your friend Will held the patent on such poetry. Now I see that he borrows all from you.’
‘Nay, I am blunt for all that. Sharp only in this one thing – my love for you.’
It was the time. Leaning closer, he kissed her.
She did not resist him. Yielded as she’d always done, once she decided – completely as she had that first time, as she had perhaps half a dozen times since over the years between. She was dressed for the tavern, not the court, and no farthingales pressed against him, preventing his body reaching hers. They were locked from lips to toes, and in the middle he felt the instant surge he always did with her, that had been diminished not a jot by time.
She felt it too, gave back, till she could no more. ‘No, John, no,’ she whispered. But she did not push him away with more than words.
‘And you claim that Romeo and Juliet will not still play,’ he said, his voice as low as hers. He’d pulled back a fraction to say it – and realised his mistake. He’d brought in the outside world again – especially the playhouse – and it was between them in an instant.
‘No, John, no,’ she said again, differently, as firm as the hand that was suddenly in his chest, pushing him back. ‘We must not.’
He reached, as a drowning man will reach. ‘Tess, why . . . ?’
‘Why?’ She slipped from between his arms, stepped away, smoothing down her dress, reaching up to that tress of hair come astray, returning it to its prison. ‘You have heard, haven’t you? ’Tis why you are so bold now. Desperate, rather. For the wars are over.’