The Shakespeare Stealer: Chapters 13-17

At last my battered brain succumbed to sleep.

Grudgingly I let myself be pulled down onto all fours, straddled, and spurred by bare feet into a sluggish gait.

He shook his head in mock exasperation. "Give a boy a few lines to say, and he thinks he owns the theatre."

"Keep a firm hold on your wallet," Sander called over the clamor.

The streets were as crooked and wayward as country streams, dissecting the city not into square blocks but into convoluted shapes of all sizes.

Displayed prominently were a number of plays and poems written by "Wm. Shaksper."

As I turned away from the bookstall, I found that, by thinking his name, I had somehow conjured up Falconer, and to my dismay, he was headed directly for us.

But by now I was so disoriented that I kept on that street, which was at least broad and well traveled.

The thoroughfare onto which I turned seemed innocuous enough at first, but after a time I noticed that each block was a bit more dismal-looking than the last.

The thoroughfare onto which I turned seemed innocuous enough at first, but after a time I noticed that each block was a bit more dismal-looking than the last.

Lining both sides of the street were ramshackle booths and huts constructed of any material that would keep out the weather—hides, sticks, mud.

My immediate impression was that they were large—large of body, with large grinning mouths and large daggers at their belts. Separately, each would have been daunting; together they were terrifying.

He fingered the hilt of his dagger. "We'll have that, then."

I looked at our squalid surroundings, then at Julian, whose appearance and manner spoke of better things.

Ever since I'd come to London, I'd been getting into situations from which someone else had had to extract me.

As we started for the Globe in the morning, I was heartened to see that, for a change, the sky was clear.

So startled was I that I lost my hold on the brush. It skittered across the thatch and plummeted to the yard three storeys below.

Half the yard was eclipsed from my view. Into the half I could see stepped a man with a large white splotch on one shoulder of his dark brown doublet.

I turned to Sander, who was holding a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. "It's not funny! It struck someone."

"A likely looking lot of lissome ladies, eh, Mr. Shakespeare?"

"That was meant to be a jest," Mr. Shakespeare said.
"Sorry."
He shook his head. "Thank heaven my audience is not made up of such sobersides. Sander, see that this lad is given instructions in laughing."

"How do I look?" he asked anxiously, pushing at his voluminous wig.

Far from calm myself, I gave him a cursory look up and down.

There was a flourish of trumpets above the stage.

The audience guffawed at this spontaneous addition to the script.

Suddenly the king broke off, his arm upraised, as though frozen in place. I froze, too, aware that something was amiss, but not quite sure what.

The king cast a perturbed glance in my direction, and I realized he had forgotten his line.

Just then, the rear door of the playhouse flew open, and Nick burst in, disheveled and panting.

"Well, take it off!" When Sander made no move to comply, Nick tugged at the bodice. "Did you hear me, Cooke? Get out of my costume!"

He had finished repairing his ghostly pallor and now sat staring at his reflection, not as if assessing his appearance, but as though the looking glass were a scrying glass and, like the gypsies he resembled, he was seeing into another time or place.

"He's a hard one to know. They say that, in his younger days, he was a good companion—and he still can be on occasion. But much of the time he's withdrawn and pensive. If having a touch of genius also means having so strong a dose of melancholy, I'll settle for merely being extremely talented."

It was not until a month or two later that I learned how Dr. Lopez had tried to poison the queen and been executed, and how all other Jews had been forced to renounce their religion or be banished.

One let out a sound reminiscent of a squalling baby; the other sounded uncannily like a stuck pig.

One let out a sound reminiscent of a squalling baby; the other sounded uncannily like a stuck pig.

I shook a finger in the ear that had borne the brunt of the noise.

"I ken that. I don't like it thought that I'm shirking me duties."

"It is the responsibility of your adversary to see that he strikes this, and not your gut. Of course, in Nick's case, it may be difficult to avoid."

He gave a wry glance at the pronounced belly Nick had begun to develop as a result of his regular carousing.

In the school of hard knocks where I had become a Master of Dodging, I had also learned to feign injury, as a way of lessening the severity of a beating.

"Very dramatic," Mr. Armin said dryly. "No one will even notice the principals, they'll be so busy looking at you."

I paced about behind the stage muttering "Pedringano, Pedringano" like an incantation.

It did calm me a bit, having something to do, and Sander was as good as his word, though he got me to the stage with a scant half-minute to spare.

"I remember well my first faltering steps upon the boards," Mr. Pope said.

To return to my story, I was given the part of gluttony in a play called Nature.

If I was in their company, Falconer could not accost me again.