The Shakespeare Stealer: Chapters 23-27

Only twice did I share the stage with our Hamlet, Mr. Burbage, and then only to work out where I was to move and on what line. He was patient enough with me and my blunders, but he seldom displayed any real warmth or friendliness.

That week was a paradoxical one. Because I trod the same ground over and over, repeating my lines until they threatened to choke me, each day seemed endless. Yet taken as a whole, the week passed with astounding speed.

When at long last we came to the end of it, I had made up my mind that my best course would be to share Ophelia's fate—that is, to throw myself over the side of the wherry boat into the Thames and join the rest of the offal there, none of which could be any more putrid than my performance had been.

Immediately after the performance of Satiromastix, the company set out for Whitehall, on a barge provided by Her Majesty—a gesture not unlike providing the cart to haul a condemned man to the scaffold.

We would not be set apart from our distinguished audience at all; instead, we would be playing practically in their royal laps.

Julia found me there and pulled me like a balky sheep to the stage entrance.

The moment I stood before that glittering crowd of sumptuously dressed courtiers, I lapsed into a sort of dream.

The moment I stood before that glittering crowd of sumptuously dressed courtiers, I lapsed into a sort of dream.

As I had survived my orphanage days by pretending I was someone else, someone whose parents still lived and were great and wealthy and would someday come for him, so I survived my hour or so upon the stage by pretending I was a wistful Danish girl, driven mad by love.

She looked far too young and sprightly to have worn the crown for over forty years.

When she stood before me, her face not three feet from mine, I saw that the fair complexion was a layer of white paint, a ghastly mask, through which her age clearly showed, and the red hair the result of dye.

I bowed quickly, as much to hide my shock as to do homage to her.

I had undergone a more dramatic change, from a shabby impostor, a thief and orphan who had been given a task far beyond his abilities, into a reliable, valued member of an acting company who performed daily at the center of the universe.

I had been persuaded that she and I were friends, and though I knew little as yet about what friendship entailed, I felt that surely a friend would wish to say farewell.

His face was shrouded in a dark hood, leaving only a hooked nose and a black, curly beard by which to identify him.

"From the way you bolted, I'd guess you're not on the best of terms."
I couldn't help smiling grimly at this understatement.

"You won't tell the others?"
"How can I not? If that fellow is still planning to steal the book, they need to know."
"'A won't come near the Globe himself. 'A's too canny for that."

What was I doing dressed in soldier's garb, with an oversized sword dragging the floor at my side? What had ever made me imagine that I could impersonate someone else, that I could be anything other than Widge, the orphan, the unwilling prentice of some unsympathetic master in some unbearable trade?

In the perpetual gloom that prevailed behind the stage, I could see a faint light issuing through the crack at the bottom of the door.

Was Nick within, searching for the book? Or was it some member of the company—Mr. Heminges, perhaps, seeking a moment of solitude in which to balance his accounts?

I stumbled from the property room and ran headlong into Mr. Armin.

He stared at my gory costume. "What in heaven's name—?"

I did my best to keep up, but I was hampered by the metal plate, which pinched my skin with every step.

To my surprise, our wiry wherryman, spurred on by the promise of more money, slowly closed the gap between Nick's boat and ours.

The boat careened, and water poured over the gunwales, overturning it and spilling us into the rushing river.

The feeling of being flung into that whirling world of water is one I fervently hope never to experience again.

The seething water tossed me this way and that.

Curiously, even in my panic, a portion of my mind stood apart, observing my plight, as it had done during the performance at Whitehall.

Still, I trotted along in silence, not wishing to do or say anything irksome; my position was precarious enough already.

Still, I trotted along in silence, not wishing to do or say anything irksome; my position was precarious enough already.

"'A's tall and swarthy, wi' a black, unruly beard and a long scar on one cheek. 'A wears a dark cloak wi' the hood drawn up, and will have a brown horse, most like."

To my surprise, Falconer did not set upon him in the fierce and ruthless manner he had used to dispatch the band of outlaws. In truth, he seemed almost cautious.

He tossed back the right edge of his cloak so it would not obstruct his sword arm, then grasped the other edge in his left hand and, with one deft movement, wrapped the hem of it twice around his forearm.

Falconer's horse stood alongside the road a dozen yards off, grazing blithely, with no interest in his master's quarrels.

He seized the blade of Mr. Armin's sword in his cloak-wrapped hand and, with a contemptuous gesture, jerked it free and flung it aside.

For a moment, it seemed as though he had not been wounded at all. It was a trick, I thought, a collapsible sword.

This was not sheep's blood spurting from a bag, but his own life's blood draining away, and no amount of bandaging would staunch it.

The sensation was something like what I'd felt for Julia, when she had been forced to relinquish her position as a player.

The Chamberlain's Men were more lenient than I expected or deserved. Both Mr. Pope and Mr. Armin argued on my behalf. Even Mr. Shakespeare, who had most cause to call for my dismissal, seemed inclined to forgive me.

Only Jack spoke out against me, and not very vehemently.

"You needn't look so forlorn. Come, now, smile a little. For me?"

Now I understood why she had left us before without any farewell. Parting was not, as I had heard one of Mr. Shakespeare's characters say, a sweet sorrow. It was bitter as gall.

"She's a plucky girl."

"We'd best be heading home now, boys. Goody Willingson has promised us toad-in-the-hole for tonight's repast."

For every ken and wis and aye I had dropped from my vocabulary, I had picked up a dozen new and useful terms. Some were fencing terms, some were peculiar to London, some were the jargon of the players' trade.