Her Last Assassin (11 page)

Will considered that possibility for a moment. A wealthy and noble patron to support his writing?

This could be the chance he had been hoping for. He loved to tread the boards, to see his work played out upon the fierce power and bustle of the stage. But to write poetry, long poems like those by Ovid and Virgil that he had studied as a boy in Stratford – that would lend his career true distinction.

‘I wish I had spoken with him,’ he muttered.

‘Where were you yesterday? I had Robert stand in for your part, though you were missed by the groundlings. These sudden absences are not like you.’ Burbage looked at him closely. ‘I trust you were ill. Too ill to send word. Or else working on this new comedy and lost in a reverie, so you did not mark the time?’

Will did not meet his gaze. In truth, he had been with Lucy again all day, walking by the slow-rolling Thames, out beyond the city walls where the woods and fields stretched green and peaceful. He felt more at home there than in the city, reminded of Warwickshire’s damp woodlands. He knew he should not have missed the afternoon performance but it was rare for Lucy to find an opportunity to escape her duties at court, the Queen guarded her ladies so jealously these days. To be with her for a few hours had seemed worth the sacrifice of his pay.

James Burbage seemed to guess at his thoughts. ‘With lovely Mistress Morgan, were you? You are a young fool. But a fool in love writes better than a fool alone. Only do not make a habit of it. Trust a wily old husband and take my advice on this, my young cockerel.’ He clapped Will on the shoulder. ‘You spend too much time with Lucy Morgan. Soon you will have two wives, and no mistress.’

Will frowned. ‘Two wives?’

Burbage hesitated before answering, for it had gone quiet on stage. The final love scene, no doubt.

‘You take her too seriously, Will.’

‘How so?’

Instinctively, Will had also turned his head to listen to the players. He knew the scene well, had watched it often enough in rehearsal, had written and rewritten the lines himself. A man making love to a boy dressed as a girl. Out in the wide O of the Rose, a falsetto trembled above the silence of the groundlings; a man answered softly, wooing a youthful apprentice with the shadow of early hair on his chin and rags for breasts swelling out the bodice of his gown.

‘A man should visit his mistress with a light heart, and make her no promises,’ Burbage told him in a whisper. ‘Else he will come to dread her company as much as his wife’s.’

‘I have no wife,’ Will told him flatly.

He turned, dipping his hands into the freshly filled water bowl, and hurriedly washed the sweat from his face, then dunked his head. With water dripping down the back of his neck, he straightened, running his fingers through his wet hair to smooth it down.

‘Anne is a woman who shares my bed a few nights of the year, and claims to be the mother of my children. That is all.’

Burbage threw Will a cloth to dry himself. His face unreadable, the old theatrical watched him from under thick brows. ‘I am sorry to hear it, Will. Yet she is still your wife in the eyes of the law.’

‘I know that only too well,’ Will replied drily, rubbing at his wet hair with the cloth. ‘Nor am I likely to forget it.’

Music swelled through the theatre, signalling the end of the play. A jig was played and some of the players danced, their heavy steps thudding and creaking against wood to the rhythmic clapping of the groundlings. Then they heard an excited hubbub of voices and a sound like distant thunder as the crowd moved as one, heading for the doors out into the yard where the stallholders and the whores awaited their arrival, and thence into the busy street.

‘I should go to the gate, check that our noble patrons had all they desired today,’ Burbage muttered, tidying away the last of the armour in the properties chest.

Just as Will was reaching for his plain brown doublet and hose, the doors to the tiring-room were flung open. In poured the rest of the players, sweaty-faced, tugging at their too-warm costumes and laughing at some joke. With them came a tide of other folk, more tiring-men to assist the noisy players off with their costumes, a woman bearing a tray of ale and roast nuts, and the irascible stage-keeper with his book and broom, complaining about the untidy state of the theatre.

‘How now, Burbage? Did you receive my message?’

Will turned, dressed in nothing but his shirt, surprised to hear such a refined voice in the coarse hubbub and banter of the tiring-room. The owner of the voice was a young man with a weary look on his face, his beard fashionably pointed, his eyes heavy-lidded. By his rich doublet and cloak, the soft kid boots on his feet and the large pearl earring he wore, he proclaimed himself a wealthy man.

It was the Earl of Southampton, the young lord who had discovered him with Lucy at court.

Behind the youth stood an older man, wearing livery and with a stout dagger at his belt. A fine cloak was draped over his arm. Presumably his servant.

The Earl of Southampton looked across at Burbage commandingly.

‘This is the very man you seek, my lord,’ Burbage told him, and pushed Will forward.

The nobleman turned to survey Will, examining him from head to toe. An unexpected enthusiasm crept into his expression.

‘William Shakespeare?’

Will bowed respectfully, still dressed in nothing but his shirt.

‘You probably do not recall the occasion, but we met briefly at court once. My name is Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton.’

The young man’s eyes, oddly intense, never left Will’s as he spoke. He did not mention Lucy, but Will felt her unspoken name weigh heavily in the silence between them.

He hesitated. ‘Yes, my lord, I remember.’

‘I left word with Master Burbage here that I wished to speak with you. I take great pleasure in attending your plays, Master Shakespeare, and wish to encourage you in your work, for I have some knowledge of the theatre myself.’

Will was surprised. ‘You write too?’

The earl shrugged, a look of boyish disdain on his face. ‘A few little things, mostly to be performed before my friends at university. Nothing of worth.’

The players around them disrobed in near silence, watching the newcomer and listening with unabashed curiosity, for although the nobility sometimes passed backstage on their way up to the gallery – to avoid rubbing shoulders with commoners in the narrow corridors – they did not often welcome noblemen to the tiring-room after a performance.

The earl glanced about himself with interest, seeming to enjoy his visit backstage. Burbage had stopped to help one of the apprentices who was struggling with his queenly gown. The rags stuffed in the lad’s bodice had made convincing breasts, and now he stripped off to reveal padding about his narrow hips and arse, a curly red wig sitting awry on his close-shaven head.

‘So that is how it is done,’ Henry Wriothesley murmured, turning to smile at Will. ‘We did much the same in the university dramas. I played a woman of loose morals once, and was so convincing, I nearly fooled the Dean when he caught sight of me in the cloisters. He became quite apoplectic and shouted for the porters, thinking a whore had been smuggled into the college.’

Will grinned.

‘Tell me, have you ever thought of writing epic poetry?’ the earl asked, and perched on a side table while Will hurriedly dressed.

‘Yes, my lord.’ He fumbled with the fastening of his hose, wishing his clothes were not so humble. ‘Many times. But epic poems do not sell well unless—’

‘Unless the poet can find himself a noble patron?’

‘Just so, my lord.’

Henry Wriothesley nodded. ‘Then look no further, William Shakespeare. I shall be your patron, and furnish you with whatever help you require to write a poetic epic.’

His gaze flashed over Will’s plain brown doublet, then he snapped his fingers at the servant who had accompanied him.

The man drew a leather purse out of his jacket and threw it across to Will.

Will caught it and stood astonished, weighing the purse in his hand. So Burbage had been right when he thought Southampton was looking for a writer to support. But this was more than he had expected. The purse was heavy, enough to pay his lodgings for a few months. Or to put aside in the hope of buying a share in Burbage’s theatrical company one day, and so raising himself from humble player to part-owner.

‘That purse shall be my first incentive to you. Only for my sake, make it a love poem that you write,’ the earl insisted, standing again. He held a pomander to his nose, for the confined space smelt of men’s sweat and spilt ale, and he seemed suddenly impatient to leave. He gestured to his manservant, who approached and swung the cloak about the young man’s shoulders. ‘For poetry was invented to express love. And let it be written on a classical theme, if you know any.’

‘Venus and Adonis?’

Henry Wriothesley glanced back at him from the door, smiling, though clearly surprised by the speed of his response. ‘An inspired choice. You know the Latin original?’

Will gave an answering smile. ‘Yes, my lord. Ovid is a poet of great subtlety and range, and the comfort of my quieter hours since I was a boy.’

‘I am glad to hear you enjoyed an education in the Roman poets.’ The Earl of Southampton hesitated, looking back at him, then nodded briskly. ‘Send it to me when the thing is done.’

Will bowed very low, unable to believe his luck in having obtained such a lucrative commission. ‘You have my grateful thanks for this opportunity to prove myself, my lord.’

A playwright was a poor thing in the eyes of the court, he thought, writing for common groundlings and merchants, and paid only a few shillings for his sweat. But a poet was a creature set apart, and held far higher in courtly estimation than a backstreet theatrical. This poem on Venus and Adonis might not simply swell out his empty pockets, but confirm his reputation at the English court.

And who was at court but Lucy Morgan?

Seven

‘B
UT
Y
OUR
M
AJESTY
must see that I cannot be expected to remain at home,’ the Earl of Essex complained, turning impatiently from his contemplation of the bustling river below the walls at Hampton Court, ‘not when men like Drake are permitted to sail forth in your honour, seizing foreign lands for England. It is not right that gentry and commoners should take to the seas in your service, ungoverned by the hand of any nobleman. My stepfather would never have allowed such an outrage, and nor shall I, now that I have replaced him as your advisor.’

‘No one could ever replace dear Robert,’ she muttered, but Leicester’s stepson was no longer listening to her.

Elizabeth sighed, fanning herself as she watched him pace the room. The Earl of Essex was still only a young man of twenty-three years. Yet he expected to be accorded the same respect and honours as her more experienced statesmen, some of them twice his age.

Still, Robbie did make her smile at times. She was amused by this hothead who looked so much like Leicester, though incensed by his churlish refusal to bow to her authority. They were alone in the chamber where she had been dancing galliards that morning to keep her spirits up and her body strong. The musicians had been dismissed when Essex arrived in a temper, demanding to know why he was not on the list of men sailing out on English raids against Spain.

‘It is too dangerous, Robbie,’ she told him softly. ‘I could not bear it if they brought your body home, laid out cold and stiff under a flag, as they did with young Pip Sidney.’

‘I have ridden into battle before. I fought alongside Sidney in that brave charge at Zutphen.’ The Earl of Essex sounded almost scathing, seeming to care nothing for the courtesy due her as his queen. ‘And I amply proved myself in the Low Countries, did I not? Or have you forgotten the praise my stepfather lavished on my courage and swordsmanship during those early campaigns against the Spanish? I am no child to be held back from war on a woman’s whim!’

‘Nor was Pip,’ she pointed out drily. ‘Sir Philip Sidney was a seasoned campaigner and a stout-hearted soldier. Yet he failed to come home from the Low Countries alive. His loss still grieves my heart sorely.’

‘Then let me avenge him!’

‘No,’ she insisted stubbornly. ‘I have lost too many good men to death these past few years, both at home and abroad. I would not lose you too.’

‘But this is nonsense! Nonsense!’ Essex was angry now. He stripped off his gloves, slapping them sharply across his palm. ‘What use is a tethered hound when the horn calls him to hunt? Or a hawk with his wings and talons clipped?’

‘You forget yourself, my lord, and your sworn allegiance to this throne.’ Her temper rose swiftly to match his. ‘I am your queen, and I say you shall not go to Spain, but stay here at court where you belong.’

‘I belong nowhere. I am a free English nobleman.’

Heat mounted in her cheeks. ‘God’s death!’ she exclaimed. ‘You are not free to do as you wish. As an English nobleman, you are my subject and you will obey me, sir!’

‘I am of royal blood too!’ he countered furiously, head held high, then saw her expression.