Love Disguised (3 page)

“You have already done so. Your tenant over on Mill Lane, William Burbage, calls you a robber.”

Will slipped away, keeping to himself the knowledge of his father's lawbreaking. One moment he felt contempt for him, the next moment pity. He wanted his father to be an honest glover and respected citizen again.

What did Will want for himself? Not to become his father,
for one thing. He thought of Ovid's Proteus,
changing aye his figure and his hue, From shape to shape a thousand times
. Will wondered what shape he would finally take. He might become an actor who, with a change of costume and a new manner of speaking, could be either a beggar or a king. He watched his own mind shift as wind stirs a field of wheat, until he found that his thoughts had ripened and were ready to harvest.

He went to his father. “I want to leave school.” The sound of his own deep voice surprised him. “I have enough learning.”

John Shakespeare laid down his needle and leaned his elbows on his work bench. “You do not want to become an Oxford philosopher? A lawyer at the Inns of Court?” He waved a hand at these airy fancies they could no longer afford.

Will eyed his father directly. “It is time for me to earn an
honest
living. To relieve our family's troubles.”

John Shakespeare frowned.

Will realized it would not do to anger him. “Whatever I earn I will send home,” he said with more humility.

“Don't beat about the bush. What labor do you intend to do?”

“I want to become a player.” The words rushed from Will's mouth. “I'll join Lord Warwick's company if he will have me. I will gain such renown the queen herself will ask me to perform for her.”

Again John Shakespeare laughed at his son's ambitions. “An
honest
living? A player is no better than a vagabond. Would you shame me thus?”

Will's retort came quickly. “You have already shamed this family by breaking the law with your wool trading.” He could feel his neck and face growing hot. “And by selling Wilmcote, the last of Mother's estates, which was to be my inheritance.”

John Shakespeare stood up and thrust aside his worktable, spilling its contents to the floor. He seized a strip of hide. It whistled through the air, snapped against Will's skin, and wrapped around his arm like a whip.

“Remember I am your father! You dare not speak to me so.”

Will pulled his arm free and clenched his fists to keep from striking back.

“You
will
leave school,” said John Shakespeare. “But it will be to learn
my
trade and none other.”

You're a tyrant!
Will wanted to shout.
But I am a rebel and will not submit!

“But Father, I am not meant to be a glovemaker,” Will protested.

His man's voice betrayed him, changing back into a boyish squeak.

London 1580

When Meg left the house on Addle Street for the last time she could think of nowhere to go but Moorfields, where she told Peter Flick and Davy Dapper that her house had burned down, killing her parents.

“Did ye set the fire?” asked Davy. He seemed disappointed when she said no. He told her he had been apprenticed to a carpenter but ran away because the work was too hard. When he smiled Meg saw his teeth were starting to rot.

“I'm an orphan too,” said Peter. “You're better off with no father than with one that beats you.” He showed Meg his broken nose. It made a clicking sound when he moved it from side to side.

When dusk fell she simply followed Davy and Peter through the city, across the great bridge to Southwark, and down Crooked Lane to the sign of the cock, a ruined shop they called their den. There she slept on what remained of the second floor, a narrow loft reached by a ladder. The boys' den was crammed with broken bits of furniture, empty sacks, and moldering cloth. The single window was always shuttered, making it dark within, though here and there could be
seen an unexpected gleam from a piece of gold braid, a ring, or an embroidered purse. Meg wondered but dared not ask how Davy and Peter had come to own such rich trifles. She was simply grateful for a place to sleep and companions against her loneliness.

Meg continued to pretend she was a boy. She had seen girls her age strolling along the wharves who were already bawds. She understood what had happened between her mother and the priest. She did not tell Peter or Davy that her mother was a murderess, though she suspected this would raise her in their esteem. Her companions talked much about crime. Davy had even been arrested. Through him Meg learned that the magistrate's mercy had a price. If her mother could have paid it, her father would still be alive. The sight of beggars saddened her, and when they were kicked and spat upon it roused her to anger.

Davy and Peter often resorted to St. Paul's Church. Meg accompanied them and was filled with amazement. No one prayed but rather strolled in a great crowd up and down the nave as casually as if it were a street. Peter thrust a purse into her hand and whispered, “Run!” She obeyed, fleeing so fast that her heels kicked her rump. When the boys caught up with her they were gleeful.

“How were we to know he was a fleet-foot?” Peter said as they congratulated each other. “He'll be an asset to our trade.”

Meg asked what that was, for she had never seen them labor or trade in anything.

“Our business is to unburden persons of that which they take no proper care of,” Davy explained, showing his black grin.

“Why, you are thieves!” said Meg.

“So are you,” said Peter, scowling. “You'd be dead as a doornail if you hadn't been stealing food all this while.”

Meg fell silent at the truth of his words.

“Come, you minnow!” said Davy, prodding her. “What wrong is there in relieving the rich of their excess? We will show you how it's done.”

Meg, who was tired of being poor through no fault of her own, consented. It became her job to spy out a careless or aimless person and signal to Peter where the gull wore his purse. While Davy engaged him in conversation, Peter, with a flick of a knife against a horn-covered thumb, cut his purse strings. He passed the purse to Meg, who stuffed it down the front of her trousers, where its weight caused her no small discomfort. Her mind was also uneasy, but she put aside her misgivings rather than offend her only friends.

With Meg's small share of the purse she bought herself a simple doublet and hose and a velvet cap. She was keeping a close eye on her slim body lest it grow round and betray her. The way Davy and Peter talked about women caused her to blush, even made her a little fearful. She dropped the remaining coins through the grate of the Wood Street jail so the prisoners could purchase bread or a blanket from their jailers.

Davy and Peter spent their larger share on the fashionable clothing gallants wore and lost the rest gaming.

Not every day was given to cutting purses. Some days they enjoyed innocent pranks. Meg's favorite was to climb the belltower in the yard of St. Paul's. There they scraped off the pigeon dung with a knife and dropped it on the heads of passersby, whose outrage left the trio weak with laughter. But
when a rival band of roisterers moved into the churchyard, Davy and Peter decided to seek out a new haunt across the city. What drew them to the Boar's Head Inn were the people crowding into the front gate. Whether the entertainment was a cockfight or a troupe of jugglers, a crowd meant an opportunity for thieves to ply their trade.

They paid a penny each to enter the innyard. The benches and galleries overlooking the wooden stage were nearly filled.

“I expect to be many times repaid,” murmured Davy, rubbing his hands together.

“To it, Mack. Spy out a gull,” said Peter.

Meg nodded toward an old man with his purse dangling in full view.

“I'll greet him now,” said Davy. “Follow me, Peter; stay close, Mack.”

But Meg's eye was caught by the movement on the stage. Two soldiers charged each other, their swords clashing. One groaned and blood seemed to spurt from him as he fell down dead. The very timbers of the stage shook.

“No, let's watch this action,” said Meg. “I've never seen a play.”

The victor began to deliver a lofty speech, whereupon the dead soldier sat up and thrust his sword into him. Meg gasped and stood on her toes, trying to see the wound.

“Come, Mack!” Peter's horn-thumb tapped the underside of his palm.

“Go snare him yourselves,” she said in vexation.

Onstage the players ranted, fought, embraced their queens, fought again, and died a second time. Meg clapped until her
palms hurt. She forgot about Davy and Peter, her petty crimes, her lost parents, everything but the present moment. The hostess of the inn passed before her carrying a pitcher of ale in each hand, her teeth as big as a horse's as she laughed at the stableboy trying to juggle oranges. One bright, round fruit fell to the ground. A woman seated beside Meg grabbed it and tossed the boy a penny. The players uttered words such as Meg had never heard before, words that fell on her ears like the measured beat of a drum. The woman with the fragrant orange leaned against Meg, called her “sweet boy,” and offered her a slice of the fruit. Here was a new world of comfort and good cheer, and Meg's heart stirred with longing to be in it.

“Heigh-ho! Seize those scoundrels!”

Meg looked aside to see Peter and Davy pushing their way through the crowd. They leaped onto the stage and off again, pulling down the curtain on the startled actors. Two men pursued them across the stage. The audience roared with laughter, thinking this was a part of the play, until the actors began to curse.

My friends are in trouble
, thought Meg, jumping to her feet and running after them.

“There goes a third one!” Meg heard the man's voice behind her and felt someone grab her cloak.

“I'll make you pay, thief!” The man's stinking breath assaulted Meg. He twisted the fabric at her neck, choking her.

She screamed. “Peter! Davy! Help me!”

They glanced over their shoulders at her but did not stop or even slow down.

Meg struggled against her captor. She managed to untie
the cloak, leaving it in the man's hand as she fled. She ran until the cries and footsteps behind her faded into silence. Peter and Davy were nowhere to be seen. She turned right and left, calling their names in a low voice. She was in a maze of narrow lanes, where she wandered until she emerged on the riverbank. Before her the swift-moving water glimmered in the twilight; the bridge was only a short distance away.

As long as she could see the river, Meg was not lost.

On her right hand loomed the Tower, a fortress where the worst criminals in all of England were kept. Meg imagined their moans and the clanking of chains. How close she had come to being caught! She knew that Peter and Davy would not rescue her. No, they had betrayed her. She never wanted to see them again.

Misery enveloped Meg like black water, and with a stab of sorrow she thought of her drowned mother. She turned her back on the river and huddled in the lee of an old stable, wrapped in growing darkness and knowing there was not a soul alive who cared for her, not even the woman at the Boar's Head Inn who had called her a sweet boy. She longed for another bite of that orange. But she was penniless again and lacked even the warmth of her cloak.

Perhaps Meg slept. When she stirred again it was long past curfew. The houses were all dark and the only light came from the pale moon. She sensed someone approaching and all her muscles braced for flight. The figure clung to the shadows, but Meg slowly made out the thin man carrying a long hook and creeping from house to house, looking up at the windows.

At once Meg knew how to save herself. She would have to commit another crime, but she promised herself it would be her last one. As stealing food had been necessary to keep from starving, so was this new misdeed necessary if she wanted to live an honest life.

The man with the hook, a curber by profession, did not see Meg. She had the advantage of surprise. With a pounding heart she waited until he was upon her, then she leaped up and threw an arm around his neck, cutting off his breath. This was a move she learned while wrestling with Davy and Peter.

“Unhand me!” he cried, choking and dropping his hook as he tried to pull Meg's arm away.

“Do as I say,” said Meg in a low-pitched voice, “or I'll raise the hue and cry and your profitable night strolling will end.”

The curber tried to nod. Meg released him, satisfied to see that he trembled. “What's your name?” she demanded.

“Nick Grabwill,” he said, rubbing his neck with a wrinkled hand. With a start, Meg realized she had assaulted an old man.

“Pick up your hook, Nick, and filch me a bodice and skirt,” she said in a courteous tone. “Nothing cheap.”

Grabwill sighed but proceeded through the silent streets, shadowed by Meg. He lifted a pillow from one open window, a
man's shirt from another. The hook disappeared a third time, whereupon Meg heard sharp, high-pitched crying.

“Go to! Have you snatched a babe from its cradle?” she whispered.

Grabwill hurriedly withdrew his hook and they ducked into an alley. The babe's cries ceased. Meg's throat was dry.

“Give me the hook,” she said. At the next open window, she guided the hook to where she imagined a bedpost with clothing hanging from it might be. Something—a lantern or metal cup—clattered to the floor inside.

“Who goes there!” came a man's voice at the window.

Meg ran, dragging the curber behind her. On a street by the wharf they paused before a three-storied house with its upper windows flung open to the fishy air.

Grabwill smiled. “Here's many a skirt to be picked up with ease. Let's try our fortunes within.”

“What do you mean?” said Meg.