Ink and Steel

January the sixth Twelfth Night dawned with a cold that settled over London like the locking of a chest, but even in winter of a plague year, festivity could be found. A solemn sort of merriment fought with nausea as Will peered through a gap in the draperies, amazed at the splendor of Westminster Palace bannered in holly and ivy and ablaze with more candles than a church. The great Gothic hall echoed with the busy footsteps of players and tirers, servants flitting like shadows through the bustle on any pretext to get a glimpse of the great Richard Burbage, of the famous Edward Alleyn. Alleyn was easy enough to mark: broad-shouldered as a monolith, his lips moving silently as he reviewed his cues. Burbage vanished twice for not above half an hour each time, and each time Will noticed a serving girl went missing simultaneously. One sweet dark-haired lass caught his own eye, and if it hadn’t been for fear of rumpling his doublet, he might have sought a kiss.

Just for luck.

But it was past time for that, and time to be tending to paint, reddening boys lips with carmine and lacing them into their corsetry. A black wig for Katharine and a blond wig for Bianca. Will swallowed his own fear: the younger boy, also named Edward, was trembling as Will made a mirror for his paint.

“Tis only a Queen you perform for,” Will said in the boy’s ear, tidying his kohled eye with a cloth. “Surely that’s happened before.”

Edward giggled, for all his cheeks stayed white as a bride s. Will patted Edward on the shoulder above his bodice before walking away. At least your name’s not under the title. He went to have Burbage mend his own painting. And found the round little player pacing five short steps, back and forth and back again.

Richard considered. “Too much on the lips.”

Too much indeed, Will thought, standing what seemed a moment later just out of the audience’s view.

There was the Queen, her chair surrounded by her admirers. Sir Walter Raleigh, glossy in his black, leaned to murmur in Her Majesty’s ear. Her hand came up to brush his shoulder, and the loosely sewn pearls on his doublet scattered at the snap of a thread. Will could plainly see the Queen’s condescending amusement at her favorite’s expensive conceit.

On her other side, ferret-faced Henry Wriothesley Southampton frowned at the dashing Earl of Essex in his white-and-gold, who frowned more deeply still at Raleigh, while Raleigh affected not to notice. Will noticed for all their posturing that it was Burghley’s son, Robert Cecil, to whom the Queen most often bent, and spoke, and smiled.

All fell silent as the prologue began. What would Marley do?The expected confidence did not burgeon Will, although Burbage stepped close enough to bolster him with a shoulder. But Marley was dead, or as good as: Will on his own, and‘boy: let him come, and kindly’— There’s my cue.

Will swallowed a painful bubble, let his hands fall relaxed to his sides, and stepped out on stage amid a swirl of trumpets, half convinced his voice would fail him.

“Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds:

Brach Merriman the poor cur is embossed;

And couple Clowder with the deep-mouthed brach.”

This is the stupidest thing I have ever written. She’ll have me whipped around town for stepping above my station.

A nothing part, a pompous lord, and Will had been playing on stage six years now. Still, his hand shook. The Queen. I am no Richard Burbage, to collect hearts like so many butterflies.

“Sawst thou not, boy, how Silver made it good

At the hedge corner, in the coldest fault?

I would not lose that dog for twenty pound.”

But the Queen was leaning forward in her chair, the last three fingers of her left hand moving in a faint, dismissive gesture when Essex tried to draw her attention. The Earl looked down sulkily, fiddling something in his lap. Over his shoulder, lord Burghley standing near to his son and a little further from the Queen caught Will’s eye. The boards creaked under Will’s foot. He upstaged the huntsman, forcing him to turn, so Will could follow Burghley’s gaze and catch a glimpse of Essex’s task. The Earl riffled the pages of a little book, an octavio, of a size for tucking in a sleeve or a pocket. He couldn’t be reading the playscript; it wasn’t published. And Southampton was leaning forward over Essex’s shoulder, his lips moving.

Interesting.

“Thou art a fool,

Will said.

If Echo were as fleet”

There was something, a pressure. Almost as if a stiff wind sprang up. But the Queen was laughing, and Will leaned on that, camped his dialogue, airy turn of a sleeve to offset a pompous thundering. The scene was almost all his, and he carried it. The prologue ended, and Will beat his retreat with a glance across the audience.