Bernard Cornwell - Fools and Mortals

‘He hates us?’

‘Gyles Allen has seen the light. He has become a Puritan. He now regrets leasing the land for use as a playhouse and wishes to evict us. He cannot, because the law is on our side for once. But either he, or one of our other enemies, informed against us.’

‘But it wasn’t true!’

‘Of course the accusation wasn’t true. Truth does not matter in matters of faith, only belief. We are being harassed.’

I thought he would say more, but he went back to his writing. A red kite sailed past the window and settled on the ridge of a nearby tiled roof. I watched the bird, but it did not move. My brother’s quill scratched. ‘What are you writing?’ I asked.

‘A letter.’

‘So the new play is finished?’ I asked.

‘You heard as much from Lord Hunsdon.’ Scratch scratch .

‘ A Midsummer Night’s Dream ?’

‘Your memory works. Good.’

‘In which I’ll play a man?’ I asked suspiciously.

His answer was to sigh again, then look through a heap of paper to find one sheet, which he wordlessly passed to me. Then he started writing again.

The page was a list of parts and players. Peter Quince was written at the top, and next to it was my brother’s name. The rest looked like this:

The last four names had no actors assigned to them, and they intrigued me. Pease-Blossome … Cobweb … I assumed they were fairies, but all I really cared about was that I was to play a man! ‘Francis Flute is a man?’ I asked, just to be sure.

‘Indeed he is,’ my brother wrote a few words, ‘so you will have to cut your hair. But not till just before the performance. Till then you must play your usual parts.’

‘Cut my hair?’

‘You want to play a man? You must appear as a man.’ He paused, nib poised above the paper. ‘Bellows menders do not wear their hair long.’

‘Francis Flute is a bellows mender?’ I asked, and could not keep the disappointment from my voice.

‘What did you expect him to be? A wandering knight? A tyrant?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘no. I just want to play a man.’

‘And you shall,’ he said, ‘you shall.’

‘Can I see the part?’ I asked eagerly.

‘Isaiah is copying it, so no.’

‘What’s the play about?’

He scratched a few more words. ‘Love.’

‘Because it’s a wedding?’

‘Because it’s a wedding.’

‘And I mend bellows at a wedding?’

‘I would not recommend it. I merely indicated your trade so you will know your place in society, as must we all.’

‘So what does Francis Flute do in the play?’

He paused to select a new sheet of paper. ‘You fall in love. You are a lover.’

For a moment I almost liked him. A lover! Onstage it is the lovers who strut, who draw swords, who make impassioned speeches, who have the audience’s sympathy, and who send folk back to their ordinary lives with an assurance that fate can triumph. A lover! ‘Who do I love?’ I asked.

He paused to dip the quill in his inkpot again, drained the nib carefully, and began writing on the new page. ‘What did the Reverend Venables want of you?’ he asked.

‘Venables?’ I was taken aback by the question.

‘Some weeks ago,’ he said, ‘after we performed his piece of dross, the Reverend Venables had words with you. What did he want?’

‘He thought I played Uashti well,’ I stammered.

‘Now tell me the truth.’

I paused, trying to gather my thoughts. ‘He’d heard that I might leave the company.’

‘Indeed. I told him so. And?’

‘He wanted me to stay,’ I lied.

The pen scratched. ‘He didn’t suggest you join the Earl of Lechlade’s new company?’ I said nothing, and that silence was eloquence enough. My brother smiled, or perhaps he sneered. ‘He did. Yet you have promised me to stay with the company through the winter.’

‘I did promise that.’

He nodded, then laid the quill down and sifted through the pile of papers. ‘You are always complaining that you lack money.’ He found the sheets he wanted, and, without looking at me, held them towards me. ‘Copy the part of Titania. I will pay you two shillings, and I want it done by Monday. Pray ensure it is legible.’

I took the sheets. ‘By Monday?’

‘We will begin rehearsing on Monday. At Blackfriars.’

‘Blackfriars?’

‘There’s an echo in the room,’ he said, handing me some clean sheets of paper. ‘Lord Hunsdon and his family are wintering in their Blackfriars mansion. We shall perform the play in their great hall.’

I felt another surge of happiness. Silvia was there! And there was a second pulse of joy at the thought of playing a man at last. ‘Who is Titania?’ I asked, wondering if she would end up in my arms.

‘The fairy queen. Do not lose those pages.’

‘So the play is about fairies?’

‘All plays are about fairies. Now go.’

I went.

I enjoyed copying. Not everyone likes the task, but I never resented it. I usually copied a part I would play, and writing the lines helped me to memorise them, but I was happy to copy other actors’ parts too.

Every actor received his part, and no other, which meant that for this wedding play there would be fifteen or so copied parts, which, if they were joined together, would make the whole play. Isaiah Humble, the bookkeeper, would have a complete copy, and usually another would be sent to the Master of the Revels, so he could ensure that no treason would be spoken onstage, though as our play would be a private performance in a noble house that permission was probably unnecessary. Besides, Sir Edmund Tilney, the Master of the Revels, was appointed by the Lord Chamberlain, who had already approved the play.

I worked in Father Laurence’s room. He lived just beneath my attic in the Widow Morrison’s house. His room had a large table beneath a north-facing window. The room was also much warmer than mine. He had a hearth in which a sea-coal fire was burning, and beside which he sat wrapped in a woollen blanket, so that, with just his bald head showing, he looked like some aged tortoise. ‘Say it aloud, Richard,’ he encouraged me.

‘I’m only just starting, father.’

‘Aloud!’ he said again.

I had written down the words immediately before Titania’s entrance, the last two lines that Puck said, followed by a line from a fairy whose name was not given. Then came a stage direction which brought Oberon and Titania onstage. ‘“Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,”’ I said aloud.