Bernard Cornwell - Fools and Mortals

‘Yes.’

‘Make sure it’s returned to the tiring room,’ he said snidely, then stopped in the wall’s gap. He let John Heminges walk ahead, and then, for the first time since we had met at the ditch’s edge, looked up into my eyes. He had to look up because I was a full head taller. ‘You are going to stay with the company?’ he asked.

‘I can’t afford to,’ I said. ‘I owe rent. You’re not giving me enough work.’

‘Then stop spending your evenings in the Falcon,’ was his answer. I thought he would say no more because he walked on, but after two paces he turned back to me. ‘You’ll get more work,’ he said brusquely. ‘With Augustine sick and his boy sweating? We have to replace them.’

‘You won’t give me Augustine’s parts,’ I said, ‘and I’m too old to play girls.’

‘You’ll play what we ask you to play. We need you, at least through the winter.’

‘You need me!’ I threw that back into his face. ‘Then pay me more.’

He ignored the demand. ‘We begin today by rehearsing Hester ,’ he said coldly, ‘we’ll only be working on Augustine and Christopher’s scenes. Tomorrow we’ll perform Hester , and we’ll play the Comedy on Saturday. I expect you to be here.’

I shrugged. In Hester and Ahasuerus I played Uashti, and in the Comedy I was Emilia. I knew all the lines. ‘You pay William Sly twice what you pay me,’ I said, ‘and my parts are just as large as his.’

‘Maybe because he’s twice as good as you? Besides, you’re my brother,’ he said, as if that explained everything. ‘Just stay through the winter, and after that? Do what you will. Leave the company and starve, if that’s what you want.’ He walked on towards the playhouse.

And I spat after him. Brotherly love.

George Bryan paced to the front of the stage, where he bowed so low that he almost lost his balance. ‘Noble Prince,’ he said when he recovered his footing, ‘according as I am bound, I will do you service till death me do confound.’

Isaiah Humble, the bookkeeper, coughed to attract attention. ‘Sorry! It’s “till death me confound”. There’s no “do”. Sorry!’

‘It’s better with the “do”,’ my brother said mildly.

‘It’s crapulous shit with or without the “do”,’ Alan Rust said, ‘but if George wants to say “do”, Master Humble, then he says “do”.’

‘Sorry,’ Isaiah said from his stool at the back of the stage.

‘You were right to correct him,’ my brother consoled him, ‘it’s your job.’

‘Sorry, though.’

George swept off his hat and bowed again. ‘Something, something, something,’ he said, ‘till death me do confound.’ George Bryan, a nervous and worried man who somehow always appeared confident and decisive when the playhouse was full, had replaced the sick Augustine Phillips. The rehearsal was to bind him and Simon Willoughby, who had replaced Christopher Beeston, into the play.

John Heminges acknowledged George’s second bow with a languid wave of a hand. ‘For a season we will, to our solace, into our orchard or some other place.’

Will Kemp bounded onto the stage with a mighty leap. ‘He that will drink wine,’ he bellowed, ‘and hath never a vine, must send or go to France. And if he do not he must needs shrink!’ On the word shrink he crouched, looked alarmed, and clutched his codpiece, which sent Simon Willoughby into a fit of giggling.

‘Do we go to the orchard?’ George interrupted Will Kemp to ask.

‘The orchard, yes,’ Isaiah said, ‘or some other place. That’s what it says in the text, “orchard or some other place”.’ He waved the prompt copy. ‘Sorry, Will.’

‘I’d like to know if it is the orchard.’

‘Why?’ Alan Rust asked belligerently.

‘Do I imagine trees? Or some other place without trees?’ George looked anxious. ‘It helps to know.’

‘Imagine trees,’ Rust barked. ‘Apple trees. Where you meet Hardydardy.’ He gestured towards Will Kemp.

‘Are the apples ripe?’ George asked.

‘Does it matter?’ Rust asked.

‘If they’re ripe,’ George said, still looking worried, ‘I could eat one.’

‘They’re small apples,’ Rust said, ‘unripe, like Simon’s tits.’

‘Isn’t this a tale from the scriptures?’ John Heminges put in.

‘My tits aren’t small,’ Simon Willoughby said, hefting his scrawny chest.

‘It’s from the Old Testament,’ my brother said, ‘you’ll find the story in the Book of Esther.’

‘But there’s no one called Hardydardy in the Bible!’ John Heminges said.

‘There bloody well is now,’ Alan Rust said. ‘Can we move on?’

‘Book of Esther?’ George asked. ‘Then why is she called Hester?’

‘Because the Reverend William Venables, who wrote this piece of shit, didn’t know his arse from his shrivelled prick,’ Alan Rust said forcefully. ‘Now will you all be quiet and let Will speak his lines?’

‘If it’s so bad,’ George asked, ‘why are we doing it again?’

‘Can you think of another play we can fit by tomorrow?’

‘No.’

‘Then that’s why.’

‘Go on, Will,’ my brother said tiredly.

‘There’s a loose board here,’ George said, stubbing his toe at the front of the stage, ‘that’s why I almost fell over when I bowed.’

‘I lack both drink and meat,’ Will Kemp appealed to the empty galleries of the Theatre, ‘but, as I say, a dog hath a day, my time is come to get some!’

‘Get some!’ Simon Willoughby almost peed himself with laughter. He had arrived at the Theatre before me, and looked surprisingly sprightly and alert. ‘You didn’t go home last night?’ I had asked him, but instead of answering he just grinned. ‘Did he pay you?’ I asked.

‘Perhaps.’

‘You can lend me some?’

‘I’m needed onstage,’ he had said, and hurried away.

‘Shouldn’t that be “meat and drink”?’ George now interrupted the rehearsal again.

‘It’s my line,’ Will Kemp growled, ‘why should you care?’

Isaiah peered at the text. ‘No,’ he said, ‘Will got it right, it’s “drink and meat”, sorry.’

I was feeling tired, so I wandered out of the yard and through the shadowed entrance tunnel where Jeremiah Poll, an old soldier who had lost an eye in Ireland, guarded the outer gate. ‘It’s going to rain again,’ he said as I passed, and I nodded. Jeremiah said it every time I passed him, even on the warmest, driest days. I could hear the clash and scrape of blades, and emerged into the weak sunlight to see Richard Burbage and Henry Condell practising their sword skills. They were fast, their blades darting, retreating, crossing, and lunging. Henry laughed at something Richard Burbage said, then saw me, and his sword went upwards as he stepped back and motioned with his dagger hand for the practice to stop. They both turned to look at me, but I pretended not to have noticed them and went to the door that led to the galleries. I heard them laugh as I stepped through.

I climbed the short stairs to the lower gallery, from where I glanced across at the stage where George was still fretting about apples or loose planks, then, as the sound of the swords started again, I lay down. I was playing Uashti, a queen of Persia, but my lines would not be needed for at least an hour, and so I closed my eyes.

I was woken by a kick to my legs and opened my eyes to see James Burbage standing over me. ‘There are Percies in your house,’ he said.

‘There are what?’ I asked, struggling to wake and stand up.

‘Percies,’ he said, ‘in your house. I just walked past.’

‘They’re there for Father Laurence,’ I explained, ‘the bastards.’