Bernard Cornwell - Fools and Mortals

James Burbage was laughing. When the women and their guards had left, he pulled his cap onto his cropped grey hair. ‘Mortified,’ he said. ‘Mortified! The mort has wit.’

‘We’re doing a play about fairies?’ I asked in disgust.

‘Fairies and fools,’ he said, ‘and it’s not fully finished yet.’ He paused, scratching his short beard. ‘But mayhap you’re right, Richard.’

‘Right?’

‘Mayhap it’s time we gave you men’s parts. You’re tall! That doesn’t signify for parts like Uashti, because she’s a queen. But tall is better for men’s parts.’ He frowned towards the stage. ‘Simon’s not really tall enough, is he? Scarcely comes up to a dwarf’s arsehole. And your voice will deepen more as you add years, and you do act well.’ He climbed the gallery to the outer corridor. ‘You act well, so if we give you a man’s part in the wedding play, will you stay through the winter?’

I hesitated, then remembered that James Burbage was a man of his word. A hard man, my brother said, but a fair one. ‘Is that a promise, Mister Burbage?’ I asked.

‘As near as I can make it a promise, yes it is.’ He spat on his hand and held it out to me. ‘I’ll do the best I can to make sure you play a man in the wedding play. That’s my promise.’

I shook his hand. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘But right now you’re the Queen of bloody Persia, so get up onstage and be queenly.’

I got up onstage and was queenly.

SATURDAY.

The weather had cleared to leave a pale sky in which the early winter sun cast long shadows even at noon, when the bells of the city churches rang in jangling disharmony. High clouds blew ragged from the west, but there was no hint of rain, and the fine weather meant that we could perform, and so, when the cacophony of the noon bells ended, our trumpeter, standing on the Theatre’s tower, sounded a flourish, and the flag, which displayed the red cross of Saint George, was hoisted to show we were presenting a play.

The first playgoers began arriving before one o’clock. They came across Finsbury Fields, a trickle at first, but the trickle swelled, as men, women, apprentices, tradesmen, and gentry, all came from the Cripplegate. Others walked up from the Bishopsgate and turned down the narrow path that led by the horse pond to the playhouse, where one-eyed Jeremiah stood at the entrance with a locked box that had a slit in its lid, and where two men, both armed with swords, cudgels, and scowls, guarded the old soldier and his box. Every playgoer had to drop a penny through the slot. Three whores from the Dolphin tavern were selling hazelnuts just outside the Theatre, Blind Michael, who was guarded by a huge deaf and dumb son, was selling oysters, and Pitchfork Harry sold bottles of ale. The crowd, as always, was in a merry mood. They greeted old friends, chatted, and laughed as the yard filled.

Richer folk went to the smaller door, paid tuppence, and climbed the stairs to the galleries, where, for yet another penny, they could hire a cushion to soften the oak benches. Women leaned over the upper balustrade to stare at the groundlings, and some young men, often elegantly dressed, gazed back. Many of the men who had paid their penny to stand in the yard had no intention of staying there. Instead they scanned the galleries for the prettiest women, and, seeing one they liked, paid more pennies to climb the stairs.

Will Kemp peered through a spyhole. ‘A goodly number,’ he said.

‘How many?’ someone asked.

‘Fifteen hundred?’ he guessed. ‘And they’re still coming. I’m surprised.’

‘Surprised?’ John Heminges queried. ‘Why?’

‘Because this play is a piece of shit, that’s why.’ Will stepped away from the spyhole and picked up a pair of boots. ‘Still,’ he went on, ‘I like being in plays that are shit.’

‘Good Lord, you do? Why?’

‘Because then I don’t have to watch the damn things.’

‘Jean,’ someone called from the shadows, ‘this hose is torn.’

‘I’ll bring you another.’

The trumpeter sounded his flourish more often, each cascade of notes being greeted by a cheer from the gathering crowd. ‘Remind me what jig we’re doing today?’ Henry Condell asked.

‘Jeremiah,’ Will Kemp answered.

‘Again?’

‘They like it,’ Will said aggressively.

George Bryan was shivering in a corner of the room. Not shivering with cold, but nervousness. One leg twitched uncontrollably. He was blinking, biting his lip, trying to say his lines in a low voice, but stuttering instead. George was always terrified before a play, though once on the stage he appeared the soul of confidence. Richard Burbage was stretching in another corner, loosening his arms and legs for the acrobatics to come, while Simon Willoughby, resplendent in an ivory-panelled skirt and with his hair piled high and hung with glass rubies, swirled back and forth in the tiring room’s centre until Alan Rust growled at him to be still, whereupon Simon sulkily retreated to the back of the room, sat on a barrel, and picked his nose. My brother came down the stairs, evidently from the office where the money boxes were taken to be emptied. ‘Seven lordlings on the stage,’ he said happily. It cost sixpence to sit at the stage’s edge, so the Sharers had just earned three shillings and sixpence from seven hard stools. I was lucky to earn three shillings and sixpence in a week, and soon, when the winter weather closed the playhouse down for days at a time, I would be lucky to earn a shilling.

Jean, our seamstress, shaved me. It was my second shave that day, and this one, with cold water, stung as she scraped my chin, upper lip, cheeks, and then my hairline to heighten my forehead. She used tweezers to shape my eyebrows, then told me to tip my head back. ‘I hate this,’ I said.

‘Don’t be a fusspot, Richard!’ She dipped a sliver of wood into a small pot. ‘And don’t blink!’ She held the sliver over my right eye. A drop of liquid fell into my eye, and I blinked. It stung. ‘Now the other one,’ she said.

‘They call it deadly nightshade,’ I said.

‘You’re being silly. It’s just juice of belladonna.’ She shook a second drop into my left eye. ‘There. All done.’ The belladonna, besides stinging and making my vision blurry for a time, dilated my pupils so that my eyes seemed larger. I kept them closed as Jean covered my face, neck, and upper chest with ceruse, the paste that made my skin look white as snow. ‘Now the black,’ she said happily, and used a finger to smear a paste of pig’s fat and soot around my eyes. ‘You look lovely!’

I growled, and she laughed. She took another pot from her capacious bag and leaned close. ‘Cochineal, darling, don’t tell Simon.’

‘Why not?’

‘I gave him madder because it’s cheaper,’ she whispered, then smeared my lips with her finger, leaving them red as cherries. I was no longer Richard, I was Uashti, Queen of Persia.

‘Give us a kiss!’ Henry Condell called to me.

‘Dear sweet God,’ George Bryan muttered, and bent his head between his knees. I thought he was going to vomit, but he sat up and took a deep breath. ‘Dear sweet God,’ he said again. We all ignored him, we had seen and heard it before, and knew he would play as well as ever. My brother held a breastplate to his chest and let Richard Burbage buckle the straps.

‘There should be a helmet too,’ my brother said, shrugging to make the newly buckled breastplate comfortable. ‘Where’s the helmet?’

‘In the fur chest,’ Jean called, ‘by the back door.’

‘What’s it doing there?’

‘Keeping warm.’

I climbed the wooden stairs to the upper room where most of the costumes and the smaller pieces of stage furniture were stored, and where the musicians were tuning their instruments. ‘You look lovely, Richard,’ Philip, who was the chief musician, greeted me.