Page 26 of The Two Wills

“But he can only remind you how to begin a line,” Sam warned. “You’ll need to have all Will’s changes memorized.”

“I don’t know if I can,” I said. Again, the sickness of my impending doom bubbled in my guts.

“Let’s waste no more time,” Little Goat said. “We have less than two hours before they gather for the scramble-through. Hey-ho, man! Up up up!”

And so the three of us went to the cook’s tent and told him of our dilemma. He let us have some bread with butter and small beer. Little Goat read me the Poet’s most recent changes. Luckily, Queen Anne’s biggest speech diverged only a little from what I had memorized, though the Poet had added five whole lines. That meant thirty-two lines I had to pronounce all by myself before the scene even began. Her banter with the humpback king had been altered dramatically. (I didn’t realize it then, but the poet had twisted it to sound more like my first altercation with Burbage!) I had much to do in just a matter of hours. I couldn’t fail. If I did, I would be humiliated in front of the eyes of hundreds of spectators, my career upon the stage—and hopes to get closer to the Poet—would be ruined, Little Goat and Sam would be punished for not having taught me the lines, and I’d be sent off to rot in the Nags Head privy until they found my withered corpse in a puddle of bladder-washed lager.

We returned to our cart and began hammering the lines into my brain. An hour later, I met Augustine at the stage for the scramble-through, but it turned out they would have none that day, since everyone in the cast had performed the play enough times.

“Nothing to worry about, lad,” Augustine said, though his face betrayed his own worry. He reviewed the basics of Queen Anne’s movements, reminding me again that I need not follow what Alex did exactly, but to make sure I remembered any gestures that might be a cue for Richard. More than once, I considered telling Augustine that I had failed to fully learn the part, but he barely gave me a chance, pushing me this way and that.

“Augustine, I should tell you—”

“I know. You’re worried you won’t know where to move. When in doubt just walk to center and make sure not to stand upstage of Burbage, or he’ll have me whip you. And whatever you do, do not stop speaking your lines.”

“But Augustine—”

Just then one of the tiremen approached with a beautiful long, brown dress with gold thread. “Here’s your costume now!” Augustine cried. “We have no more time, boy. Quick to your tent and make yourself pretty! The prettier you look, the less the audience will throw cabbage!”

He handed me a sack containing a red wig and a coronet of cockleshells and pearl. The sight of it made me want to weep. I had no choice. I was doomed.

TwelveQueen Anne Enters

Wherein, for better or worse, Willy Hughes makes his debut.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to

you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,

as many of your players do, I had as lief the

town-crier spoke my lines.

—Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2

With Queen Anne’s words like a swarm of furious bumble bees inside my brain, I went back to the cart with the costume. Little Goat offered to help me get dressed, arrange my hair, affix the head-tire, and apply paint to my face.

“I’m quite good at it,” he said.

“Don’t bother,” I said. “I’ll do it myself. I watched my whore of a mother for years.”

I rouged my cheeks and lips, threw on the wig so it fell down my back willy-nilly, and then placed the head-tire. The whole time Little Goat repeated the cue lines so I knew where I was to say my words—if only I could remember them.

“Is it ‘Hence and trouble us not, foul devil …’?”

“No, Hughes!” Little Goat implored. “One more time. It’s ‘Foul devil, for God’s sake, hence, and trouble us not.’ You keep turning it around!”

“I’m trying!” I cried, the wriggling worms in my stomach raged. “Perhaps you can play it for me?”

“Pish! Not with the wound on my face.” Little Goat gripped my shoulder, looked me square in my eyes, and lowered his voice. “I should tell you. Alexander isn’t really sick. I heard them talking. They’re worried if they wait until you are fully ready, you’ll outshine them. They want you to be a disaster. Burbage will be able to tell Will and Augustine that he was right all along about you, and sack you. Do you want to let those bastards win?”

I pictured Burbage, Beeston, and Alex standing there sniggering as I left the encampment, my fardel over my shoulder, tears of humiliation in my eyes. I began to fume. How wise Little Goat had been. He knew how much I hated bullies, and by placing that vision in my head, all my fear would be replaced with fire.

“God’s teeth!” I spat. “I’ll show those rotten knaves!”

“Hurrah!” Little Goat cheered. “There’s my good fellow!”

Looking in the glass, I clenched my jaw and widened my eyes like Anne does when she confronts Richard. “How do I look?”