Page 27 of The Two Wills

“Like a Shoreditch trull,” he said. “An angry one. Extra sluttish.”

I took a rag and wiped my face clean. “You do me up this time and make me pretty enough that they’ll miss any jumbled words.” I handed him the pot of red grease and my wig, which he instantly began brushing. “Fie on all of them for this rude trick!” I fumed. “If today shall be my first and final performance, I shall turn that stage to rubble.”

A short while later, I stood squished with the others in the tiring house, waiting for my entrance. There was a tremendous din from the hordes who had traveled from Oxford and the surrounding environs to the inn-yard where we were performing. With quaking knees, I listened to Burbage bloviate upon the stage. He was an impressive actor, but my hatred for him boiled with extra vigor in my viscera. Edward Knight stood ready, holding pages in his hand to offer cues—this gave some relief. Little Goat and Sam were fussing nearby, changing into their respective ladies-in-waiting costumes. I looked beyond them and saw Beeston standing there, smirking. He would play the corpse of my husband, Edward, Prince of Wales. Little Goat had draped my head-tire with a wispy, see-through veil of black tiffany, hiding my face, as if I were in mourning. If only Beeston and Alex could have seen the hatred in my eyes, and my intention to bring them all down with me.

“Are you all ready, Hughes?” Beeston whispered with menace. “God help you if you’re not. Oxford audiences are very rude if unhappy. Is that why you wear the veil? To protect you from the cabbages?”

“Shut it, you blithering toad,” I hissed, my words like a whip. “It’s good you’re playing a corpse since it’s the breadth of your talent.”

“Why you little sod,” Beeston spat. “I’ll be glad to see you back in the Nags Head privy where you belong. We shouldn’t be forced to act with muck-house trash.”

I was about to respond, but the Poet had stepped into the tiring house. All fell silent at his presence. He was smiling kindly and looked excited, which made my heart heavier.

“Hughes, I wanted to wish you luck.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, through the veil.

“Just try and make sense of the words, yes? I know you must be nervous, but just do it like you did during your tryout. You were wonderful. I have such faith in you.”

He was so kind. That I would disappoint him so completely was the greatest cut, far worse than allowing my enemies to succeed.

“Will,” I began to say, ready to apologize, but then Ed Knight started gesturing frantically that it was time for my entrance.

I heard Burbage say the crookback’s lines: “But yet I run before my horse to market. / Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns. / When they are gone, then must I count my gains.”

The Poet chucked me on the chin as Little Goat and Sam grabbed my arms and foisted me onto the stage as their puppet, following the others who carried Beeston as my late husband on a bier. I heard a penny-stinkard cry out “Alexander Cooke! Hurrah!” Followed by a few more cheers.

I left the black tiffany to hide my face. Let them blame Alexander for my fumbles. It’s his fault anyway. Little Goat nudged me to speak my first lines, which, thankfully, I knew. “Set down, set down your honorable load …” I peeped through the veil at the hundreds of eyes watching me, and I froze. My mind was a blank. As they waited, I could hear the audience begin to rustle. To buy myself time, I drew my hand across my mouth under the veil to signify how I was tormented with grief. I prayed for the heavens to set me afire with lightning. Finally, I turned to the tiring house and whispered, “What’s my words?”

Ed Knight called out just loud enough for me to hear. “If honor may be …”

It was as if a key had unlocked a water barrel, and a barrage of words flooded from my mouth. “If honor may be shrouded in a hearse / Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament / Th’ untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster. / Poor key-cold figure of a holy king.”

I recalled all of the first speech perfectly, including the five new lines. The audience was desperately quiet—or that’s how I remember it—until Burbage, as the humpback king, stepped onto the stage, when they began to cheer.

Burbage looked over at me with a queer look in his eyes. I realized Sam and Little Goat had accidentally moved me upstage, the position Burbage despised, since it turned his face away from the audience. I freed myself from Sam and Little Goat and stepped downstage, using the time to search my mind for my next words. I flipped my skirts as if I were in a fury, hoping to distract from my silence, while simultaneously hoping Ed Knight would feed me my next line. Alas I was too far from the tiring house to ask, and if I did move closer, I would once again be upstaging Richard. I twisted my hands together as if I were tormented, but in truth it was so the audience would not see them quaking. Burbage made a small flicking motion with his finger, indicating for me to show my face. I had no choice. I lifted the black tiffany.

The audience gasped. I heard mutters:

“That’s not Alexander.”

“Who is it?”

“A new youth.”

Could they see on my face that I had forgotten the speech? Burbage, too, was staring at me with a puzzling expression. Finally, Ed Knight shouted out my words, which lit my candle. Furious at myself for forgetting, and at Alex and Beeston for causing it all, I recalled Augustine’s instructions to play and foisted my emotions into the Poet’s words.

“Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster / Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood …”

I was stunned. All the words (old and new) appeared from my mouth in their proper order—or at least it felt like they had. I hissed the lines at Burbage, real hatred gilding my words, and it was as if the ghost of good Queen Anne had filled my body and used my lips to speak her soul. In the midst of my cursing of Richard, I freed myself from the framing of Little Goat and Sam’s handmaids. I stepped again upstage alone, knowing it would anger Burbage, but my belly told me that the audience should be watching Queen Anne at that point and not him. When I got to the final lines, I returned to his level so I might be more threatening. This was not the movement I had seen Alex perform, but still, in my mind, it was the only true move for the Queen to make.

“If ever he have wife, let her be made / More miserable by the death of him / Than I am made by my young lord and thee …”

I have no idea what inspired me then, but I found myself spitting at Richard—a ladylike spew of spittle, not as I might have done on the street. The audience roared. At first, I thought they were angry at me, and I waited for the flying cabbages. But none came. I soon realized the roars were cheers.

“That’s a good lass!” a penny stinkard cried from the pit.

“Give it to him good!” another shouted.