Page 38 of The Two Wills

For that which longer nurseth the disease,

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please …

—from Sonnet 147

In the days that followed I tried to turn my mind from thoughts of the Poet as Alex had suggested, but it seemed hopeless, especially when I was speaking his words of love while we worked on the new play. As for that raven-haired temptress, she no longer showed up at the playhouse, and I prayed I’d never see her again. Meanwhile, the Poet wrote a brand-new speech for Juliet, which was even better than all the rest. My mood improved greatly. Venus shone bright in the night sky and in my heart.

“Mealtime will be in about a half an hour,” Little Goat said. “Afterwards, if it’s not too late maybe we can go look at the sea.”

“The sea?” I asked with outsized excitement, as if Little Goat had just told me there were flower-breathing dragons afoot. “Is it near?”

“God’s blood, boy!” Sam mocked. “We’re just outside Dover! Have you not heard of the great white sea cliffs?”

“No,” I said.

“Haven’t you at least noticed the sand and the shells on the road here? The fish mongers everywhere in the market?”

“My head’s been occupied with other things,” I said.

“What a pitiful want-wit!” Sam chided.

“Are there really cliffs?” I asked excitedly. “And the sea is just beyond? The real and true sea?”

“It’s just on the other side of town,” Little Goat said. “Not far.”

I had never seen the sea in my life, nor any body of water larger than the Thames with its filth and carcasses of dead cats and dogs. And I certainly hadn’t seen anything like cliffs bigger than the banks of a great river. If I wasn’t so starving, I would have gone right then and there.

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s eat fast and then go see it!”

Sam and Little Goat laughed at my glee.

“All right, all right, but we really should make sure your new Juliet speech is in perfect order afore we go galivanting,” Little Goat said.

“You don’t want to botch it again like you did at practice,” Sam snipped.

“It wasn’t my fault I forgot my words,” I groused. “It was that awful woman.”

“Still,” Little Goat said. “Best safe, rather than sorry.”

“All right,” I groaned. “Let’s give it one more push before dinner, and if I’ve fewer than ten mistakes, then we’ll go after, all right?”

Unfortunately, I made fifteen mistakes in the new balcony scene the Poet had written, and Little Goat and Sam suggested we save the sea for another day, but I wouldn’t have it. I pleaded with them to take me, and while Little Goat agreed, Sam said he would have no part in me giving short shrift to my line-learning.

And so it was, as soon as everyone had retired to their beds, Little Goat and I made our way to the edge of the great white cliffs. The salty wind whipped our faces. And just like that, the giant North Sea lay before us. The moon’s glow paved a glistening white path down the sea’s center. It was as if she were inviting me to traipse across the expanse of shimmering nothingness and meet her to sup at the Earth’s edge. Goose flesh leapt across my arms at the sublimity of all.

“It’s so large,” I whispered to Little Goat. “The cliffs and the sea—it all makes me feel so small. Does it scare or excite you?”

“Neither,” he said. “It relaxes me. I stop thinking of all the bad stuff that has happened … back where I was—what my father did to me. When I see the sea, it all matters less. This will always be here, and them bastards won’t.”

I understood his meaning. For that moment, when faced with the sea’s immensity, it did not matter whether I knew my roles or not. It did not matter that my mother was a whore, nor that I was an illegitimate and an effeminate youth with unnatural longings. It did not matter that Barnaby Stubb had broken my heart. It did not even matter that the Poet, by that time, had given me a total of seven sonnets attempting to convince me to marry and produce heirs, and had not spent time alone with me in weeks. All my cares, all my sorrows and successes became insignificant. The sea’s awe-inspiring expanse made me feel as if I was bearing witness to the true god whom I had sang about in the choir lofts for so long. This god of the great sea was not a cruel god like they spoke about from the pulpit. This god showed me how every aspect of the earth—every grain of sand, every whore, every poet-loving-boy—was all just him.

“Can we get down to the beach?” I asked. “Can we swim?”

“We can, during the daytime maybe,” Little Goat said. “But we really should catch our sleep since we’ve got scramble-through in the morning. We don’t want Juliet or her handmaiden to look like they’ve been out nanty-narking all night.”

“Just a quick one,” I begged. “Five minutes under the water and then we’ll go.”