Page 5 of The Two Wills

Returning to my natural voice, I said, “Of course I can, sir. If you like, I can be a serving maid sent to the gallows for stealing and begs you to save her.” I made my voice as gentle and light as a girl of twenty, casting my eyes upon the ground. “Please, kind sir, I will do anything you like, if you’ll only spare me.” I then let my doe eyes wander up to his and whispered with desperation, “Anything.”

“By God’s lid!” he said, clapping his hands. “That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about!”

“I can do accents, too, if that’s to your taste.” I lowered my voice and parroted what little French I’d learned from the choir master. “Bon-joor, mon-soor—comment alley voose. Oui, oui.”

The Poet grabbed my shoulders and looked so joyous, I thought he might cry out. It was not the usual reaction from a man negotiating a price with a tart.

“You are a marvel!” he said. “Where have you been all my life?”

“Right here at the Nag’s Head, sir,” I said. Then, to move the moment along, I reached for that part of him beneath his codpiece—the part I presumed was the point of our encounter.

But before my fingers could reach their prize, he instantly recoiled and covered himself with his hands, his face flustering bright red. “No, lad!” he stammered. “I didn’t mean that.”

“But I thought—”

“Tush! You thought wrongly.” He stepped back.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said quickly, stunned that I had so completely misjudged his intent. Terror charged up my spine. What if he is the one who cries out for the night watchmen? The punishment for buggery was death. “I was just jostling you, sir. Nothing real. Sorry, sir. Please don’t tell anyone. Please, sir …”

He took a long deep breath, and once more looked at me curiously. Again, I swore I saw something akin to longing in his eyes. I was much confused.

“It’s quite alright there, my boy. Sorry if I bristled a bit too much. It was just … erm …” He chuckled. “A reasonable misunderstanding.” He looked at me in that curious way once more. “But you, dear youth,” he continued, “are wasting all your beauty and talent on such a wretched business. How old are you, may I ask?”

“Seventeen, sir. I’ll be eighteen in a month’s time.”

“I see. A man’s age, and yet with the face of a beautiful boy still. Anyway, what I meant was, can you act—as in a play? Like what you did for me in your mimicry, but speaking lines of poetry as if you were a lady—much more loudly and in front of a large audience?”

And suddenly the dawn broke inside my skull. “God’s teeth, sir! Are you saying that you want me to get up on a real stage and act in one of them popular plays?”

“Yes,” he said. “Exactly!”

I swallowed. “You mean like Tamburlaine?”

“Tush, I’m not sure I’d say Tamburlaine is that popular—”

“Oi, in truth, sir, it was a ripper!” I grew more excited as I enthused about it. “All that blood and guts covering the stage! By Saint George, I didn’t understand but half of it, but they says Mister Marlowe’s the best poet in all of London!”

The Poet’s expression soured. “Fuck Marlowe.” He took a breath to calm himself. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Tamburlaine is a marvelous play, and yes, Marlowe is London’s greatest poet,” He rolled his eyes and forced a bitter smile. “Et cetera nugae. But no matter. You would be acting in plays by me, mostly, and a few other poets. All fine men, and good writers.”

“I see,” I said, though in fact, I didn’t.

“So, tell me, lad, if I spoke lines to you, could you repeat them exactly as I say them? But as if a lady or girl was saying them?”

“I think so, sir,” I said. “But I ain’t never had any training.”

“Well, that’s the point, lad. I’m speaking of the possibility of you becoming an apprentice. That’s where you’d get the training. You see, the Privy Council has closed all public arenas until the plague is over, so our company intends to take several plays on tour in the countryside—Oxford, Barnstable, Bristol—as well as the coast to Dover and others.”

I’d heard of the names of these towns before, but none I had ever even thought possible to visit.

He continued, “One of our best apprentices, poor Dickie Soames, is down with the plague and is not expected to survive the week. I’m desperate to find one more apprentice to play some of the ladies’ roles, and we leave for tour very soon. If all goes well this summer, we’d keep you on even after we return to London. We’re hoping to open our own playhouse within the next year or so.”

I took a moment to picture myself as he had just described, standing up on a stage, dressed like a lady, speaking words I most likely didn’t understand nor could remember, with a thousand eyes staring up at me as I tried.

My stomach rolled and felt near to surrendering its breakfast.

“Naw, sir, I could never do such a thing,” I said. “I’m but a bastard boy who mucks out the privies in an alehouse, and does worse things too, as you might suspect. I’m not like your friends. I’m not a ‘player’ on the stage. Why, if the lads in the street sees me up there acting like I know something, they’d laugh or … I don’t like to think of it.”

He smiled gently and lifted his warm hand onto my shoulder. His touch made me shiver, which puzzled me.