Ink and Steel

Act I, scene iii

Touchstone:

When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a

man’s good wit seconded with the forward child

Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a

great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would

the gods had made thee poetical.

Audrey:

I do not know what “poetical” is. Is it honest in

deed and word? Is it a true thing?

Touchstone:

No, truly, for the truest poetry is the most

feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what

they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You like It

May became June, and Burbage’s prophecy held: the plague carried off another thousand souls, rat- and cat-catchers roamed the streets with their piles of corpses and their narrow-eyed terriers, and the playhouses stayed closed. Will’s new lodgings were over the tavern Richard Burbage favored, north of the River and closer to James Burbage’s Theatre. They were considerably more luxurious, possessing a window with north light for working by and a bed all to Will’s own use. But Titus grew a scant few manuscript pages, and Will swore to Burbage that they might as well have been written in his own dark blood.

Will sat picking at a supper of mutton and ale in the coolest corner of the common room, his trencher shoved to one side and Titus spread on the table, the ink drying in his pen. The food held no savor, but he set pen in ink bottle anyway and worried at the meat with his knife so he wouldn’t sit there only staring at the mottled page. How long did one go without writing before one stopped calling oneself a playmaker? It wouldn’t be so bad if the pressure to have the stories out would relent. Instead of nagging after him like a lusty husband at a wife just delivered of the last babe. The image made him smile, and then it made him frown. How long since you’ve seen Annie last? If you can’t write plays, you could go home and watch your son grow.

He picked the pen up, and a fat drop of iron gall splattered a page folded in four for convenience of writing. But his grimace of irritation was interrupted when Burbage walked out of the warm summer twilight, crossing to Will’s table after a quick examination of the room. A taller man might have had to duck the thick beams. Edward Alleyn would have been stooped just crossing but Burbage strutted through clots and eddies of drinkers like a rooster through the henyard. A flurry of conversation followed as the custom recognized London’s second-most-famous player. Will gestured Burbage to the bench.

“Good even, Will. I’ll not sit: had your fill of mutton?”

Since what you have to say will no doubt rob mine appetite.”

Burbage shrugged, so Will smiled to take some of the sting from his words.

“Whither?”

“We’ll to Oxford.”

Burbage offered Will a handclasp.

This time, Shakespeare took it to stand. “A long walk, he said,” though Burbage’s grin alerted him.

“Just across London Bridge,” the player continued, softening his voice. “We re stayed for at the Elephant, Cousin. Step quick!”

Will gulped the last of his ale and hung the tankard at his belt, then gave the landlord’s son a ha’penny to run his papers and pen up to his room. The leftover mutton and trencher would be given as alms to the poor or more likely go into the stewpot. He wiped moisture from his palms onto the front of his breeches and took Burbage’s arm.

“I feel as if I’m summoned by a patron, and I shall have to confess so little done on Titus—”

Titus this and Titus that—” Burbage led him north. “Vex me not with Titus. What thorn is in your paw on that damned play?”

The houses and shops lining London Bridge came into view. Will checked his stride as the foot traffic clotted, keeping one hand on his purse. Stones clattered under hooves and boots. Will squared his shoulders, hooked thumbs in his belt, and charged forward so abruptly that Burbage struggled to pace him, bobbing like a bubble in an eddy in his wake.

“Will!”

Will shook his head as Burbage caught his elbow.

“Will, what is it?”

Will jerked his chin upward, and Burbage’s eyes followed the motion.

The Great Stone Gate loomed over them, cutting a dark silhouette across a sky, pink and gray with twilight. The last light of a rare clear sunset stained the Gate and all its grisly trophies crimson, and dyed too the elegant wings of wheeling kites and the black pinions of the Tower ravens.

“If Kit hadn’t been murdered in an ale house,” he said low, steps slowing, “his head could be up there among the traitors.”

“What heard you about the Privy Council proceedings?”

“I heard that Kyd and that other fellow Richard Baines named him as the author of heretical documents. That he stood accused of atheism, sodomy, and worse.”

“Kyd under torture, Burbage amended,” tugging Will’s arm. “Baines—someday I’ll tell you about Baines.”

Will had almost to be dragged several shuffling steps before he was walking on his own.

“I’ve writ not a good word since.”

It was Burbage’s turn to stumble. “Will.”

Will rested a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “What?”

“You know what Kit was charged with. Sayst thou you know something of the truth of those allegations?”

Will knew his eyes must be big as the paving stones underfoot, his face red as the sunset painting the Gate.

“Regarding Kit’s alleged sins, I’ll not doubt it. But no, I’m not likely to be charged the same. We shared the room for prudence’s sake.”

“Then what?”

A shrug and a sigh. “We were friends. His hand was on my Henry VI, thou knowest, and mine in his Edward III. If he can come to such an end, whose Muse dripped inspiration upon his brow as the jewels of a crown drip light what does that bode for poorer talents?”

Poorer talents?”

They were swept up in the tide of pedestrians before they had gone three steps, in the stench of the Thames, in the rattle ofcoach-wheels and the blurred notes of poorly fingered music: the sprawl and brawl of London.

“Not so, Will. You’ve an ear on you for cleverness and character better than Kit s. And you re funnier.”

“I can’t match his technique. Or his passion.”

“No. But technique can be learned, and you won’t, perchance, end your life drunken and leaking out your brains on some table in a supperhouse. If Kit had the patience and sense of a Will…”. He raised his hand to forestall Will’s retort.

Will’s shoulders fell as the air seeped from his lungs.

“I listen, Master Burbage.”

They came out of the shadow of the Gate and its burden.

“The Privy Council would have cleared him, Master Shakespeare. As it’s done every time before: with a wave of the hand, words behind closed doors, and a writ signed by five or seven of the Queen’s best men, Kit Marley goes free where another man would go to Tyburn. How many men charged with heresy and sedition are free to rent a mare and ride to Deptford, and not on a rack in the Tower? And you’ll be afforded the same protection.”

“And the same enemies.”

But it wasn’t just the danger of his own position, or the unwritten things twisting in his brain. He plainly missed Kit.

“You’ll make enemies any way you slice it, with your talent. Ah, here we are.” Burbage pointed to the scarred sign hanging over a green-painted door, and then led Will down a dim, stinking alley toward the back, where a wobbling wooden stair brought them to the second story. Will clutched the whitewashed railing convulsively, despite the prodding splinters. Although, if the whole precarious construction tumbled down, a death grip on the banister couldn’t save him. A door at the top of the stair stood open to catch what breeze there was. Burbage paused at the landing and softly hailed Oxford within, while Will stood two steps below.

“Enter, Master Players.” Edward de Vere did not stand to meet them, but he did gesture them to sit. Stools and benches ranged about the blemished table, and the small room was dark and confining despite the open door: it did not seem the sort of chamber an Earl would frequent. Incense-strong tobacco hung on the air in ribbons, the sharp, musty tang pleasing after the stench of thestreets.

“Lord Oxford, as you’ve summoned us,” Burbage said, taking a stool. Will doffed his hat, reseated it, and sank onto a bench and stretched his legs.

Oxford nodded to the player, but turned his bright eyes to Will.

“How comes the play, gentle William?” The question he’d been dreading, and Will twisted his hands inside the cuffs of his doublet, folding his arms. He almost laughed as he recognized Kit’s habitual pose, defensive and smiling, but kept his demeanor serious for the Earl. An Earl who studied him also seriously, frowning, until Will opened his hands and shrugged.

“Not well, my lord. The story’s all in my head, but Times being as they are…”.

“Yes. I understand thou hast tried thy hand at some poetry. A manuscript called Venus and Adonis has been commended to me. Compared to our Marley’s,” Oxford’s nostrils flared momentarily, as if he fought some emotion unfinished work. “I’d see it read.”

Heat rose in Will’s cheeks as he glanced down at his shoes.

“You’d see my poor scribblings gone to press, my lord?”

“I would. And command some sonnets. Canst write sonnets?”

Oh, that stiffened his spine and brought his hands down to tighten on his knees. Burbage shifted beside him, and Will took the warning.

“I’ve been known to turn a rhyme,” Will answered, when he thought he had his tongue under control.

“I need a son-in-law wooed,” Oxford said. He stood and poured wine into three unmatched cups. Will raised an eyebrow when the Earl set the cups before Burbage and himself. More than mere politeness, that.

“Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton: I’d see him married to my daughter Elizabeth, where I can perhaps keep him from trouble. He’s close to Essex and to Raleigh, no mean trick. Kit’d befriended Sir Walter’s lot, their School of Night, so-called and learned a few tricks by me of the philosopher Dee. It’s trouble waiting to happen: too many of the Queen’s favorites in one place and rivalries will brew.”

Will’s eyebrow went even higher at the familiar form of Marley’s name.

“And you wish me to Dedicate thy book of poems to Southampton.”

“As if thou didst seek his patronage. Afflict him with sonnets bidding him marry. Raleigh is an enigma: there’s no witting which way he might turn in the end. Essex is trouble, though.”

“Though the Queen love him?” Burbage said, when Will could not find his tongue. Robert Devereaux, the second Earl of Essex, was thought by many a dashing young man, one of Elizabeth’s rival favorites and a rising star of the court. But her affections were divided, the third part each given to the explorers Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake. And there was something disingenuous in the look Oxford drew across them both, just then; Will was player enough to recognize bad playing.

“Sonnets. Sonnets, and I couldn’t write a good word to spare myself the chopping block.”

“Gloriana,” Oxford said, toying with his wine, “is a shrewd and coy Queen, equal to the title King of England which she has once or twice claimed. Despite her sex. Ah, would that she had been a man.”

That tripped Will’s tongue. “Do you suppose she mouths those same words, when she feels herself alone?”

Oxford tilted his head as if he had not considered it. “Master Shakespeare, I would not disbelieve should I hear her Maid of Honor mutter such gossip to the bees.” He stared past his guests to the smoky vista beyond the open door.

“So. Thou wilt write me these poems? Or write Southampton these poems? And bring me the manuscript for Venus and Adonis, that the ages might know it?”

“Will you see Hero and leander published as well?” Will hesitated at the cloud that passed Oxford’s face. He liked Kit as well. And then Will smiled. Kit had had that about him, the ability to inspire black rage or blind joy.

“It’s fine work, isn’t it?” Oxford didn’t wait for Will’s nod. He knocked the dottle from his pipe and began to pack the bowl again. “Chapman, another of Raleigh’s group proposes to complete it and see it registered. In Kit’s name, not his own. Decent.”

Burbage rocked back in his stool, rattling the legs on the floor. “My lord, you’ll put Will in a place where, if Southampton is flattered, they may become friends. Even if the courtship fails, we’ll have an eye in Southampton’s camp.”

“There’ve been a dozen attempts on Queen Elizabeth’s life in as many years: your Kit’s sharp wit helped foil two of them, and he was friendly with Essex’s rival, Sir Walter. Now we have neither a hand close to Essex, nor one close to Sir Walter. Intolerable, should what I fear come to fruition. Essex has links to the…” He stopped himself.

Will observed calculation in that pause. “What you fear, my lord, or what fears Walsingham?”

Surprise and then a smile. “The two are not so misaligned. We were one group, the Prometheus Club, not too long since. All of us in service of the Queen. But Essex and his partisans are more interested in their own advancement than in Britannia. So, Will. Wilt woo for me, and win for my daughter?”

Will swallowed, shifting on the hard bench. “I was to write you plays, my lord. And you would show me how to put a force in them to keep Elizabeth’s subjects content and make all well. I was not to spy for you.”

Oxford tapped a beringed finger on the table. “I’m not asking thee to spy, sirrah. Merely to write. Not plays No. The playhouses are closed, Will, and they’ll be closed through the New Year. We’ll try our hand there again, fear not: but in the current hour, the enemy has the upper hand.”

“The enemy. This plot against the Queen. Closing the playhouses is a sort of a skirmish? An unseen one?”

Oxford smiled then softly. “You begin to understand. They know what we can do with a playhouse. Art is their enemy. Puritans. Naught but a symptom. Walsingham and Burghley are ours, after all.” Oxford drained his cup. “I offer you a poet’s respect. Nothing is so transient as a play and a playmaker’s fame. Except a player’s.”

Will looked at Burbage, who sat with his hands folded between his knees, thumbs rubbing circles over his striped silk hose. Burbage tilted his head, eyes glistening. Twas true.

“The poem’s the thing, then,” Will said, when he thought he’d considered enough. “Give unto me what you would impart, and I will wreak it into beauty with my pen.”

Oxford twisted his palm together, fingers arched as if to ease a writer’s cramp. “Excellent.” Another intentional hesitation. “Your play. Titus Andronicus. Send it me. I fancied myself something of a poet in my youth. Perhaps I can be of some small aid.”

My lord,” Will answered, covering discomfort. “I shall.”