Morgan and Tom and Ben Jonson had crowded into the tiny sickroom now, Tom by his wife’s shoulder, Morgan not far from Kit, and Jonson as geographically distant from the slumping Marley as the closet’s confines would allow.
Will, concentrating on swallowing the soup without choking, did not answer.
“‘Tis good thou hast survived,” Burbage repeated, “because Her Majesty would be most wroth with me if thou hadst not.”
“Her Majesty?” Will’s voice was weak but clear. He laid a hand on Audrey’s wrist to restrain her when she would have poured more sustenance into him, and turned to Burbage. “Richard, what meanest thou?”
Burbage sighed. “She requests the Lord Chamberlain’s Men perform for her on the twenty‑fourth of the month. Shrove Tuesday. That’s thirteen days hence; thou hast lain fevered for three. And the play she wants is Richard the Second,and she very especially mentioned your name among the company of players she wishes to see perform it. I was half afeared” – Burbage’s hand on Will’s thin shoulder belied the brusqueness of his tone – “I would have to send word you were detained in a churchyard.”
“Not dead yet,” Will answered before taking more soup. “Thirteen days. Richard the Second.I may be able to do it.”
“I won’t have you killing yourself over a play, Will.” Jonson, forgetting himself, moved from his nervous post by the door and then stopped. He cast a wary glance at Kit, who knew his chin had started sagging to match his eyelids, and Kit struggled with a half‑formed understanding.
Christ. Ben Jonson is scared of me. Scared I’ll deduce him? Or scared I’ll overpower him and have my way with him?
Now therewas an image incongruous enough to send an exhausted poet giggling, and giggling touched Kit’s ravaged throat and turned to a hacking cough, which drew the worried glances of everyone in the room.
“Kit, thou’rt sickening–” Will, ignoring Jonson’s command.
Kit saw another measure of hurt cross the ugly young man’s face, and the half‑formed understanding crystallized into pity. Oh. Ben–
But there was nothing to be done for it, was there?
“No,” Kit managed, a stage whisper that almost started him coughing again. “Just talked raw. Will, Ben is right.” Morgan brought Kit more wine, and he drank it, enjoying Ben’s surprise at his intercession.
Will shook his head, looked up at Burbage. “Richard, why the twenty‑fourth, precisely? ”
The room got very quiet. Kit glanced from face to face, and realized everyone assembled knew the answer but for him. Like Will, he waited, calm enough in the knowledge that they would live. It was satisfying enough that he and Morgan and Tom–and Audrey and Jonson and Burbage and most of all, Will–had beatenBaines’ worst. No answer could trouble him.
It was Tom who cleared his throat, and answered, “Because Essex is to be executed on the twenty‑fifth, and Her Majesty wishes to see the play before she has her old friend drawn and quartered.”
Silence, as Kit struggled upright against the sugared grip of gravity, and his gaze met Will’s across the room. “Oh,” Will said. “Oh, poor Elizabeth.”
Act IV, scene xxii
The play’s the thing,
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.
–William Shakespeare, Hamlet,Act II, scene ii
The Queen in her goodness commuted Essex’s sentence from hanging and torture to a simple beheading; it was rumored that he had been reproved to choose his wardrobe the night before, and Will imagined he might be about his task even as Richard the Secondwound to its close. Will’s hands shook as he sponged the makeup from his face.
The dates of the other executions had not yet been set, and Will wondered if they would be, when news from across the Irish sea had Spanish Catholic troops again landing in alliance to the Catholics of that emerald isle.
A genteel cough at Will’s shoulder alerted him to the presence of a page. Will turned. “Yes?”
“Her Majesty wishes to see you, Master Shakespeare. In the red withdrawing room. Her Majesty said you would know it.”
“Aye, ” Will said, wiping his hands again to be sure he was free of paint, and reaching for his cane. He should have felt apprehension, he knew. But when he reached for emotion, there was nothing there at all. “Please tell Her Majesty I’ll be along presently. My balance is not what it was.”
Which was the curse of this disease; his strength didn’t leave him, or his intellect. Just his ability to make his body obey his lawful commands.
When the page opened the door and gave him admittance, Will was startled to realize that the Queen was alone. The page slipped out behind him and the door latched shut. Will suffered a second realization that hewas alone with the Queen.
Elizabeth stood by the far archway, a single candle warming her ice‑white ceruse. “Master Shakespeare,” she said, as he began to bow awkwardly. “Rise. ‘Twill be enough of that. And find a chair, young man: I can see thy legs are about to desert thee and I have no mind to pluck thee off my carpeting.”
“Your Highness,” Will said, and sat awkwardly although the Queen did not. I, she said, and not we. How interesting.“I am honored to be in your presence.”
Her lips assayed a smile and almost managed it. “I’ll kill a man tomorrow.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Trying to keep his Christian pity for Elizabeth from his face, and, he suspected, failing.
“I waged rather a grand battle to save him, Master Shakespeare, and failed. Why do you suppose that is?”
“Why you did try to save him, Your Highness? Or why you did fail?” Greatly daring, he thought, but she seemed to invite it. Indeed, she inclined her head under its great jeweled tire and made a come‑along gesture with one gloved hand. Will watched her face, trying to judge how bold he might be, but her ceruse made a mask. “I think you did try to save him for you loved him. And he failed to be saved because he loved himself.”
“Ah,” she said. “Thou art a poet indeed. When I am gone, wilt make a play of me as thou didst my royal father?”
“No mere play could capture Your Highness, and no boy could play you. As well set a pussycat to play a princely lion.”
“Flattery.” But she smiled, a real smile this time. Her voice was low and very sweet. “So in honesty, as a poet, and with no ears to hear but mine–what think you of this latest string of murders upon which I will filthy my hands?”
Will examined her face, and knew by the way she stood that she meant to seem only a woman. He could not trust that, however. Kit would be proud.“Monteagle’s just a foolish young gallant, Your Highness. Southampton–” Will shrugged. “Led astray, perhaps. Perhaps leading. I don’t know that they deserve to swing. Unlike Essex.”
“Who won’t. Swing, that is. He’ll get a clean death. My last gift. Perhaps I’ll spare the other two, if it pleases thee.” She cast about herself for a chair; Will hastened to rise and fetch her one, and she pinned him down with a look. “Obey thy sovereign.”
“I was there when they hanged Lopez,” Will said, once she had settled herself. “I was there when Sir Francis died.”
“Meaning?” Perhaps dangerous, those folded hands, that softly arched brow.