Fools and Mortals. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ then reached over and took the top volume from a small pile of books. The book had no cover, it was just pages sewn together. ‘That,’ he said, holding it towards me, ‘is A Conference.’

      I carried the book to the second window, where the light would allow me to read. The book’s title was A Conference About the Next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland, and the date was printed as MDXCIIII. ‘It’s new,’ I said.

      ‘Recent,’ he corrected me pedantically.

      ‘Published by R. Doleman,’ I read aloud.

      ‘Of whom no one has heard,’ my brother said, writing again, ‘but he is undoubtedly a Roman Catholic.’

      ‘So it’s seditious?’

      ‘It suggests,’ he paused to dip the quill into his inkpot, drained the nib on the pot’s rim, then started writing again, ‘it suggests that we, the people of England, have the right to choose our own monarch, and that we should choose Princess Isabella of Spain, who, naturally, would insist that England again becomes a Roman Catholic country.’

      ‘We should choose a monarch?’ I asked, astonished at the thought.

      ‘The writer is provocative,’ he said, ‘and the Queen is enraged. She has not named any successor, and all talk of the succession turns her into a shrieking fury. That book is banned. Give it back.’

      I dutifully gave it back. ‘And you’d go to jail if they found the book?’

      ‘By “they”,’ he said acidly, ‘I assume you mean the Pursuivants. Yes. That would please you, wouldn’t it?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘I am touched, brother,’ he said acidly, ‘touched.’

      ‘Why would someone lie and say we had copies of the book at the Theatre?’ I asked.

      He turned and gave me a look of exasperation, as if my question was stupid. ‘We have enemies,’ he said, looking back to the page he was writing. ‘The Puritans preach against us, the city council would like to close the playhouse, and our own landlord hates us.’

      ‘He hates us?’

      ‘Gyles Allen has seen the light. He has become a Puritan. He now regrets leasing the land for use as a playhouse and wishes to evict us. He cannot, because the law is on our side for once. But either he, or one of our other enemies, informed against us.’

      ‘But it wasn’t true!’

      ‘Of course the accusation wasn’t true. Truth does not matter in matters of faith, only belief. We are being harassed.’

      I thought he would say more, but he went back to his writing. A red kite sailed past the window and settled on the ridge of a nearby tiled roof. I watched the bird, but it did not move. My brother’s quill scratched. ‘What are you writing?’ I asked.

      ‘A letter.’

      ‘So the new play is finished?’ I asked.

      ‘You heard as much from Lord Hunsdon.’ Scratch scratch.

      ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream?’

      ‘Your memory works. Good.’

      ‘In which I’ll play a man?’ I asked suspiciously.

      His answer was to sigh again, then look through a heap of paper to find one sheet, which he wordlessly passed to me. Then he started writing again.

      The page was a list of parts and players. Peter Quince was written at the top, and next to it was my brother’s name. The rest looked like this:

Theseus	George Bryan, if well
Hippolita	Tom Belte
Lisander	Richard Burbage
Demetrius	Henry Condell
Helena	Christopher Beeston, if well
Hermia	Kit Saunders
Oberon	John Heminges
Tytania	Simon Willoughby
Pucke	Alan Rust
Egeus	Thomas Pope
Philostrate	Robert Pallant
Nick Bottome	Will Kemp
Snout	Richard Cowley
Snug	John Duke
Starveling	John Sinklo
Francis Flute	Richard Shakspere
Pease-blossome
Moth
Cobweb
Mustard-seede

      The last four names had no actors assigned to them, and they intrigued me. Pease-Blossome … Cobweb … I assumed they were fairies, but all I really cared about was that I was to play a man! ‘Francis Flute is a man?’ I asked, just to be sure.

      ‘Indeed he is,’ my brother wrote a few words, ‘so you will have to cut your hair. But not till just before the performance. Till then you must play your usual parts.’

      ‘Cut my hair?’

      ‘You want to play a man? You must appear as a man.’ He paused, nib poised above the paper. ‘Bellows menders do not wear their hair long.’

      ‘Francis Flute is a bellows mender?’ I asked, and could not keep the disappointment from my voice.

      ‘What did you expect him to be? A wandering knight? A tyrant?’

      ‘No,’ СКАЧАТЬ