Fools and Mortals. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ and there have their innards plucked out while they still lived, but Father Laurence was a Marian priest, meaning he had been ordained during the reign of our Queen’s half-sister, the Catholic Queen Mary, and such men, if they made no trouble, were allowed to live. Father Laurence made no trouble, but the Pursuivants, those men who hunted down traitorous Catholics, were forever searching his room as if the poor old man might be hiding a Jesuit behind his close-stool. They never found anything because my brother had hidden Father Laurence’s vestments and chalices among the Theatre’s costumes and properties.

      ‘They’ll find nothing,’ I said, ‘they never do.’ I looked towards the stage. ‘Do they need me?’

      ‘It’s the dance of the Jewish women,’ James Burbage said, ‘so no.’

      On the stage Simon Willoughby, Billy Rowley, Alexander Cooke and Tom Belte were prancing in a line, goaded by a man who carried a silver-tipped staff with which he rapped their legs or arms. ‘Higher!’ he called. ‘You’re here to show your legs. Leap, you spavined infants, leap!’

      ‘Who’s that?’ I asked.

      ‘Ralph Perkins. Friend of mine. He teaches dancing at the court.’

      ‘At the court?’ I was impressed.

      ‘The Queen likes to see dancing done well. So do I.’

      ‘One, two, three, four, five, leap!’ Ralph Perkins called. ‘It’s the galliard, you lumpen urchins, not some country dump dance! Leap!’

      ‘Goddam ill fortune about Augustine and his boy,’ James Burbage grumbled.

      ‘They’ll recover?’

      ‘Who knows? They’ve been purged, bled, and buggered about. They might. I pray they do.’ He frowned. ‘Simon Willoughby will be busy till Christopher recovers.’

      ‘That’ll please him,’ I said sourly.

      ‘But not you?’ I shrugged and did not answer. I was frightened of James Burbage. He leased the Theatre, which made him the owner of the building if not the land on which it stood, and his eldest son, called Richard like me, was one of our leading players. James had been a player himself once, and, before that, a carpenter, and he still had the muscular build of a man who worked with his hands. He was tall, grey-haired, and hard-faced, with a short beard, and though he no longer acted, he was a Sharer, one of the eight men who shared the expenses of the Theatre and divided the profits among themselves. ‘He drives a hard bargain,’ my brother, another of the Sharers, had once told me, ‘but he keeps to it. He’s a good man.’ Now James frowned at the stage as he talked to me. ‘Are you still thinking about leaving?’

      I said nothing.

      ‘Henry Lanman,’ Burbage said the name flatly, ‘has that bastard been talking to you?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Is he trying to poach you?’

      ‘No,’ I said again.

      ‘But is your brother right? He says you’re thinking of walking away from us. Is that true?’

      ‘I’ve thought about it,’ I said sullenly.

      ‘Don’t be a fool, boy. And don’t be tempted by Lanman. He’s losing money.’ Henry Lanman owned the Curtain playhouse that lay just a brief walk to the south of ours. During our performances we could hear their audience cheering, the beat of their drummers, and the sound of their trumpeters, though of late those sounds had become scarcer. ‘He’s showing sword fights these days,’ Burbage went on, ‘sword fights and bear baiting. So what does he want you to do? Piss about in a frock and look pretty?’

      ‘I haven’t talked to him,’ I insisted truthfully.

      ‘So you’ve a lick of sense. He’s got nobody to write plays, and nobody to play in them.’

      ‘I haven’t talked to him!’ I repeated testily.

      ‘You think Philip Henslowe will hire you?’

      ‘No!’

      ‘He’s got plenty of actors.’ Henslowe owned the Rose playhouse, south of the Thames, and was our chief rival.

      ‘Then there’s Francis Langley,’ James Burbage went on relentlessly, ‘has he talked to you?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘He’s building that monstrous great lump of a playhouse on Bankside, and he’s got no players, and he’s got no plays either. Rivals and enemies,’ he said the last three words bitterly.

      ‘Enemies?’

      ‘Lanman and Langley? Lanman hates us. The landlord here hates us. The bloody city fathers hate us. The lord mayor hates us. Do you hate us?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘But you’re thinking of leaving?’

      ‘I’m not making any money,’ I muttered, ‘I’m poor.’

      ‘Of course you’re bloody poor! How old are you? Twenty? Twenty-one?’

      ‘Twenty-one.’

      ‘You think I started with money?’ Burbage asked belligerently. ‘I served my apprenticeship, boy, I earned my money, saved money, borrowed money, bought the lease here, built the playhouse! I worked, boy!’

      I gazed out into the yard. ‘You were a joiner, yes?’

      ‘A good one,’ he said proudly, ‘but I didn’t start with money. All I had was a pair of hands and a willingness to work. I learned to saw and chisel and augur and shape wood. I learned a trade. I worked.’

      ‘And this is the only trade I know,’ I said bitterly. I nodded towards my brother. ‘He made sure of that, didn’t he? But in a year or so you’ll spit me out. There’ll be no more parts for me.’

      ‘You don’t know that,’ he said, though he did not sound convincing. ‘So what parts do you want?’

      I was about to answer when Burbage held up a hand to silence me. I turned to see that a group of strangers had just come into the playhouse and were now standing in the yard, staring at the prancing boys on the stage. Four were grim-looking men, all with scabbarded swords and all wearing the white rose of Lord Hunsdon’s livery. The men stood, foursquare and challenging, to guard four women. One of the women was older, with grey hair showing beneath her coif. She signalled the men to stay where they were, and strode towards the stage, straight-backed and confident. My brother, seeing her, bowed low. ‘My lady!’ he greeted her, sounding surprised.

      ‘We have been inspecting an estate at Finsbury,’ her ladyship said in brusque explanation, ‘and my granddaughter wished to see your playhouse.’

      ‘You’re most welcome,’ my brother said. The boys onstage had all snatched off their caps and knelt.

      ‘Stop grovelling,’ her ladyship said sharply, ‘were you dancing?’

      ‘Yes, your ladyship,’ Ralph Perkins answered.

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