Crimson Rose Read online

  Ned Alleyn stood apart from his cast now, as was his custom. He wasn’t on until Scene Four but he must be pitch-perfect the first time the crowd saw him in action. He stood in the Tiring Room, mastering his deep breaths and working his lips to twist around the mighty lines of the legendary Marlowe.

  Because Marlowe was already a legend wherever players and playgoers gathered. His Dido had enraptured the city and his first part of Tamburlaine had brought grown men to tears and turned Puritans Papist. One woman was so enravelled by the Scythian Tamburlaine and his conquering sword that she had gone into labour near the orchestra space and a child was born among the flats of Persian tents. Philip Henslowe had nearly died of worry, but the child was healthy and his doting mother called him Tamburlaine Marlowe in honour of the moment. Alleyn was furious that his name appeared nowhere.

  The legend that was Marlowe was peering out between the slats above the star-canopied heaven. The place was virtually full – all two thousand seats and standing spaces occupied by faces pale in the limelight; all of them to see Alleyn and to hear the magic words that Marlowe gave him. Marlowe smiled; he could almost hear Henslowe crowing with delight, piling up the clay money boxes for the reckoning the next day.

  ‘What about tomorrow, though?’ The impresario was suddenly at his elbow, muttering, reading the man’s mind, it seemed.

  Marlowe looked at him. ‘See this,’ he said, holding up a goblet, ‘that’s half full, Philip. Not half empty. And if no one comes tomorrow, no one at all, you’ll still have made your pile today.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Henslowe scowled, peering through the slats to see the crowd.

  ‘Relax, Philip,’ Marlowe said. ‘You don’t give refunds, so even if they hate it …’

  ‘Why would they hate it?’ Henslowe demanded, clutching convulsively at Marlowe’s sleeve. What did the man know that he didn’t?

  ‘They won’t hate it, Philip,’ the playwright said, lowering his voice and hoping that Henslowe would do the same. ‘Trust me. Well, well, well …’ He was looking up in the gods where a shadowy figure moved to his seat, lesser beings standing up to let him pass. He would know those dark, sharp eyes anywhere, even at that distance.

  ‘The Spymaster’s here,’ he said, half to himself.

  ‘Who?’ Henslowe was reduced to biting his nails now.

  ‘Er … nobody.’ Marlowe smiled. ‘A trick of the light.’

  But Jack Windlass wasn’t a trick of the light. He was dressed like a poor man’s roisterer and he was taking his place with the gallery commoners. There was no doubt about it; Marlowe was paying the man too much.

  Something had gone wrong stageside. It was more than time for the third fanfare, and yet all they could hear was laughter and a very slow handclap, giving way to boos. The curtain in the doorway was flung aside and the shawm player burst through, clutching his throat.

  ‘Water,’ he croaked. ‘Water, for God’s sake.’

  Thomas Sledd passed him a jug from a table and he gulped from it greedily. He coughed and spat, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. ‘Fly,’ he gasped, and cleared his throat again. ‘I inhaled a fly. Sorry.’ He went out through the curtain again, to ironic applause.

  So, finally, the third fanfare sounded and the Prologue strode out to the centre of the O, his pattens clattering on the planking. He swirled his Collyweston over his shoulder and held up his right hand, booming out over the groundlings’ heads. ‘The general welcome Tamburlaine received when he arrived last upon our stage …’

  ‘Speak up!’ somebody yelled to general laughter, but the Prologue was the warm-up man of the Rose and he’d heard it all before. He didn’t miss a beat. ‘Have made our poet …’ He pointed both hands to the Arras to his left. Marlowe duly stepped out on cue and bowed with a flourish. The crowd went wild, chanting ‘Marlowe! Marlowe!’ The man looked up to where Walsingham sat, face invisible. He sat as he always did, his hands curled round the head of his cane, the tip, silver-shod, firmly planted between his feet. Everyone else lounged about as part of an audience out to make merry. Walsingham sat as though giving an audience, the nearest he ever came to relaxation. Marlowe bowed to the Prologue, who winked and carried on. ‘Have made our poet pen his Second Part, Where death cuts off the progress of his pomp, And murderous Fates throw all his triumphs down.’

  There was general booing and shouts of ‘You bastard, Tamburlaine’, but it was difficult to pick out words in that hullabaloo. ‘But …’ The Prologue could pause for England and he did so now, waiting for the crowd to subside, playing with his audience like a cat with a mouse. ‘What became of fair Zenocrate?’

  A fond sigh broke from the throats of hundreds, turning into a general ‘Ah’ before some strident harpy among the groundlings echoed the sentiment, ‘Quite so,’ she shrilled. ‘What indeed?’ And she was laughed to scorn.

  Marlowe nudged George Beaumont. ‘Get out there, lad, or we won’t get to Scene Four.’ He nodded in Alleyn’s direction, where the greatest actor of his age was buckling on his helmet. ‘And that would never do, would it?’

  George curtsied deeply and when he brought up his rouge-painted cheeks, it was to obscene gestures and thrusts from the groundlings’ front row. He blew a fart through his lips and swirled away, powder flying in all directions.

  ‘And so it begins,’ Harvey muttered to Greene in their seats in the gallery. ‘Did you see Part the First?’

  ‘Of Tamburlaine?’ Greene yawned. ‘I really can’t remember.’

  ‘Liar!’ Harvey chuckled. ‘That show brought the house down, as I suspect this one will. Let’s face it, Greene, like it or not – and I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t – Marlowe is the Muses’ darling. No one will touch him in a hundred years. What have you got to offer against that – Alphonsus, King of Aragon?’

  Greene was startled. ‘What do you know of that?’ The thing was unfinished, locked safely away – or so he thought – in his lodgings near the Vintry.

  ‘Enough to know that a hundred years from now, no one will have heard of it – or you, Dominus Greene.’ Harvey’s face hardened as he watched the actors go through their paces. ‘Whereas Marlowe … They’ll still be performing this five hundred years from now.’ And he hated himself for saying it out loud.

  ‘Well.’ Greene was at his most petulant this afternoon. ‘I’ll not stay here to be insulted.’ And he swept away as bravely as he could, stumbling his way past knees and laps, tipping his hat and mumbling apologies as he went.

  It was raining again in the Bear Garden that afternoon. Master Sackerson stretched, yawned and turned his beady little eyes up to the heavens.

  ‘Looks almost human, doesn’t he, Ing?’ Nicholas Skeres was sheltering under the awning that covered the Bear Pit’s entrance way. ‘You wouldn’t think one swipe of that paw could rip half your face away.’

  ‘Seen him in action?’ Ingram Frizer was checking the papers in the satchel slung over his shoulder, to make sure they hadn’t got too wet.

  ‘I have.’ Skeres nodded. ‘I owe that old gentleman a few groats, in fact. Many’s the cur he’s crippled with my blessing.’

  ‘I heard Henslowe took his teeth out – loses less dogs that way.’ Master Sackerson yawned again, giving Frizer the full extent of his ivory incisors. ‘Looks like I heard wrong.’ The man’s bonhomie vanished at the sight. ‘Where’s he from, Nick?’

  ‘Russia,’ Skeres told him. ‘The land called Muscovy. They say Henslowe spends more money on him then he does on that bloody theatre – aye up, Nick; customers.’

  A young couple were jumping the puddles on their way to the Rose, hurrying past the Bear Garden with its menagerie’s sights and smells.

  ‘Let me stop you there.’ Skeres stood like an ox in the furrow, barring their way. ‘Play’s started, you know. You’re too late.’

  ‘Too late?’ The gentleman frowned, spreading his cloak over the head of the lady with him. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. We can go in at any time.’

  ‘Full,’ Skeres insi
sted.

  ‘Full?’ The gentleman stopped sheltering the girl now and stood to his full height, hand on his sword hilt. ‘Man, there are two thousand seats in the Rose. They can’t all be taken.’

  ‘Sir.’ Skeres feigned outrage. ‘This is Tamburlaine by Christopher Marlowe, starring Ned Alleyn. Given that combination, could they be anything else?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Can I help you?’ Ingram Frizer appeared as if from nowhere as Master Sackerson sprawled on his rock, watching events unfold. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘This … fellow,’ the gentleman said, ‘says the theatre is full.’

  ‘I fear it is, sir.’ Frizer nodded. ‘Until tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ The gentleman frowned.

  Frizer became confidential. ‘It’s actually full for the next week. Master Henslowe is considering running extra performances at night, but you know how it is, sir – the Master of the Revels himself would have to be consulted.’

  The gentleman became confidential too. ‘Look, I’ve promised … this lady that she should see Ned Alleyn. Can’t we come to some arrangement?’

  Frizer looked the lady up and down. A whore if ever he saw one, a Winchester goose, albeit one only recently plucked. He motioned the pair away from Skeres, who stood resolutely staring into the middle distance, to where the great black bear stretched and rolled in the wet mud.

  ‘I shouldn’t really do this,’ Frizer whispered, ‘but Philip … Master Henslowe, you know … Philip gives me a few of these.’ He hauled out papers from his satchel. ‘Tickets – for tomorrow’s performance.’

  ‘How much?’ the gentleman asked.

  ‘A half angel – each.’

  The gentleman swallowed hard.

  ‘And of course, for an extra half angel …’

  ‘Each?’ snapped the gentleman.

  Frizer shrugged and smiled. ‘Good lord, no, sir. A half angel for the two. For the tour. Chance to meet the cast. But, of course, if you would rather not spend …’

  The gentleman looked down the dress of the girl at his side and sighed. ‘I don’t think it is a matter of rather not …’

  The goose at his elbow snuggled closer and looked up at his ruff. ‘Go on, Dickie,’ she murmured. ‘You know I’ve got a thing for actors.’

  He looked down at her again. He knew exactly where that thing was. ‘Oh, all right.’ He ferreted in his purse. ‘Here.’ He thrust the coins into Frizer’s hand and snatched the tickets. ‘Tomorrow afternoon.’ He nodded and whisked the girl away.

  Skeres wandered to Frizer’s side. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, Ing?’ he said.

  His friend smiled at him. ‘I thought the Cranes, Nick,’ he said, jingling the money. ‘The drinks are on that gentleman. Not to mention their finest brain pies.’ And they trotted away in the rain, chuckling as they went.

  Master Sackerson turned to watch them go, scratching thoughtfully under his belly with a fearsome claw.

  ‘Now, bright Zenocrate,’ Alleyn boomed, ‘the world’s fair eye …’

  ‘Don’t you bother with her!’ a voice called from the groundlings’ centre. ‘I’ll give you one in the eye you won’t forget in a hurry!’

  The woman’s call was greeted with cheers and whistles. Alleyn was used to this and went on regardless although at times his voice was totally inaudible. The audience settled down after a while, in the usual style of the Rose’s patrons. They needed to get a few ideas off their chest and then they were usually quiet, especially in plays with a little something for everyone – fights, kissing, fights, kissing – all the things the crowd loved best.

  Alleyn reached out to Zenocrate and bent her backwards, breathing words of love into her ear.

  ‘Watch out,’ George whispered. ‘My wig is loose.’

  ‘You should use more pins,’ Alleyn answered through gritted teeth. ‘Why is your hair so short?’

  ‘Ringworm,’ George confided, relaxing into the actor’s grip like a woman far gone in ecstasy.

  Alleyn made a mental note to kick the lad from here to Kingdom come when the play was over, but for now settled for pulling back slightly from his embrace.

  ‘Phwoar! That’s the stuff!’ a woman called. ‘That’s the way to do it!’

  There was a scuffle in the crowd and two burly men were seen to be carrying out a struggling woman, her grey hair being no bar to being thrown out for the sake of the other patrons. Philip Henslowe took his responsibilities towards the paying public very seriously. Jack Windlass watched it all a little bemused. He liked to keep abreast of what his gentlemen did for a living. His last charge had been a rising star in the Guinea Company; hardly a walk on the wild side. He was enjoying this rather more.

  One of the actors not on stage was Richard Burbage. He’d die rather than admit he was there to learn from the great Alleyn, so to that end he had come as an apothecary. His curls were swept up under an academic cap and his usual roisterer’s satin was replaced by brown fustian, authentically stained with nameless liquids at the cuffs. The costume was authentic because he had lifted it from an actual apothecary who had temporarily laid his aside whilst entertaining himself with a Winchester goose along Maiden Lane. Every time he went there, Richard Burbage chuckled at the irony of the name.

  Bugger, but Alleyn was good! Alleyn was, blast his eyes, very good. And those words! Burbage slipped a piece of parchment and an inkpot out of his purse and began scribbling in the dull light afforded him by the leaden Southwark sky.

  ‘And I will teach thee how to charge the foe,’ Tamburlaine was telling his son, ‘And harmless run among the deadly pikes. If thou wilt love the wars and follow me …’

  And half the audience who had once been sitting were on their feet, all set to do the same.

  Up in the gallery, Eleanor Merchant turned to her sister and pulled her closer so she could speak. ‘When does Master Shakespeare come on stage?’ she asked.

  Constance didn’t turn her head; her eyes were full of Ned Alleyn, strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage. ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Master Shakespeare. When does his part begin?’

  Constance turned to her now. ‘I thought Master Shakespeare was just lodging with us,’ she said tartly. She had not been fooled by her sister’s performance the day before.

  ‘He is, indeed he is,’ Eleanor said. ‘But he kindly gave us these tickets and it is only polite to at least see him when he comes on stage.’

  Constance held her gaze for a few seconds longer, then turned away, convinced that she was right. ‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what part he plays.’

  The man in front of her turned round. ‘Do you mind?’ he asked. ‘I am here to listen to Master Marlowe’s masterful prose, not two gossiping women.’

  Constance dropped her eyes demurely and then looked up from under her lashes. She had found this seldom failed, no matter how tense the situation. ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ she said. ‘My sister and I know some of the actors and we didn’t want to miss their entrance.’

  The man looked her up and down and then did the same to Eleanor. ‘You do not surprise me that you … know actors,’ he said, the tiny pause speaking volumes. ‘But can you know them a little more quietly in future?’ He turned back to watch the stage, the back of his neck showing outrage better than many people could do with a written ten-page declaration.

  ‘I think we had better be quiet, Constance,’ Eleanor said loudly. ‘We wouldn’t want to annoy anyone!’

  ‘Madam,’ said a black-clothed man to Eleanor’s right in strident tones. ‘Do not worry that you are interrupting this masque of the Devil. We should all lift up our voices and proclaim our hatred of this mumming and blasphemy, with boys dressed as women, and men—’ He was cut off short as the burly men who had removed the bawdy woman appeared at his shoulder.

  ‘Would you like to come along with us, sir?’ one of them said, grabbing an arm.

  ‘No, I have paid my penny and I intend to stay!’ the man said, trying and fai
ling to cross his arms.

  ‘We have Master Henslowe’s instructions to refund your penny, sir,’ said the other man, wondering if anybody realized the extreme unlikeliness of what he had just said. He leaned round and pressed the man’s jaw hard between finger and thumb. When his mouth popped open against his will, the first bouncer put a penny in it and then clamped it shut until he swallowed.

  ‘Refund complete, Zachariah?’ asked the second bouncer.

  ‘Complete,’ his colleague answered and, taking an elbow each, they walked the black-clad zealot backwards and flung him out into the street.

  Constance and Eleanor had been staring transfixed as the little play within a play had unfolded, but Constance was the first to recover.

  ‘Eleanor,’ she said, ‘sweet sister, I think that I will never be able to understand this play if I stay in this spot. I can see a quieter part of the crowd over there and if I can make my way there, I will. I will meet you outside by the Bear Garden when the play is over and we can go home together.’

  Eleanor nodded and turned back to the stage. It was very true what they said; Master Alleyn had a well-turned calf and if he ever took the armour off, he might display a well-turned manhood, too. Why Constance was being so coy, she would never understand. She let herself drift off on a daydream of the deceased Master Merchant and his one talent, as Marlowe’s mighty lines spun and twisted in the air above her oblivious head.

  ‘You pleased with it, Kit?’ Thomas Sledd was waving to his man who dutifully trooped out on to the stage with a placard round his neck that read, ‘Act Five, Scene One’. ‘He’ll have to go,’ he muttered to the playwright. ‘Deaf and illiterate. Not the right part for him at all.’

  ‘Relax, Thomas.’ Marlowe smiled. ‘It’s going well. Will? You look a bit put out.’

  Shakespeare was edging his way behind the Arras that screened the orchestra. ‘It’s this bloody gun,’ he mumbled. ‘I hate the things.’

  Sledd snatched the arquebus out of the actor’s hand. ‘I’ve told him, Kit, a hundred times. The thing’s as safe as houses. So are all the others.’ He pointed across the stage to the far wings where the others in the scene shouldered their weapons. ‘This fuse will burn for ever but it won’t do anything. You’ll get a flash and a pop and the clapper will do the rest. The Governor will scream – though, please God, not like he did in rehearsals – and you’ll get a round of applause. You’ll like that, Will, won’t you?’ And he stuffed the gun back into Shakespeare’s grasp before pirouetting away into darkness.