Роберт Харрис – Will Shakespeare and the Pirate’s Fire (страница 4)
“Lucy?” Beeston bristled at the name. “The villain that tried to ban our show? Claimed it was lewd – and seditious to boot?”
“The very same, Harry.”
“Then the favour’s yours, John. We’ll hoodwink that pompous poltroon.”
One of the other players, who was peering round the edge of the curtain, turned and said, “There’s some trouble out there, Harry. A bunch of louts forcing their way through the crowd.”
John Shakespeare took a look for himself and ground his teeth. “It’s Lousy Lucy and his men,” he said. “No time to waste, Harry.”
Beeston tapped the boy who had been dressing him on the shoulder and pointed at Will. “Kit, trick him up in a wench’s garb. Quick change now!”
“I’m not dressing up as a girl!” Will protested, raising his hands to keep Kit at bay.
“Do as he says, Will!” said John Shakespeare sharply. “You stay with Harry and his crew until I tell you otherwise. I’ll get out front and stall Lucy and his boys.” He slipped around the curtain and out of sight.
Will’s shoulders slumped and he let Kit pull an outsized crimson dress over his head, yanking it down to cover his filthy clothes. The boy tutted as he struggled to straighten out the folds on the ill-fitting gown. “We’re going to have to wash this as soon as it’s off.”
“Briskly, Kit, briskly!” Beeston urged. “Must get him on stage before the squire’s men start poking around back here.”
“On stage!” exclaimed Will in shock, as Kit planted a russet wig on his head. “Dressed like this?”
Beeston tapped himself on the nose and winked. “A man can’t see what’s right under his nose, not unless his eyes fall out.” He whipped out a kerchief and wiped the worst of the dirt from Will’s face. “A spot of red there, Kit, that should set the whole thing off.”
Kit brushed the trailing locks of the wig aside and dabbed red make-up on to Will’s cheeks. “There!” he said. “Your own mum would hardly know you now.”
“She wouldn’t want to,” said Will glumly.
“Right, up you go!” said Beeston, propelling him towards the stage steps.
Out front Kemp the clown was uttering his climactic lines to introduce the king:
“But what am I supposed to do?” Will protested. “I’m no actor.”
“Stand in the background and look pretty,” said Beeston, “or stupid. Makes no difference. When I make my entrance, look appalled if you will, shed a tear even. There’ll be few enough of those for old Cambyses.”
Irritably, Kemp repeated the king’s cue, louder this time:
Will tried to resist but Beeston and Kit pushed him up the stairway and through the curtains. He stumbled out on to the stage, almost tripping over the hem of his overlong dress. The crowd gave a roar of laughter at his clumsiness and he looked up to find himself confronted by a sea of expectant faces.
Some of them murmured and pointed, wondering who the newcomer was supposed to be. “That’s not King Cambyses!” somebody called out. “Looks more like my sister Kate!” yelled another.
Will glanced to his left and saw Sir Thomas Lucy and his men force their way through the side curtain into the backstage area. Will’s father was in the midst of them, firmly held between two of the squire’s minions. None of them were looking at the stage.
“It’s as I told you,” Will could hear his father saying, “I came here alone to pay a visit to my old friend Henry Beeston. My boy’s been gone at least a day.”
Kemp the clown was as surprised as the audience to see Will emerge. He fiddled with the tassels on his patchwork costume as he recovered his composure then struck a confident pose and gestured towards Will, saying,
He waved his hand vaguely, as if trying to conjure up more words out of the air.
A great “Ooh!” went up from the crowd at this revelation and many of them made pitying noises over the queen’s awful fate.
Before Will could decide what to do, the curtain fluttered behind him and Beeston came barging past. A chorus of boos and jeers greeted the king as he staggered to the front of the stage. The fake sword was sticking out of his side and he clutched it tight with his right hand. Looking up to the heavens, he gave a deep groan that resonated throughout the hall.
“
“Good riddance to you!” bawled a stout woman at the back of the hall, sparking an uproar of agreement.
“
He displayed his bloody wound to the crowd who let out an enormous cheer, then he slumped to the floor and continued his dying speech. Kemp stood over him pulling faces, but warily, as if the king were a wounded beast that might still turn on him.
Some of Lucy’s men came out front and started pressing through the crowd, searching for their fugitive. Sir Thomas himself reappeared, John Shakespeare close behind. Will’s father was doing his best to distract the squire by talking about the bad winter, the price of bread and anything else he could think of.
Finally King Cambyses breathed his last and Kemp leaned over him with his hands on his hips. “
The crowd roared their approval.
Will hoped fervently that the play was done, and that he could vanish behind the curtain once more. But Kemp was still speaking, and worse – Sir Thomas Lucy had turned to stare directly at the stage.
Will flinched, as if the squire’s eyes were a pair of musket balls about to be fired at him. He toyed with his wig, tugging the russet locks in front of his face.
Just as he was thinking of making a run for it, Kemp launched himself into a mad dance. He capered round the royal corpse like a prisoner set free of the gallows. He hopped this way and that, twirled left, then right, then leapt over the dead king to land precariously on the very edge of the stage. He tottered there, his arms windmilling frantically as he tried to keep balance.
The crowd roared and clapped, and Will saw that even Lousy Lucy was laughing and applauding the clown’s acrobatics. Kemp drew out his predicament a little longer then flung himself into a back somersault that carried him right over the dead king to land on his feet with a flourish.
The hall was rocked by whistles, guffaws and cheers. Three lords marched solemnly on to the stage and lifted the king up. As they carried him away, Kemp hooked his arm through Will’s and hauled him off through the curtains.
“Where the duck eggs did you churn up from?” he asked.
“I think you mean ‘turn up’,” said Will. He couldn’t help but smile. He felt as if the continuing applause was not only for the play, but his own narrow escape as well.
“If I meant to call you a turnip I would have said so,” the clown informed him haughtily as they reached the bottom of the steps.
The king had come back to furious life and stood fuming indignantly at the clown. “Kemp!” he said. “How many times have I told you to keep within the bounds of the script?”
“More times than I can count,” Kemp answered him. “But it’s hardly my fault if you see fit to introduce a ghost into the play, or whatever this new boy of yours is supposed to be.”
“Dad,” said Kit, tugging at Beeston’s sleeve, “your bows.”
“Well recollected, Kit,” said the king, his bad humour melting away. He bounded up the steps as quickly as a man half his age and presented himself on stage to wild applause.
“I must go take my bows also,” said Kemp to Will. “But I advise you to stay congealed back here, Mistress Spirit.”
“I’ll keep out of sight,” Will assured him. “I’ll be
The clown laughed to hear his own word plays turned about on him, then raced up on to the stage with the other actors to accept the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd.
The early morning air was so cold their breath hung in misty clouds before their faces. Lord Strange’s Men had risen with the dawn for, as Henry Beeston told Will, “We want to be long gone before that simple-minded squire notices that he might have been tricked.”
After a hasty breakfast they had loaded all their costumes, props and other baggage on to two horse drawn wagons and set out on the north-bound road towards Warwick. Will was reclining at the back of the lead wagon beside Kit Beeston.
Henry Beeston was seated beside the driver, his nose deep in a thick script. Also in the wagon were young Tom Craddock, who had played Cambyses’ queen, and Ralph, a burly fellow who had been one of the queen’s murderers.
“Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, is our patron,” Kit was explaining. “He lives many miles away in Derby, but his name stands as surety of our honesty and good behaviour.”