The Secret of the Rose by Sarah L. Thomson
To my right London Bridge stretched over the Thames. Could it truly have been just yesterday that Robin and I walked over its span? I sat facing backward and could see the city itself, houses crowded close to the riverbank, docks bristling into the water. Little wherries like ours and large ships with masts and sails clustered around the docks, waiting for owners or customers. And looming over everything was the bulk of St. Paul’s Cathedral, higher than any other building, a square stone pile, severe and strong.
Master Marlowe, it seemed, had seen this sight too often to be impressed, or perhaps he had other things on his mind. He did not turn to look, but sat facing forward, frowning. “Canst go no faster?” he demanded.
“God sets the wind and the current and the tide, master,” the boatman grunted, not altering the steady sweep of his oars. Master Marlowe sighed. And the instant the boat touched the dock on the south side of the Thames, he was up, calling to Robin and me to stir ourselves and follow.
We trailed him along the riverbank a little way, and down another narrow street, and then we saw our destination.
It was a tall building, three entire stories, the walls plastered a fresh, clean white. And it was round. It looked strange, and a bit unearthly, like something that might spring up overnight from a fairy ring. A flag was fluttering atop, snapping bright orange against the sky.
A man passing by stopped Master Marlowe with a touch on his shoulder. “Good day to you, and what’s the play to be this afternoon?” he asked.
“Faustus,” Master Marlowe answered briefly.
Robin turned to me with widened eyes. “’Tis a playhouse!” he whispered, awestruck and delighted.
We had fallen a bit behind Master Marlowe, and now I snatched at Robin’s arm to keep him back. Master Marlowe thought we might find work at a playhouse? A blush scorched my cheeks at the thought. To watch a play was one thing, but everyone knew players were shameless and immodest. How could they be otherwise, lying for their living, displaying vice and sin, murder and adultery, on the stage for all to see?
My breeches and doublet and chopped-off hair might have saved me from one kind of peril, but here was another opening up like a pit at my feet. I would not allow this disgrace to overtake us either. We might be lost and penniless, far from home, alone, but we had not sunk so far. We would not sweep floors in a brothel, or carry filth from privies to the river, and we would not work in a playhouse.
“Let be!” Robin protested, trying to twist his arm free from my grasp.
“No!” I hissed at him. I prepared to raise my voice, to thank Master Marlowe for his pains and tell him we would go no farther.
But Robin winced as I tightened my grip, and I remembered belatedly how the man with the squint had twisted his arm behind him. I let go with a rush of shame. “I’m sorry, Robin. Come now—”
Robin’s jaw was tight and stubborn. “No. I want to see,” he insisted. And before I could stop him, he had darted after Master Marlowe, who’d turned back to see why we delayed.
I might have known that Robin would not be dissuaded. Two summers ago traveling players had come to our village and set up stage in the inn yard. I had eaten nuts and laughed at the clown and cheered the swordfight and gone home well satisfied. But Robin—Robin had begged and pleaded until our father had taken him back to see the play a second time and then a third. Each time he’d stood without moving, his eyes locked on the stage, so tightly drawn with excitement he seemed to vibrate like a plucked lute string.
After that Robin began to practice his tumbling tricks by the riverbank. When the other boys talked of running away to serve on a privateer and seize ships of Spanish gold, Robin talked of running away to London to join a company of players.
It was all nonsense, of course. Robin would no more cut capers on a stage than his friend Hal would ship out as a sailor for Sir Francis Drake. Robin would be a wool merchant when he grew to be a man, and in the meantime our father had chuckled indulgently and promised to take him to London one day to see real players.
But now Robin dashed after Master Marlowe, his face alight with eagerness, as if he had forgotten why we were here, and why all things were different now, and why he would never be a merchant like our father. The two of them disappeared inside the playhouse doors. And I could only follow them into that den of wickedness, or be left behind alone.
Inside the playhouse I found myself in a broad, bare yard. Nutshells, left from the last performance, crunched under my feet. All around us rose the circle of the galleries, three rings of them, one on top of the other. The stage at the far end had a roof supported by pillars, all of it painted blue and red and green and gold, so bright in the sunlight that tears stung my eyes.
In the yard below the stage, two men were engaged in a desperate swordfight. Master Marlowe, with Robin already at his side, ignored them and waved a hand at a boy in a long gown of red brocade who sat on the edge of the stage, swinging his feet and crunching an apple. Behind him, like something out of a painting of hell, the head of a dragon reared up, its open mouth wide enough for a man to stand up between the rows of sharp teeth.
“Harry!” Master Marlowe shouted across the yard. “Where’s Henslowe?”
The boy swallowed the last bite of his apple and tossed the core carelessly across the yard. “Backstage,” he answered lazily.
“Go fetch him for me.” The boy only yawned. “Do it, or I’ll tell the tireman thou wast eating in that gown!” Master Marlowe threatened. “He’ll nail thine ears to a post and slice them off. Go!”
The boy Harry got gracefully to his feet, smoothed his skirts, and sauntered off through a door at the back of the stage. “Impudent dog,” Master Marlowe grumbled. “I’ll have his ears off myself.”
I caught up with the two of them and scowled at Robin, but he paid me no heed, and I knew that short of laying hands on him and dragging him across the yard, I could not move him. Ignoring me, Robin turned to Master Marlowe. “Are you a player, sir?”
Master Marlowe looked down at him, almost in surprise, as if he’d forgotten we had speech, or were more than inanimate blocks trailing him through London. “A player? No, that I am not.”
I was bewildered again, and Robin’s face fell.
“No, boy, I am not a mere speaker of another man’s words,” Master Marlowe went on. He began to walk toward the stage, maneuvering easily around the two duelists. “I am much more than that.” One of the swordsmen lunged, and his blade seemed to sink deep into his opponent’s chest. The victim gasped, moaned, and doubled over to fall dramatically at my feet, where he looked up at me and winked. I had to step over him to keep up with Master Marlowe, who had reached the stage and climbed easily up on it. He swept his arm in a grand gesture, just as a dark-haired, bearded, harassed-looking man opened a door in the back wall. “In fact, I am the foundation on which the entire Rose playhouse rests. Is’t not true, Henslowe?”
“You are the plague of my life, Christopher, is what you are,” Master Henslowe grumbled. “I’ve a performance to put on, and you must come hanging about—and what is this doing here?” he bellowed, slapping the dragon’s head with one hand.
A man popped out of the dragon’s mouth, startling me so badly that I jumped. “Only shifting some things backstage, master,” he explained mildly.
“Well, get on with it,” Master Henslowe said irritably, and the man disappeared back into the dragon’s gullet. “And you, Kit, what is’t you need? Be quick.”
“Ungrateful wretch.” Master Marlowe sighed, wounded and reproachful. “When see what a gift I’ve brought you. Come up here, boy.” He reached a hand down to Robin, who took it and was hauled easily up onto the stage. “Show him what you did for me.”
Robin obediently flipped into a cartwheel, and then turned a row of somersaults as I stood fuming helplessly in the yard below. When a trapdoor opened suddenly in the center of the stage, Robin nearly tumbled in. A thin, sandy-haired man in a patchwork doublet of green and yellow silk popped his head up throu
“Master Henslowe,” this man said, paying Robin no heed, “there’s a—”
“Speak to the bookkeeper,” Henslowe interrupted him, and the man ducked down again like a rabbit into its hole. “Well, what else, boy?”
Robin did his best trick, a handstand. He was not very good at this yet, and his legs wavered unsteadily in the air. Henslowe frowned.
“You need another boy for that last scene, now that Ned has left you for the Queen’s Men,” Master Marlowe said persuasively. “He’ll not have to do much, just cut capers and run about.”
“Well enough, I suppose,” Henslowe said, just as Robin fell over with a thump.
Robin sat up, rubbing an elbow. “I can do it better,” he said quickly, fervently. “Pardon, masters, let me try again.”
I was startled to see Henslowe chuckle a little. “No need, lad. Bring him around after the performance, Kit, and we’ll find him a place to stay.”
Robin’s smile nearly split his face from ear to ear. But I was not smiling.
My brother was no vagabond player. How could I let him shame our family like this?
But how could I stop him? He would not listen to a thing I said. To argue with him or scold him now would do nothing more than draw attention to myself. And dressed as I was, attention was something I could ill afford.
“And what’s this, another?” Master Henslowe asked, turning his eye on me.
I choked out a horrified denial, which neither of them heard, for Master Marlowe was already talking.
“Now this, Henslowe, you will thank me for. Come up here, boy.” I obeyed, thinking that they would hear me better if I stood on their own level. “Look now,” Master Marlowe continued, and before I could prevent it, he had snatched off my hat. “You see? Zenocrate or Isabel. Harry is getting too old to play the girls’ parts. Soon we’ll have a Helen with a beard on her chin.”
“But masters—,” I objected.
They ignored me. “He’s too old,” Henslowe said, shaking his head. “Hast ever played a part before, lad?”
“No, sir,” I said emphatically. “And to say truth—”
“Henslowe, look at that face,” Master Marlowe countered impatiently. “He’ll hardly have to act, he looks so much a girl.”
“I am no player!” I almost shouted it. I could have added more, that I was decent and God-fearing and mindful of my family’s reputation even if my brother was not. But Master Marlowe’s last words had frightened me so badly that, when the two men turned to me in surprise, I only ducked my head to look down at the boards of the stage.
“I pray you pardon me,” I mumbled. “I cannot play a part.”
My heart beat quick as a bird’s against my ribs. If they kept looking at me so, they were sure to guess. Master Marlowe had come too close already.
“Come, lad, ’tis nothing but nerves,” Master Marlowe said heartily. I only shook my head, not looking up. Silence was surely the best way to dissuade them.
“Well, Kit, if he does not wish it, that’s all there is,” Henslowe said after a moment.
Master Marlowe looked reproachfully at me. “I’ve done my best for thee,” he said in a low voice. “Wilt not try thy hand?”
I retrieved my hat from him and pulled it back on. With the relief of having my head covered and my face shadowed again, I could even feel a twinge of remorse. I supposed, by his lights, Master Marlowe had truly tried to do me a kindness. Probably he had no idea how decent people regarded a playhouse. He had not meant to insult me with the offer. I must have seemed churlish and ungrateful to him.
“Master, I thank you, truly,” I said, without looking up. “But I cannot. I’ve reasons for it.” And that was as much as I could tell him.
“But the other, he will do,” Henslowe was saying. “What’s thy name, lad?”
“Robin Archer, master,” Robin said timidly.
“And thou wishest to be an apprentice with the Admiral’s Men?”
Robin nodded, his eyes shining.
“Well, we’ll take thee on trial, then. A week, to see how thou dost. Now, Kit, listen….”
I looked down at the stage, wondering bleakly where I would go when this was all over. Back out into the streets again, I supposed, this time alone. And my faithless traitor of a brother was listening eagerly to the players’ talk, as if he did not care a jot what became of me.
The boards of the stage were not painted brightly like the rest, but were bare wood, worn smooth by the tread of many feet. A lone sheet of paper drifted about in a slight breeze. It came to rest by my shoe, and I bent down to pick it up, smoothing it carefully. It seemed a player’s part. I read a few lines at random.
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib’d
In one self place, but where we are is hell,
And where hell is, there must we ever be.
I shivered and looked up at the dragon’s head that gaped over the stage. Like this city, it seemed poised to swallow us up, the way prison had swallowed up my father. And this bit of paper hinted that there would be no way out.
Idle thoughts. The dragon’s head was but wood and painted cloth. And the paper was nothing but a player’s speech, insubstantial as air. I held it out to Master Marlowe.
“Sir, I think this may be wanted. ’Tis a player’s part, for—” I squinted at the page again. “For Mephostophilis.”
“Nick has been letting his part lie about?” Henslowe demanded angrily as Master Marlowe took the paper from me. “I paid for this play, damn him, and he wants to let every other company in London have it for free?”
“You did not pay so very much, as I recall,” Master Marlowe said dryly. But then he looked at me more sharply. “Thou canst read this?”
“Aye,” I answered. Why should he care?
Two men appeared to lay hold of the dragon’s head and push it through the door at the back of the stage. A squeal from a badly tuned viol or rebec came from overhead. “Kit, get off my stage, will you?” Master Henslowe demanded. “Take our new apprentice here and watch the performance, and keep yourself, if you can, from telling him all the players are doing it wrong. Yes, I’m coming!” he shouted to someone I couldn’t see. “Begone, Kit, take these two with you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
AUGUST 1592
Master Marlowe led us off the stage and into the first row of galleries. He motioned for Robin to take a seat on one of the long wooden benches, but I hesitated.
I was no player’s apprentice. There was no place for me here. But if I walked out of the playhouse now, I did not know where I would go or what I’d do. I did not even know if the three shillings and the few odd pence I had left in my purse would be enough to buy my way into Newgate Prison so I could see my father.
Master Marlowe had seated himself alongside Robin. But he paid no heed to him, frowning instead at me. “What’s thy name?” he demanded.
I remembered in time what my new name was. “Richard Archer, master.”
“And canst read?”
I could not imagine why it mattered so to him whether or not I was lettered. “I can.”
“Prove it.” He held out to me the paper I had picked up from the stage.
I squinted at the scribbled lines and they came clear to me, although it made little sense, being only the words set down for one player to speak. Lacking the answers to questions, or the questions to answers, it was but a jumble. Still, I cleared my throat and read. “‘So now, Faustus, ask me what thou wilt. Under the heavens. Within the bowels of these elements, where we are tortur’d and remain for ever.’”
Master Marlowe lifted his eyebrows. “And canst write a fair hand as well?”
“Aye, sir, I can write.” Robin had studied Latin at the grammar school with the other boys, but my father had taught me at home. I should have enough knowledge of numbers that no shopkeeper could cheat me, he said, and enough of letters to write down what the household bought and spent. I had been good with my pen; I wrote a fairer hand than Robin. Ma
“Indeed,” Master Marlowe said, eyeing me as if I were a horse at market. “If ’tis true, I might have use for thee. The law will take thee up for a vagabond if thou’rt not in service, so thou mayst as well be in mine.”
The word “no” sat on my tongue. I did not wish to be this man’s servant, and it was not my pride that revolted at the idea. To be a servant was not grand, but it was honest.
But in truth, I was baffled, and in my confusion, even afraid. Why should Master Marlowe be so kind? He had offered twice now to save me from begging in the streets, but he hardly looked at me, leaning back on the bench, his legs stretched out before him, his eyes on the empty stage. His careless manner made it seem as if my life were a matter of indifference—he might save it or lose it, it was all the same to him.
Nevertheless, I knew I’d be a fool to throw aside this second chance. Work, food, a bed, wages even—I must take it and be grateful. “Master, I thank you,” I said as humbly as I could. “God reward you for your kindness.”
Master Marlowe made an impatient gesture with one hand. “’Tis not kindness. I’ll take thee on trial for a week. If thou canst do the work I need, I’ll feed and clothe thee. If not, I’ll not keep thee. And by this light, do not start a rumor that I have a conscience. My reputation would never survive it.”
The porter had opened the doors and people were starting to stream into the playhouse as I sat down on the bench by the side of my new master. Apprentices and servants and townspeople mindful of economy pushed forward to stand close to the stage, while the more prosperous filled up the galleries. I stared in astonishment as a man with skin the color of coal found a seat in the galleries near to us. An elegant woman in a long black cloak and a silk mask, attended by a gentleman in deep red satin, climbed to the rooms over the stage and sat there at her ease, as if she were unconscious that all eyes were upon her. In the little room next to her, the musicians were practicing. Sweet scraps of tunes from a lute and a viol drifted out into the playhouse, and a man put a hautboy to his lips and blew a silvery scattering of notes, like raindrops tossed by the wind, over the heads of the crowd.