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“Both. Of course. And there’s nothing better for our lymphatics than salt air.” He leans in. “I would very much like to spend time with you, Rose. I don’t know why, but I can’t bear the thought that this will all end in just words …”

“I’m not sure leaving town is possible,” I say sadly. “Alas, there’s the rub of my having a husband and his two children.”

“I understand. I suppose it’s my wishful thinking that we all could be as free as we’d like to be.” He kisses my hand, then strokes my cheek as he stands. “Someday, Rose. Someday.”

He takes his leave, and I stare at the beams in the tavern ceiling, pondering what the Poet has said. What would it be like to be as free as we all wanted to be?

SevenA Brand-New Life

Wherein the newest apprentice, Willy Hughes, tells of his preparations to leave London on tour with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.

If I could write the beauty of your eyes

And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

The age would say “This poet lies …”

—from Sonnet 17

That very night I told everyone I met that I would be leaving the Nags Head to become an apprentice with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. No one believed me until I showed them the contract I had signed—though most were as illiterate as I, the florid signatures convinced them. My whore of a mother almost wept but also grumbled that I would not be earning a proper salary. Still, I glimpsed a fleck of pride in her weary eyes when I told her of my potentially becoming a freeman.

“I s’pose it’s better than mucking and thieving,” she said. “Now don’t cause them no trouble, for I’ll not be taking you back.”

The choir master at Saint Leonard’s was less pleasant about the news and told me I would most likely burn in Hell for “conspiring with them Devil players on the stage.” He tried to charge me for “damage” to my robes, but I told him to stuff it, and knocked over a row of candles, setting a small fire.

Early the next morning the area around the Theatre was teeming with all the whatnot and whosenot involved in taking a company of players on tour. I squirmed my way betwixt the bustling bodies, hoping to spot the Poet, but found him nowhere. Dark thoughts filled my head. What will the other players think of me? They are masters at their craft, and I don’t even know how to read. Is this why the Poet hides himself? Has he come to his senses about me? Or perhaps Burbage finally remembered our encounter in the Nags Head privy? I considered running back to the alehouse and the choir loft to beg for my jobs. But it was unthinkable, considering the great commotion I had made about leaving for good, not to mention the fire damage. I had no choice but to meet my fate.

I searched for a person in charge. My eyes landed on an older gentleman wearing a red vest. With an air of authority, he directed people this way and that, handing them little scrolls of paper tied with a string that he drew from a canvass sack he carried over his shoulder. I assumed, more than anyone, he might be able to direct me to the Poet.

“Oi, sir,” I said. “Know you where I might find Will, the company’s ordinary poet?”

The man looked down upon me, appearing to take in my ragged dress and lowly appearance. “What would you want with him? Off with you, tatterdemalion! You’re in the way!”

“But he told me to come. I’m supposed to start my apprenticeship—”

“Apprenticeship?” He looked perplexed, but then his face melted with recognition as he took in my beauty under the dirt. “Oh, wait, are you the pretty youth from the alehouse? The one Will is so besotted with?”

Hearing that the Poet had admitted such feelings seemed impossible. Is this the life of a player? To be so brazen about one’s darkest and most secret desires.

“Yes,” I said, feeling my face grow hot. “He said I was to meet him here. I’m supposed to—?”

“Right, right, Augustine’s new apprentice. Hughes is your name, right?”

“’Tis!” I nearly yelped. “Willy Hughes.”

That he referred to me as an actual apprentice made my legs wobble. I was about to step into a true profession. Me, a whore’s son—nay, a whore himself—who more than once had nearly died from being strangled in a cesspool.

“Well, welcome to you,” the man in the red vest said, absentmindedly shaking my hand while he examined his list. “I’m Edward Knight, keeper of the book. Now what have we here for you?”

His list contained the names of company members written large, next to which was a list of plays with character names next to each. Of course, it was merely a random collection of scratching and scritching to me. As keeper of the book, Ed Knight gave all the players their parts and corresponding lines written on small rolls of paper—thus they sometimes called our “parts” our “roles.” (We never received the entire play, only the words we were to memorize and speak, plus just three words of the other players’ lines which came before ours—I would learn these words were called a “cue.”) Everyone was assigned to play double and triple roles, meaning the keeper of the book had to make sure no one was playing two characters in the same scene together.

“Here you are! William Hughes …” He began digging through his sack of paper rolls. “My, my,” he said. “You have your work cut out for you, my lad.”

He handed me one roll of paper, then another and another … thirteen roles in all!

“Are you certain?” I asked, clutching the scrolls in my arms. “There are too many.”

He shrugged. “You should put them scrolls in a sack, so you don’t lose them.”