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So, to say these abuses were caused by our dressing as women was absurd. Why did they not point the fingers at those who were playacting as kind fathers or holy men in their everyday lives? They were the ones perpetrating the horrors.
Marlowe, for his part, would laugh in their faces and brazenly shout, “Beshrew thee, pious knaves! Perhaps it’s your own arousal about which you worry, gentlemen! Feel free to pay your penny and allow us to show you a good time. But no touching, Mister Prynne! Thy hands are poxy!”
Still, the Puritans’ shouting at us outside the Rose playhouse only made my fear of performing Gaveston far worse. In just a matter of hours I would be up on a stage in front of nearly two thousand people, proclaiming my romantic love for another man. While we were at the lips of the seventeenth century, admitting one’s true and complete heart still seemed so far away.
“Are you ready, my sweet love?” Kit whispered in my ear, his arms wrapped around my middle, as I stood in the tiring house ready to go on.
“They won’t hang me, will they?” I said, turning my head to see his face.
“Not at all.” He smiled. “If anyone shall be punished, it will be me. But I know these Londoners. They will behave outwardly as if the King’s and Gaveston’s love is a mere friendly trifle, but inside their hearts they will understand and be thrilled that someone finally speaks the truth.”
The horns sounded for the start of the play. For the first time I stepped upon the stage in a leading role wearing britches. There was not the gasp of awe at my feminine beauty, as there had been when I was dressed like a lady. This concerned me. I would need to win them with my talent alone. I began to speak as Gaveston, reading a letter from my beloved King Edward …
GAVESTON
(Reading) My father is deceased, come Gaveston,
And share the kingdom with my dearest friend
Ah words that make me surfeit with delight:
What greater bliss can hap to Gaveston,
Than live and be the favorite of a king?
The crowd came to a hush; they were listening and watching intently. I heard the shushing of the meat pie sellers. It appeared the audience did still adore me even though I was playing a most malevolent version of myself, but without a wig or make up, just my own flesh. It was the most freeing feeling, to be laid bare in front of the world. The rest of the play went splendidly, though I soon heard hisses at my conniving character—which was its own sort of fun. By the end, both the groundlings and the galleries stomped and cheered as we bowed and then performed our jig. Several men threw flowers at my feet, as they had done when I first played Juliet. Afterward, no one was sent to the Tower, nor hung, nor put in chains, and word spread of the genius of Marlowe’s new play, and the beautiful young man who played the evil but enthralling Gaveston.
“You have made me so proud, my love,” Kit said to me after that first performance. “This will just be the beginning. Set yourself ready for so much more.”
“Thank you, Kit,” I said. “But, now that the play is up, and it’s been nigh on six months, might we make another approach to see if the Children of the Chapel Royale might release Little Goat from his contract?”
“Dear heart,” Kit said, stroking my curls, “you are the dearest friend to that poor boy. I will try my best once more, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. The Children of the Chapel have the Queen’s support, so it’s unlikely they will waver on his contract. But I will try.”
When at the end of the week I didn’t hear from Kit about Little Goat’s cause, I assumed Kit had yet to hear from his sources again. A few weeks later, I pursued it again, and again he said he’d try. Whether or not he did that time, I never knew. When I once more gently prodded him, he took a sour look and indicated it was hopeless, and I needed to just accept it. After that, I did not approach him again concerning the matter.
In the months that followed we played Edward the Second dozens of times, and each time we sold out the entirety of the Rose playhouse. While I had been hired to only play Gaveston for the Earl of Pembroke’s Men, the company manager quickly offered me two additional shillings per week to perform other roles in their repertory, including that of Helen of Troy in Kit’s Doctor Faustus (which had no lines, but required an actor of exceptional beauty) and the leading role in his Dido, Queen of Carthage. I barely spent any of my pay, stuffing it in the purse I hid under my fine bed. My goal was to save enough to one day become a sharer in a company, and maybe to purchase property like my betters. Only then could I prove to all that I had truly elevated myself far beyond my rude beginnings. If I had stayed with the Poet’s company, I might never have had the chance for all my hopes and plans to finally come true.
Thirty-ThreeHeaven and Hell
Wherein Willy Hughes discovers whether his romance with Kit is comedy or tragedy.
“Love, thy name is both heaven and hell.”
—The Tragedy of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
Over the next twelve months, Kit worked feverishly on two new plays in which I was featured: The Massacre at Paris and a rewrite of The Jew of Malta. My friendship with Kit began to change as well. What had been, for me, primarily a business arrangement with some sporting benefits, grew into something more akin to true love. It wasn’t as instant nor as intense as the first flames of love that I had felt for the Poet or Barnaby, still it was another sort of affection: the kind that begins to burn with time.
Soon, the fire of this latent passion extended to all we did whether on the boards or in the bedroom. We’d spend all morning play-building, all afternoon performing, all early evening drinking, and half the night fucking. As the sun rose, we’d lie cuddled in each other’s arms, until a fit of inspiration would rouse him, and the day would start again. It was marvelous and exhausting, and I wouldn’t have changed all those months for Sir Walter Raleigh’s fortune.
Yet our joy was not to continue uninterrupted. One chilly morning, two finely dressed noblemen, with stern expressions on their faces, appeared at our scramble-through wanting to speak to Kit. I could see Kit recognized them by how his eyes grew most serious.
“What is it, Kit?” I asked in a whisper. “Are we in trouble?”
“No, my darling foundling,” he whispered back. “Just stay here. They are friends of mine from court.”
He called for us to continue with the work while he disappeared with the men. He didn’t return for that afternoon’s show. When he finally showed up at our home near midnight, he looked pale and tired.
“What did your friends want, Kit?” I asked, hoping he’d let me help him if there was something amiss.
