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Scene Twelve



Will disembarks from the ferry on the river shore in front of a grand house -- the townhouse of the earl of Southampton. Two iron gates stand open to a small quay, and past them, broad marble stairs disappear into the green shade of a large garden. At the quay someone in rich livery -- presumably a footman -- waits. He steps forward as Will is delivered to the quay.



Will stepped out of the river-crossing barge, glad to be on solid ground once more. Keeping his balance on the flat-bottomed boat had made him feel nauseous and he could well tell that the ferryman, a small, rodent-faced creature, wondered what business such a man as Shakespeare could have in this place.

And yet, Will had put on his best suit -- dark velvet, hardly mended at all -- although mended by the hand of his Nan who’d never been fully conversant with needle and thread.

Beneath the suit, his best shirt, with a broad collar, neither as fine nor surely as expensive as Kit Marlowe’s, and yet the best Will had ever owned.

But the ferryman looked at him oddly and even when Will handed over his money -- and a shocking price it was to ferry someone across the river -- the man no more than doffed his hat and grumbled something.

No bowing at the legs, no whisper of thanks. No. Well, he must know that Will was no gentleman, much less a nobleman such as most who visited here.

Will turned his back on him, and, climbing the stairs all in a rush, started towards the house that could barely be seen through the trees: a giant structure of stone, not like the humble wattle and daub Shakespeare house. And yet, beholding the house, thus, through the trees, Will remembered his dream and his house, seen from the bottom of his parents’ garden.

In that dream as in this moment, some windows of the distant building sparkled with the reflected light of distant candles. In that dream as in this, Will was alone at the bottom of the peaceful garden, while storm clouds gathered above.

Well, at least here he was not wholly alone.

The footman in sparkling blue and silver velvet livery spared him a look and a raised eyebrow.

“I’m Master William Shakespeare,” Will said, feeling his voice break and crack, and feeling heartily ashamed of himself. If he could not face the footman, how could he face the lord? “Master Richard Field, the printer, has recommended me to your master and he -- ”

“Ah, one of the players,” The footman said, disdain dripping from every syllable. “You may go.”

As Shakespeare went he saw, drawn up on either side of the long walk, carriages ready and equipped with horses, to welcome other guests more refined and less likely to be sent wandering down this dusty drive.

Thinking this, Will wished to laugh at himself, at his pretensions. Would he be received by nobility as if of equal birth?

Ah, fool Will, the grammar school graduate, the country boy of Stratford, the foolish poet.

Was Will even a poet? Or just a fool who thought that he could rhyme?

He thought of Marlowe, and Marlowe’s easy jest on the subject of dreams. Oh, to have a way with words, to use language like that. Oh, it would almost be worth one’s mortal soul.

Walking the dusty drive, beneath the whispering trees, he heard dogs bark in the distance and stayed, for a moment, every sense alert, every gesture stopped, listening with straying ear and fearful sense for the sound of a hunting horn. But the horn didn’t sound and Will laughed an uneasy laugh that echoed hollowly back to him in the still air.

The bark came from many dogs, each with a different sound but none had the primal, blood-chilling bark of the Hunter’s dogs. This was a noble house, after all, and the dogs would be the lord’s kennels.

He wondered what this Southampton would be like. Richard Field had said he inclined to the theater. Will remembered hearing Lord Strange say that Henry Wriothsley, Earl of Southampton was both very rich and very young and no more foolish than those two circumstances warrant, whatever that meant in Lord Strange’s sometimes cryptic parlance.

Will looked at those lit squares in the night, those lights shining where the house windows were and tried to imagine going into that house. He’d go into that house, and be snubbed by countless footmen, and perhaps handed on and on to see the lord.

And then, what would he say to this young, rich and only vaguely foolish gentleman?

Will remembered his audience with Lord Strange, much too well.

How Marlowe had laughed at Will’s laboriously worked poem. Will’s face warmed up at the memory.

Since then Will had written his three plays that no one, save him remembered. Henry VI, Richard III, and the blood-soaked Titus Andronicus, his attempt at stealing the spotlight from Marlowe’s Tamburlaine.

But the truth was, the truth was, the theater company had only wanted Will’s plays when there was no new one of Marlowe’s.

Will trudged along the walk, in the dark, his feet weighing much too much, his mind heavy with self-doubt.

The sound of hooves behind him made him turn, in time to behold a carriage heading towards him. He jumped, deeper into the shade of the giant oaks on either side of the walk. Just in time to avoid the wheels of the carriage, that nonetheless splattered him with dirt clods. Sighing, Will dusted his good velvet suit, as he walked forward.

Why didn’t he turn and go back now? Why didn’t he leave?

Will knew his poetry to be bad, or, if not bad, so lackluster that no nobleman would want to give him money to pursue it.

What was the use and why not return to Stratford, to the glover trade, to Nan’s arms?

Something in him rebelled and stood up and said that only had he Marlowe’s mastery of the language and of the forms and fashions of the ancients as understood by today’s scholars, Will would fare better than even Marlowe himself. Had Will not more of an understanding of the human heart?

He thought of Marlowe’s smirk and sighed, impatient. Well, Will had, at least, a human heart, while Marlowe was nothing more than words, words fashioned into man, expensively suited, walking abroad in the light of the day. He was one such, nothing more.

If you boiled Marlowe down to his words, what would you find behind, but more words?

And if Will could indeed boil Marlowe down, and reduce him to words, perhaps that potion would give Will the nimble-footed meter he needed to woo Lords and impress them with his agile tongue.

He was thinking so, resentment towards Marlowe flaring, when -- ahead -- a form appeared, made of air and woven of moonlight, a form clear and yet ethereal, immaterial and yet dark like lost dreams. Sylvanus. Once the king of faerie land.

“One more chance, Will, one more chance,” the voice that was no voice spoke in Will’s mind. “One more chance to grasp at your desire. But take me to your heart, good Will, and I will give you those winged words you long for.”

The smell and taste of graveyard clay came with the voice, and the rank odor of this, the worm’s final banquet, penetrated Will’s skin and mouth, stopped his nostrils, put a dampening effect on the other sounds his ears perceived: the rustling of the trees overhead, the clinking of glasses and soft laughter from within the house.

Will took a deep, shuddering breath.

He’d been wrong, after all, and how many times need he prove himself wrong? He’d not give all for a gift of words. Even he didn’t crave poetry all that much. No. Will would succeed himself, of himself, or not at all.

“No,” he spoke, sure that what he saw was no more than hallucination. “No. Not were you as fair as the angels and as good. I’ll do it on my own or not at all.”

“Oh, but it would be on your own. You and I would be one, linked forever. A touch of magic, a wish of faerieland upon your mortal bones, making you more than you will ever be,” the shape spoke out of a darker shadow within woods.

But the odor and feel of the thing were rank and gross and the thought of being one with this corruption brought bitter bile to Will’s throat. He shook his head, and in shaking it he ran, down the drive, all the way to where the carriage was letting out a passel of guests. Forgetting himself, Will ran past the guests, and all the way up the staircase, only to meet with a handsome valet in blue livery, who bowed slightly to him and said, “Sir?”

“I am no Sir,” he said, out of breath. “I am no Sir. Just Will. Will Shakespeare. A player. I would wish to be a play maker, and my friend Richard Fielding has spoken for me to his Lordship the earl and -- ”

“Ah, Shakespeare,” a voice spoke from the dazzle of light that was the interior of the vast salon into which the door opened. A figure walked from that dazzle of light that so confused Will’s dark-adapted eyes that he could not tell details nor size of the salon, nor even how many people attended -- nothing, really, save that it was brightly lit.

For a moment, still half-blinded, Will thought it was Quicksilver.

As his eyes adjusted, he realized that what he saw was actually a human, younger and, perforce, less perfect than the lord of faerieland. And yet, in his features, and in the blond hair carefully combed over his left shoulder, he resembled Quicksilver entire.

It was this resemblance, disquieting but familiar and soothing at once, that reminded Will he had, once before, faced royalty without trembling.

That certainty steadied his voice when, moments later, the earl said, “Recite us some of your poetry, good Shakespeare.”

Unable to think of anything, unable to remember any of his carefully polished poems he had labored over and crafted for months on end, Will was for a moment mute.

Then he thought of what Marlowe had said about a tragic fate and mythical lovers, and thought of people loved by the gods. Out of all this, lines appeared, plucked entire from his frantic, panicked mind.

He heard himself say with unwonted assurance, “I have but a few lines of a poem I’ve been working on, your Lordship.... Thinking of making it a gift to you, if you should like it.” He cleared his throat and his voice swelled and for a moment he wondered if the words he used were truly his or if somehow he had accepted the foul bargain of the creature outside, without meaning to. It was so strange for him to speak like this, poetry pouring from his lips, unthought. “Even as the sun, with purple-colored face, had taken his last leave of the weeping morn, rose cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase; Hunting he loved but love he laughed to scorn; Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him, and like a bold-faced suitor ‘gins to woo him.”

Then the words swept even him along, and he could do no more than follow with his mind, as his lips spoke on, and the entire audience listened in silence that, for once, betrayed no amusement and no scorn, “Stain to all the nymphs, more lovely than a man; more white and red than doves or roses are....”

Nothing mattered, except the words.

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Framed