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Scene One



The market town of Stratford-upon-Avon, nestled in the crook of gentle flowing Avon. It is spring, and the poplars that dot the town unfurl their new green glory. Above the town a thunderstorm brews. The roiling masses of clouds hang, threatening. No breeze moves the nascent buds or the fresh green leaves. In this uneasy calm, the good burghers sleep snug in their beds, by their good wives’ sides. But in the garden of a house on Henley street, on the edge of town, between the back alley that runs into Arden forest and the back doors of twin wattle and daub houses, a shadowy man stands, transparent and imperfect like a figure glimpsed in a dream.


How came he here?

Will didn’t know.

Standing in the middle of his parents’ garden, Will had no memory of getting there, no memory at all except of lying down in his bed, in far-away London.

Yet, this was no dream.

Taking a deep breath, he smelled the ripe fruit in nearby orchards, savored the warm breeze on his skin, listened to the babble of the Avon.

No dream had ever felt this vivid, this alive. He pulled back his dark curls that brushed the collar of his cheap russet suit. Though Will’s hair had started receding in the front, making him look older than his twenty nine years, it remained lush and long in the back.

Will remembered, with a dew of tears in the eyes, how much he missed his native town. The last three years Will had been in London, where the smells the fresh spring wind transported were likely to be manure, or the perfume with which foolish Londoners masked the excessive human reek. Will had craved the familiar smells, the familiar sounds and tastes of his home town as a child craves his nurse’s bosom.

He sighed and poetry came to his lips, with a fresh spontaneity that evaded him in London. “From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud‑pied April dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing.”

He’d never realized how much he missed his hometown till this moment. Had his desire for his home transported him here? Had some magical proportion of his longing brought him by blessed insensible transport from his rented quarters in London to this, the backyard of the house where he’d grown up?

But the theaters were closed for the plague, which swept through London like a flame conquering dry tinder. Will, never prosperous, now lacked even for the meager money that came from acting jobs. He did other, menial jobs and lived, quietly, in a small attic room. And he missed his Nan. How he missed his Nan.

Not a comfortable woman to live with, Will’s wife of ten years, his Nan, but yet not a woman he wanted to live wholly without. And even Nan’s domineering ways, the way she planned his life for him, were preferable to the loneliness of London.

He’d been happy with Nan, if a little too confined.

With a wry grimace, Will remembered the incident that had taken him to London, when, three years ago, he’d killed one of Lord Lucy’s deer, and the old idiot, in high dudgeon, dreaming of long past feudal times, had tried to claim his ancient privileges and have Will arrested.

Though Lord Lucy wouldn’t manage that, in a free town like Stratford, governed by aldermen and good burghers, going to London had seemed, then, the best means of avoiding the unpleasantness. Going to London and trying his hand at the tawdry pomp of the stage and there bid try to displace Marlowe’s stage-dwarfing presence.

And his Nan, Will’s Nan, had believed he could do likewise, as well, and encouraged him to seek his joy on London stage, while she stayed home and minded the babes. She asked only that he return to visit, very often and forget neither her nor his children. As if he could, when he thought of them so often.

Still, if he returned to Stratford, how would he quiet the neighbors' guffaws when they talked of Will, who’d thought to make his fame and fortune in London, and yet returned empty handed to his parents’ house, to his father’s glove shop?

The thought was sweet, yet tinged by defeat. Will had gone to London to attempt his hand at the actor business, his fortune at play writing. To return would be to admit failure.

With love and fear, he regarded the shape of the twin houses at the end of the garden, those dear buildings that sheltered his wife and children on the left, and his parents and siblings on the right. Nearer to him loomed the bulk of the barns, the ground-hugging shadows of the spring plants.

The blessed silence of Stratford hung over all of it. Stratford, where Will had grown up, and where he knew everyone and everything. Stratford that was knit to Will’s very bones, etched into his mind and body like a mother’s touch upon her infant.

Stratford, where no one would ever believe that Will, the glover’s son, the grammar school graduate, could ever be a playwright and famous and successful in London.

Will didn’t believe it himself.

He listened to the wind rustling the new leaves on the tall poplars interspersed with the houses of the town. A whisper known and dear to him as the restless babble and noise of London had never been.

Will was here. That he couldn’t deny. And the mystery of his arrival -- that he must adjourn for solving at a better time. He could always return to London later, though he feared the courage would fail him for such a second flight. For now, he was near his family.

At the thought, his heart sped up, like a horse does when sensing the familiar barn. He thought of Nan inside, and of their children, ten-year-old Susannah and the seven-year-old twins, Hamnet and Judith. They’d be asleep in the upper floor of the house, beneath the gently sloping eaves. How joyously they’d welcome him, no matter how he’d got here, or how long he’d been absent. Nan would throw her arms around his neck, and his children -- grave Hamnet who looked so much like Will himself; bright, inquisitive Judith; and serious Susannah, burdened with a maturity beyond her years -- all of them would rejoice in him and leap about and caper in their enjoyment.

Curse London and its promise of false riches. Maybe he would return to it, maybe he wouldn’t. So far, his courting of fortune had been less than successful. Perhaps he should stay in his own sphere, and resign himself to his destiny.

Walking the gravel path, between the patches of garden that Nan had carefully tended with flax and vegetables and newly planted herbs, with his nose full of the scent of the roses that were Nan’s special pride, Will felt joyous relief.

Oh, it had seemed lovely then, and simple, three years ago. He had known his verses would dazzle all of London, and multitudes would crowd around for the privilege of watching a Shakespeare play, for the sheer entrancement of his words.

But when he’d thought to dazzle as a poet -- when he’d auditioned with Lord Strange’s company, to write plays for the Rose, where Marlowe strutted his words of fire and air -- Will had recited his best sonnet to the assembled company -- the lord patron, and Marlowe, and the actors themselves.

Oh, how Will could still remember, standing there in the tiring room that smelled of grease paint and sweat, explaining meekly that his Lady’s name was Hathaway and clearing his throat and reciting the fine sonnet that ended in, hate from hate away she threw/ And saved my life, saying not you.

Before even Will had finished, there was Marlowe laughing into his lace-edged sleeve, and looking at Will with malicious mirth.

“Hate away,” Marlowe had said. “And your Mistress’ name is Hathaway. Why, that’s marvelous, prodigious wit. Why, I wager no more than a man in two would think of such word play.”

After that everyone had laughed, except Lord Strange who had looked kindly and asked if perhaps Will would like to try his hand at an actor’s job, while he learned the trade of play writing.

Will had strutted upon the boards for three years, wearing other men’s words upon his lips. He’d been king and tyrant, slave and lover. In the excitement of playing, he bid on in London, for the applause of the crowds, their greasy cloaks thrown in the air in enthusiasm. Will had been almost happy. He’d even written three plays, which the company had put on to moderate success, when no new plays of Marlowe’s were available.

But then a month ago, the great and common plague that ravaged London had forced the authorities to close the theaters. Will had lost his last hope of dazzling crowds.

Now, walking the garden path where he’d played as a child, in the middle of the sweet, quiet, country night, Will thought that perforce it must be a miracle he had come here, like this, transported by the effect of magic or its minions, to his home town. And when God effected miracles, something was meant.

Here he would stay and here he would bide, and here hoe the narrow furrow of his life, and seed his future in peace.

Leave the London stage to the fools, and to such dare-devils as Kit Marlowe whose plays always, always, drew in the big crowds at The Rose. Leave his uncertain courting of Dame Fortune and that Bawd Fame for the assured joy of his wife, Nan, for Nan’s love, for her tender regard. Nan’s demands could be no harsher than Fortune’s, and Nan meant well, which Fortune might not.

Will stopped in front of the sturdy oak back door to Nan’s kitchen, and put his hand out to knock, since this late at night, the door would be bolted.

Behind him a hunter’s horn sounded.

Will stopped. The crystalline notes echoed through the still air and all Will could think was, A hunter now?

Oh, sure, the noblemen hereabout hunted, like Lord Lousy himself. But like this, this late at night? Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night, the time of night when Troy was set on fire; the time when screech‑owls cried and ban‑dogs howled, and spirits walked and ghosts broke up their graves?

Impossible.

Yet his hairs prickled and his ears rang with the refrain of that hunting call.

No. Not impossible.

The hunting horn sounded again, a bright, silver sound splitting the dark of night.

Will’s hair stood on the back of his neck, with the fear of the hunted thing, the terror of the night, the panic that comes upon man alone in the woods, in the unpeopled wasteland.

Who would be hunting this way, at night, but a spectral hunter? Who but the Hunter himself, primeval and merciless, who rode through the very thunderclouds as they roiled? The Hunter, whose dogs were said to be tormented souls?

Sweat ran down the middle of Will’s back. He didn’t turn, didn’t want to turn, didn’t want to face the certainty of what he feared.

Ten years ago Will’s Nan and his oldest daughter, Susannah, then a babe, had been kidnapped by elves, taken to faerieland. In rescuing them, Will had encountered this Hunter, this creature older than the oldest nightmares of humankind, this creature who stalked the night and caught -- what?

Will caught his breath with a sudden inhalation into a gaping, dry mouth. How could one know for sure what this creature hunted?

Something that laughed and shrieked inside him, some ancestral knowledge, some leaping demon hooted and answered: Nothing and everything. The souls of men, the substance of elves, the pride of angels.

It was said that even elves, fairies, and the other folk rumored to hide in nearby Arden forest -- all that remained of the primeval forest that had once covered all of Great Britain -- feared the Hunter as much and with as much reason as humans.

Quicksilver, king of the elves, had once told Will that the Hunter had been a god and ruler of the elven race in the time before men and that he still remained, biding by, and time and again claiming those foolish enough to get ensnared in his coils.

Hair prickling as if with cold breath at the back of his neck, Will reached for the solidity of his door again. As he did, the call sounded again, and on the heels of it a storm of baying, a rising of howling, a wave of growling rose from the Hunter’s dogs -- their music frightful as the serpent's hiss, and bidding screech‑owls made the concert full. All the foul terrors in dark‑seated hell seemed to ride at Will’s very heels.

So, he’d not been transported here for good-chance, nor by a benevolent divinity.

Will spun around. He heard the clopping of hooves, and saw a dark and ominous shape amid the lowering clouds: a man riding a gigantic horse and raising a shining silver horn to his lips. The horn alone shone, like a new risen moon. The rest was dark, cloudy death.

The Hunter.

The shadow of the Hunter, his shape, and the turmoil of his snarling dogs filled the horizon.

The Hunter, lord of the storm, bringer of misfortune, omen of all ill change, who devoured souls caught outdoors, even the hard, brittle souls of elves made of moonbeam and primeval fire and little else.

They approached in a snarling tumble of fury, darkening the sky with their menace.

Will took one step back, then another, setting his back to the hard door. There he stood against those supernatural dreads, as the hope of Troy against the Greeks that would have entered it. Thus he barred their entrance into this most sacred precinct of his heart.

His heart beat near his throat and his blood roared in his ears, deafening him.

The shapes in the sky resolved themselves and became one, tumbling from its sphere to the world of men.

Will wouldn’t run. Once before had he seen this shape, while elves were embroiled in battle all around him.

Once before and then, like now, he had trembled at the sight of it. And yet, the horror had passed him by. The Hunter had wanted no more than to take Sylvanus, the elven king, who’d tainted his own soul with treason and parricide and who had deservedly been transformed into one of the Hunter’s own dogs.

Who had the Hunter come for now?

Only Will was here.

Will stared at the gigantic Hunter in mute horror. Had it come for Will? Had Will tinged his soul with the black of his greed, the red of his desire for fame? Had the Hunter come to punish Will’s pride and would Will go through eternity like a dog of the Hunter -- with slavering jaws and dark, hisurt body?

Swallowing hard, on fear and almost forgotten memories of supernatural dread, Will reached his hand out blindly and ran it along the side of the door, till he found the handle of a hoe, resting against the wall, no doubt forgotten from Nan’s planting labors, as it usually was.

The baying rose, unbearable, as the dogs drew near. Didn’t Will’s children hear it, where they slept, comfortable and covered in their beds? Were his children well? Surely the Hunter came not for children?

Will refused to allow fear in through that chink of sudden alarm in his mind. Sweat ran prickly-cold down his back. He adjusted his hold on the hoe to a fighting stance. The handle of the hoe was oak and should endure many an attack by the cursed dogs. And the hoe, itself, at least the end of it was iron -- good, honest forged iron such as hobgoblins should fear.

Though fear trembled steadily along Will’s limbs, and his heart fluttered near his dry throat, and though his mind -- what sanity remained in it -- told him that good wood and iron were no defense against such an enemy as the Hunter, yet Will held onto the handle, held it tight till his knuckles shone white through the stretched skin. Whispering an Our Father and swallowing at the bile of fear in his throat, Will thought if the Hunter had come for him, yet would Will fight as best he could.

Will would storm faerieland again, if it would keep his home safe.

Holding the ice-cold handle of the hoe with his ice-cold hands one at each end, Will advanced a foot, and flexed his knees for balance and waited, his back to his closed kitchen door.

Nearer and nearer the horse galloped and the dogs growled, in black mass. So near that Will swore he could see the grin on the Hunter’s face, though such a thing as the Hunter clearly could not grin.

They could have him, and good riddance to Will’s ill-starred existence. But here he’d stay and here he’d fall, and like a soldier defending a sacred trust, he would die before the shadow of evil touched Susannah’s blue eyes, Judith’s golden hair, Hamnet’s innocence.

Drawing closer, the dark mass in the sky resolved itself.

Will blinked, as, suddenly, with a shock, he saw that the Hunter’s dogs ran ahead of him and snarled and romped, closing in on prey.

Not Will. The dogs' prey was one of their number.

Will blinked again, unable to believe it. Yet, it was true. The prey that the dogs chased closer and closer to Will, looked like any and all of them: a dog, or rather a wolf, the supernatural creature's shape and nature clearly dating from a time when dogs had been perforce wolves, or perhaps a creature older than both wolves and dogs, with massive head, heavy jaws, short legs and squat, powerful grey body.

The hunted dog bled from many wounds, and it cowered and whined, pressed close and nipped by its fellows. Only now and then it turned and growled, snapping in turn at its tormentors, and by such means remained just ahead of the pack that would have torn it apart.

Nearer and nearer, the creature looked at Will with sly, yellow eyes. Mingling with the howling and the screaming, Will heard the thing’s voice and dazed Will wasn’t even shocked that it was a voice he remembered -- the commanding, velvet-soft voice of the once-sovereign of elven land.

Despair tainted it and a sort of cringing beggary. “You -- you, Will Shakespeare,” the voice said. “You who’ve been loved of elf, and know the power and the glory of my people. Only give me asylum in your home, and abode in your heart.”

The creature dove down, closer and closer, as though descending a stairway formed of floating clouds.

With the pack on its heels, nipping and barking and growling, it descended, swifter than the wind, darker than the nightmare, and suddenly, suddenly, it was there, at Will’s feet, barking and growling, then cringing and cowering like a tame house cat.

Yet, through the canine noises it made, its voice rang in Will’s mind. “You want power and riches and fame. You do, Will, you know it. Listen to me, Will. The London stage will be yours for your strutting and your words will be such as generations yet unborn will flock to see your plays and applaud the workings of your mind. You will be a god for all the centuries and as such worshiped. Only give me shelter, Will Shakespeare.”

While the creature cringed at Will’s feet, the pack caught up. Without thinking, Will raised his hoe. However, they stayed just out of range of that striking hoe, snarling and slavering. Their fangs glimmered though there was no moonlight to paint them silver bright.

Behind them came the dark figure mounted on his dark horse, the silver horn in his hand. A sound like a rumble of laughter came from him. “What, now, good man, will you protect that wretch, who would unseat me from my horse and rule the underworld in my stead?” The Hunter’s voice was dark softness, a splattering of ice upon the back of the neck, a clutch at the chest. “Will you protect him for the sake of his treacherous promises?”

Will took a deep breath. He remembered treacherous promises enough, from elven kind.

“You stole my wife once,” Will told the dog.

The laughter bark echoed again, tainting the quiet spring night with a note of madness. “Aye, and she preferred you, the better of two men.” This was said with bitterness, but the voice in Will’s mind soon picked up a light, bantering tone, “What have you to fear from me, Will, when even your Nan prefers your joys to my immortal arms? Only let me in and give me asylum, and I’ll be your servant and crown you the greatest playwright the world has ever seen, your talent at long last recognized.”

Talent recognized? Yes, Will had long thought that his words were better than Marlowe’s. And yet, Lord Strange had not thought so. He’d told Will to write a play first, and prove his mettle. And when Will had, the theater goers had refused to be dazzled by his words, to fawn over his poetry as they did over Marlowe’s.

And yet, were Will’s words good, or did he dote on them, as a blind father upon shrewish daughters? Something in Will knew that, as with the glover’s craft, he must learn this writing craft day by day, become familiar with the story teller’s tools and acquaint himself with the paring knife of the public taste.

And then maybe he’d be admired, but admired for his own mind and hand. What could this creature give him that he could not give himself? If this creature gave him words for the page, would they be Will’s?

And if not, if the creature simply made people worship Will beyond his deserts, would that not be a hollow triumph, empty and sad like a shell sucked clean of life?

And what would giving the creature shelter mean? What to Susannah and Judith and Hamnet? Could they share a home with such a creature and not feel it?

Will looked at the wolf thing, foul and rank at his feet. Would it not taint their childhood with darkness?

The creature at his feet drew closer, the tips of its icy fur brushing against Will’s stockings and, even through them, robbing Will of strength and warmth.

Sylvanus unfolded and stood, the King Sylvanus in his dark handsomeness, with his almond shaped eyes, his dark curls, his beard, his very pale, oval-shaped face. “Ah, Will, you and I will rule the underworld and the upper world too,” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t fail me. My brother, Quicksilver, he chooses his friends well. All the better for me to make them his enemies.”

The voice was soft, caressing, yet Sylvanus’ breath felt icy and smelled rank with the pollution of the graveyard.

Will shuddered. In his mind, as through an open window, he saw this creature consorting with his children, mingling with them, hypnotizing Judith, tainting sweet Susannah and bright, bright Hamnet.

He saw his children growing up in a world where this creature ruled, with his bared fangs, his icy grip.

He swung his hoe in a wide arc and jumped back, and brought the iron down upon the shape of the deposed king of elfland. “Foul fiend,” he said. “Foul devil, for God's sake hence, and trouble us not, for you have made the happy earth thy hell, filled it with cursing cries and deep exclaims. Rank, gross creature. To the realms whence you came, go. Leave a good Christian soul to rest alone.”

Like that, the spell was broken.

The Hunter’s horn sounded. The Hunter’s laughter echoed.

The creature turned and growled, in front of the cottage door was once more a dog-wolf, a barely tamed menace, bristling with dull grey fur, its heavy jaw open, slavering glowing green saliva onto the path. The dogs closed around it, a dark, roiling pack, growling, fighting, snarling.

The Hunter made a sound that might have been a chuckle, or a rumble of thunder in the distance and lifted a hand as though in salute to Will. “By the pact with Eve I couldn’t intervene,” he said. “I can’t catch a traitor protected by the blood of Adam. But now he’s ours. Now we’ll have him. Lest he find another human touched by faerieland who will shelter him.”

But on the heels of his triumphant gloating, the pack of dogs howled as one. They retreated. Their circle scattered, threatening, growling, to reveal Sylvanus wolf-form still intact, still living, still rounding and snarling amid them. And through Sylvanus’ growls, curses at Will poured out, curses at Will’s Nan and at the fruits of their union.

“I’ll come for them all,” Sylvanus growled and muttered, and snarled, saying nothing, yet threatening all. “One by one, I’ll devour you all. But first to deal with you, you fool. With you, who will never subdue me.”

And even as Will grabbed his hoe again, thinking his last breath arrived, Sylvanus jumped, not towards him, but towards the Hunter.

The Hunter struck out with the silver horn, that -- Will realized for the first time -- was the Hunter’s only real weapon. The horn missed the square head, as the wolf launched through the air, towards the Hunter, and fastened heavy fangs onto the Hunter’s arm, drawing bright, glowing red blood from the dark shape.

A scream like a thousand tortured voices tore the air.

The Hunter swung again, and this time the horn caught the beast, sent it hurtling through the darkness, to land, awkwardly, a ways from the Hunter, crushing Nan’s rose bushes.

The Hunter took the horn to his lips and blew on it, once, a clear note in which there was, nonetheless, the hint of shaking of a wounded creature making a brave effort.

The other dogs rallied. They gathered in a pack, snarling, baring their fangs, at the traitor in their midst.

For a moment it hung in the balance. Sylvanus the wolf faced his congeners with lowered head and snapping jaws. In his eyes, behind the brown, canine pupils, red fire of eternal coals blazed.

Then the Hunter blew his horn again, this time more forcefully. His shadow still showed the crimson marks of spilled immortal blood, but this time the horn sounded clear and sure and strong.

The dogs leaped and jumped, and snarled, and ran. And Sylvanus turned and ran, ahead of them, climbing the invisible staircase up to the dark sky, just ahead of the pack. Always ahead of the pack.

* * *

Will awoke, his heart pounding; his mouth dry and foul-tasting; his hands clenched hard on the sheet, as they’d tightened in dream upon the hoe-handle.

He swallowed and swallowed again, as his eyes took in the narrowness of his room, his single bed, the clothing trunk hard by, the table by the window with paper and inkpot and inkstone standing nocturnal sentinel to his interrupted work.

Through the window came the light of a waxing moon, its pale hand touching all with tips of silver.

On the wall, Will’s russet suit hung. In bed he wore nothing but his much worn shirt. He smelled his own sweat, rank with fear and effort, and felt as if the foul being still touched his stockings, chilling his legs.

Had there ever been a dream like this? What could it signify?

Was this a vision?

Was this a dream?

Did he sleep? Or was something else there? Had he in sleep visited some other realm, like that realm of faerie into which he’d once trespassed?

The moonlight from the window looked real enough. And the sounds coming through the window, too, the all-too-earthly sounds of Southwark at night: bawds calling customers, and drunkards singing, and -- from somewhere -- a riotous argument.

Will dragged himself up on trembling legs and, still shaken from his sleep-granted vision, ambled to the window and looked out at the street.

Down below, a crier called people into the Blind Bear tavern, whose great, painted sign swung in the wind showing a bruin with immense claws.

A cockfight was about to begin within, and the kind masters walking by -- some of them dressed indeed as great Lords, all silk and velvets -- were enjoined to come in and place their bets.

The kind masters went in, and the mean ones too, dressed in rags and crawling into the dark, open door to the tavern.

Southwark was at the edge of London and as such unregulated by the mayor of the great city. Here could everything flourish that good religious people disapproved of, from cutpurses to playwrights.

And here had Shakespeare come to rest, having moved here from more expensive lodgings: here, in this cheap outgrowth of London he made home after three years of vain striving in the city.

But none of this compared to the quiet of Stratford, just now so real in his mind. He thought of the Hunter and shivered. He must go home. He must go to Nan. Nan and the children needed his protection, and anyway, what could he do in London, with the theaters closed because of the plague?

He thought of the neighbors' jests, the pointing fingers that would greet Will’s return, and how the small community would laugh at Will’s pretensions that had come to naught.

He sighed.

Should he return and bid adieu to his dream of being a poet or should he stay and risk this nightmare befalling his family?

And did the nightmare mean anything but the vague uncertain substance that dreams were ever made of?

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Framed