Shakespeare pointed towards the spire of the Guild Chapel. “Just there, boy.”
“The Guild Hall?” said Will, puzzled. “But why?”
“Have you forgotten? Henry Beeston and his lads are in town,” replied his father. “You know – Lord Strange’s Men.”
“The players you mean?” said Will.
“I did a favour or two for old Beeston when I had charge of public entertainments,” said his father. “He’s just the man to help us out.”
Will knew that whenever players were in town they put on their show in the Guild Hall. Back when his father was the leading man on the council, they had front row seats for every performance. He remembered being taken along and delighting in the clowning, swordfights and dances which enlivened the plays.
But that was some years past, before the wool market collapsed, before men suffered financial punishments for not falling into line with the government’s religion. John Shakespeare had been forced to sell off much of his property and incurred heavy debts in order to sustain his business. Yet still the prospect of a brighter future kept the sparkle in his eye.
“Will,” he would tell his son, “one day we’ll be the ones living in a manor house with our own coat of arms over the door, and the likes of Lousy Thomas Lucy will come begging to sit at our table.”
“If we’re going to have a coat of arms,” Will would reply, “you need to make your mind up about how Shakespeare is supposed to be spelled.”
They walked briskly down Ely Street then turned sharp right up Chapel Street until they came to the Guild Hall and its adjoining chapel. Will knew the building well. The school he had attended from the ages of seven to twelve was located on the upper floor.
When his father had taken him out of school to help with his ailing glove-making business Will had been both happy and sad. Most of the lessons were as dull as mud, but he had loved the stories they read. Some were in English, some in Latin – and there were poems, comedies and histories, tales of faraway places and long ago.
“This way, Will,” said John Shakespeare, leading his son away from the front entrance. “We’re not here for the show.”
Slipping unnoticed through a side door, they made their way down a wood-panelled passage, only to find their path blocked by a stout man carrying a stick.
“Out you go!” he boomed. “We’ll have no spectators backstage and no free peeks at the show!”
He placed a hand on John Shakespeare’s chest and started to push him back. Will’s father immediately planted his feet and gave the man a hefty shove that almost toppled him over. He thrust out his chin and jabbed an angry finger in the air.
“I’ve no time for your fiddle-faddle,” he intoned. “I’m here on behalf of the Queen’s Commission to report any hints of treason or immorality. If you don’t step aside, I’ll have you in the stocks before you can cough!”
Will’s father had held many prominent positions in Stratford, from ale-taster to bailiff, and he could assume the manner of a belligerent official as easily as putting on a hat.
The stout man hastily swept off his cap and made a humble bow. “A thousand apologies, your honour,” he said. “Nobody told me there was to be an inspection.”
“Only your ignorance makes me lenient,” said John Shakespeare, sweeping grandly past him. As they entered the great hall he turned to Will and said with a chuckle, “These fellows aren’t the only actors around here.”
With that they passed through the door into a different world.
A curtain had been hung across one end of the Guild Hall, giving the players a private place screened off from the audience. The whole area was filled with bustle as costumes were tossed about, props exchanged and scripts passed from hand to hand.
A boy’s voice singing some sort of hymn filtered through the curtain and a moment later the boy himself came offstage, lifting his skirts as he traipsed down the small wooden steps. He was dressed as an oriental queen.
Women were forbidden by law to appear on the stage, so female roles were played by clean-shaven young men. The boy was accompanied by two older men dressed as murderous ruffians with daggers in their hands.
“Don’t handle me so rough out there,” the player queen complained peevishly. “You’re creasing me royal robes.” He pulled off his crown and the long black wig that was pinned to it, then rubbed a hand over the short-cropped hair beneath.
One of the ruffians poked him with the butt end of his dagger and laughed. “It’s Cruel and Murder we’re playing, Tom, not Kind and Coddling.”
A young man in the colourful patchwork costume of a clown was bounding up the steps. “Spice it up out there, Kemp!” one of the others encouraged him as he disappeared through the curtain. His appearance on stage brought a cheer of recognition from the crowd.
There were seven or eight people backstage now, but they were milling around so busily they seemed like twice that number. Piled all about were boxes of fabric, boxes of wigs, pots of paint and flasks of powder. John Shakespeare bobbed this way and that, trying to see past them. Only slightly muffled by the curtain, Will could hear the clown declaiming on the stage:
“Cambyses put a judge to death – that was a good deed – But to kill the young child was worse to proceed, To murder his brother, and then his own wife – So help me God and holydom, it is pity of his life!”
At the far side of all the backstage bustle stood a regal figure with long white hair and a bushy beard, a painted plaster crown perched on his head. He was mouthing words off a script in his hand while a boy fastened a belt round his midriff. Sticking out from this belt was the hilt and half the blade of a wooden sword daubed with red paint.
“There’s the man,” said John Shakespeare, elbowing his way through the other actors.
The boy pulled down the makeshift king’s robe so that the fake sword poked out through a convenient rent in the purple cloth then stood back, regarding his work with satisfaction. “You’re properly done to death there, dad,” he said.
“Harry!” said Will’s father, offering his hand. “Harry Beeston!”
Beeston looked up from his script with a smile of recognition. “John Shakespeare!” he said, giving a vigorous handshake. “I heard you had – shall we say – retired from public life.”
“You know what it is to have creditors hounding your tracks, Harry.”
“I do indeed,” said Beeston, setting aside his script and making sure his crown was sitting straight. “You’ve come a bit late to catch my Cambyses, John. Show’s nearly done and we’re off in the morning.”
“I didn’t come for the play,” Will’s father began.
“No time to chat, John,” Beeston interrupted. “About to
