During one of the playwright’s visits, George Bruton had a question for Christopher Dole. Using the same gesture as when he signalled for another pint pot in The Ram, the printer tapped with his fingernails at a bit of verse on the page in front of him. They were standing to one side of the press room. From overhead came the thump of children running around. Christopher wasn’t sure how many there were up there. Perhaps Bruton himself did not know.
‘Where did this come from?’ said Bruton. ‘This Cain and Abel stuff. “Oh, go and kiss the Devil’s arse! It is your fault it burns the worse.” Or “With this jawbone, as I thrive, I’ll let you no more stay alive!”’
‘I believe that Henry Ashe copied it from an old manuscript that he found… somewhere,’ said Christopher, suddenly remembering that Bruton had heard of the Oseney text from his brother.
‘It is cleverly worked in,’ said Bruton. ‘There is a troupe of mummers performing a fragment of an old play that reflects the action of the main piece. Ingenious.’
‘I’ll tell Mr Ashe,’ said Dole.
‘You haven’t said yet what you want on the title page. No author’s name, I assume?’
‘No, no. Not even initials.’
Bruton did not look surprised. It was usual for plays to be printed anonymously.
‘But I am asking you to include this device,’ said Dole, taking a scrap of paper from his pocket. On it was a simple drawing of a shield with a bird perched on the top. It appeared to be a coat of arms but when one looked closely it was more of a mockery than anything else since the bird was a ragged black thing and clutching a drooping lance in one of its claws.
‘I’m not so sure about this,’ said George Bruton. ‘It is a serious matter, the right to bear arms. I don’t want to find myself in trouble with the law. Your own name may not be appearing on the title page, Mr Dole, but mine will be as printer.’
‘It is not anybody’s coat of arms, I promise you. I’ll pay you extra for this. Mr Ashe is very insistent on it.’
‘Very well.’
George Bruton agreed because he did not have much pride remaining in what his workshop produced and because he needed the money. There were dozens of printers in London – more than the city required – and he knew now that he would never achieve the reputation of a Day or a Barker, those names he’d mentioned to Christopher. Besides, there was always the insistent beat of little feet overhead, reminding him of the many mouths gaping to be fed. Although Bruton preserved what money he could to spend on himself in The Ram, sitting snug and alone in his corner-place, he was still a responsible family man. As regularly as the turning of the seasons, Martha produced another little mouth to add to those responsibilities. So when someone like Dole was willing to pay more than the going rate for printing an odd piece of work, Bruton wasn’t going to protest or look too closely at it.
As for Christopher Dole, he wasn’t concerned about the money which he was paying out. It amounted to everything he had, but since he did not think he was much longer for this world, he reasoned he would not have any further need of money. He had no wife to think of, nor any children. Death was on its way. He’d dreamed recently of a figure lying flat out on a bed, with a couple of others standing round in attitudes of mourning. Squeezing past them to see who was lying there, he’d been astounded to see that it was himself. When he’d turned round to identify the onlookers, they had disappeared. He had woken chilled and sweaty at the same time.
It was more than a matter of simple dreams and premonitions. The thinness and pallor that George Bruton had commented on during their meeting in the tavern were not only the result of a sleepless night or two. For several months Christopher had observed himself growing more scrawny. His appetite was diminished. He was subject to inexplicable pains everywhere, and bouts of nausea and dizziness.
His last resources would be spent on seeing The English Brothers into the world. He would not be like Master Shakespeare, buying properties in Stratford and playing the part of a gentleman, and dying when his time came, in a four-poster bed with priests and lawyers at his beck and call. No, Christopher Dole would make his exit like those true men of theatre, Robert Greene or Will Kemp. He might be neglected and poor but he still had integrity.
II
William Shakespeare and Nicholas Revill were talking in a little room behind the stage of the Globe playhouse in Southwark. It was the end of a December afternoon. The play for the day was finished and everyone – players and the paying public – was glad to get back indoors because of the cold. Snow was falling, not steadily but in occasional flurries.
WS and Nick were sitting on stools on either side of a small table whose surface was occupied with neat stacks of documents. This room was set aside for the business of the partners who owned the Globe, of whom Shakespeare was one. The principal shareholders were the Burbage brothers. Cuthbert Burbage attended to the account books and other business matters while Richard Burbage was their chief actor, known for his skill in playing tragedy parts. Nick Revill had been with the King’s Men for a good few years now. Although not a senior in the company, nor one of those whose name alone was sufficient to draw in the public, he had built up a reputation as an adept and reliable player, with a particular skill in the darker parts (lust-maddened dukes, vengeful brothers).
At that moment Nick was about to look at a book that WS passed across to him. It was already dark outside and Nick drew closer one of the pair of candlesticks on the table. He cast his eyes across the pages, crudely sewn together. He read a few fragments and would have read more had he not been interrupted.
‘What do you make of it?’ said WS. He sounded impatient, unusually for him. ‘Start at the beginning.’
‘It is a play entitled The English Brothers. No author is given, of course, but it is printed by George Bruton-’
‘Of Bride Lane near Fleet Bridge.’
‘Yes,’ said Nick. ‘And there’s also a little heraldic image here of a bird on top of a shield.’
‘And the contents?’
‘It’s about some knights, isn’t it, and there seems to be a rivalry between them?
‘The knights are brothers,’ said Shakespeare, ticking off the points on his fingers. ‘They should be fighting together under the king against the hordes from Norway and Denmark. Instead they fall in love at the same instant with the same woman, after glimpsing her in a garden. Then the two of them fall out – quarrelling over who saw her first and so on – and the jest is that she isn’t even aware of their existence.’
‘Sounds like a good subject,’ said Nick.
‘It is a good subject,’ said Shakespeare. ‘Not new, of course. The best subjects never are. The knightly brothers are caught fighting each other by the English king, they’re banished, they go wandering off, they come back together in time to vanquish the horde of Norsemen, they are reconciled, one dies in battle, the other gets the woman.’
‘I might pay to see that.’
‘So might I,’ said WS, ‘but this piece is put together in a very slapdash style. At one point there is a portion of an old play about Cain and Abel, supposedly seen by one of the knights on his travels. The other knight finds himself in Scotland for some reason. It is absurd enough. And there are opportunities that have been missed in telling the story, obvious opportunities.’
Nick wondered why Shakespeare was bothering to ask for his views since he’d obviously examined the drama for himself and come to his own conclusions. He also wondered whether Shakespeare was irritated because he hadn’t come up with the idea for the play himself. But it turned out that WS was concerned because it might be believed that he was the author of The English Brothers.