It struck him suddenly how utterly ludicrous that thought was. That an actor should ever be regarded as a gentleman was simply ridiculous. An actor, he thought, had about as much chance of becoming a gentleman as he did of being knighted. Still, it was a lovely fantasy with which to pass the time.
It was not very long before the rutted road led to the outskirts of the city and then gave way to London ’s cobbled streets, which were no less gentle to the poet’s fragile frame than they were to the stout, wooden frame of the carriage. Shakespeare swore softly to himself as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Carriages and coaches were a fairly recent addition to the traffic on the streets of London, but there were now so many of them vying for space with the wooden-wheeled carts and wagons of the farmers and tradesmen, not to mention the horses and pedestrians, that the streets were more often than not hopelessly clogged. It was becoming insufferable and Shakespeare could not see it getting any better as more and more of the “new men” were infiltrating the ranks of the upper classes and buying carriages and coaches of their own.
The ditches that ran down the middle of each street trickled with a stinking quagmire of every sort of waste, including human and animal, raising a stench that was enough to take the starch out of a pleated ruff. And for those who could not navigate these streets from the relative safety of a carriage or a perch on horseback, it was a constant hazard to be splashed with the awful ooze, or to lose one’s footing on the slippery cobbles. Not a few elegant suits of clothes in evidence on the streets were inelegantly bespattered, and those that were not bore testimony to the light-footedness of their owners.
At the same time, however, London was full to brimming with a sense of energy and purpose that Shakespeare found invigorating and even intoxicating. Unlike his sleepy home village of Stratford, this was a place where things were happening all the time. Here in these teeming streets, and behind those doors, fortunes were being made and lost and people struggled to survive, to live and love, sometimes with passion worthy of a poet’s muse, and sometimes with a dull, rutting mindlessness that was nothing more than some primitive, instinctual affirmation of existence. It was all here, the base and the sublime, the endless drama of human character and existence that he found so endlessly fascinating and compelling. Just being here made him feel alive.
To him, this was the true theatre, whose machinations he wanted his more artificial theatre to reflect. There was an ongoing drama unfolding in these streets that was far more essential, far more basic, far more tragic, comedic, and uplifting than anything that was currently being acted on the stage. Compared to all of this, he thought, as his alert gaze swept the streets around him, how tawdry, how simple-minded and how utterly banal were the highjinks, jokes and caperings indulged in by the players of the day. All that petty posturing, all those silly, ribald songs, all those grandiloquent speeches said nothing at all about the piece of work man truly was. The ancient Greeks had understood something that men like Greene and his academic cronies seemed to have forgotten, and that was that the highest king could have at heart the motives of the basest peasant, and the meanest menial could possess nobility that would surpass that of the highest king.
The carriage had slowed considerably when they had entered the city and now, as it turned down a winding, narrow street, it slowed even more as the driver scanned the buildings carefully, unsure of his surroundings. Shakespeare called out to him, “Just a short way further on! Look for the sign of the mortar and the pestle!”
Moments later, the driver was reining in before a small apothecary shop on the ground floor of a small, two-story timbered house, crammed wall-to-wall in a row with other similar houses that lined the narrow, winding street. Above the heavy, planked front door hung a wooden sign with a mortar and a pestle painted on it, identifying the apothecary shop.
“Wait here,” Shakespeare said to the driver, rather superfluously, for of course the man would wait. He had been ordered to take him there and back. The driver merely glanced at him with disdain and said nothing.
The shop was still open for business, so Shakespeare went straight in. The strong aroma of herbs filled the air inside the shop.
It was the same curious, yet somehow comforting mixture of rich smells he remembered from the first time he had visited the shop, together with Tuck Smythe, Dick Burbage, and Elizabeth Darcie. The door shut behind him with a loud, protracted creaking sound, accented by a soft tinkling of small bells tied to a cord. A profusion of herbs hung drying from the ceiling beams in bunches, dozens and dozens of them, giving the ceiling the appearance of a hanging garden. From one instant to the next, depending upon where he stood, different odors wafted over him, some familiar, like rosemary, fennel, thyme and basil, others strange and exotic. Wooden shelves from floor to ceiling lined all four walls, each shelf holding a wide assortment of earthenware jars of various sizes. In front of one row of shelves, to his left as he entered the shop, stood a long wooden counter upon which were spread cutting boards and mixing bowls, mortars and pestles, scales with weights and measures, scoops, funnels, scissors, knives and various other tools, some of which he could not even identify. For all the clutter, however, there was not a speck of dirt or dust anywhere in evidence.
A hanging cloth embroidered with the symbols of the zodiac was pushed aside and a tall, almost skeletal-looking man in a long black robe stepped out. His dark eyes were deeply set, giving them a hooded aspect, and his features were lined and gaunt. He had high, prominent cheekbones and a high forehead with long, wispy, snow white hair cascading down over his shoulders from beneath a woven skullcap. His face was set into what appeared to be a perpetual expression of somberness. Once again, Shakespeare thought that he looked like the very image of a sorcerer, only instead of having a dramatic name like Merlin Ambrosius or Asmodeus or some other suitably necromantic appellation, he bore the rather prosaic and innocuous name of Freddy.
“Good day to you, Master Shakespeare,” Freddy said, greeting him with a slight bow.
“ ‘Allo, Freddy. I am pleased to see that you remembered me.”
“Indeed, I do remember, sir. And if I had not, then Meg would have reminded me. She told me that we might be expecting you today.”
“Did she?” The poet shook his head, smiling. “Your good wife continues to amaze me, Freddy. And did she also, by any chance, happen to tell you on what errand I would come?”
“A grave errand, Master Shakespeare.”
The smile slipped from Shakespeare’s face. “Aye. A grave errand, indeed. I trust that she will see me then?”
“But of course,” said Freddy, standing aside and beckoning him through the doorway. “This way, sir.”
The poet went through as Freddy held aside the hanging cloth and together they proceeded to the back of the dimly lit shop, towards a steep and narrow flight of stairs against the far wall. Shakespeare slowly climbed the creaky wooden stairs until he came out through the floor of the living quarters on the second story. It was a narrow, one-room apartment, longer than it was wide, with whitewashed walls and a planked wood floor that was, unlike the floor in the shop below, not covered with rushes, but swept bare and kept immaculately clean.