My Name Is Will Read online

  Then there had been — was it the very next summer? — the dreamlike day when William, a wide-eyed child, sat on the great lawn amongst dukes and earls, barons, viscounts, knights, and ladies — sitting not in the front, but not in the back, either — at Kenilworth Castle as the Earl of Leicester’s Men performed a watery pageant of Cupid and Aphrodite on the wide lake at the castle’s south side.

  His mother sat next to him on one side, poised and dignified, and next to her were distant relatives: Ardens he had never met, including the best-dressed man he had ever seen. “Your cousin and the patriarch of your mother’s family, the master of Park Hall, Edward Arden,” John had whispered to William at their introduction. Next to him, his cold and beautiful wife, Mary Arden. And next to her, a proud and statuesque woman, dressed all in black. She wore openly a crucifix, and held in her hand a forbidden rosary, which she flipped quickly between her fingers.

  “And who is the tall lady?” William had asked his father.

  “Lady Magdalen, Viscountess Montague,” John whispered. “Once a lady of honor to Queen Mary, and even now, ’tis said, friendly with Her Majesty the Queen. A great woman, William, and great indeed in the Queen’s favor to practice so openly and without rebuke the Old Faith.”

  The pageant began, and the splendors of it were too many for William later to recall. But the end he remembered. As if by magic, Aphrodite had risen on a bark from the waves. Cupid, at her side, had aimed his bow strung with love’s shaft at the Queen herself, sitting upon a gilded chair by the lake’s shore. The crowd had gasped, and the Queen’s guard drew around her, spears leveled. But Aphrodite raised Cupid’s arm as he fired, and the arrow went far astray, out over the lake, where it burst into a firework that lit up the water and ended the pageant to cheers of delight.

  The Earl of Leicester, Sir Robert Dudley himself, had risen and smiled and bowed, and the Queen had risen and smiled with him and said in a voice loud enough for all to hear that she would never be wounded by such an errant, false shaft of love, that she would remain her people’s chaste Queen, and John Shakespeare and the crowd had roared, though Leicester’s hostly smile was a tight one.

  As she passed out through the crowd on her sedan chair, the Queen had come within ten yards of the place where William and his father bowed in obeisance, and William had looked up. Her face was at the heart of a constellation of rich jewels and fabric, at the center of which her eyes blazed like the sun reflected off of polished onyx. Her skin he remembered only as a drift of white, like a frozen lake, for so it was painted, to hide the scars of age and smallpox. And as she waved her queenly gloved hand — the finest cheveril, the glover’s son William had noted, with fourchette and stitching extending almost to the second knuckle, fingers extra long and padded at the tips to accentuate her feminine hands, embroidered with white silk thread and pearls and golden beads — as she waved her hand to her subjects, her eyes and William’s had met. When she saw the eager, awed little boy next to the fat, ruddy-cheeked man in fading scarlet robes, the smallest hint of a smile had crossed the Queen’s lips. And then she was gone amidst a cheering and a ringing of bells.

  Immediately following her had come the Earl of Leicester and his household. Leicester smiled proudly and nodded to the various nobility who bowed as he passed. He thanked them vociferously “For gazing upon this pageant, which is but a pale reflection of my true love and worship for Her Majesty.” His smile faded faintly as he glanced at Edward Arden, and Lady Magdalen with her rosary. He passed on, but the Earl of Warwick, behind him, stopped and glared at Arden.

  “Master Arden! You do my Lord of Leicester wrong, sir!”

  The cheering faded around them.

  “I humbly beseech your pardon, my lord,” Arden replied to Warwick. “How have I offended mine host Leicester?”

  “Play not the fool with me, sir,” Warwick replied. “All other of our rank and station wear Leicester’s livery this day, in honor of his beneficence in providing the day’s pageantry. Surely the rite and fashion is known to you?”

  Young William looked around him, and noted that all the noblemen wore emblems of Leicester’s livery: tunics or sashes of blue and gold with devices of fleur-de-lis, or a bear leaning on a rough staff, or a lion, rampant, with two tails — all, that is, except Edward Arden.

  There was uncomfortable shifting of feet. Leicester himself had stopped and turned to stare at Edward Arden, and was now awaiting his reply.

  Arden glanced disdainfully at Leicester, then turned to Warwick. “I’faith, my lord, my livery is by its absence meant to honor the Earl of Essex.”

  The hush quietened beyond silence.

  It was rumored that Leicester was bedding Essex’s wife while he was making war in Ireland. Amidst the collective held breath, Arden continued, “To wear the livery of one who would take advantage of the distant commission of a Queen’s officer to gain private access to the officer’s lady, would be to honor a whoremaster.”

  Leicester drew his sword and leapt forward, enraged. “God’s teeth, will you speak thus to me, even here?!” Arden also drew, and it might have turned into an ugly pageant indeed.

  It was Viscountess Montague who stepped in between them. “Good my lords, I pray you put your weapons by. Let not the majesty and pageantry of the day be marred by such intemperance. It is not meet, to try so private a grievance in so public a court. Forbear, forbear.”

  Leicester looked around at the festivities still going on outside their little circle, and, trembling in anger, sheathed his sword. “For that I would not stain the honor of the Queen, and as my Lady Magdalen is ever a voice of conscience, I shall stand down. But this slight, sir, is not slight, and will not unpunish’d go. Mark you.”

  Without another word, Leicester had passed on, and Mary had hustled John and William straight back to Stratford.

  After that extraordinary day, John’s mood seemed slowly to turn. His gifts and entertainments became less lavish day by day. He drank more and laughed less. The apprentices left one by one, and were not replaced. The cook was let go, and their sole help now was a string of increasingly poorly remunerated local girls, who came in a few hours daily — and later, weekly — to clean. Once, when William was home during his midday break from school and eating bread, John burst in the door, drunk at noon and raging at Mary because she was there.

  “Blast and damn to hell guilds and the Queen, Leicesters and Lucys, and Luther and Lucifer alike! Fifty pounds, fifty pounds he owes me, doth John Luther, aptly named, the little Puritan flea, and now he hides himself behind ‘his’ Queen and accuses me of usury to my face, and of popery! And if he will accuse, Sir Thomas Lucy will prosecute, Leicester’s mangy hunting dog, rabid and drooling and willing to rend flesh for a scrap of meat tossed by the Earl. Marry, may not a man pursue his faith and his business with — OW! God’s WOUNDS!!!” he yelled, for he had walked shin-first into a corner of the best bed (which was set in the parlor, both for easy availability to drunken guests and to show off the family’s lustrous mahogany wealth). He sat on the bed, groaned, and continued, “The whoresons shall find the Queen looks kindly on her loyal subjects and appointed officers who serve the crown, not these worms who would eat the heart of her realm, marry! Fifty pounds!” He continued muttering as he limped heavily up the stairs into the second-best bed and fell asleep.

  Fifty pounds. William, at the time, could barely conceive such a sum. In his mind, it would buy the finest house in Stratford, and he was not far from wrong. The next year, John rode in an “official capacity” to London as deputy to the next bailiff, his friend John Quiney, ostensibly to represent “the affairs of the borough according to their discretions.” In fact, it was a personal junket he had rammed through the town council. While in London on Stratford’s tab he sued John Luther for the fifty pounds and won.

  But it was one of his last victories. The Guild of Glovers, run by Protestants and influenced by Leicester, got wind of John’s extracurricular activities in wool brokering, and he was fined
twenty pounds. Twice. A house’s-worth of his fortune, equal to his entire inheritance from his own father, gone. Overextended, John mortgaged part of his wife’s family’s ancestral home, then defaulted on the loan. He was fined another twenty pounds for usury after charging a local wooler — a Protestant — twenty pounds for a short-term hundred-pound loan. Another house’s-worth, fare thee well. Recourse to the local authorities? None. He was a suspected Catholic with marriage ties to the powerful Ardens; the “authorities” were Protestant reformers happy to see Catholics on the ropes. He finally stopped leaving the house entirely unless it were to sneak down to the Bear at off-hours, preferring to simply stay at home and pretend to make gloves and drink and eat and hold forth. Yet he was still amiable and quick of wit. His fellow aldermen on the council were too kind to take his office away from him, and forgave him the taxes expected to help the poor. They simply noted him as missing from meetings, every fortnight, for ten years.

  Thus had John Shakespeare gone from middle-class success story — a yeoman shaking his spear in upwardly mobile civic triumph — to holding the staff of his office in shadow and disgrace: a John False-staff, indeed.

  William drifted back into the dinner table scene to see Joan holding out her empty plate to Mary. Gilbert thrust his forward a second too late. Mary reached out and speared the last bit of Mary (the hen) — the succulent thigh — and dropped it onto Joan’s plate. Joan discreetly stuck out her tongue at William and Gilbert across the table. Gilbert wrinkled his nose back.

  William smiled; he always let Joan win.

  Her victory secure, Joan took up her complaint again. “Still I know not why the house of Shakespeare, whose master was bailiff, must be held lower in esteem than the house of Lucy.”

  Suddenly William felt Joan’s incomprehension as his own, and also anger rising from somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach. “Why? my sister asks, and rightly so. Why must the Shakespeares grunt and sweat under a weary life of gloves for the lily-white hands of Thomas Lucy, who feasts at Charlecote while we are left to gnaw at the bones of a single shriveled hen? Because of a matter of doctrine?! The wheezes and mutterings of aged bishops and choleric Puritan scholars?”

  “William, not in front of Gil and Joan — ”

  “I speak on their behalf, Mum,” William said without slowing down. “Are we not Catholic? We say a Catholic blessing before each meal, but what means it? We eat meat of a Friday, when the faithful eat fish. Our mother drags us to the church of a Sunday and we feign to honor the new rites, but then we slink back home and, behind closed doors, pray and beg forgiveness for the selfsame worship as a mortal sin! Why must we skulk so under these oppressors’ wrongs? Are we to hide here until at last they come to cut up the laymen as they cut up the priests?”

  Mary and John had listened quietly. When William finished, John said haltingly, “William . . . we all do what we may, at what time we may. Elizabeth and her Puritan counselors will not live forever — ”

  “Nor will I. Nor will Joan and Gilbert,” William interrupted.

  His mother said calmly, “Mary, Queen of Scots, if she is restored to the throne, will restore the faith. We must wait and hope.”

  “Elizabeth will never let her cousin accede to the throne. Mary will no more be Queen than Mary Arden Shakespeare, or Mary the hen,” William said, tossing his gnawed breastbone into the center of the table, and standing to pace restlessly. “Mayhap I should follow Thomas Cottom, and Robert Debdale of Shottery, and go to Rheims, and study the priesthood.”

  Mary fell grey at the mention. “If you would serve the true church, your God, and your family, you would not do such a thing. Your family has need of you here, William. Gilbert, Joan, and Edmund need you here.”

  Joan looked at her brother, terrified at the mention that he might leave. She held out what was left of Mary (the hen’s) last quarter. “Don’t go, Will. You can have the rest.”

  William took a deep breath, and smiled at Joan. “Nay, Joanie,” he said, “nay. Fear not. I spoke but in jest. I’ll take neither a ship to Rheims nor your well-deserved bit of meat.”

  He mussed Joan’s hair playfully, but as he did he spoke darkly to Mary and John.

  “Yet if I must needs stay, then shall I do what little I may here.”

  Without looking back at his parents, William walked out the front door and turned left. The air was heavy. Even as he strode down Henley Street, rain began to patter into the Meer Stream. He crossed into Bridge Street and finally through the open door of the Bear. He stood steaming in the doorway for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was a boisterous midday crowd.

  William saw the figure he was looking for at a corner table in the shadows, washing down a meat pie with a cup of wine. William walked over and sat without being invited.

  “I beg your mercy, good sir. I wonder if the office which late you offered remains unfulfilled?”

  The horseman looked at him steadily.

  “Ay, good lad. Indeed, I’ve spent a fruitless morning in search of another to do the errand.”

  “Good sir, John Cottom was my teacher, my mentor, and my friend. I swear to you upon his family name, and upon mine, that if he be alive and to be found, I will deliver it unto him. Mayhap not today nor this week nor even by this year’s end, for I yet must school my class and bring my family bread. But if John Cottom yet lives I promise you this charge will be dispatched by me with the same diligence you have essayed to bring it thus far.”

  The horseman nodded slowly. “Excellent well.” He rose and beckoned William to follow him. They went upstairs and into a cramped room.

  Taking down the wrapped box from a high shelf, the horseman said, “God willing, this remembrance of Thomas Cottom will be delivered . . . as its owner was not.”

  “Remembrance? What mean you?” William asked, going numb.

  “Do you not know?” the horseman replied. “Forsooth, news travels from London to Stratford like unto a wounded snail! Thomas Cottom was martyred some weeks past.”

  “Thomas Cottom is hanged?”

  “Ay . . . and drawn and quartered, too, as a traitor to Her Majesty. My master Ely was the last to see him alive. Cottom’s last wish, cried most piteously, was that this box should find his brother.” He handed the box to a dumbfounded William.

  “The head of the last to bear this burden stands skewered atop the gates of London. May you meet a better fate.”

  The horseman then solemnly made the sign of the cross over William.

  “Benedicite.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Herein will I imitate the sun,

  Who doth permit the base contagious clouds

  To smother up his beauty from the world,

  That, when he please again to be himself,

  Being wanted, he may be more wonder’d at,

  By breaking through the foul and ugly mists

  Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.

  — Prince Hal, 1 Henry IV, I.ii.197

  Willie awoke to the sound of a banana slug rustling along the forest floor a few inches from his right ear. He sat up with a start and checked to make sure the duffel bag next to him was undisturbed. After his fall, he had limped a few hundred yards up the ravine until he found a closely circled stand of redwoods, crawled into the depression between them, and spent a cold and fitful night listening for the sounds of approaching dogs and jackboots before finally falling asleep.

  He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked around.

  It was a foggy morning, and still gloomy in the misty ravine. The forest floor was punctuated by bright yellow exclamation points: more banana slugs.

  Fascinating creatures, banana slugs. Peculiar to the redwood forests of the Pacific Coast, they are plentiful in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Though they can change color over time to adapt to the amount of light and moisture in their environment, the ones in Santa Cruz are a bright yellow: fireman’s-coat yellow, bomb shelter sign yellow, Yellow Submarine yellow. After a rain, t
hey would litter the forest floor like banana-flavored condoms after Mardi Gras. On damp days like today they would come out to suck what moisture they could from the air. They are hermaphroditic. And though they will eat anything — living or decaying vegetation, droppings, animal carcasses — they are particularly fond of mushrooms. Willie watched them for a few minutes, crossing with infinite patience from one side of the ravine to the other, inserting themselves into cracks in fetid logs, soaking up the mud under the occasional rock, and busily digesting bits of local mushroom, which caused who knows what joyous waves of banana slug psychotropia.

  Willie tended to look kindly on the banana slug. He was not alone: the shining mollusk was the unofficial mascot of the university.

  Willie stretched, gathered up his bags, and walked warily back down the ravine among the redwoods and the slugs. After he had passed his own apartment atop the bank, he scrambled back up the slope beneath the wide span of a footbridge. He crossed Heller Avenue and passed out onto the expanse of a second redwood bridge, which disappeared into the fog long before its far end. Mist wafted up the ravine, though there wasn’t enough wind to disturb the redwoods. It was silent but for the sound of a few birds, and, perhaps, the rustle of banana slugs inching along below.