Death of Kings by Philip Gooden Read Free Book Online Page B

Two plays, a deal of walking about and . . . and . . .”
    “And?”
    “Other matters, which I cannot talk about.”
    “Very well.”
    I expected her to press me further. Women are bound to be curious, aren’t they? I was ready to hint – in the most general terms – at large concerns, important business, sundry
weighty reasons, etc. This might have afforded me some slight relief from the burden of secrecy. And I didn’t altogether dislike the way Nell treated me with a new respect now that the
Chamberlain’s were to play before the Queen. Accordingly, I sensed I might win an even more reverential favour from her if I touched on, only
touched
on, the great affairs of state in
which I was becoming entangled. This may seem to contradict the silence which had, in effect, been enjoined on me by Master Secretary Cecil but I reasoned that
hinting was
not
telling.
    “You don’t want to know?” I said.
    “It doesn’t matter whether I want to know or not. The only thing that you want me to know is that you don’t want to tell.”
    Perhaps it was because of the tiredness which I’d just mentioned to her, and which I hadn’t much exaggerated, but I really found it a bit difficult to follow what she was saying
here. I took refuge in repetition.
    “I cannot speak of it.”
    “Very well,” she said again.
    I waited.
    “So this is behind your absences from my bed?” she said. “This thing you cannot speak of.”
    I saw then the sudden use to which I might put the state business on which I was engaged. It could serve my turn too. For it was true that I had not been so frequent an occupant of her bed of
late. There was – there had recently been – another matter about which I was not willing to hint at all to Nell, and I realised that I could hide it behind the larger, shadowy
business.
    “Yes,” I said. “Forgive me, Nell. I do not willingly absent myself.”
    This was both true and not-true.
    “I believe you do not, Nicholas.”
    I wasn’t sure from the tone of her voice whether she did believe my words. As she had said, my friend was well able to ‘read’ me through my voice and attitude, even though she
could neither read nor write. But I, book-learned as I was, was still so unschooled in her that I could not clearly construe her expression by the candle’s feeble glimmer.
    “But men will do as they please,” she said. “Even as women will do everything to please them.”
    “It pleases me to be here with you, now,” I said, stroking her warm flank.
    “Here and now is easily said.”
    “Easily said may be heartfelt too,” I said, putting well over half a heart into my words.
    “Here and now,” she echoed. “What about there and then?”
    “I do not understand you,” I said.
    “I think you do,” Nell said. “But it doesn’t matter. Let us sleep now since you are so tired out at the hands of these things which can’t be spoken of.”
    After that I soon fell asleep. That sleep, and the few minutes’ talk which led up to it, were the last vestiges of ordinary life which I was to enjoy for some time.
    After the rigours of that day with its two plays, the next one was, for me, one of comparative ease. Or should have been. Yet it turned into one of the most difficult, and
alarming, of my life.
    Although I had no diversion apart from yet another rehearsal of
Twelfth Night
in the evening, habit and the love of work drew me to the Globe in the morning. There might be something for
me to do. I might be useful.
    I should have stayed in bed.
    Sure enough, the Book-keeper of the Globe spoke to me. He was a sallow-faced gentleman named Allison who played a variety of roles in our Company. While a new play was preparing, it was his task
to ensure fair copies were made from the author’s foul papers, since no-one can use a splotty, scrawled and scratched-out manuscript, all warm and illegible from its creator’s hand.
Therefore the foul papers must be sent to the scriveners to be copied out