King of Shadows by Susan Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

week, all large.” He looked down at me, suddenly serious, and glanced out at the reed scatterers, as if to make sure they couldn’t hear him. He said quietly, almost in a whisper, “Nat Field—one thing I will tell thee that Master Shakespeare has not, since th’art living in my house and will hear more than tha should. Our Dream is revived so suddenly not by choice, but by command. The Queen wishes it. She has a fancy to see our sweet new theater, but will have us play nothing in it for her but that.”
    â€œBut this must not be breathed to a soul,” Shakespeare said. “She will come in secret. Bankside is not Blackfriars, and these are dangerous times.”
    Burbage took hold of one of my ears, not gently. “Mention it to anyone and I will cut off thine ear,” he said. “Very slowly, inch by inch.”
    I thought of the heads stuck on poles, and decided he might mean it. “I promise,” I said.
    Will Shakespeare moved back to the stool and pickedup his book. It was not a printed book, I saw, but a bound manuscript. He glanced up at the sky over the pit; sunshine was starting to slant down over the edge of the hollow roof. “Time passes,” he said. “This wooden O of ours is a sundial. Classes, Richard.”
    I looked at the lines on his face, and at his ordinary brown doublet and hose, and I thought: Don’t go, please don’t go. It wasn’t because he was William Shakespeare. I just knew that I liked being with him, more than with anyone I knew.
    He moved away, then looked back at me. “We shall rehearse together soon, Puck,” he said. “I am to play thine Oberon.”
    More than anything from that first day, I remember the noise. You’d think that we have more noise today in the everyday world, what with traffic and airplanes and so many different kinds of machines that didn’t exist then, not to mention radio and TV and cassette players. But the London of that time was full of church clocks striking the quarter-hours, and church bells ringing for services; of watchmen ringing handbells in the street and shouting out the time, and town criers calling out the news. Everyone who sold anything shouted out his or her wares. People have always been noisy, I guess, in towns at any rate. At the Globe Theatre, nobody ever seemed to speak softly if he could shout.
    â€œNathan Field! Where’s Nathan Field!”
    It was a very large voice from a very small man; small but fat, dressed all in light grey. He looked like a buttonmushroom, and he was marching onto the stage from the tiring-house, the dressing space behind it, with a group of five boys straggling behind him. One of them was Harry.
    â€œHere he is,” said Master Burbage. “And the space is thine for half an hour, Henry—no more.” He clapped the mushroom on the back and headed for one of the upstage exits. Over his shoulder he said, “Master Condell is here to tie thee in knots, Nat.”
    One or two of the boys sniggered. Master Burbage disappeared through the door. Small stout Henry Condell looked me over critically. “Well, Nathan Field,” he said, “we shall see what a Paul’s Boy has to offer us. This precious half hour is tumbling practice. I will not turn thee into a show. Just try to follow what the others do.”
    â€œIf you can,” said one of the boys cockily. He was about my age but smaller; dark haired, very wiry and agile looking. I guessed he was probably the star gymnast. Henry Condell glanced at him with something close to dislike.
    â€œGo first then, Roper,” he said. “Somersaults.”
    Roper did a quick sequence of somersaults across the stage, light as a feather. The others followed him, one by one; two of them, Nick and Alex, were quite good, Harry was so-so; the last, a chubby, fair-haired boy called Thomas, was a real klutz. He rolled sideways out of his second somersault, and giggled.