Page 20 of Love, Will

Chapter 4

“Now join hands, and with your hands your hearts” -Henry VI Part 3

I awoke to the sound of women sobbing on the street. Their noise raised me from my bed. I didn’t have time to find the source of the cries; when I laid my eyes upon them, my gaze immediately spotted the plague physicians with their dark suits and long nose masks walking into a nearby house.

Within a matter of minutes, I heard heavy knocks on the door and the innkeeper, demanding I opened up to be examined. So I did as asked and opened my door to let him in along with one of the plague physicians still wearing his mask. That must have been one of the scariest and longest moments of my life when he asked me to take my clothes off and examined my neck, armpits and groin with extreme thoroughness. Luckily, after the painfully long consult, I got declared plague free after which he took off the mask and said to the innkeeper, “You can keep them in but do not open your doors to any newcomers,” then grasped a big breath of fresh air and put his mask back on to leave.

The innkeeper looked at me, fully aware of my job as a playwright, and said, “I need your rent for three months, boy, if you still want to remain here. You have a week.” And then closed my door abruptly behind him. I followed the sound of his big feet dragging on the staircase while my brain calculated how much the rent for the next three months would be and how I would get the money.

I dressed and ran to the theatre; I needed to know if everyone was alright and what the official number of deaths was. Normally if the count sounded lower than forty, we could still do business, so I found myself praying the number stayed low. By the time I arrived, the council had already sealed the theatre gates while the Burbages and my colleague actors studied their actions with desolation.

We set in motion and agreed to meet at the George Inn as we always did when we needed to have meetings outside the theatre and plan our future. All of us were unsettled and worried, hoping that all of Pembroke’s Men had been declared plague free and thinking about our work. We could never know how long the theatre would be closed for, but every single day that passed, put us out of coin.

So we spent the evening drinking and cussing, throwing ideas at each other in our obsession to find a way to either keep the theatre open or continue earning coin in a different way.

“We should talk to someone at the privy council and find out the number of victims first! Probably we are just fussing around for nothing and we will be open again in a few days,” insisted Richard.

“Yeah, yeah, and pigs can fly, my boy,” replied his father. “Remember how we each had to be seen by a crow? That only happens when they pass hundreds of deaths. I expect we will be shut for a long, long time, maybe even for the entire season.”

“For the whole season?” rebelled the others.

“Why doesn’t good old Will here or Richard speak to Lord Pembroke and ask for more money until the theatre opens again?” asked Will Sly, the only one who had the nerve to speak to our patron as if they were old schoolmates.

”Why don’t you do that yourself, you old pecker? Afraid he’s going to bang your rotten teeth in?” Richard replied with anger.

“Why don’t we go someplace else then to earn the coin?” Robert Pallant suggested, always the calculated man.

We stopped and looked at him in silence. None of us had thought about leaving London. His idea made sense, and it potentially offered the easiest solution, but we had been running around in circles all night trying to avoid his solution.

Another hour passed and his proposal made the most sense. We had all learnt to accept it with a heavy heart.

We agreed to take the week. Most of us were asked for an increased rent in our living arrangements and were given a week to come up with the funds, to see if the theatre would open in the meantime. We had to use the time to think of routes, best plays and transportation for touring outside London.

With a heavy heart and an even heavier ale belly, I returned to my room and opened the window to look at the London sky; everything shone so peacefully during the night, no screams or cries to be heard on the street as though a blanket of sorrow had been thrown over our capital.

At least the stars remained the same in whatever town we went to and I promised myself to look upon them whenever I felt London calling me home.

With this thought in mind, I decided to burn one of the few candles I still had hidden under the bed and started writing.

“Dear Henry,

It is with a heavy heart that I write to you this evening. By now you must have heard that London shut with plague and the theatre has been closed. I am laying these letters on paper to wish your Earlship eternal health and hope that your household has been spared of any defilement from the privy council.

The Pembroke’s Men will make their way on touring the country while our home is corrupt with the epidemic. Your poet, however, refused to part London until I had the chance to thank the Lord and share my eternal gratitude for your friendship and kindness on so many occasions.

Our conversations have caused me more joy than I could put into words and in our journey I will keep your Lordship in mind and write in your honour which I hope, upon my return, will be of your satisfaction.

Yours always,

Will Shakespeare”

“Dear Master Shakespeare,

I am writing to you from the Queen’s residence in Oxford with sadness to hear about the calamitous events occurring in London. We are begging the Lord for a positive outcome and I, personally, for the reopening of the theatre.

We are to stay a few weeks more in Her Majesty’s company. Fortunately, Oxford is spared by the plague and I am proud to have made myself a loyal and hopefully preferred subject of the Queen along with the Earl of Essex.

With regards to your decision, I beg thee to remember that my residence in London is yours to use whenever you desire as my precious guest, especially in this time of need. The personnel will be instructed to treat you as they would a lord, which you truly are, the Lord of Poetry.

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