It took so long for letters to travel to Nick's uncle and back, and for all to be arranged, that it was six weeks until everything was settled. He walked out of Paul's after evensong, swinging his baggage in one hand and with his new master beside him. He was sorry to leave Martin, but that was all; damp and dark as it was, he could have turned cartwheels.
Philip beside him was as dour as the weather. He had smiled briefly at Martin, and asked after his studies, and had signed indentures and promises and all with a good grace, but hadn't spoken to Nick, still less smiled. He didn't go to the river-bank and hire one of the watermen for the crossing; instead they walked across the bridge. There at last Philip did speak to him. "Best come in front."
"I'm not going to run away!"
He sighed. "I never thought you were. But if you're behind me, I won't notice if I manage to lose you. And you've caused me enough trouble that I wouldn't want that to happen."
"Philip - "
"Master Standage to you," he said. "If you don't mind."
It was Nick's turn to sigh, but he kept it quiet. Philip was his master, Philip held his indentures, and had the right to beat him and more. Nick decided, until he knew how even Philip's temper was, to tread carefully. "Master Standage, then," he said, coming alongside. "Ah - I'm sorry. For causing you trouble."
Philip glanced at him. "Somehow I very much doubt that."
Nick could not see from his eyes whether he was amused or not. "I'm not sorry to leave Paul's," he said, "but if it was a trouble to anyone - I'm sorry, that's all. Besides - I was well thrashed that night because you didn't bring my copy back, did you know? And then Martin had the same for being late, when he helped me."
"Ah," Philip said. "I didn't know that. It seems I should apologise to you, in that case."
"Of course," Nick said, and then quailed in case he was being too pert.
All Philip said by way of reply was, "And to Martin."
They picked their way through the arch at the Surrey side of the bridge, and walked westward under the shadow of St Saviour's. "Well," Philip said, "I apologise to you for the beating. I hope the play was worth it. And I apologise even more to Martin, because he was doing for friendship's sake what you were doing - I don't know; for wages?"
"Not exactly," Nick said. "A few ha'pence. Giles likes to have plays for us to rehearse against the time when Paul's Boys may open their stage again."
"I see," Philip said, and then, "Come. This way. I lodge with master Henslowe and his family."
"May I ask … ?"
"Yes. I have few secrets, you may as well know that now as later." Philip's stride was lengthening with the nearness of home.
"Then," Nick said breathlessly, trying to keep up, "are you a player? How long have you been in London? Do you write too?"
"Yes," Philip said, "Ten years, almost eleven. And no." He shut his mouth firmly, as if not intending to say more; then seemed to relent. "I am a sharer in the company. I sing and I play the lute, I copy parts and sometimes I write other things. But I could not write a play." A few strides further, and he opened a door. "Have you dined today, Nick? Are you hungry or thirsty?"
Nick yawned. "Chiefly, I'm tired," he said. "I'd like to sleep." They stepped indoors into the smell of rush-lights, and wood-smoke, and a cooking fire.
"Well enough. There's a truckle-bed for you in the attic, I saw to it before I came away. You can meet the family tomorrow," Philip said. "This way."
A straight flight of stairs led to the first floor, from where, along a gallery, was a smaller, spiral stairway that wound its way up the corner of the building. Nick started climbing; as he made the first full circuit, the house door opened. A young man, his hair unkempt, his face lined and unshaven so that he seemed older than his years, looked up through the bars of the gallery. "Philip - is that you?" he asked.
Philip turned on his heel and ran back to the head of the stairs. "Gabriel! When did you - "
"This afternoon," Gabriel said wearily.
Philip walked down. "Langley?"
Gabriel started climbing to meet him. "Bugger Langley. I'm coming to Admiral's."
They met at the turn of the stairs. "Good," Philip said, and held out his arms. Gabriel near as anything fell into them, and they held each other close, Philip stroking the wild hair and murmuring to him and kissing him. Not the usual kiss of greeting either, but something deeper, something more. Nick looked the other way while they whispered, fierce and intense and beyond hearing, until Gabriel said, "No … not for a while. Marshalsea takes it out of a man, you know. I'll go back to my lodgings soon, but I have business with Henslowe first."
"I understand," Philip said. "And - Gabriel. It's good to see you. Very good."
"It's good to be out of that hell-hole." He smiled. "When I'm ready, Philip; then I'll come to you." He ran downstairs.
Philip sighed, and, once alongside Nick again, said, "As I told you; I have few secrets. But if you value my good will, then mind your manners where Gabriel Spencer is concerned."
Nick nodded, and followed him to the loft. It ran the length of the building, criss-crossed with beams, smelling of dust and other, stranger, things; it wasn't particularly warm.
"You don't mind cats?" Philip said. "There are several; mistress Henslowe keeps them against rats and mice."
"I don't mind cats," Nick said. "Are there rats?"
"Not for long." Philip looked up, whereupon a cat with a white nose and chest that had been stalking along a beam jumped down, and wove itself round their ankles. "I hope you can look after yourself of an evening," Philip said, leaving ridges in the fur of the cat's back as he stroked it. "Mistress Henslowe is kind enough, and will let you pass your time in the kitchen or with the family, I dare say, though you may find yourself scrubbing pots or sorting silks as you learn your lines."
"Where will you be?" Nick asked.
He shrugged. "Maybe here. Maybe with musicians, some place or another. Maybe meeting with friends. There are many taverns in London, as you no doubt know - and which you can stay away from unless I am with you - and there will be times when I want my own company and not my apprentice's."
"Yes, sir," Nick said, meekly.
Philip smiled. "Oh God," he said, "does either of us know what we're doing?"
"Yes," Nick said. "At least - I do."
"I'm glad you do. Because I have not the least idea. Go to bed." Philip turned away, and started downstairs. The house creaked, and something scuttled across the roof. He hesitated, and turned back, but heard nothing more except soft sounds as Nick got ready for bed.
Seven years apprenticeship, starting here. Where would they both be at the end of that time?
Philip untied his purse, pulled it open and tipped it upside-down over the board. A single farthing fell out. "God damn it," he said, "I would have bought you a drink." If this had been Gabriel - but I've barely seen Gabriel outside the Rose these six months - and if it had been Gabriel, I wouldn't be here drinking anyway.
Tom Dekker chuckled. "No matter. They paid me for the interlude tonight. I'll buy you one."
"They should have paid me," Philip said. "I was your musician."
"They made me your banker. Here." A few coins clinked on the wooden board.
"Can you spare it?" Philip asked, stopping his hand in mid-move.
"For a wonder, I'm not in debt this week. I will be soon, no doubt, so make the most of me while you can." Dekker lifted a hand, then obviously decided that the potboy would never see him in that dark corner. He unfolded from the stool and wove an unsteady, but remarkably direct, course to the tap.
Philip buried his face in the mug of sweet, dark beer that Dekker set in front of him and said, "I always forget how tall you are, Tom. Until I see you."
"Comes o' being one-fourth Hollander," Dekker said, folding down into his corner again. "Keeps our noses above the floods." He rubbed the side of his own nose meditatively. "Curse this one for being so long, though. The bailiffs see me coming before I round the corner."
"You know what they say about men with long noses." Philip lifted his head and smiled, crookedly.
"I do, but you'll have to ask my wife for the truth." Dekker looked at him, a glint in his eyes. "No, I'm not going to tell you."
"You never fancied being with a man?" He's not Gabriel. Don't ask him.
"Not since my growing days." Dekker took another swig at his beer.
Philip's throat was dry, but he managed not to cough before asking, "Not even me?"
"Not even you, dear friend." Dekker patted his hand. "Lovesick, Philip? You?"
He hung on to his mug with both hands. "Of course not." He was drunk, he knew it - he would never have dared ask a friend so plain at any other time.
"Sad, then."
Yes. Yes. And lonely. But he smiled, and shook his head. "Who could be sad in a place like this, with a friend buying him good beer?" He took up his lute, tuned it, and sang.
"Heh, nonny no!
Men are fools that wish to die!
Is't not fine to dance and sing
When the bells of death do ring?
Is't not fine to swim in wine,
And turn upon the toe
And sing hey nonny no,
When the winds blow and the seas flow?"
Men sitting nearby took up the refrain, and soon the whole room was singing. Philip abandoned the lute-strings - too gentle a sound to be heard over the voices - and tapped on the body of the lute instead, singing although his throat was tight and his head swimming. "Though for myself," he said to Tom Dekker as the song faded, "I'd sooner swim in beer. Better cheap."
"Philip," Dekker said, "what's troubling you?"
"Today is the thirtieth of May. Do you remember?" he said, looking at his own knuckles white as the bone under the skin.
Tom removed the lute from his hands. "Careful. You'll break it. If there is something I should remember, I confess that I don't."
"Five years ago, this day. Kit Marlowe - " Philip's voice cracked, and for a moment he leaned forward with one hand over his right eye. It was a moment before he sat up. "He's dead and I'm alive. That should be enough to make me dance and sing." Kit made me dance to his tune for long enough, after all … but oh God, there was singing in my heart as well, there was singing …
"I - " Dekker said, hesitated, and went on. "I heard you were his ganymede, when you first came to London."
Philip gulped some more beer. "Yes. That, then, and more beyond."
"Did you love him?"
"Yes. No!" Philip clapped one hand over his mouth to silence a laugh. "I don't know. He drove me to madness every day that I was with him. Or rage, or terror, or longing. Longing for him to keep his mouth shut and his head down for once in a while. Wishing he'd go away. Wishing he'd come home. And then - and then at last he didn't." In their dark corner, his back to the company, Philip let himself slump forward, resting his forehead on his arms.
"Six years is a long time to put up with that." Dekker pulled the mug away from one sliding elbow before it fell.
"Maybe."
"So why did you?"
"Oh … " Philip's voice slid from between his lips soft as the echo of music. "I doubt you'll understand. Not you."
"Try me."
"I already have, and you said no." Philip pushed his fingers through his hair. "It was - it was - oh, God, it was being his." His voice sunk to a whisper. "Kit Marlowe. Him and me in one bed. He brought me as near Heaven as I'm like to get."
There was a long, long silence.
"Lust, then?" Dekker asked.
"Better than that. God gave us our bodies to enjoy, and Kit - we both had joy, of his and mine together." Philip tipped the rest of the beer down his throat. "Going to find me a man."
"No, you are not," Dekker said gently. "I'll take you back to Henslowe's. You'll wake in a gutter with your throat cut, the way you are now." He eased himself from his seat, slid an arm round Philip's back, and heaved. "Come on, friend. That's it. One foot before the other."
"You'll have enough of dragging me out of trouble, one day."
"Never. You'd do as much for me."
Wavering, they walked together into the night.
It was not so far to Bankside, but both had drunk heavily and Philip was, all at once, overtaken by laughter. "The two of us," he said. "Arm in arm like a pair of lovers, and you as fain to drop me in the gutter as any man might be that fears I'll get my hand down his - "
"I won't drop you," Dekker said, "but I will gag you if you don't talk softer. Who knows who may be listening?"
"Ah, God. Do I care?"
"Of course you don't. But I do." Dekker shook him a little. "I have a wife depends on me, fool that she is for it. If I must be arrested, I'd rather it wasn't for sodomy."
"Oh." Philip walked another hundred yards or so with exaggerated care. "Crave your pardon, Tom."
"You have it, so don't fret."
At the end of the alley, Philip lurched sideways and Dekker, cursing, almost lost his hold. "Lord have mercy, Phip, what shall I do with you?"
Philip giggled. "Better find someone that wants me and hand me over. And don't call me Phip, or I shall have to be sober."
"All the better if you were. So who wants you, then?" Dekker straightened Philip by the shoulders and leaned him against the wall. "It can't be your new boy at the Rose."
"It is not. I don't do boys." Philip hiccupped. "Shit, take me back apace and leave me, Tom, before I drive you to Bedlam. I don't deserve you should take such care of me."
"You don't; and you a papist, and me that hates papists," Dekker said lightly. "I don't know why I drink with you."
"Because I pay for it, of course." Philip leaned forward and slung his arm round Dekker's shoulders. "Usually. Come on, man. If you hate me so much, take me where you won't see me. We're by the Rose, Henslowe's can't be far off."
They were, in fact, on the edge of the remaining rose-gardens that had once flourished on that part of Bankside. As they rounded the corner, a shadow detached itself from the hedge; both of them stopped short, and Philip crossed himself. "God have mercy, the trees walk."
"No trees," said a laughing voice. "Only angels."
"Gabriel," Philip said. "Gabriel Spencer." He turned to face Dekker. "This is who wants me."
"Is it indeed?" Dekker said, turning Philip round and pushing him. "Take him off my hands, will you, Spencer? I want my own bed."
"Of course," Gabriel said, catching Philip before he had leaned very far from upright. "Sleep well … Come, Philip. I have you - and I shall have more of you before long, if only you will walk a little faster."
The two of them, arms entwined, looked like one man with two heads and four legs. Thomas Dekker, without waiting to see what happened, made for the riverside, singing under his voice an old song that he had found written in a book in the north country, once upon a time. "Gabriel fram hevene king … "
The sound of it came faintly to Philip's ears as they rounded the corner into Maiden lane. No angels here, Tom … and no virgins neither.