As You Like It, indeed. Nick adored his part as Phebe; Touchstone was played by Chamberlain's Men's new clown, Robert Armin, and Philip might have born to play Jaques. Indeed, when he gave his first long speech, for the first time ever Nick forgot that it was Philip Standage who spoke. He might be thin, dark, and foreign-looking, but his voice in a play would have charmed serpents.
For all that, something was wrong; Nick noticed it first in the scene with Touchstone and the country wench and Jaques. Master Shakespeare had added lines to Touchstone's part since the morning's rehearsal: "'When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.'"
Philip was standing aside, as the staging called for, and at those words he rocked back on his heels; but he was ready at his next cue and never a word out of place.
Then, Nick's lines in one scene were, "'Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'" He came offstage; Philip first closed the tiring-house door, where he had been watching the stage through the grille, then backed Nick towards the far side of the room. "'Loved not at first sight'," he whispered, his face white to the lips. "Do you know where that line comes from?"
Nick shook his head. "Only from this. Did you not hear it at rehearsal?"
"If I had - " But there was no time for him to say more; his cue came, and he strode out fast to make his entrance. All in black, he seemed both taller and thinner than usual.
"What's up with him?" said Harry Condell, who as Silvius was passionately in love with Nick on stage, but mostly ignored him off it.
"I don't know. He's been in a strange humour for days now." Nick straightened his partlet, then the linen kerchief on his head, then his skirts. "This is the best piece we've played together."
"Trust Will for that," Harry said. "If Standage makes a mill of his part, we'll be waiting for him afterwards, I can tell you."
"He won't," Nick said, fingers crossed; and, to his relief, Philip didn't. He did, however, come in at the end after the jig with a mug of strong beer in each hand, and drink them both off fast. Then he took off his apparel, dressed again, and waited alone at the back of the tiring-room while all the others folded away their costumes and departed.
"Go home, Nick," he said. In his usual clothes, he looked tired, and paler than ever.
Nick said, "I'll come with you to Henslowe's, if you please, master Standage."
"Oh. Very well." His head turned. "Master Shakespeare. I was waiting for you."
"I thought you might be," Shakespeare said, out of the shadows where the stairs went up to the heavens.
"You keep your anniversaries well," Philip said in a strange, meditative voice. "'It strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room', to hear such words on the six-years'-day of his death. And to hear Kit's words pulled like feathers and adorning your play, or read them stolen for your book - I can hardly thank you." His voice cracked, and his breath as he drew it in was like tearing cloth.
"What?" Shakespeare said, softly. "I do not think I understand."
Philip hurled the words at him. "Do you deny that you have printed his words as yours?"
The white blur in the shadows was Shakespeare's face, lifted to watch them both. And then he stepped forward, with a chair in either hand. "Sit down, pray, and let us talk like friends."
Philip's laughter might have cracked ice; but he sat down.
"Now," Will Shakespeare said, taking both Philip's hands in his, "let us get to the root of this. What words are these that I have stolen, Philip?"
Philip pulled his hands away. "Did you bring the book, Nick?"
"Yes." Nick showed it to them; the single A printed on the front stood out against the cream paper like an arrowhead. Carefully, master Shakespeare took it and turned the page. "Passionate Pilgrim," he murmured, "why, that's a pretty conceit. And - " turning the next few pages - "these two poems are certainly mine, though I gave Jaggard no leave to print them. But this is not, nor this."
The tiring-room was all quiet; there was hardly a sound but for Philip's breathing, and the turning of pages, and the tiring-man stowing hangings in a basket.
"Why, this," Shakespeare said, "this is one of Kit's, is it not? 'Live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove … ' - I am sure it is Kit's."
"Yes," Philip said, forehead propped on his hands, his voice muffled. "He wrote it when I first came to London, and he - I will say no more."
Shakespeare, the book open on his knees, his gentleman's hands, white and fine, holding the pages apart, said, "And you truly think I would deck any book of mine - and such a poor one-sided thing as this - with borrowed poems, Philip? Believe me, I would not. If you must blame anyone, blame Jaggard, who will make money from it."
Philip sighed. "Very well. I - I ask your pardon, for having thought it of you."
"Granted." Shakespeare read on. "I have not seen this before," he said, a glimmer of pleasure lighting up his voice. "'If that the world and love were young, and truth in every shepherd's tongue, these pretty pleasures might me move, to live with thee and be thy love.' It's a neat answer."
Philip let out a breath of laughter. "I wrote it. Before I changed my mind and let Kit - oh, enough."
"Did you write more?"
"No." He shrugged. "I make you free of it; write Kit an answer. I shall not mind."
Master Shakespeare shook his head. "One cannot write letters to the dead. But Kit haunts me, Philip, in his way. You know that, from the words."
"I know." Philip drew in a long, shuddering breath. "If you had dreamed the dream that I dreamed last night - "
"Tell me."
Philip rolled up one of his sleeves and laid his forearm across his knees, palm up, the skin on the underside of it a pale gleam in the dimness. "I was sitting at a table, with my arm like this, and Kit - Kit took his pen-knife, the one with the ebony handle, and wrote a verse on my skin - that first verse - and cut it out."
Shakespeare's lips behind the neat beard twisted, and his mouth turned down at the corners. "I can see that you would remember such a dream."
"And then you came," Philip said, "and bade me turn my arm, so." The back of his hand was brown with the sun, but his arm above the wrist was pale, dusted with dark hairs like lines from a pen. "And you laid Kit's verse on my arm, and cut round it, and with the skin that came off that time you made a book of the verse."
"A book?"
"Of sorts. Four lines, two pages, and a cover. And - and - " Philip stood up, swaying. "Oh God," he said, "there are too many deaths."
"Many too many," Shakespeare said. "I remember that pen-knife, Philip. I gave it to Kit, and he gave me a silver farthing that our friendship might not be severed by it."
"I'm glad you remember him," Philip said. "But do not ask me to play in any play of yours again. I am sorry."
Shakespeare looked up at him. "But I remember you as Kate, and as Antonio in Venice. Why will you not, now?"
"Oh," Philip, said with something between a laugh and a sob, "because of your name. I do not like your name."
"There was no thought of pleasing you when I was christened," Shakespeare pointed out, with an odd, inward smile.
"Then you will excuse me from pleasing you at any time at all," Philip said, bowing magnificently, recovering his balance with an effort that was almost as magnificent, and stalking out.
Nick glanced at master Shakespeare, who made a wry mouth, although his eyes were smiling. "Go after him, lad," he said. "Before he does himself a damage. I am sorry I shall not be seeing Philip in any play of mine, but if you are ever in need of a place, you know where I am; though maybe not where I will be."
"Thank you, sir," Nick said, bowed hastily, and ran after Philip.
In all of this, Nick had near forgotten his debt to the bystander at the bookshop. Among other things, he was not sure whether Philip was in any humour to be asked for money, but the next Thursday's play, All Fools, had excellent takings, and he asked Philip if he might have or borrow a penny or two. Philip gave him two, cheerfully enough, and did not ask where he was going. The torrential rain of last month had passed over, and it was under bright sunshine that, once Friday's play was done with, Nick made his way to St Paul's again.
Master Skeres was nowhere to be seen when Nick arrived, so he strolled up and down the line of shops, hoping not to be scolded for loitering. Books were stacked outside every window: folio, quarto, slim, bulky; duodecimo texts from Antwerp, Socinian tracts from the nowhere city of Eleutheropolis, traveller's tales from El Dorado, pasquinades against Spain, papists, Puritans; everywhere ink, ink, ink and paper. Nick picked up a sheet of printer's waste, discarded because it had been printed all askew, that had been used to wrap a parcel of books new come from Fleet street. He read it idly.
'Thus do they incite and egg those that abound with blood, and be sanguine complexioned, to riot, wantonness, drunkenness, wastefulness, prodigality, filthy and detestable loves, horrible lusts, incest, and buggery.'
Nick could hardly have felt more sanguine complexioned, indeed, when Skeres said in his ear, "Reading filth, lad?" and reached over to pluck the paper from his fingers. His cheeks burned.
"Not by choice, sir," he said.
"Indeed no; I am sure." Skeres crumpled the page, and slipped it into a slit in his trunk-hose that must hide a pocket. "I am glad to see you; I thought you might have forgotten your new friend."
"I crave your pardon, sir, but I have been much occupied." Nick tipped the two silver pence from his purse. "I have your money, and I must thank you heartily for lending it to me."
"Ah, it was no trouble." He picked the coins from Nick's palm, fingertips brushing the skin. "Are you still at school, Nicholas? Nicholas Hanham, was it not?"
"You remember well, sir. No, I am not at school."
"Of course; I should have seen that from your cap. An apprentice, then." His smile, as on the first day that they had met, seemed settled on his lips.
"Yes." Nick took off his cap and bowed. "I have enjoyed the book, sir."
"I bought my own copy, and I too have enjoyed it. You have read similar stuff, I dare say? Richard Barnfield, or Michael Drayton? Francis Bacon, and maybe Sir Fulke Greville?"
"I have read only a little," Nick said, "not having the wherewithal to buy many books."
"Ah, then," Skeres said, "I am glad that I could help you to one. And I must lend you Richard Barnfield's book. I think it will be to your taste."
"It's most kind of you. Next time we meet - "
"Yes, next time," he said. "It's good to see an apprentice more interested in poetry than in fighting."
"You are kind, sir." Nick looked at him; the smile and the blue eyes were for once quite steady; he pulled off his cap and bowed again. "Now I must bid you farewell, sir, with my repeated thanks."
Skeres returned him the courtesy. "Perhaps - I hardly dare ask, and it is some months away yet - but perhaps, if you are allowed, you might care to accompany me to the revels at Gray's Inn on All Hallows' Eve? I have entry, being from Furnival's, and it would be good to have pleasant young company for once - the gentlemen are all pleasant, of course, but a friend of my own, that will be different."
Nick smiled, uncertainly. "I should like to see the revels, indeed."
"You will need some - forgive me - some finer clothes," he said, his darting blue gaze resting all too clearly on Nick's plain doublet and jerkin. "I promise I will hide you from the sumptuary laws; not that anyone I know takes heed of them." He snorted. "Articles for the execution of the Statutes of Apparel, indeed. As if the lord Mayor had nothing better to do with his time."
For all that, the fines for those who had misfortune to be caught were not small; but Nick, after a moment's pause, said, "Never fear, sir. You will find I can rise to the occasion."
"I don't doubt it," Skeres answered, resuming the smile and the constant watchfulness; perhaps Nick had missed something. "Well, Nicholas Hanham - or may I call you Nick, that we be not both Nicholas?"
"By all means do," Nick said. "All my - " Somehow he did not want this man to think of himself as a friend. "All my acquaintances do."
"Good. Nick, I shall hope to see you on All Hallows' Eve, then; and perhaps before, if you feel the need for another book."
"Of course," Nick said.
Nick remembered the names that master Skeres had told him, and read their poetry when he could find it; Philip had more than a few books in his chest, which was rarely locked, and Nick got into the habit of filching a book to read of an evening when Philip was elsewhere. Often it seemed the most ordinary of love poetry, and yet, as he read and re-read it, it seemed that these men were writing to him and not to some usual love. The feeling that had woken inside him, that first night when he had seen Gabriel and Philip together, woke again, more often, and began to haunt his dreams.
Summer and autumn passed by. Nick worked hard; indeed all the Admiral's Men at the Rose worked harder than ever, for the Lord Chamberlain's Men's new theatre along Bankside was open. The Globe, they called it, and it did good trade. Henslowe was out of the house all day and sometimes all night, staying with old Alleyn in St Giles, Agnes told them; plotting Burbage's downfall, they hoped. Philip laughingly complained that Nick was growing out of his clothes, and made money over to Agnes to buy him more. Agnes, however, bought Nick nothing beyond what the sumptuary laws said, and as All Hallows' Eve approached, he began to wonder what he should wear to the revels. He decided, in the end, on the simplest way out of the problem.
He did not always play women or girls now, but sometimes boys, so made special note of where Stephen Magelt kept that apparel. Luck was with him, for although the weather was chill, it continued clear and sunny enough for there to be plays at the Rose, and he could get into the tiring-room. Come the day, he had leave from Philip to be out of the house - "As long as you are back by curfew," Philip said, at which Nick nodded innocently and lied through his teeth. Come the hour, he smuggled a foil, and the best gear he could find, from the Rose. Then he changed clothes in Henslowe's attic, swaddled himself in a borrowed cloak, and set out for Gray's Inn.