Revenger by Rory Clements Page A

whitened, pox-ridden face, it was intended to be taken as none other than Her Majesty, Gloriana, Queen Elizabeth of England. This was high treason. This could cost a man or woman their bowels and their life. You could be put in the Tower just for watching and have your eyes scraped out with a spoon for laughing. Shakespeare looked around him, expecting to see mouths agape in outrage. Instead he saw a sea of faces creased in laughter and hands coming together in deafening applause.
    He watched what followed in a kind of trance. Half of him wanted to flee as far and as fast as he could and never return for fear of being separated from his head, yet the other half was fascinated. Could Elizabeth’s credit in England have fallen so low that her courtiers dared stage such a masque behind her back? And doubly astonishing was the thought of who was behind it: Elizabeth’s most favored pet, the Earl of Essex himself, in league with his mother, the She-wolf Lettice.
    As he looked around the hall, Shakespeare saw faces of great fame: Essex was at the center of things, surrounded by a pack that included the Earls of Southampton and Rutland; the brothers Francis and Anthony Bacon; the dashing and dangerous Sir Henry Danvers and Gelli Meyrick—all known to be his close associates at home and on the field of battle. Somewhere in the distance, too, he saw Charlie McGunn, conversing like a conspirator with Essex’s straight-backed military aide Sir Toby Le Neve. Nearby, Essex’s sister Penelope Rich—four years senior to her brother—talked animatedly with the handsome Charles Blount. And then, with a mixture of relief and alarm, Shakespeare sawhis own brother, William, in a group that included Essex’s wife, Frances.
    On stage, the hag rattled the chains of her monkeys. “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman,” she said, her voice ringing out falsetto like some eunuch from the seraglio. The crowd laughed with brazen humor, then the hag’s voice turned deeper, like a market stall holder calling out his wares, and she—or he—threw up her skirts to reveal a pair of bare, hairy legs and a pizzle that would not have shamed a bull. “But I have the balls and prick of a king, and of a king of England, too.”
    Shakespeare, horrified, made his way through the crowd of revelers to his brother’s side. He nodded toward the stage and spoke quietly in his ear. “William, I hope this is nothing to do with you.”
    His brother raised an eyebrow. “It’s that fool Greene. Look at him over there, preening with his villainous friends as he puts his neck further into the hangman’s halter.”
    Shakespeare followed his brother’s eyes. The playmaker Robert Greene was holding court with his mistress Em Ball and various other unsavory characters. This summer revel of Essex’s had certainly brought out a curious array of pleasure-seekers. Will touched him on the shoulder. “Take care, brother.” Shakespeare raised his eyebrows. “And you,” he said softly. He watched as Will wove his way toward Southampton, where he was immediately welcomed by that group. He, in turn, switched his gaze to a settle at the side of the room. Frances, Essex’s pretty mouse of a wife, was there now, sitting alone, fanning herself.
    “Mr. Shakespeare, how lovely to see you,” she said as he approached to pay his respects.
    He remembered her from her childhood days when, as the well-loved and cosseted daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, she seemed like a perfect doll, assisting her mother, Lady Ursula, with her embroidery and the running of the family’s householdsin Seething Lane and Barn Elms. Shakespeare had always liked her quiet ways and vaguely thought that, in a previous age or another place, she could have made a rather splendid Mother Superior in a convent.
    “It must be five or six years, my lady.”
    “Oh please, Mr. Shakespeare, you always called me Frances as a girl. It seems very strange to me now to be called aught else by