The Conscience of the King

The blue of the sky was almost painful to the eyes. The thin pall of smoke hanging over Bankside was pungent, the smell of unseasoned wood, the sap bubbling and boiling and snapping at the nose, mingling with the heavier, earthier stench of sea coal. The smoke had given up trying to dampen the warmth of the sun, roasting the men and women still for the most part dressed in heavy, winterish woollens that exuded the thick, musty smell of a long winter.

Five hundred years ago, the Norman conquerors had set down the forbidding bulk of the Tower of London to control men's bodies and the mass of St Paul's Cathedral to control their minds. Both still squatted over London's citizens, a raw glare of power. Yet now there was a new power afoot, uncontrolled, anarchic, threatening. The theatre had come to London.

They came to the play in their thousands. Shipwrights and sailors from St Dunstan's; weavers and cobblers from St Giles Cripplegate; the silk weavers from Allhallows Honey Lane. From the fine, high-timbered merchant's houses to the acrid stench of the hatmakers' workshop, through the narrow streets where the shrieks and cries of the vendors seemed to overwhelm the ears, they flocked over London Bridge or called out from the landing stages — Westward Ho! ' 'Eastward Ho!' — to be ferried across the Thames. The boats buzzed and flicked around the jetties like flies to horse dung.

The flag flew above The Globe theatre, its sides high to wind and weather. It was a packed house. The timbers cracked and spat like an old man roused from slumber by his family.

'Like an old woman, isn't she?' John Hemminge was one of the founders of the company. 'All the paint and gilt in the world can't cover up her cracks!'

The Actor listened and smiled despite his sickness. He loved The Globe. He had been there on that famous night eleven years ago when the players had taken down the timbers of The Theatre plank by plank and seen them off in a string of wagons and then boats across the river to build The Globe. The Lord Chamberlain's Men, the finest troupe of actors in the realm, had not owned the land on which The Theatre sat, but they had ownership of its timbers. The bastard Alleyn, who owned the site, had threatened to foreclose on them. So they had taken what was their own and moved it piece by piece over the river to make their new home: The Globe.

'Don't watch too long, old friend.' Hemminge spoke softly to the Actor. 'Watch too long and you might start to think we have any real importance.'

Thousands flocked to see them play. They had kings and admirals as their patrons. They stood in the sunshine of public adoration and fame. Yet, thought the Actor, the players were little more than piss and shit in the eyes of the power brokers. At best they were seen as popinjays with no breeding. At worst they were considered seditious, riotous drunkards. Those in power detested most of all their capacity to arouse deep emotions in their audiences. What had a noble lord said recently of them? 'Of no more worth than a common beggar.'

The newer, younger members of the company groaned and grumbled, affecting a distaste for the cramped and crammed hordes filling the playhouse. 'Oh God!' one of them murmured as he wafted by, scented handkerchief held to costumed lips, 'so very many of the poorer sort! This is so vulgar.'

Hemminge exploded, rounding on the new recruit. 'And what's vulgar about good people wanting to see us perform?'Stick your vulgarity up your arse! This vulgarity is what we exist for. Two and a half thousand people out there, two and a half thousand people who've paid to see us perform! D'you hear, young'un? There's fewer people at a king's funeral!'

The handkerchief wondered whether to have a tantrum, remembered who he was talking to and bowed instead. He felt the excitement. The Actor could see it in the boy's face and in his body as he walked away. They all did.

'We've spoilt them, haven't we, these young fops?' John Hemminge grabbed a cheap stool, a long-forgotten prop from a play, and sat opposite the Actor. 'Let them forget their meat and drink, forget where they really come from. They've had it on a plate; never had to fight, as we did.'

Too many indoor performances, the older ones said, either at Court or in the new theatre at Blackfriars.

'What about this new play?' asked Hemminge after a moment's pause, patting the pocket specially put into his doublet to hold his pipe. 'This lost manuscript. By Marlowe.'

The Actor felt the band of pain tighten across his brow. 'Steer clear of it, John,' he said. 'Well clear of it. Marlowe was trouble when he was alive, and people like him are trouble when they're dead. God knows what he knew. If he's put half of it into this damned play no one appears to have seen, I dread to think what the consequences will be. The last thing this company needs is the government down their throats after a riot. Can you imagine? They say this mysterious manuscript has the King as a sodomite and his favourite as Satan.'

'Strange, isn't it?' mused Hemminge, contentedly drawing the foul smoke down into his lungs and making a small V of his mouth as he gently exhaled it, 'how Marlowe could be so prescient as to write a play about a sodomite king and an anti-Christ favourite? With Queen Elizabeth still on the throne when he died and six years — was it six? — to go before good King James took over? Remarkable.' The smoke rose slowly until the air, agitated by the vast crowd, caught and dispersed it. The two men's eyes locked for a moment. 'They do say it's very, very powerful. A masterpiece, they say, those few as are meant to have seen it. Better than anything anyone else has done…' A thin smile crossed Hemminge's face as he mused, outwardly at peace with the world and his pipe.

The sweeping tide of nausea came on the Actor again, as if his lips and nose had been sealed. The thin, bitter vomit rose in his throat, burning as it cascaded on to his tongue. Thank God he had not thrown up, in front of them all.

'Are you… well?' asked John, always sensitive despite his bluster, always his friend.

'No,' the Actor said simply, 'not well. Not well at all.' Neither in body nor in mind, he added silently. Not for some months now. He paused, swallowed, felt the beads of sweat break out across his forehead. 'It's this same sickness, the one I told you about before. It doesn't go away.'

'Can you play?'

'There's no option. I have to.'

'Perhaps not. I think one of your parts turned up an hour ago, pleading for work. Old Ben Thomas, remember him? We sacked him for drunkenness — two years ago, was it? A bit player, but good enough when he works at it. Well, he's out there, sober for once, and he knows the play.' John Hemminge looked down at the Actor, more worried than he tried to show. 'Take a rest. You look as if you need it. And Ben certainly needs the work.'

'Will you ask him? And thank you,' the Actor replied.

'Yes, of course,' said John, throwing the words back over his shoulder as he strode purposefully away. 'Provided you pay him!'

Hemminge went off to the back room where the actors were gathering, and where Old Ben had gone to scrounge whatever food, coin and drink his old companions might give him. The parts were easy, undemanding, thought the Actor. Rather demeaning, actually. What they revealed was that the Actor was not really a very good actor at all. Well, he had made Ben's day at least.

The boy came round, pasting up details of the plot backstage along with a list of scenes and who was required in each one.

From where he sat the Actor could see out into the Pit and the galleries. The merchants, the doctors, the lawyers and the incessant flood of foreign visitors crammed the galleries, their ladies giggling as they tried to keep decorum while forcing their way up the narrow stairs to the seats. The vendors were moving among the crowd, cheerfully breaking the law by selling their nuts, apples, gingerbread, pears and bottled ale. It was the noise and smell he would always remember. Two thousand and more bodies crammed together: the sweating excitement; the rustle of silks and taffetas from the ladies in the galleries; the shouts of the vendors; the cracking of the nut shells and the clink of glass on glass; the conversations in roars and the conversations in secret whispers; the raw smell of dock tobacco mingling with the stale smell of beer and the tang of garlic. The half hour before a performance to a packed house was better than being drunk, better than sex — it was all life's excitement rolled up into one ball and flung in the face of time. Caught up in it, the Actor even forgot the pain in his gut.

The tension in the air now was palpable. One of the younger players looked as if he were about to be sick. Stagefright, the Actor thought, and understandable. Where else since Roman times had a man been able to speak in the voice of a poet to thousands of souls gathered before him? It was the power of the gods, the power of kings.

The Actor realised Henry Condell was sitting by him. He had not heard him come, realised it must have been a result of Hemminge tipping his other old friend off that there was something wrong. He and Condell gazed for a moment on the seething mass of humanity waiting to hear their play. Old friends do not always need to speak in order to communicate.

'A bad business, the other night.' It was Henry who broke the silence.

'Bad for us,' the Actor answered, 'and even worse for Tom.' Tom was the porter at The Globe, given his bed and keep there in order to guard it overnight and in the few hours when it was not occupied. He had been found by his young apprentice, his throat slit, two nights previously.

'Why steal two manuscripts only? Why not take the whole lot?' Henry spoke in a musing tone.

Two manuscripts had been found missing from the store where they kept the precious paper. The real text of a play was the most valuable thing a company held, after its costumes. They had paid Tom to protect both.

'Why indeed?' the Actor responded as his heart jolted. He knew why. And not even one of his oldest friends could be allowed to share in the secret. He had brought death to old Tom. Was he to murder his oldest friends as well by telling them a truth they did not need to know?

'And then all this fuss about Marlowe's lost play… When ever has there been such fuss about manuscripts?' Henry looked into the Actor's eyes. There was no response.

The trumpet blew for the last time. As much of a hush as ever fell over an audience at The Globe dropped down on them. They opened.

'Who's there?’

'Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself!'

Hamlet was still one of the great attractions, old as it was. And even greater with Burbage in the lead. The audience were moved in a moment from an English summer to the freezing battlements of Elsinore, moved by words alone. Two frightened men on guard, terrified by a ghost. It shut the crowd up like a finger snap. They were off and away.

The Actor had fallen asleep for a while, something he noted he often did after the sickness came upon him, and woke with a start. In the play-within-the-play Old Hamlet, played by Ben in place of the Actor, was about to have poison poured in his ear. Lucianus, the poisoner, flourished the bottle with much evil gesturing and grimaces. Strange, the Actor thought, it was a different bottle. His usual prop was a nasty green thing, its colour screaming something wicked. This time Lucianus had an expensive blue bottle, rather elegant in fact. He poured the poison into Old Hamlet's ear.

The Actor had always hated this part. Whatever he did, the fluid in the bottle was cold, and he could never persuade the others to leave the bottle empty and mime it. It had become something of a joke within the company. When the cold water hit his inner ear he always jerked convulsively with the shock. It was no bad thing, of course. As the stuff was meant to kill him he would have to jerk up and down anyway.

'Ben's going overboard on this one, isn't he?' Condell had drifted back to the Actor's side. Old Hamlet was throwing huge spasms, hurling himself around on the bed with gasps and muffled shrieks of heart-breaking proportions.

What a pity, thought the Actor. All that effort from Ben for no reward. The play was broken up in chaos just after the moment of the poisoning, the real King rising in guilt and anger and storming out. With Hamlet mouthing off and the King just about to ruin the party, no one would have time to look at an old actor going way over the top in a death scene no one was interested in anyway. Ben was wasting his energies, even to the white froth he had managed to make come from his lips.

Something was wrong.

The Actor could sense it, even on the sidelines. The actors on stage had picked up a signal, the tremor that goes round live performers when things start to go wrong. Horatio's eyes were flickering backwards and forwards, Hamlet ill at ease and muffing some of his lines. The King, Claudius, had risen to his feet in uncontrollable anger. The whole assembly — courtiers, actors — should have splintered from the stage in apparent chaos. Old Ben's body was still on the stage.

'Bloody hell!' said Condell. 'Sodding bloody buggering fucking hell! Why doesn't he get up and go?'

You never left a body on the stage. It was the golden rule. It spoilt it if the audience saw a character they had just been told was dead suddenly get up and walk off before the next scene. It wasn't as if they could draw a curtain over the stage. Yet this was different. The audience knew that the body in the play-within-the-play was an actor's, had not really died. He was expected to run off with his tail between his legs, realising the actors had caused offence. Yet Ben lay there, stiff, unmoving.

They were seconds away from the audience realising something had gone tragically wrong. Ben lay flat out on the bed, eyes agape and mouth open, a thin line of dribble from his lips over his chin. *I do believe,' said Condell, in a tone of hushed disbelief, 'that the stupid old bastard has gone and died on us.'

The Actor turned to Condell. He had only half-heard. 'It's all over,' he said sadly.

The great Burbage, playing Hamlet, had gone glassy-eyed and had lost the plot completely. The line should have been: 'O good Horatio, I'll take the Ghost's word for a thousand pound!' Instead, Burbage started to gabble complete nonsense, 'For thou dost know, O Damon dear…'

'Damon? Damon! Who the fuck's Damon when he's at home?' Condell was incandescent.

This realm dismantled was

Of Jove himself; and now reigns here

A very, very…

There was an appalling pause… 'Paiock!'

'Oh sweet Jesus!' moaned Condell, wringing his hair. 'What's he doing?'

'He's regressed,' said the Actor. 'Don't you remember? He's mangling lines from that monstrous load of old garbage we did years ago — Gorboduck, wasn't it? — and it was bad enough then.'

On stage, Horatio turned to Hamlet, a look of total scorn on his face. 'You might have rhymed…' he said tersely.

Horatio saved the day, with no help at all from Hamlet. He motioned firmly to one of the actors off stage and together they draped Old Ben over their shoulders. Never explain. Never apologise. If you make it look as if you meant it, the audience will believe you. It was a basic rule.

They dumped the body by the Actor's feet. He gazed into the staring eyes of Old Ben and a pain like an icicle in his chest clutched his heart. Vaguely he was aware of Hamlet's voice: 'O good Horatio, I’ll take the Ghost's word for a thousand pound…'

Burbage had got it together again. They were back on track. It hardly seemed to matter to the Actor. Old Ben was dead, clearly. Condell bent down to feel in his neck for a pulse, for form's sake. There was nothing.

The Actor smelted something. His hand shot out, stopping Condell just as his bony fingers were to touch the corpse's flesh.

'Hold it! Don't touch him!'

The smell, that metallic, vinegary stench with an acidic burn to it. He had researched poisons, knew their reality. This was not water that had been poured into Old Ben's ear. Someone had substituted the green bottle with its harmless contents for a sophisticated and expensive poison, the ingredients known to only two or three men in London at most. Someone, carefully and methodically, had sought to murder the actor taking the part of the Player King. Only at the last minute had a different man taken on the role for that one performance. Ben's death was no accident.

Which meant that someone had tried to murder the Actor. Or to be more precise, actor, poet and playwright. Shakespeare. William Shakespeare, the author of this very play, Hamlet. William Shakespeare, the actor who had always taken the role of the Player King, the actor who should have been playing it this afternoon except for a last-minute change because he felt sick.

The sickness came upon him again, wave after wave, and did not go away. Cecil, he thought to himself, I must tell Cecil. It had gone too far, gone on far too long.

One moment he was there. The next moment he had gone. In his tension and sickness he failed to take note of the small, cloaked and hooded figure, following him with burning eyes and a strange, high-prancing step.