A Dead Man in Deptford Read Online Free Page B

up money to send you to Cambridge, Tom,
Watson said. Or to the other shop if you would wish it.
    - My Latin is as good as any’s, Kyd cried. I had Mulcaster at
Merchant Taylor’s. I acted Seneca on the school stage, and they
came from far and wide to hear. Then I saw that they must also
see. So behold me, Cambridge or not.
    - This will not do, Alleyn said, his head swinging in a slow shake. This business of Jupiter and Ganymede. It is sodomitical.

    - Ah, both Kyd and Henslowe went. And Kyd: You cannot
bugger on the stage. Though in his eyes it seemed he cherished
the notion though not as an act of twofold pleasure: he relished
the fancied scream as the punitive rod of flesh struck home.
    - Oh, it is only in prospect, Alleyn said. It is all words.
There are good words here, he added, but alas they are not
for me. I am not Aeneas. ‘t’hough Jack here (meaning myself)
would be a fetching Dido. Ah well, you must try again. And he
handed back the bundle to Kit, who took it, somewhat abashed.
Kyd squinted and said:
    - A very foul copy.
    - He has not been trained as a noverint, Watson said.
    - Noverint? Kit said in puzzlement.
    - Noverint universi per praesentes. Let all men know by
these presents. Tom Kyd was a scrivener. He scrivens very
handsomely.
    - So, Kyd growled. Is this to be accounted a curse to me?
    There were sounds of soothing about the table. Henslowe
drained his pot and said he must go. A little trouble with one
of his newly indentured harlots, it was supposed. A girl named
Deborah, a good Bible name, who drank illicitly and flailed
with her fists. This would not please all customers, though, if
made more formal with whip and nailed club, it might pleasure
a few. I take it, Henslowe said, that my proposition goes down
as well as my ale treat. We will talk further. He went to the
door, opened, peered out, returned, frowning. The bravoes are
in there, he said. They have cleared all out with their brawling.
Your brother Jack looks to be paying out protection money, as
they call it.
    - Who?
    - Bradley, Orwell and Simkin.
    - I’ve told Jack, Alleyn said, that he must not. Give a groat
and it will expand to a noble. They tried this at the Theatre. We
were too many for them and they were surprised to find muscle
under our gaudy onstage raiment. Armed?
    - Their usual short daggers. You have nothing save niefs.

    - Niefs not knifes, I said. Must we be prisoners in here
till they be gone?
    - Oh, we will go, Alleyn said. We will take supper at the
Triple Tun. So we drained, rose, and followed Henslowe out
to the main room, which was indeed empty save for the three
ruffians at a table in the corner bv_ the door that led streetwards.
Jack Alleyn was saying:
    - You have drunk enough. This penny should take you
safely to the spewing stage. His brother said, as we neared the
scene:
    - Keep up with these disbursements, Jack, and you do
no more than feed their greed.
    - You may be right, and Jack Alleyn picked up the brown
coin and pocketed it. Will Bradley was an unwashed rogue, burly
enough, with tangled wires of black all over his lousy scalp. On
his finger-ends were black demilunes. He said:
    - We know well enough what you and your fellow sellers of
the well-watered are at. You send bullies with clubs around to
my poor old father to have him hold his son out of the tattery
taverns where the filthy players do booze. Well, here you see a
free man with his companions as free who will go where they
choose and slice any that say not.
    - You had best choose to booze at your dear dad’s foul den,
Jack Alleyn said. He meant the Bishop’s Head at the corner of
Holborn and Gray’s Inn Road. So go.
    Bradley’s companions sat behind the table and, much at
their ease, tilted their chairs on two legs and leaned back to
make dirty the roughcast wall with their greasy jerkins. Orwell,
a deformed braggart, humped and with a skew-mended broken
left arm, leered at me, twittering:
    - Untruss,