“Good fortune that my father took you into North’s Men, Sander,” Jack said.
Every topic seemed charged, but I had to brave it, oblivious as Jack seemed.
“Remember your old friend Martin?” Mag asked. I shuddered at the name: I’d hardly call him friend! If I were still Kate, he’d be my husband. “He plans to marry Judith, the vicar’s daughter.”
“She always was a prig,” I said, smiling with bland gratitude that this time Mag had used no last names. “A good match.”
“No doubt,” Mag replied. “And you’ll be pleased to hear that your gran is in health.”
“Your gran is still alive?” Kemp asked. “I’d like to meet the lady.”
“I’ll fetch that ale.” Mag went in to the house.
Wouldn’t that be the best, to march into Gran’s cottage garden with Will Kemp and Jack and give Gran a private show of dancing and singing. I almost laughed out loud at the image. She’d know I’d succeeded in London; I could embrace her as a boy would. Too too delicious.
And impossible.
Mag appeared with her tray, a pitcher of ale with four tankards and a plate piled high with slabs of country bread spread thick with butter. Kemp entertained Mag and Jack sang a few more songs before we took our leave.
With so much on my mind, I didn’t anticipate our evening’s entertainment with pleasure: a rhetorical debate. But that was before Kit Marlowe came to the table in Amazon dress, a feathery helmet crowning his auburn curls and buskins slashed in the ancient fashion to reveal his legs. He had even managed to find breastplates in a chest of Sir Thomas Howard’s. Though the lord himself was out, apparently Kit didn’t hesitate to explore.
“You, playing Amazon,” Nashe said. “You mock womankind.”
Kit ignored him as he arranged the mantle on his shoulder. “You wear women’s weeds onstage, my lads. How do you judge my style?”
“Only dressed as a warrior can you play the woman,” I replied. “Your plays are all for men.”
“Now Sander,” he began, my name sounding intimate on his tongue.
“Why Amazon dress?” Shakespeare interrupted.
“Tonight our subject is: which is better, to live as man or woman? Apparently Kit argues for woman,” Kemp said.
William Shakespeare must have come up with that topic. At least I’d not be asked to speak on it. Or I could quote Ovid’s tale of Teiresias, who spent seven years as a woman before returning to his male form. Powerful as Jove and Juno were, they were not all-knowing. To settle their argument over which sex better enjoyed the act of love, they summoned Teiresias, who’d known both ways. I wasn’t sure whether Ovid meant his reply as jest or truth: Teiresias answered “woman,” and suffered for it at Juno’s hands. Recalling that tale put a fleeting wonder in my mind: would I ever know for myself? Of course not! To experience love with a man would destroy the life Sander Cooke had created.
Nashe said, “What sort of case can you make for a woman who wears armor? Only to escape her true nature would she dress in male clothes—unless she’s a queen calling her troops to battle. Which has happened exactly twice, Queen Margaret, perhaps in history but brazenly onstage in Henry VI, and our Gloriana.”
Shakespeare smiled. “A woman, what e’er her dress, has much to teach a man.”
“The naughty subtleties of love, I daresay,” Nashe retorted.
“Rare is the man with the wisdom to grant a woman sovereignty. If he could, he might well increase his own delight—and not merely in the art of love. Some women have an eye to pierce man’s folly and teach him to laugh at himself.”
“What have you ever learnt from woman, Will—besides duplicity, vanity, and treachery?”
“Those are human failings, my dear Kit: men’s more than woman’s, as the world goes.” Shakespeare smiled. “You’re playing Pyrocles, who wore woman’s armor to entice Hippolyta. Not only is his garb deceitful, but as I recall the story, Pyrocles captures Hippolyta. Duplicity, vanity, and treachery.”
“Men’s hearts oft are captured by sharp-eyed vixens,” Kit retorted.
“Such a lady may impart the wisdom of pain. A playmaker might well match her against a man whose vanity blinds him to his folly.”
“Like Proteus in Two Gentlemen of Verona,” I said recklessly. “Julia is wiser far than he.”
Shakespeare smiled. “Wiser women than Julia shall you play when our theatres reopen, Sander.”
“Nothing would please me better.”
“Wise maids, in disguise and not.”
My heart glowed, until the linen band chafed my chest.
“A disguise may reveal one’s truth, do you not agree?” Kit said to the company in general. I held my breath wondering what he would say next. I benefited from Shakespeare’s knowing my truth, but Marlowe’s knowledge put me much at risk. “The best role is mine tonight,” he added: “Man and warrior woman.”
“You fancy being man-woman and woman-man,” Nashe said scornfully.
Marlowe preened the feathers of his helmet in reply. Shakespeare gave me an inscrutable smile, and I felt a moment of exhilaration.
But on the morrow I would return to my past, for better or for worse.
From The Secret Player, revised edition © Jinny Webber