Free The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally Page A

given Ralph a passable reading.
    â€œNor can we start just at this moment,” said Ralph, “since, Sergeant Kite, I believe it would be clever of us perhaps to flatter the gentlemen of the officers’ mess by changing all reference to Grenadiers to references to Marines. Therefore, you say, ‘Besides, I don’t beat up for common soldiers; no, I list only Marines—Marines, gentlemen.’ Likewise it might amuse the gentlemen who saw service against the American traitors if you changed all French references to American ones. Thus, ‘If any gentlemen soldiers, or others, have a mind to serve Her Majesty’—which of course must now become ‘His Majesty’—‘and pull down the French King’—the ‘French King’ now becomes the ‘American traitors.’”
    After these gestures in the direction of recent history had been completed, John Arscott the carpenter began, reading one of the two printed copies of the play and having already been privately tutored by the theatrical Robert Sideway.
    â€œIf any gentleman soldiers, or others, have a mind to serve His Majesty and pull down the American traitors … if any apprentices have severe masters, any children have undutiful parents … if any servants have too little wages, or any husband too much wife: let them repair to the noble Sergeant Kite at the Sign of the Raven in this good town of Shrewsbury, and they shall receive pleasant relief—”
    â€œ Present relief,” said Ralph Clark, delighting in his first exercise of theatrical management and in this first sight of Kite incarnated in the carpenter.
    â€œâ€”present relief and entertainment. Gentlemen, I don’t beat my drums here to ensnare or inveigle any man, for you must know, gentlemen, that I am a man of honour. Besides, I don’t beat up for common soldiers—no, I enlist only Grenadiers—”
    â€œRemember, John Arscott, that I have altered that.”
    â€œI list only Marines , gentlemen. Pray, gentlemen, observe this cap. This is the cap of honour, it dubs a man a gentleman in the drawing of a trigger.”
    Arscott even offered a cap of air in the direction of Curtis Brand. The tribal magic of the play had begun to circulate among the actors.
    Curtis Brand was slower in his response, a more halting reader.
    â€œIs there no harm in it?” he ground out. “Won’t the cap enlist me?”
    â€œNo, no more than I can.”
    And clever Arscott went to set the unseen military cap on Curtis Brand’s head, a gesture so quick that Curtis reacted despite himself, and flinched as he would have to flinch when it was done on stage.
    In the shadow of the native fig, Meg Long was farting with amusement. Curtis Brand read gamely on now, solemn as the rustic he was playing. Industrious, though. By the night of the performance, he would be close enough to Arscott in performance to delight the crowd, especially since there would be wine and spirit rations that day.
    â€œMy mind misgives me plaguily,” read Curtis. “Let me see it.” And as if by the miraculous contagion of talent, he reached out and took the quantity of air from Arscott’s hands and held it—even with the right tentativeness—in front of him.
    â€œIt smells woundily of sweat and brimstone. Pray, Sergeant, what writing is this upon the face of it?”
    â€œThe Crown or the Bed of Honour.”
    And Arscott wore a divine smirk.
    â€œPray now, what may be that same Bed of Honour?”
    â€œOh! a mighty large bed! Bigger by half than the great bed of Ware—ten thousand people may lie in it together, and never feel one another.”
    â€œMy wife and I would do well to lie in it,” read Curtis Brand/Pearmain, “for we don’t care for feeling one another.”
    Meg Long screamed with laughter and beat the earth. So doing, Ralph surmised, she became the first theatregoer of this earth so