Free Shakespeare's Spy by Gary Blackwood

worry, Widge. We’ll have lots more time together.”
    “Truly?”
    “Of course. After all, we’ll have to, won’t we, if you’re to read me your play?”
    I left Judith in the care of Mary Mountjoy, a plump, rose-cheeked girl I had met several times before, when I carried some message to Mr. Shakespeare. I had always thought her attractive enough, but put up against Judith, she seemed as plain as porridge.
    Reluctantly, I turned my steps again toward Cheapside, the most direct route back to the Cross Keys. My head was as full of thoughts as a hive is of bees. Like a player committing a new part to memory, I went over and over every word that had passed between Judith and me, relishing hers, deploring my own. My conversational skills were on much the same level as my acting skills had been earlier in the day. At least at rehearsal my lines had been written out for me, and so my speeches, when I could get them out, had consisted ofsomething a bit less plodding and obvious than “I’m sorry” and “How’s that?” and “‘A does?”
    I had often wondered why the wights in plays were forever composing songs or sonnets to their ladies, and not just saying straight out what was in their hearts. Now I understood. But, thanks to my lying tongue, Judith would never be content with a mere stanza or two of maudlin verse. She expected an entire play. When it came to stupid behavior, the Mad Men of Gotham—whoever they might be—could not possibly hope to compete with me.
    And yet, as I mulled it over in my mind, the notion of writing a play was not really so preposterous as it seemed on the face of it. I had some little knowledge, after all, of how the deed was done, from transcribing Mr. Shakespeare’s
All’s Well That Ends Well
for him. I had even made a few modest contributions of my own, including the title.
    Though I might be stupid, I was not so stupid as to imagine that I could come within hailing distance of a gifted poet such as Mr. Shakespeare, even at his worst. But not all the plays we performed were as accomplished as his. In fact, there were times, as I was mouthing some silly, stilted speech from
The Dead Man’s Fortune
or
Frederick and Basilea
, when I swore that I could do far better without even breaking a sweat.
    In truth, the notion of composing a play held a certain appeal for me. Though I found acting more gratifying than anything else I had ever done, I sometimes felt less like a player than like an instrument, a mouthpiece for someone else’s words. The feeling was not an unfamiliar one; I had experienced it years before, when I was forced to copy down other rectors’ sermons for Dr. Bright in the swift writing he taught me, and again when I was hired to set down the words of
Hamlet
as it was being performed. All my life I had been compelled to do and say as others instructed me to. I wondered what it would be like, for once, to be the one telling others what to say and do, to be the craftsman, not the tool.
    What I had told Judith might not be altogether a lie, then. Perhaps it was like one of La Voisin’s predictions, instead. Sam had said that she was only telling her clients what they wished to hear. Perhaps I had merely been expressing some secret wish.
    I was startled to my senses by the sound of the bells at St. Paul’s tolling nones. For the first time I took a good look about me. Not only had I lost track of time, I had lost my way. I had come out not on West Cheap as I had meant to, but a good deal farther to the south and west, where Ludgate Street passed through the city wall. After two years of navigating London’s crooked streets, I still had not fully mastered the maze, just as I had not completely mastered London speech.
    I was but two or three minutes’ walk from Salisbury Court, where we had visited Madame La Voisin the day before. I had missed dinner already and, if I did not hurry, I would miss scriming practice as well and be obliged to pay a fine. But such mundane