"Have you seen my new play?"

"What play is it?"

"The Winter's Tale," I said.

"What-a chilly play on top of this miserable weather!

Why a month ago I was basking in the sun...you and your plays! Is this Denmark and another Hamlet? Tell me, Will, was Hamlet named for your son-are those lines in his honor?"

Jonson interrupted and answered for me:

"When my boy died I wrote something for him. I was in prison then and the jailer grabbed my ma.n.u.script and spat on it. Bah, that's the kind of cra.s.sness that shakes you.

I've forfeited goods in payment of my stupidities but I haven't forfeited my hatred of injustice! It's another kind of injustice when a boy, a stripling, dies. Will made Hamnet into Hamlet, an outcry against this world."

He drank his ale and I saw him examine his thumb, where they had branded it when he was in prison; he nodded to himself; I suppose his thoughts were of his boy, a victim of the plague...

Jonson eats poorly. Prison treatment has hurt him. His hair is greying, particularly on one side, sweeping down, showing when he talks with gusto. Teeth are missing.

Today he wears a suit of black wool, his cuffs clean, his collar clean. He hardly seems one of us.

Raleigh's sword sc.r.a.pes against the table as he leans forward, talking of his voyages. His is a perpetual struggle with storms and mutinies and his flashing eyes convey a courage one has to take into account. He has sent the idlers packing and smokes with his pipe in the bowl of his palm, its brown the color of his hands, the five or six rings on his fingers blazing: opals and rubies, I am told.

I am also told that if he sold the jewels he wears he could pay for the construction of a ship-of-the-line.

Henley Street

July 30, 1615

I came across several old letters this morning.

Raleigh's is hard to decipher:

Portsmouth

March 9, 1608

Will Shakespear-

We have taken an old carrack, the Madre de Dios, and spoils clutter her deck as we lie at anchor in Portsmouth Bay, spoils, things the Queen would grow sullen over, wanting them. Some of them b.l.o.o.d.y and soaked with spray, they have a cheapness about them, a liar's eye. You and Ben would know how to laugh and knock them about. Here's a green gem in a brooch a negro queen must have worn, its horse's eye staring through a slash of sail canvas. Here's a rope of skulls carved in brownish ivory; here's a tiara ornamented with pale yellow gems I can't identify...a pile of bra.s.s bracelets alongside a smashed cutla.s.s. As for me, I'll take the wind in the rigging and a clear landfall.

How are your plays going this season?

Sometimes, when a sea rages, Macbeth howls in my ear, Oth.e.l.lo lifts his hand as stars dive below the washed horizon.

Shun the Queen's condemnations. It is usually her freedom-seldom ours. Stay clean!

But if I could write like you I would try to destroy political chicanery, though meddling with the Crown may spell my doom.

Well, I will make London late next month, and see you at the Tavern.

Raleigh's pen dug into the paper, and the signature has almost disappeared for lack of ink.

The Tower

Will Shakespear-

When I scribbled verses on a window, our Queen was pleased. I did not know-my crystal would not divulge that I would become a chemist in the Tower, alchemist of solitude.

I thought the compa.s.s mine, shrewdly boxed...

London

April 9, 1593

Will-

For years I have been planning an expedition up the Orinoco, to locate a gold mine. The fabled mine is near Spanish settlements and these may present hazards to any English force. A Spaniard, a Captain Berrio, is entrenched there, along the River.

The expedition will tax my resources but I am determined for the sake of the Crown: to carry out my plans I will require several shallow draft frigates and several small boats; there are no accurate maps and the mine is in fever jungle. Certes a month or two will go into exploration, hacking this way and that. The roguish crew of prison perverts will contribute their share of com- plications, no doubt of that, my friend. Con- sole yourself that you will never know such an experience as dealing with deckloads of cutthroats. To be a voyageur you must condone scapegoats, a.s.sa.s.sins, rapists, thieves...but you know our maritime history. I have been accused of bad voyages...who has not made bad voyages who dared voyages? If this expedition can be materialed the victualing will be a matter of months. Wish me well...wish me G.o.d's speed.

I am contributing 3,000, and it seemeth to me this Empire is reserved for Her Majesty and the Nation. I can find the gold King of Cundinamarca: el hombre dorado. Who knows, as in Sergas de Esplandian, we may reach the Island of California, inhabited by Amazon women with pa.s.sionate hearts and great strength, where there is abundant gold.

There were other letters in this vein, about his future. As explorer he was to the manner born. Thou canst not be false to any man-his letters seemed to say.

The Tower

Like our ship Revenge I am surrounded by an armada of enemies, all my pikes splintered.