Shakespeare's Changeling

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Scene: Hedingham Castle
June 7, 1593

“Hide fox and all after!”

– Hamlet

Countess Elizabeth, Lord Oxford’s new wife, didn’t know it, but the impostor had continued to receive his high salary despite his master’s heavy losses on seafaring ventures. All things considered, Oxford’s commitment to the theaters might have been a bit grandiose, but at least he had his family fortunes to support his predilection and the royal stipend to satisfy his impostor. He had liquidated fifty-four ancestral estates in twelve years to endow London’s playhouses and sponsor elaborate productions for the Queen. Shaxper could scarcely believe the large sums of money that changed hands to pay tailors, carpenters, wig makers, actors, scribes, musicians and all of the other production costs a good play required. Because he kept the theatrical account books, he was aware of every penny.

 Beyond that, he had observed Oxford’s restless ambivalence in trading his courtier’s doublet for a jester’s motley coat. He occasionally complained that he might have made a mistake in retiring from Court and abandoning the noble obligations entrusted to him at birth. He and the Countess were planning to make King’s Place their main residence after the plague lifted and it was safe to return to London. The secretive house was the most distant mansion from Court, yet it was close enough for the Earl to arrive quickly whenever the Queen summoned him to attend on her.

Unfortunately, such summons rarely came anymore. Masking sixty years of lust under layers of wax makeup, the aging Queen had taken another young lover. Thirty-three years her junior, the Earl of Essex wooed her with vain compliments and insincere flatteries that yielded him special favors and advancement.

Since matters of the heart never escaped a servant’s notice and he now served two formidable masters, Shaxper was aware that Southampton also yearned to receive favors in the Queen’s bed. At nineteen, the fair youth fancied himself handsomer and more favorable in demeanor than his friend Essex, and yet the Queen rebuffed all of his overtures. Southampton had been driven to tears over it; the Queen had always treated him like a son, but now she suddenly and inexplicably cut him out of her company altogether. His self-destructive behavior grew even worse when he and Essex became lovers. Essex taunted him with stories of his royal lovemaking, even demonstrating some of Her Majesty’s maneuvers on the young Earl himself.

When invited to join their pillow talk, Shaxper awkwardly acquiesced and continued to keep their secrets, acting as a voyeur during their encounters.

But oh, the stories he’d be able to tell if the time was ever right!

He wondered what Oxford would think of Southampton’s extraordinary lust for his monarch, and couldn’t even begin to imagine what the  Countess would say about such matters. On his way upstairs, he passed by the front room and saw the new mother cradling her infant son in her arms. Countess Elizabeth was still new to the household and hadn’t yet confided in him, but Shaxper would soon prove his trustworthiness. He would craft some special flattery to win her confidence. One never knew when wifely opinions might prove valuable.

After glancing into the nursery only briefly, Shaxper bounded upstairs to Oxford’s study. As he prepared to knock, he was surprised to hear childish laughter on the other side of the door.

He hadn’t heard sounds like that in years, not since his last visit home. He was suddenly struck with an incredible longing to see his own children. How long had it been? He was ashamed to admit he didn’t know. How old was Susanna now, and the twins, Hamnet and Judith? He tried to recall their tender little faces, confident that Time had surely matured them. He wasn’t certain he’d recognize them, even if he passed them on Henley Street.

He hoped they appreciated his money. His wife had never bothered to ask Hamnet Sadler to write and thank him for it. Anne and his daughters couldn’t read or write, and his son Hamnet had been too ill to attend school. Unless his health improved, the boy would never receive an education and have the chance to forge a better life for himself.

The sound of Ben Jonson’s husky laugh cut into his thoughts like a knife.

What on earth was he doing here?

Jealousy overpowering propriety, Shaxper burst into the room. He hadn’t expected to see the Earl of Oxford sitting at his writing table, watching as his five-year old daughter and his brick-headed associate played a game of Hoodman Blind. Ben Jonson wore a burlap hood, and Shaxper thought he looked ridiculous, stumbling around the room with his beefy, outstretched arms flailing away, pretending he couldn’t find the little girl giggling at his feet.

 “Ah, Shaxper, you’ve arrived,” Oxford said. “Just in time.”

Jonson pulled off his hood. He knelt down with open arms as Susan ran into his embrace. He scooped her into the air and set her on his broad shoulders. She hugged his neck as they bounced around the room.

“I came from London as quickly as I could, my lord,” Shaxper said.

“I’m sure you did. I’ll wager you didn’t expect to find us playing games, did you now?”

“No, my lord, I didn’t. It seems Jonson here has lost his head.”

“Relax,” Jonson growled. “The executioner hasn’t taken it yet. It’s still right here, where it belongs.”

“I thought you’d lost it to Susan,” Oxford laughed.

“If so, my head is in good company – she already has my heart.”

Susan squealed with delight as Jonson playfully bobbed up and down.

“My lord,” Shaxper said, irritably. “This child’s game is all very well and good, but I have some important matters to discuss with you.”

Oxford told Jonson to take Susan outside. When they were gone, Shaxper spoke.

“How long has Jonson been here?”

“About a week,” the Earl replied. “Thomas Nashe came with him. Marlowe’s murder sent them running for their lives. They came here to finish The Isle of Dogs.”

“Do you think it’s wise to let them work on it here? It’s a questionable play, and if it’s shown that you were involved in something treasonous–”

“You needn’t worry. The Queen will protect me, and that same protection also applies to you.”

“I wish I could believe that. Her Majesty hasn’t done much to safeguard anyone else lately. They say the dagger pierced Marlowe’s eye and tore straight into his brain. The killers were arrested and immediately released.”

 “Marlowe’s killers got their start with Walsingham before they entered Lord Burghley’s service,” Oxford said, “and now it seems the old man has handed them down to his son. Can you imagine such a legacy on paper? ‘In the name of God, to my son Sir Robert Cecil I hereby bequeath: Item: Nicholas Skeres, bloodthirsty cut-throat; Item: Ingram Frizer, notorious assassin; and Item: Robert Poley, infamous butcher.’”

“I was followed out of the city, my lord,” Shaxper said, nervously, “by a man who could have been an assassin. We’re in terrible danger. You must do something.”

“I am. Ben and I are doing all we can to keep Marlowe’s plays alive. The Queen has assured me that she’ll reopen the playhouses when the plague is over.”

“That’s not important now. Our play factory is under attack. How will you save it?”

“By disbanding it,” Oxford sighed.

“You mean close it down completely?”

“Yes, sadly. I need to avoid the appearance of a conspiracy against the government.”

“If that protects us, I approve,” Shaxper said. “But why are you sad about it?”

“After all these years, you still don’t understand my role at the writers’ table, do you?” Oxford said, as he rose from his chair and paced the room. “Permit me to enlighten you. Even if Greene, Marlowe, Kyd, Watson and all the others were steeped in heinous evil from head to toe, I would still grieve for them because they were talented literary men. I guided them in the art of playwriting, and they were eager and capable followers. We passed our manuscripts back and forth until we crafted words so sublime it was as if they fell from Heaven onto the page in the unfolding of some Divine Plan. But now the play factory has outlived its purpose. My students are either dead or they’ve deserted me. Once we were charged by the Crown to produce history plays in fast succession  to inspire our nation to defend itself, and we produced those plays. But now that need is past. The very same Crown that nurtured our work has become terrified of our influence in the playhouses. I was right, you see – ‘the play is the thing.’ So it seems I must bury my play factory, and continue writing plays on my own.”

“Does that mean you won’t be requiring my services?”

“God’s blood! We are shackled together as Shake-speare for the rest of our lives. I’ll continue to write the shocking and unabridged truth about anyone I please,” Oxford said. “And you will continue to stand in for me. You’ll smile like a thief, puff on your pipe, ignore all questions about your work and let everyone think you conveniently made it all up in your head: all those warlike kings, tormented queens, uncouth princes, greedy noblemen, hired assassins, evil conspirators . . .”

“Will they believe it?”

“You’ll make them believe it. That’s why I’m paying you to be England’s greatest actor!”

“Then you’ll continue to protect my safety?”

“Upon my honor, yes, for as long as I live, if you continue to protect mine.”

“Oh, my lord, I will.”

“Swear it. Swear it upon this Bible.”

Shaxper, a Catholic, hesitated a moment before placing his hand on Lord Oxford’s Geneva Bible.

“I swear to keep your secrets until the day I die, my lord,” he said. “Thank you for allowing me to remain in your service.”

The Earl of Oxford locked eyes with his impostor.

“I cannot be Shake-speare without you, cousin.”