"_" " I will write the greatest plays this world has ever seen." " What the hell has gotten into you?" " It is a work day, Thomas." "Write a damn play!" "I came to London to write." "For God." " You do the Devil's bidding!" " Leave him!" "Stop him!" "How may I speak with Father Southwell?" "Evil times allow evil men like Topcliffe to flourish." "I'm working on an enterprise of great import." "This is my entreaty to Her Majesty." "Keep it safe." "The hard part is finding the hero" " and the quest and the setting." " Steal them." " ...difficult week." " Stop that girl!" "Did she, um, react to my, um, interest?" "_" " Ah, a moment if you will, Will." " You saw my play?" "Aye." "And I never saw a dog cause so much merriment." "But I thought little of those two sighing lack-galls." " You didn't like the lovers?" " You've met my son, Owen." "I've known old women less tedious." "Baby." "Mmm." "Mmm." "What's wrong?" "Nothing." "Meet me in hell?" "And I'll take you to heaven." "One hit, and he thinks himself the new Marlowe." "Longevity." "That's what you need in this business." "We're the toast of London!" "Oh, spare a few shillings while the sun shines on you, Master William?" "I'm momentarily short." "The sparkling fairy's knob in your ear would say otherwise." "Will... tell me more about this fat knight you're writing me." "Ah, it's a wondrous part." "He gets more greatness, and I'm stuck with the limp-dicked lover." "Valentine is a very fine role." " For the likes of Autolycus, perhaps." " Thanks, Richard." "Willy Shakeshaft rises while Big Dick falls." "I have a new role to sear thee into the minds of the masses." " What is it?" " Ah..." "Weekly plague deaths!" "Weekly plague deaths!" "Ooh!" "Ooh!" "How many?" " Weekly plague deaths!" " I bet 24." " I bet 28." " I bet 20." " Weekly plague deaths!" " Damn it!" "Only 16." "Ha ha!" "16 poxy deaduns." "Pay up, losers!" "Will?" "I need to..." "Are the lovers tedious?" "What?" "Not us." "In the play." "Oh, they're fine." "Fine? "Except I be by Silvia in the night"," ""there is no music in the nightingale." ""Unless I look on Silvia in the day," ""there is no day for me to look upon." "She is my essence."" "I wrote that for you." "That bit's good." "Now shut up and swive me." "Shh, shh." "Shh." "Shh." "Imagine the thrill of standing on this stage, cheered by thousands." "I was hoping to see Alice." "She must have run an errand." "I have a gift for her, a book of poetry." "Outlandish, I know, to put poetry into a a book." "But I'm told it's all the fashion." "Do you think she'll like it?" "Oh, she'll be ecstatic." "What in God's name was that?" "Ah... they're just the, eh old bones of the theatre creaking." "I recall now that Alice is out collecting alms for the feast of St. Mark." "Perhaps we might visit..." "tomorrow?" "Lunch?" "Mother will be delighted." "Alice will be thrilled." "You should warn that girl against giving herself too freely." " She'll be worn thin." " Yeah." "What are you doing?" "Ah, looking for inspiration." "In hell?" "By examining the inner workings of the stage, I hope to... access my own... machinery." "Mr. Cotton saw the play." "Alice was telling me how the two of you worked on it together." "She's an excellent copyist." "I have a good hand." "Nothing more." "The ideas are all Master Shakespeare's." "Your mother's looking for you." "Quickly." "It seemed urgent." "I will go, Mr. Cotton." "It seems I have outstayed my welcome." "Not possible, Madam." "I was going to ask how the lust goes, but my question is answered." "It burns hot as hell." "I know not of what you speak." "Thou art arright, cousin." "Lust is no laughing matter." "Walk with me." "Matthew, how wonderful to share my other passion with you..." "the art of angling." "One must be perfectly still." "You feel the twitch in the line." "Murmur, "God save the Queen,"" "then strike like the Devil himself." "Feel it." "God save the Queen." "Where is Robert Southwell?" "Somewhere safe, I pray." "Help!" "Help!" "Aah!" "Your god's magic is a fiction." "Aah!" "I am a fisherman and also a fisher of men." "And soon, I will hook the traitorous, murderous Southwell." "God save the Queen." "If ye be needed elsewhere, madam, we'll do just as well without you." "If that were true, we wouldn't be missing our most expensive gown." "I'd part with me right hand to know what became of that dress." "You'll part with a lot more if another one goes missing." "You need help?" "Where were you?" "I went for some air." "We are dining with Keenan and his mother tomorrow." " Oh." " Don't look at me like that." "He's a very nice man." "And rich." "And you are merely a player's daughter." "Thank you, Mother." "And despite our momentary success, this theatre barely survives." "A match with Keenan would secure all our futures." "And I must be the sacrificial lamb." "Hmm?" "One luncheon." "Is that too much to ask?" " You embarrassed me today." " I'll think on it." "Alice." "I'll think on it." "I see by your appurtenances that you're a lover of your own swelling legend." "Ah... my name is now somewhat known, amongst lovers of theatre." "You've read my manuscript?" "I have." "I've not read it." "My every moment is stolen by my play." "The violence and torture grow daily." "How many more innocents like Baxter must die before you apprehend the urgency of our cause?" "I apprehend all too well." "To work with you would bring danger to others." "Alice." "And her family, and all those in the theatre who have given me a home." "Your play was a very fine comedy." "Thank you." "Your writing speaks to the common man." "Use it for peace." "Until we have that, all are in danger." "I have written to the Pope himself, and I'm expecting word at any moment that he has approved our plan to deliver my manuscript to the Queen." "It must be perfect." "It must penetrate her soul, like a bullet shot from the deadly level of a gun." "Together, we could write such a work." "Read the manuscript, then come to 15 Silver Street tomorrow, ready to work." "We will bring an end to terror and bloodshed in England." "You have hit your mark." ""In humble supplication to Her Majesty,"" ""most mighty and most faithful," ""most feared and best beloved..."" "A good fisherman only takes what he needs, Mathew." "Give me the information I seek, and I shall release you." "With hold it, and I shall pluck it out... bone by bone." "...Catholics, Protestants alike should now exist... in harmony of society." "Ugh." "Shit." "And do you still believe that?" "You are quite insane, Will Shakespeare." "I'll take you to heaven." ""Alice..." ""my love is as a fever," ""longing still, for that which longer nurseth the disease."" "You've been avoiding me." "I was just on my way out." "All of us are on the way out, but only some of us get to be in." "Come with me." "We're going to a party." "I'm meeting friends." "Very well then." "Bring them if you must." "More befitting your celebrity than than fly blown tavern you frequent." "Your entourage had better not embarrass me." "This... is William Shakespeare, a purveyor of that new style of play, the tragicomedy... so called because it is almost moving and barely funny." "Actually, I saw your play." "It was very entertaining." "Where do all those clever ideas come from?" "You'd be amazed where I find inspiration." "He pilfered the story, which I preferred in its original Spanish." "Ooh, los jealousy no es attractivo, Señor!" "Oh, please, don't tell me thou art a writer." "That face would be wasted backstage." "Oh, he thinks far too much of himself to be a writer." " I am an actor." " Oh." "Currently starring in "Two Gentlemen of Verona."" "Surely Kemp is the star." "He's very funny." " Extremely funny." " Was thou the dog?" "I was not the poxy dog." " Ohh." " Ruff ruff!" "Is this not the wildest frolic thou has ever seen?" "Do you tire of your new friends already?" "I thought you'd found a new copyist." "Alice..." "it's not what you think." "Oh, really?" "What is it?" "Mr. Cotton... he's somewhat of a wolf in sheep's clothing." "Oh." "Rare." "The famously married man is jealous." "Tell me more about these couplings." "Well, my parents have the kind of union that I wish for." "They don't understand." "How can they?" "To find greatness, you must travel alone." "Come." "Where?" "To the real party." "A little... research." "Excuse me." "Evening." "Oh." "He's with me." "Alice?" "Moll!" "Where's Will?" "He brings us to a party, then dumps us for something better." "Oh, he's a puffed up fool." "Lucky he's married." "Removes all temptation." "They can all go and swive themselves." "One day, I'm gonna own that theatre and run it." "Good." "And I'll do the costumes." "Hey, don't think I dress like this on a servant's wage, do you?" "And in honor of that let's get shit-faced." "Prepare thyself." "For what?" "The unknowable." "Sir Francis Bacon, our host." "A notorious sodomite." "Sir Francis, may I introduce London's newest addition to the firmament," "William Shakespeare." "I hear thou art momentarily popular with those that love nothing but dumb shows and noise." "Meet a real supernova..." "Sir Walter Raleigh." "Just circumnavigated the globe in his little wooden boat." "He was telling us of, um..." "America." "America?" "What's it like?" "Vast." "A brave new world that has such things in it." "A brave new world." " Are thou a spy?" " He is." "A Catholic disciple of Robert Southwell." " That's why I brought him." " Not something to joke about." " I'm a writer." " Science?" "Theology?" "History?" "Plays." "An exponent of the tragicomedy, so called..." "What have you written recently, Kit?" "Yes, Marlowe." "You seem rather barren of late." "The fault lies in my astrology." "Born under the sign of Pisces, I'm doomed to swim against the stream." "The more my public want me, the less I give them." "Perhaps the fault lies not in your stars but in yourself, that you are so fishified." "Fishified." "Touché, starlet." "I told you he would sing for his supper." "You're making an impact." "Our purpose here tonight is to access the divine." "The main event." "John Dee, the Queen's chief astrologer and mathematician." "Enjoying yourself so far?" "Who says I'm not on the list?" "Do you know who I am?" "Leave it, Richard." "I'm the greatest actor in London." "Thou art no Edward Alleyn." "Nay!" "I'm Richard bloody Burbage!" "I love Ned Alleyn." "Ohh." "His Tambourlain swelled my heart." "Can I enter or not?" "Piss off." "Let me go, your overgrown swine!" "It will help immerse you in the ceremony." " What is it?" " Will you partake or no?" "Return to your sidekicks, Shakespeare." "I had mistaken thee for someone better." "There are two worlds... that which we can see and another unseen but no less real." "Tonight, we will attempt to access the unseen." "Dee is the most brilliant mind in all Europe." "His private library is larger than that of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge combined." "He astrologized the defeat of the Spanish Armada." "Some say he actually conjured the storm." "Talk to us, Michael." "Unlock the 49 gates of wisdom..." "I wanted to see what a believer like yourself made of Dee's angels and demons." "and make your plan for us known!" "Are there others amongst you who dare to look into the flame?" "I will." "That way, greatness lies." "I will also look into the flame." "Archangel Michael, reveal the mysteries of the unseen world to these intrepid voyagers." "Can you see something?" "He's a spy." "He's a spy." "He's a Catholic spy." " He's a spy." " He's a traitor." " He's a spy." " He's a spy." "He's a Catholic spy." " ...spy." " ...spy." "Remember thy true faith, Will." "No." "Leave me." "Leave me!" "You will not drag me to hell!" "Please no." "No." "No." "What did you see?" "The lesser of two poets, and that means he deserved to die for you?" "Poor, sweet Alice." "Don't touch her!" "For Christ's sake, tell me what you saw." "Heaven, hell, God, the Devil?" "Are they real?" "Huh?" "Leave me!" "Huh?" "Are they real?" "!" "I cannot write unless I conquer them all." "William Never-here!" "Master Golden Quill!" "Too good for his own friends!" "My nose!" "My nose!" "Not my face!" "My nose!" "Will!" "No!" "Are you trying to burn the place down?" "What is this?" "Don't look at it." "Please, Alice." "There's not much about falconry, but enough about the One True Faith to see us all hanged." "Is Mr. Cotton Robert Southwell?" "Just answer the question." "Yes." "I was trying to protect you." "By lying to me?" "By putting my family at risk even though you swore you would not?" "!" "I should have burnt it sooner." "I kept it only out of obligation." "And that is better, that you risk our lives through cowardice?" "You are a liar and a fraud." "I ignored it when your hands were stained with Baxter's blood, but I won't ignore it again, nor waste another second upon you." "I'll stay away from you." "No." "You will stay away from all of us!" "You make your excuses and leave the theatre, because if you don't," "I will tell my father and my brother what you are." "And if they don't tear you in two, they'll make sure Topcliffe does." "Awake, duckling?" "Aye." "Your mother's gone to see if she can get you something new to wear to Keenan's." "Oh, she shouldn't be wasting money on dresses." "That's what I said." "We could put you in sack cloth." "Any man with eyes would still want you." "Thank you, Pa." "I've a good feeling about today." "Kelly." "Open up, Kelly." "You put on quite the show last night, friend." "Thou wouldst know a good show, Master Marlowe." "We're both proud purveyors of hocus-pocus." "Ask your friend if what he saw was true." "I saw nothing." "You were looking in the wrong place." "And where exactly should I have directed my gaze?" "In here." "It's a journey few have the stomach for." "You're just another charlatan." "I didn't invite you, Mr. Marlowe." "And I'm busy." "Wait." "I have a strong stomach." "If you can turn it, it will be worth your pain." "I've not read it, nor do I intend to." "I won't take up your cause." "You recall the day when we were hunting..." "I will not be sermonized." "And the stag broke your beloved dog's leg." "And the only mercy was death." "You wept and wailed..." "I was a boy." "So I had to do it." "I had to wash the blood from my hands, but I did what was hard for the greater good." "Again, you turn from what is hard." "This is not my fight." "Are you faithless?" "I have faith." "They butchered your uncle, and yet you write frippery and pursue of fame like a rat does a plague cart." "The "Two Gentlemen of Verona" is not the best thing" "I will ever write, but Raleigh's first exploration took him no further than Ireland." "And what is your America?" "A more tragically funny comedy?" "Plays that will serve as explorations of what is human." "The mind, the soul." "Plays that question how we love and why we fight." "Plays that show us how much and how little we know." "Well... that is a great comedy from a man who has created nothing since he came to London bar a whore." "That is what you've created in Alice, is it not?" "You took a virtuous girl and you made her a whore." "Speak not to me of Alice." "Go sweat with your whore, playwright." "Thou art full of bitterness and anger, cousin." "And peace has never been born of these things." ""Except I be by Silvia in the night," ""there is no music in the nightingale." ""Unless I look on Silvia in the day, there is no day for me to look upon."" "This... is my essence." "You told her to be here when I returned?" "I did." "I fear she will end up ruined before we can marry her off." "Then we had better marry me off quickly." "But I'll not wear that." "Keenan can take me as I am or not at all." "Then you'll take him?" "If he'll help with the theatre and doesn't stand in the way of me being there." "He won't." "He's a good man, Alice." "He's rich and stinks of beer, but the next might stink of fish." "You would give your life to a man who would kill our anointed queen." "Southwell fights only for peace and the right to worship." "Worship?" "Spain is Catholic!" "France is Catholic!" "Rome is Catholic!" "Southwell and his minions are a Trojan Horse for which the axis of evil will emerge to slaughter our gracious queen and every trueblooded Englishman!" "I will pray for your soul, Richard." "I beseech thee, do not throw thy life away on a doomed cause." "Doomed?" "We cannot be defeated." "Father Southwell's words will march like an army in ink." "As we speak, he works on a manuscript, which will be a call to arms for sleeping Catholics everywhere." "A call to arms?" "You have seen this manuscript?" ""Avaunt, o viper."" " Have you seen the manuscript?" " "I, thy spite defy."" "Enough." " "There is a god that overrules..."" " Enough!" "Enough!" "Halt!" ""and shorten or prolong our brittle course."" "I on His mercy, not thy might, rely," ""for Him, I live, and for Him, I hope to die!"" "Sir?" "He was a choirister." "I remember him at church a Sunday, his voice so pure..." "like an angel." "I failed him." "I failed to make him see the truth." "Southwell has killed another man today, a good man." "He killed him with words more deadly than any sword." "Writers... writers are the new serpent in the garden." "Count to three." "One... two..." "Ow!" "You witch!" "It will heal more regular now." "It will never be regular again." "Well, maybe not completely." "Ohh." "I used to look into the mirror and feel joy." "Forthwith, I will only feel disappointment." "Now I know how the rest of you feel." "It's Will." "Can I come in?" "Be gone, Shakespeare, you cur!" "He's your friend." "He is the vile destroyer of my face!" "Come in, Will." "I'll leave you to it." "I've come to say sorry." "Go on then." "I was as high as a hawk on some drug." "Which thou did not share because thou was off at the proper party." "Twas not the proper party but a group of old men talking about angels." "Really?" " No maidens?" " None." "Sodomites." "All I had was my face." "Now I don't even have that." "You're an actor, not an ornament." "And a great actor, too." "If you really thought that, you'd write me a great role." "I spent the whole morning coming up with one, and I have it." "Thou hast?" "Completely original idea." "Do I get to play a king?" "Yes." "Oberon." "Oberon." "King of... the fairies." "King of the fairies?" "It's a tale of drugs and magic." "The fairy king is fighting with the fairy queen over a little changeling boy." "What?" "!" "Well, that sounds very effeminate." "I don't want to play a fairy king." "Tis not easy coming up with parts!" "Yes, it is!" "Moron." ""Holinshed's Chronicles" of England, Ireland, and Wales." "It's full of them." "There's a part I particularly like... a duke who must play kingmaker." "You think I'm an idiot." "No." "I based the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" on a story because I had no time." "From now on, I want the ideas to be all my own." "Ideas like King of the Fairies?" "I think you need the book." "Show me your story." "Henry VI." "It's a very good story." "The English and the French go to war." "It's been done." "It's 1589, Will." "Everything's been done." "It's how you do it that counts." "The king is weak, and the duke must save his kingdom." "It's great." "Mm, it has potential." "I knew it!" "But only with the right man to make it great." "I'll ask Edward Alleyn." "Swive thee." "How is your sister today?" " She is well." " She is?" "She has agreed to marry the beer man." "My parents have taken her to do the deal." "Whoa!" " Oh!" " Aah!" "You look lovely today, Alice." "Not dressed too fancy like some girls, but simple." "And pretty." "She's perfect!" "You don't want a beautiful one, Keenan." "They can't keep their legs shut!" "It must be a daunting prospect, getting a new family." "Not if I also get to keep my old family." "Of course." "My family is a large one, full of players and writers." "She mumbles her words!" "She's saying that she won't be shut up indoors after she is married!" "Keenan worked hard for what he has." "He doesn't need you giving it away to every beggar with a tale to tell!" "I will not give his money away." "It's rather warm." "Um, if you don't mind, I'll open the window." "Maybe it's your fertile time!" " Lovely sausage." " Thank you." "What are you doing here?" "If marrying Keenan will make you happy, then I wish it for you with all my heart, but it would kill me deader than stone if you married him because you thought all men as cowardly and base as I." "Thou wilt get a cold quim with the wind blowing up your skirt!" "You should go." "A frigid fanny!" " There's something else." " What?" "I won't stay away from the theatre." "I did see greatness in our stars that night, for all of us." "Oh, shut up!" "Odd girl!" "Muttering like a loon!" "I intend to make the theatre thrive" " until you can take it over and run it." " You must go." "Fresh from the censor..." "a new fellow, enjoying his first blush of fame." "William Shakespeare?" "May the sun shine on three always, Barnaby." "Thou can't have scribed an entire play so soon." "I have the beginnings and I'd value your opinion." ""Henry VI."" "A play in which one order falls and another rises." "And great men behave with both virtue and villainy." "Sounds better than fairies." "I hear you're working on something new." "Sister, art thou marrying the beer man?" "I haven't decided yet." "Don't take too long." "You're not getting any younger." "I thought you might need a copyist." "Thou art so much more than that." "You can read Margaret, a woman who makes her own choices." "What happened to your earring?" " I realized that..." " It made you look like a cock?" "Aye." "And that an Aladdin's treasure of baubles could not purchase what I truly desire... this, our work, and thee." "May we begin?" "!" "Suffolk." "Everyone else, start off stage." "Well, hath your highness seen into this duke." "Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep." "He harbors treason." "The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb." "No, no, my..." "What do you want?" "William Shakespeare." "Just go out the back." "Run." "I swore I would never endanger your family again, and I meant it." "I came here tonight because..." "I couldn't bear the thought of all those words tumbling out like stars from heaven's mouth without me." "If you are not in my world, who will help me see those stars?" "I will be fine." "Us Stratford boys are famously sturdy." "I am William Shakespeare." "Mr. Topcliffe requests an audience." "What for?" "When I called it a request, I was being polite." "Peace, Richard." "We can do this the other way, if you prefer." "He'll be fine." "You heard him say so." "Writers are persuasive liars." "These insidious peddlers of propaganda will rot the very fabric of our society." "The Catholics have a particularly skilled deceiver in Robert Southwell." "Do you not intend to dine, Master Shakespeare?" "I have no appetite." "I do not begrudge a man the right to make ends meet." "But theatres?" "Theatres are pits of debauchery and sedition." "I would have every last one razed to the ground if I could." "Then praise be that you can't." "I wrote a play myself at the university." "It was very well received..." "by those who mattered." "The rabble are trickier to please, but I observe you have a gift for it." "The "Two Gentlemen of Verona"" "is lauded by lowlifes." "I fear the bar is set too low with that particular work." "No." "It is set just where I need it." "I intend to use you as weaponry in the war against the papacy." "You are going to write me a play, an anti-Catholic missive to the masses to counter Southwell's propaganda." "You have a week."