Page 76

He kissed me goodbye and that was the end of our discussion. For a month after, things got a little better. He briefly stopped disappearing—at least he wasn’t gone every night. He still wasn’t writing, and he met with the men at court several times every week, but when we spent time together, we mostly got on very well. Then came the week when praise spread throughout London for the publishing of the Poet’s long poem “Venus and Adonis.”

Later that Saturday night Kit, drunk again, showed up at my room in the middle of the night. He looked furious. “Villain! It’s about you, isn’t it?” he slurred at me, his breath and clothing soaked with drink.

“God’s teeth! What are you speaking about, Kit? I was sleeping.”

“That poem everyone is talking about. The one your poet wrote.”

“You mean Will’s poem? ‘Venus and Adonis’?”

“Don’t play ignorance for me, actor! I can see right through you. Adonis! He’s you! It’s so clear! Everyone knows Will’s still in love with you!”

“That’s absurd!” I yelled. “He’s never loved me. I’ve told you that. I haven’t even seen him in well over a year.”

“Liar!” He grabbed me by my bedclothes. “Admit it. You let him fuck you! You were lovers!”

“I’ve told you before,” I said, wearied. “We were never lovers. Will loves only women!”

“We both know that’s not true,” Kit said. “It is most obvious that you are the character of Adonis and he is Venus. It’s all so clearly there and all my friends know it!”

He fluttered the pages of the Poet’s poem in my face. I slapped it from his hand.

“Don’t do that!” I screamed. “And why would he make the two characters in the poem male and female if he wanted it to be about me?”

Marlowe rolled his wet, drunken eyes which almost made me laugh. “You know why! Why do any of us place women for men and men for women in our work? It’s what people like us do! Don’t be naive!”

It was the second time he had hinted that he knew something more of the Poet’s private life. Both times I had to stop myself from asking what exactly he knew, and did he have proof.

“Settle, Kit,” I said. “Please. I need you to trust me. To be very honest, I never even think of Will—until you bring him up.” This was a lie, of course. Next to thinking of Kit, I thought of the Poet most of all. “He was just a silly passion of my youth. The kind of thing all apprentices go through. Even you yourself said you were momentarily smitten with him when you worked together. Tush! I think of dragonflies and pork pie far more than I think of him.”

Our argument ended, and he spoke no more of “Venus and Adonis.” The truth was, that Kit or anyone might think the poem had been written about me filled me with an unsettling pleasure. The last thing I wanted was for my heart to once more stir in the Poet’s direction. Who needed that aching misery? I had more than enough torment with Kit. At least I knew Kit loved me. And I loved him in my way. Surely, despite his secrets and disappearances, to be certain someone loved you most dearly was enough. Wasn’t it?

Thirty-FourWhat Hell Is This?

In which Hughes receives unpleasant news followed by the most treacherous and blackhearted news.

Since thou art dead, lo, here I prophesy:

Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:

It shall be waited on with jealousy,

Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end,

Ne’er settled equally, but high or low,

That all love’s pleasure shall not match his woe.

—from “Venus and Adonis”

It was shortly after the publication of the Poet’s “Venus and Adonis” when I heard the Lord Chamberlain’s Men were in a most dire predicament. Henslowe, the owner of the Theatre playhouse (home to my old company for many seasons) was in a bitter dispute with the sharers and had decided to cast them out of the Theatre, thereby leaving the company without a large-scale arena for public performances. And with only a handful of public playhouses available in London—all of them reserved by the other licensed companies—there was talk that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men might have to disband.

My heart ached upon hearing this. What would the Poet do without his own acting company? It was having that unique group of actors, playing on a specific stage, that partially allowed him to write as prolifically as he did. I imagined how desperate he’d be; it would be like losing both his home and children. For a brief moment, I considered finding him to offer my condolences. But upon further thought, I questioned the nature of my truer motives. While I loved Kit, faults and all, there was another part of me that still felt unsettled with how things ended with the Poet, and I pondered whether we really could again be easy friends. It was a foolish thought that I quickly dispensed with like a maggoty melon.

Months passed, and when Kit disappeared once more—this time for a fortnight during the Yuletide season, no less—my loneliness sent me to visit my old alehouse where I grew up, and where some of the apprentices would often frequent. It was there at the Nags Head where I learned how my old company had responded to Henslowe’s dastardly actions.

“Hey ho, Hughes! You should have been there!” Beeston said. He was much jollier with me now that I was not his rival in the same company. “We showed old Henslowe we did!”

“Pray thee! Tell me all.” Being now a hired man, I happily purchased Beeston and the other apprentices a round. “Will the company be able to stay? Did Will force Mister Henslowe to change his mind?”