Shadow of Night(268)

Shakespeare wondered idly about the fate of Marlowe and his friends, all of them as insubstantial as shadows now. Henry Percy was enjoying a rare period of royal benevolence and was forever at court. Raleigh had married in secret and fallen from the queen’s favor. He was now rusticated to Dorset, where the queen hoped he would be forgotten. Harriot was in seclusion somewhere, no doubt bent over a mathematical puzzle or staring at the heavens like a moonstruck Robin Goodfellow. Rumor had it that Chapman was on some mission for Cecil in the Low Countries and penning long poems about witches. And Marlowe was recently murdered in Deptford, though there was talk that it had been an assassination. Perhaps that strange Welshman would know more about it, for he’d been at the tavern with Marlowe. Roydon—who was the only truly powerful man Shakespeare had ever met—and his mysterious wife had both utterly vanished in the summer of 1591 and had not been seen since.

The only one of Marlowe’s circle that Shakespeare still heard from regularly was the big Scot named Gallowglass, who was more princely than a servant ought to be and told such wonderful tales of fairies and sprites. It was thanks to Gallowglass’s steady employment that Shakespeare had a roof over his head. Gallowglass always seemed to have a job that required Shakespeare’s talents as a forger. He paid well, too—especially when he wanted Shakespeare to imitate Roydon’s hand in the margins of some book or pen a letter with his signature.

What a crew, Shakespeare thought. Traitors, atheists, and criminals, the lot of them. His pen hesitated over the page. After writing another word, this one decisively thick and black, Shakespeare sat back and studied his new verses.

Black is the badge of hell,

The hue of dungeons

and the school of night.





It was no longer recognizable as Marlowe’s work. Through the alchemy of his talent, Shakespeare had transformed a dead man’s ideas into something suitable for ordinary Londoners rather than dangerous men like Roydon. And it had taken him only a few moments.

Shakespeare felt not a single pang of regret as he altered the past, thereby changing the future. Marlowe’s turn on the world’s stage had ended, but Shakespeare’s was just beginning. Memories were short and history unkind. It was the way of the world.

Pleased, Shakespeare put the bit of paper into a stack of similar scraps weighted down with a dog’s skull on the corner of his desk. He’d find a use for the snippet of verse one day. Then he had second thoughts.

Perhaps he’d been too hasty to dismiss “true love lost.” There was potential there—unrealized, waiting for someone to unlock it. Shakespeare reached for a scrap he’d cut off a partially filled sheet of paper in a halfhearted attempt at economy after Annie had shown him the last butcher’s bill.

“Love’s Labour’s Lost,” he wrote in large letters.

Yes, Shakespeare mused, he’d definitely use that one day.