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THE PLAGUE SEASON WAS good time to be out of London, especially since it often h S at Jae’s Theatre to the quiet, uneventful country life he’d left behind, carts passing by outside one’sloaded with stinking corpses rotting in the su London ’s worldly charms Nevertheless, when he found out that the Queen’s Men were going on the road, he was ue than the possibility that he

He was not, after all, a shareholder in the co players The boy apprentices who played the female parts were of much more value to the Queen’s Men than he was as a mere ostler who only played occasional small roles and helped out with odd jobs around the playhouse He had no stake in the profits of the co they’d do well, and to date, the only roles that he had played were siven to ordinary hiredas they were, he knew he’d botched, for the most part If not for his friend, Will Shakespeare, whom the company had learned to value for his versatility, he was convinced they would have let hio by now

“Nonsense,” Shakespeare said, when Smythe confided his worries to his roommate “There’s always a place in the theatre for a handso pair of shoulders” He spoke without putting down his pen or looking up froainst a bare wall opposite their bed in their lodgings at The Toad and Badger, in St Helen’s parish

Se and he could wield it as adroitly as a cutpurse used his bodkin He was not sure if the remark was meant to chide him “And just what do you mean by that, pray tell?”

The irritation in his tone caused Shakespeare to look up frolance back at hie, unusually expressive dark eyes, the poet’s dominant feature in a somewhat sallow face that was otherwise not especially renation “I mean, Tuck, that there are other attributes to be valued in a player aside fro for you, reat threat to Ned Alleyn and our colleagues at the Rose”

The co from the defection of Edward Alleyn, formerly their featured player, to the Lord Adether with the recent death of the long-ailing Dick Tarleton, whose coe factor in their company’s success, Alleyn’s departure had been a severe blow to the Queen’s Men They still had their enviable naust patron than Her Royal Majesty, but their fortunes had, of late, been on the decline S a rival company’s star in the ascendant while theirs was on the as in part responsible for his friend’s sarcastic reer fault was his own, not only for interrupting Will while he was trying to work, but for putting hi up for an inferior actor simply because that actor happened to be his roommate and his friend

“Well, I deserved that, I suppose,” Slumly

Shakespeare sighed again and put down his pen He pulled off his ink-stained, calfskin writing glove, which had no mate for he had made it for himself for this specific purpose, dropped it on the table and then turned around to face hi his hands upon his knees and regarding hiaze “Let’s have it Out with it”

“Out hat?” asked Smythe

“Whatever matter stalks the labyrinthine mazes of your mind like some perturbed spirit,” Shakespeare replied, dryly “Give vent to it, for ‘tis clear that I shall have no peace til you have unburdened yourself”