Shakespeare's Rebel Read Online Free PDF

talk much.’
    John shrugged as well, stepped away. The man called after. ‘You sounds like you could be a bit of a gentleman too. So I’d watch myself in Southwark if I were you, sir.’ John turned to look back. ‘Know any people ’ere, do you?’
    John found he still had a smile on his face. It went on the man’s words. ‘A few,’ he replied, and climbed the stairs. More than a few, he thought, as he pushed through a crowd of labourers seeking coin to help unload the cargo. And very few of those do I wish to see. But Richard Burbage is certainly one.
    Should he go there straight? He bent his head to his chest, sniffed his doublet, winced at an odour so strong it even pierced the fug of pickled herring. Peg Leg, he thought, and turned, not along the route to the playhouse. but down the High Road.
    The inn was called the Castle upon the Hope, and was run by a former comrade from the wars, Jack Tanner, known as ‘Peg Leg’ Tanner for what he’d given for his country. Peg Leg kept a bathhouse, a taste for which he’d picked up during his time as a prisoner in Granada. There was hot water to be had there – and if John was to meet with London’s premier player it was probably better not to be stinking like a stallion at covering time.
    The reason he was called ‘Peg Leg’ and not ‘Legless’ was down to John. He’d arrived in the nick and managed to prevent the four Spanish soldiers sawing off the other limb by the neat device of killing them all. Today, though, he could see in the man’s eyes that his gratitude was not, as he had blubbered at the time, eternal. In truth, thirteen years of presuming upon it appeared to have worn it thin.
    John observed this through rising steam. The water was quite clean, scarce in its second or third use, a state he was, however, changing rapidly with his occupancy. Though it seemed that even this was not the main cause of Peg Leg’s plaint.
    ‘You were here a week ago, John.’
    ‘I was?’ It was news, and especially alarming as he remembered nothing about it. He always avoided Southwark during a debauch – for reasons that his old comrade began to enumerate.
    ‘You were. And most . . . distraught, I would say. You demanded your sword. There were men you had to kill.’
    ‘What men?’
    ‘You did not say.’
    John thought back. Nothing came. ‘You did not give it to me?’
    ‘I did not. You had made me swear, a month ago, when you embarked on this latest . . . voyage . . . that under no circumstances was I to let you have it until you were sober.’
    ‘Quite right. You did well in refusing me.’
    ‘I did, John. But my inn did less well. You were lion drunk.’ He looked mournful. ‘You broke things.’
    ‘What things?’
    ‘Chairs. A door. Several tankards. You boxed young Harold’s ears, then took a bottle of whisky and ran off.’
    ‘Ah.’ John contemplated the greying foam on the water’s surface. ‘I will pay you for it all, Jack.’
    ‘You have money?’
    ‘Oh. No. Not now. But soon. I have hopes.’ He saw the doubt in the other’s man’s eyes. ‘Burbage has sent for me today. Perhaps he has a role in mind.’
    ‘Are you not still . . . exiled from the stage?’
    ‘Exiles end. Grudges cannot last for ever.’
    ‘Some men’s can. Just like their obligations.’ Peg Leg sighed. ‘Have you clothes to meet him in other than . . . ?’ He pointed to the discarded and reeking pile.
    ‘I do not. Might you . . . ?’
    Another sigh. ‘I will see what I have. This time though I will want them back. Unholed.’
    ‘Of course.’ The man turned to go, and John called after, ‘And, Jack, one other thing . . .’
    ‘John, truly, I cannot bring you whisky . . .’
    ‘Nay. I have foresworn it. Ale only passes my lips, as it has done for three days now. It is my . . . method, as you know. Speaking of, a pint will further my recovery.’
    ‘I will send a boy with it. Would you like a crust and some pottage?’
    John considered his stomach, then shook