The True Prince Read Online Free PDF Page B

with a dig to my ribs. But Kit seemed too much in love with himself to have any left over for a lady. Perhaps his playwriting acquaintance had been claiming his nights—though I could not imagine for what.
    Robin seemed lost in his own thoughts and never glanced at me, even when we passed through Ludgate and continued on toward the court district. Here, just beyond the narrow river tributary known as the Fleet, the men turned abruptly toward a gray stone building, climbed the front steps, and disappeared under an arched doorway. “I knew it,” Robin murmured, increasing his pace until we took the steps at a run. The building was Fleet Prison.
    In a small antechamber just inside the main door we nearly ran headlong into our masters, who were conferring with Will Shakespeare. Master Will's face made a striking contrast withthe others: while their expressions were solemn, his appeared bright with interest, as though engrossed in a play. “No, they've set no bail,” he was saying. “The magistrate has heard the complaint, but not the defense. That should be next.”
    “If the Company refuses to pay bail, it shall come out of my own purse.” Master Heminges spoke in a tight, strained voice. “The youth is my charge….”
    Just beyond them, the broad doorway opened to a courtroom of sorts—a magistrate's chamber for the preliminary hearing of petty cases. I could see the Queen's coat of arms mounted over the bench, where a gray-bearded official in a black cap impatiently shuffled a stack of papers. Two clerks flanked him in lower seats and a bailiff with pike and helmet stood to one side. The witness stand and the offenders' bench were out of my view, but I knew that Kit must be occupying one of them.
    “He is
our
charge,” Master Will replied. “Calm yourself, John. It may be the very lesson he needs, and so work for the best.”
    “Soft,” Master Condell warned. “It begins.”
    The voice that was coming through the doorway could not belong to anyone but a player. It seemed to lean forward and take hold of its hearers, placing every syllable like part of an irrefutable argument for the existence of angels or mermaids. Kit had launched his defense like a spring coiled on his tongue.
    He could attribute his misdeed to three factors, he said: youth, high spirits, and Spanish sack. Of those three, the wine was the greatest cause. He never had much of a head for it, Your Honor; it takes experience and practice to learn how much a man could hold without losing control of himself, and as far as that particular knowledge went, he was still at school. He threw himself upon the court, confident that a man so wise as our honorable judge would take his youth and inexperience into account and temper justice with mercy.
    Master Heminges tightened his lips. “Come,” he said abruptly, and led the way into the courtroom, right down the center aisle. Heads turned as we entered: anxious wives and mothers, restless children, bored law students, attentive clergymen. A wooden railing separated the petty offenders from the rest of the courtroom. Masters Heminges and Shakespeare took a bench directly behind the rail, while the remaining three of us filed into the next row.
    The minute he saw us, Kit's expression changed. The earnest, eager tone I had heard in his voice flattened—only a little, but enough to notice. By the time we settled ourselves, his expression had become guarded and tight on a face already the worse for wear. A prominent welt marked his cheekbone, and his eyes were puffy from a night in jail. His clothes had not stood the ordeal any better: one sleeve ripped, hose sagging as though someone had tried to tear it off.
    “You may save your defense until the charge is read,” thejudge told him wearily. “You stand accused of breaking the peace, offering insult to honest citizens, and damaging property. All this court needs to know is, how plead you?”
    “Guilty, Your Honor.” Beside me I heard Robin draw a sharp