The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [98]
A voice echoed along the corridor towards them from the open doorway of the Hall. A great, booming voice that Shakespeare recognized. It was Burbage's voice. Richard Burbage: Shakespeare's principal partner in the company that had started out as the Chamberlain's Men and had, under James's patronage, become the King's Men.
"Say from whence you owe this strange intelligence," Burbage boomed.
The words struck Shakespeare like cold daggers to the heart.
They were his words. The words that he had written months before when he was preparing the story of Macbeth, who had ruled Scotland six hundred years before according to Holinshead's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. It had seemed to Shakespeare like the perfect subject for a play to put before the King -witchcraft decried, a regicide beheaded and James's own ancestor, Banquo, shown in a good light - but he had fully intended to be there himself and guide the action through the final rehearsals. This was Act one, scene three of the play, in which Macbeth confronted the three witches on the blasted heath. How long had he been away? Had that bastard Burbage decided to put the play on in his absence? Running now, he outpaced the guards and the royal flunky and reached the open doorway as Henry Condell, playing Banquo, proclaimed: "The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, and these are of them. Whither are they vanished?"
Shakespeare found himself looking across the heads of the seated audience at the stage. It was built beneath the minstrels' gallery out of planks laid across barrels. A curtain draped from the gallery hid the other door from the hall and provided an entrance and exit from the stage. The boards were bare of scenery.
"Into the air," Burbage responded magisterially. Shakespeare could see him and Cordell in their borrowed finery gazing around, looking for the vanished witches. Burbage was as bombastic as ever, looming over the slight Cordell.
Shakespeare found himself torn. One part of him wanted to rush forward and interrupt the proceedings, informing the King of his discoveries from the stage, while the other part wanted to remain in the doorway and watch his play unfold for what was probably the first time in front of an audience.
The decision was made for him when a figure standing by the door noticed him. As it rushed towards him, Shakespeare recognized the lugubrious features of William Sly.
"Will, thank the Lord you are arrived. We had not sight nor sound of you for months!" Before Shakespeare could say a word, Sly was pulling him by the sleeve. "Young Hal Berridge, who was to play Lady Macbeth, was taken ill not ten minutes ago and lies even as we speak in a fever. Will, you must go on in his place!"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Hmm," the Doctor mused, "not a bad piece of piloting, even if I do say so myself."
Galileo gazed at the strange mirror that hung in mid-air, reflecting a view of a river, some green fields and a distant, mist-shrouded red brick house of impressive mien. "And this is England?" he asked. "We were moving for barely long enough to get from one side of Padua to the other by horse, and that at full gallop. He turned to the rest of the group and shrugged.
"This science of yours is marvellous. Not beyond my mental capabilities, of course, but to lesser mortals it must seem like magic"
Irving Braxiatel didn't even spare Galileo a glance. He was standing slightly apart from the rest of the group, quietly fretting.
Vicki smiled warmly at Galileo, and the crab with the red wings just cocked an eyestalk at him. That crab fascinated Galileo. Judging by the talk he had overheard it was a denizen of another inhabited sphere, and if so, Galileo had some questions to put to it.
"Yes, this is England," the Doctor confirmed, "and that building is Hampton Court, where we should find both Shakespeare and King James the Sixth of Scotland and the First