Will, thirty-five, worked hard day and night. Summers he sweated, winters he froze. Whenever, however, his hands kept going. Had to.
One with his pen, the other with his prick.
Night was on. Smells were down.
He had been scratching on sheets of paper for hours. It was hard to concentrate now. His candle was sputtering.
As ideas flagged. dull, bearable pain in his loins reminded him constantly how he needed a few minutes away from the writing table, out of sight. He deserved the privilege….
Companionable embrace by another’s hand would do him proud. Say one belonging to cute Master Gill – of rosy cheek and temperament – who’d been his sweet Rosalind in the last production of As You Like It (He did like it).
“Forsooth,” Will thought, “there would be the rub I need.” Further thought trimmed and updated the phrase to the present.
“Ay, there’s the rub” was exactly what he needed. He ceased rubbing and dipped his pen to add the line to Hamlet’s soliloquy.
* * *
Before his candle guttered completely, proofreading was done. Will laid aside his pages and, with alacrity, scrambled up the ladder to his landlord’s attic where Master Gill slept.
What’s to be done must be done quickly, lest I remain un-done.
Will scruffled through scattered hay, directed by the boy’s light snores.
Feeling a hand on his blanketed thigh, Master Gill asked softly, “Lord de Vere? – I wasn’t expecting you before the sun’s rise.”
Will, gobsmacked, managed, “No. ’Tis I, Will. Will Shakespeare.”
The boy gathered his wits, fearful. “Be thy intents wicked or charitable?”
Good question. I could use it in my new play.
“Charitable. Here’s a penny.”
“For a zephyr-job? They’re two pennies”
“Manual labor will suffice. Feel here.”
Time’s petty pace favored both as it crept to climax.
Tucked comfortably into his codpiece and relieved to be done and to be done quickly, Will returned to his play. To be or not to be, he mulled. Perchance. I’ll dream on it.
He lifted anew his pen. Looked up.
The Earl of Oxford, in our attic?
Sleep came uneasily.
You now know.
Applause, please.
NB: My other short-short tales, "Florence in the Day" & "Afternoon Wisdom," may be found here with my sagas "The Alexia Chronicles" & "The Birchfield Farm".
