The Playmaker Read Free

reeked with the slops of kitchen and sewer; I wondered how anyone could live in such a stench. Taking shallow breaths, I groped my way in the gloom to a half-timbered house with a red door and an outside staircase. The steps ended on a landing, where a small brass plate quietly announced that Martin Feather, Gentleman, dwelled within. Trembling with exhaustion and hunger and no little fear, I lifted the latch on the oak door and let myself into a cold, empty gallery with wide windows overlooking the street below.
    Before knocking at the inner door, I took a moment to finger-brush my hair, which is reddish and springy and refuses to lie flat. Then I straightened my doublet and squared the threadbare elbows out of sight and looked to see that all the buttons held fast. It was my best item of clothing and made me look sober and industriouseven though the seams were beginning to stretch. In the quiet, my ears picked up a rustling sound from the inner rooms. At my knock, the noise abruptly ceased. A pause stretched out before the rustling started again, louder this time. I heard the scrape of furniture being moved, then quick steps on a wooden floor, and felt an absurd impulse to run. The bolt shot back with a clang and the door creaked on its hinges. A sharp breath caught in my throat and lodged there.
    But the face that gazed at me from the doorway was mild as milk: one of those faces that seems neither old nor young, with round blue eyes blinking behind round glass spectacles and a wide mouth opened in query; the furrowed brow of a sage and smooth cheeks of a baby. He looked every inch the lawyer, from the soles of his velvet slippers to the flat top of his cap with its silk tassel hanging down the right side of his face. One arm clutched a heavy book. Even at full height he stood only an inch or two taller than me. “Yes? What is it?”
    I cleared my throat. “Are you—Am I addressing Martin Feather?”
    “No, lad, you're not. You are addressing a lowly clerk in his employ.” He stepped over the threshold, turned, and locked the door behind him with an iron key. “Master Feather is abroad for the month on business. If you will return around the first of May, and are prepared to wait for the better part of the day, I'm sure he can accommodate you—eventually. But you must apply to his chambers at Middle Temple, not his residence.”
    “Oh!”
    The clerk, who had stopped to tie on a pair of wooden pattens to protect his slippers from road dust, must have heard the distress in my voice. He looked up. I saw enough interest in that look to blurt out, “But I'll starve before then! That is … I'm new in London, Your Honor. From the country. I was hoping for a position.”
    He studied me a moment longer and I began to feel a peculiar leaning toward him. This happens with the rare stranger— something in the look, or the tilt of the head, or even the set of the shoulders, that lets you know here's someone a bit like you. Someone whose spirit, in an inward place not immediately apparent, bears an uncommon resemblance to yours. Perhaps he felt it, too. One eyebrow rose. “Come along, lad. I'm in haste but you can walk with me.”
    By now dusk had fallen and the street population had thickened; we felt the force of it when we turned off Abbot Lane onto Cheapside. Since my clerk's business was taking him east, we found ourselves battling the tide that flowed from the Royal Exchange. Almost everyone traveled on foot, though here and there a great Lord or wealthy merchant glanced haughtily down from horseback. Sedan chairs carrying jeweled ladies appeared to float above the crowd, swaying gracefully—until I saw one tilt at a perilous angle when the foremost carrier stepped in a pothole, and its elegant cargo swore fit to blister my ears. My companion paid no heed to these amazing sights and sounds. “So,” he remarked, in a quiet but carrying voice, “you wish to enter the law, hey? Do you value your life so