Read Online The True Prince by J.B. Cheaney - Free Book Online

over the scene. Kit knew how to place himself to make the light his ally—when he threw back the hood, hiswhite face leapt out so fiercely that our audience gasped.
    Margaret's office is to pronounce doom on all the supporters of Richard who heed not her warning: “Have not to do with him, beware of him; sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him….” Kit's glittering eyes burned through the lines, and it seemed to me he was not speaking of the hunchback. Davy stood close by me as Elizabeth's son, the young Duke of York. While Margaret berated the assembly for past wrongs, Kit glared upon the Welsh Boy:
    “God, I pray Him—
That none of you may live his natural age
But by some unlooked accident cut off!”
    The boy trembled and shrank next to me, obviously not acting. I put an arm around his shoulder, and I was not acting either.
    Kit knew better than to break out of character, but twice during Margaret's tirade he fixed Davy with such dagger-sharp glances that I could feel their edge myself. Shortly before leaving the stage, he turned his venom on the company in general:
    “Uncharitably with me have you dealt
And shamefully my hopes by you are
butchered.
”
    The audience murmured when he left the stage, as though released from his grip, and a voice from among the groundlings called out, “Well done, Kit!” It was a most effective performance; Will Sly could have spoken for all when he said, in character, “My hair doth stand on end to hear hercurses.” But soon I had cause to wonder if Kit, in his general anathema, had slapped a particular curse on me.
    From that time on I dropped lines and missed cues like a rank beginner, enough for some of the players to look at me curiously and Master Condell to murmur, “Are you well, lad?” As my performance declined, my anger grew. Of course Kit could not be blamed for all my failures, but when he tripped the Welsh Boy behind the stage, I felt myself coming to a boil. Davy was running to be on time for his entrance, and directly after passing Kit, he slammed the floor so hard it could be heard from the stage. Since no one saw the crime, Davy took the blame for clumsiness. When he could find me alone, he revealed what had really happened, sniffling, “What hurt did I ever do to him?”
    That I could not answer. But soon I was having my own troubles with Kit, in a conversation between Elizabeth, Margaret, and King Richard's mother, played by Gregory. The three ladies are supposed to vent their wrath upon Richard, the “vile bunch-backed toad,” but I found myself stumbling over lines worse than ever. My awkwardness threw Gregory off his stride as well. Kit's long speeches were perfect and spoken with such conviction that the crowd hung on every word. As Margaret he saved the scene, but it was Kit, the tortured boy player, who leaned forward suddenly and hissed at me, “
Thou didst usurp my place
, and dost thou not usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?”
    What do you mean,
usurp your place
? If he had not been leaving the stage, I might have so forgotten myself as to ask it out loud. With a stab of panic I realized he had dropped several lines. I was supposed to stop him but could not recall the words. In desperation I simply called, “Stop!”
    “‘Stay awhile,'” Gregory whispered, prodding my foot with his own.
    “Stay awhile,” I repeated weakly. “And …” (“‘Teach me how to curse—'” Gregory prompted.)
    Fortunately, there was not much to the scene after that— or to my part. Davy went on once more as the ghost of the young prince, but appeared to be so haunted himself, he could barely speak. The boy's miserable face, ashen under the ghostly powder applied to it, pushed me at last to confront his tormenter in the upstairs tiring room.
    At least, I tried to confront him. The attempt was not successful at first, for I could hardly get the words out. In moments of deep stress or high feeling my voice fails—a strange impediment for a player,