Will would know. Will would calm him, too, and give him the confidence to court a young woman as beautiful as Katherine Rogers. Of that he was certain. So, once across the river, Robert Harvard made for the rambling big house known as New Place. Will would tell him which of his words would work best.

Will would also tell him the difference ‘twixt a metaphor and a simile.

” ‘A butcher without cattle?” cried Will Shakespeare. “You call that an image of love? You call that poetry? Or ‘a tailor without cloth?”

“Well … what of ‘a playwright without a stage?” asked Harvard in his strong Southwark accent.

“You court a wife, man, not a cutler. Sharpen your wit with soft words.”

“Soft words? Words like … like featherbed?”

“Aye, featherbed” said Will. “Featherbeds are soft. Pudding is soft. The dung that manures my roses is soft. But we speak here of a woman’s heart.

“Shakespeare was forty-one and far heavier than when first he appeared in Harvard’s butcher shop some fifteen years before, a young man come to London hungry for fame but hungrier still for sausage or beef suet or even a marrow bone to fill his belly. Now, his face had filled and his belly had settled, as happened with most men whose purses had filled and whose lives had settled. But when he moved, Will Shakespeare was ever the actor, shaping each gesture and step to the role he played. And the role of the moment was poet.

He pushed open the windows of the great room and gazed out at his roses. He did not ruminate or pace upon the polished stone floor. His poetry came quickly. He gazed, he thought, and he said, ” Tis a beautiful day, Rob.”

“Aye.” Rob clasped his hands behind his back, then folded them in front of himself, then rested one on the hilt of his dagger and the other on his belt. Though he owned property in London, served as a warden in his church, and could afford to dress for courtship in a fine crimson doublet of crushed velvet, he still had the hands of a tradesman—big and coarse and never at ease unless holding a tool.

” ‘Tis a beautiful summer’s day,” said Shakespeare.

“Aye.”

“Were I in your place, I’d say to her, ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ “

“A summer’s day, Will. Yes… ‘Tis warm … and soft.”

“Indeed. ‘Thou art more lovely and more … more—’”

“Temperate?” Robert Harvard offered a word that sounded eloquent.

“Temperate” —Shakespeare counted the syllables on his fingers—” ‘Thou art more lovely and more tem-per-ate.’ Not a word to describe the passion of love, but as a word for Katherine Rogers, I suppose ‘tis aptly chosen, and it fits the meter.”

And on he went, composing a sonnet to the fleeting beauty of summer and the solid nature of Robert Harvard’s love.

” ‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see. So long lives this’—the sonnet, I mean—’so long lives this, and this … this gives life to thee.’ ” With a flip of his hand and a little bow, Will was done.

“Soft words for Katherine Rogers.”

Too many words, thought Robert Harvard, and too many metaphors… or were they similes? But who was he to question a man whose poetry had earned him that handsome house and beautiful garden?

“Many thanks, Will. Courtship never come easy, even to a man of thirty-five.”

“She’s an angel, Rob … reed slender, to be sure, but still an angel.

“And I be a mere mortal, widowed once and wantin’ a new wife.”

“You’ve been an angel to many a hungry actor.”

” ‘Twas only what a Christian should do.”

“There were Christians aplenty who denied victuals to this glover’s son. But you gave him to eat. So”—Will gripped Robert’s shoulders—”screw your courage to the sticking place, as we say.

Speak to her father, then go to Katherine and tell her of a love as warm as a summer’s day.”

“Would that you’d stand aside me, Will, and whisper these words in me ear.”

” ‘Tis for you to do yourself, Rob. And you’d not want me whispering in your ear on a day when malevolence whispers in mine.”

“Malevolence?”

“By the name Iago, servant to the blackamoor Othello. He has deranged Othello with his lies.” The excitement danced on Will’s face, and malevolence crept into his voice. “Othello is about to strangle his flaxen-haired wife in a fit of jealous rage. He wraps his hands round her neck and—” Will calmed himself, as if his imagination were a pitcher full to the brim, from which he could afford to spill only a little. “So, then … you to your muse, and I to mine.”

 

” ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ ” Robert Harvard repeated the words as he walked from New Place to the Rogers home in High Street.

A temperate summer’s day. On such a day, how could a man see deranged Moors strangling flaxen-haired women? Playwrights were foreign creatures altogether, he thought, that they could imagine such things and not themselves be deranged.