The Playmaker - Hardcover

Cheaney, J. B.

 
9780375805776: The Playmaker
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 037580577X ISBN 13: 9780375805776
Verlag: Random House USA Children's Books, 2000

Inhaltsangabe

While working as an apprentice in a London theater company in 1597, fourteen-year-old Richard uncovers a mystery involving the disappearance of his father and a traitorous plot to overthow Queen Elizabeth.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

This is J. B. Cheaney's first novel.

Aus dem Klappentext

A thrilling romp through Elizabethan London, peopled with actors, imposters, spies, traitors--and a young apprentice in Shakespeare's theater company.

After the death of his mother, Richard Malory journeys to London--seeking his fortune and perhaps the father who abandoned him as a child. The year is 1597. Elizabeth is queen. Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain's men are packing the theater. And the heads of Catholic insurgents are impaled on the Tower gates. One 14-year-old boy, tossed into the teeming crowds, should arouse no one's interest.

But within a week of his arrival, Richard has been robbed, beaten, and threatened at knife-point. Someone wants him to leave London. Determined to figure out what he has stumbled into, Richard finds a place to hide--in plain sight but in disguise as a player on the stage.

J. B. Cheaney spins an intricate, atmospheric tale of a young man, finding his place in the world, surrounded by people who are acting--some for their living, some for their lives. Whom can he trust? Where do his loyalties lie? Must Richard play the part set out for him--or can he become the playmaker of his own life?

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"By the tortured Greek syntax of St. Paul!" He straightened, his tassel bouncing with the emphatic shake of his head, clutching another sheaf of papers. I spied one more, that a cart had just run over, and picked it up. While glancing over the damage, I chanced to read some of the words on it: "By order of Philip Shackleford, Lord H-"

His hand came down on my wrist, gripping so hard I cried out. :Did your rector not teach you manner, then?"

"Yes, sir. F-forgive me, sir." He let go of my wrist to snatch the paper. Then he rifled through the contents f the portfolio with a distressed look and surveyed the area once more. Any loose papers would already have been trampled to shreds.

"No lasting harm done, then, just the usual dung and filth." His words rolled blandly, but he was nearly panting, as though he'd just come off a run. As for me, I kept my eyes on the ground chafing my wrist. He was stronger than he looked. "Well - Richard, did you say? We must part soon, but let me offer a word of advice."

He continued his progress and I fell beside him as before - unwilling to part company, but now rather wary of him, too.

"Is your heart set upon the law?" he asked.

"I-- don't know, sir." Strangely, this was a question I had never pondered. "My mother though it would suit me."

"Your mother. That's ofttimes the case. Well, would she be heartbroken if you chose another profession?"

I swallowed. "Not likely, sir. She's dead."

"I see." He stopped, and turned to me, and in one keen look seemed to grasp everything there was to know about that simple statement. Once again I felt that pull toward him , and inclination that defied reason. After a moment he nodded briefly, then walked on. I blessed him for saying no more. In my present condition, weak and weary and dispirited, any expression of sympathy might have reduced me to a puddle on the street. "You will wonder what I'm going to tell you now, Richard, but trust me on it, as far as you can trust a stranger. It is this: do not attempt to join yourself to Martin Feather."

"Sir?"

We had reached the end of the lane, and my companion drew off a little from me, as if determined that here our ways should part. "I can tell you no more than this: he is a -- precarious person to know. Even this much is in confidence - keep it close."

"What am I to do, then?" I blurted. "I must have a position!"

"Of course. Of course." He rubbed one side of his nose with an ink-stained finger, in the manner of certain scholarly men when they are thinking. I gazed upon that finger as though expecting my salvation to come from it. "Here is what you can do, and it may not suit you for the present, but times are hard. It will put bread in your mouth, and that's the chief concern, if I read you rightly. So tomorrow morning go down to Thames Street - hard by the river - and follow it east of the Bridge. Look amongst the wharves and warehouses there and you'll find the house of Motheby and Southern, Wine Merchants. I am aware that they could use a dockhand. Yes, I can see you are too fine for that, but keep your wits about you and a better position will come your way."

He had misread the dismayed look on my face. It was not that I considered myself too fine for dock work, or not much - only too soft. "But sir -"

"Not that it matters overmuch to me." He hiked the furred collar of his black robe higher on one shoulder. "Do as you will, but if tomorrow finds you before Messieurs Motheby and Southern, tell them Peter Kenton sent you. I am not Peter Kenton, mind, only an acquaintance of his, but we'll consider you sent by proxy, hey?" he smiled then: a broad triangular smile marred only a little by his bad teeth. It went through me like a dart: a smile of naked collaboration, as though two were snugged together in a plot. Yet my wrist was still throbbing. His humor was a unpredictable as Benjamin the bear's; as quickly as the smile appeared, it was gone. "Peace to you, Richard. Perhaps we will meet again."

"Wait!" in something of a panic, I grasped for another moment with him. He paused, yards away, his head tilted in a way that had already become familiar to me. "Might I have your name, too, sir?"

He shook his head. "My name would mean nothing to them. Just remember Peter Kenton's. And hold a moment -" He fumbled about his robe for a coin. "Here's a half-groat. 'Twill get you lodging for the night, and a meal. The East Chap taverns are a fair lot taken by and large, but hold on to your purse."

I caught the coin he tossed to me, and realized at once, but its feel and weight, that it was no groat. Indeed it was an entire shilling, which would support me for a week if I took care of it. He must have known; it was likely to mistake one for the other as to take a stone for bread. "Sir! Wait -"

But he had already turned his back and disappeared, and the populace closed like a door upon the most generous man in London. Your name would have meant something to me, I thought forlornly. And at that moment, I felt far more desolate than if we had never met.

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Verlag
Random House USA Children's Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2000
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
037580577X
ISBN 13 
9780375805776
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
307
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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