So I let him go, and at that he almost did fall down. Legs to sawdust, as they say.
“Well,” said I, “if the truth offends you worse than her lies, better kill me.”
He had righted his balance, and stood there gaping at me. “What do you mean?” he whispered—again.
Heaven spare me all virgins. (For he was virgin enough in this.)
“I mean I should like to tup you, sir. Kiss and coddle and feel and fondle and pierce and ride you until you could barely lift your sweet arse off the floor or bed or wall I had layed you on or by. It’s you I’d like. And if that’s not to be, then take up your blade. Then tell the world I died of unrequited love. Not such a bad end, for an actor.”
His face was white as the snow where it was unmarked. His eyes had darkened. He panted heavily, and now it could not be from duelling. For sure, I thought I had him.
Imagine then my offended horror when off he sprang, grabbed up the dropped blade, and leaping back at me before I could reassemble my wits, he gave me a nick across my left upper arm. The cut was shallow, more the bite or scratch of a cat, and would do little harm. He had pinked me, as the gamblers have it. Pinked, then reddened me, for my sleeve was quickly bold with blood.
“I am content,” shouted Jem Templeyard to the others. “That will do. I see I’ve misjudged this man. I will say he has insulted my blameless wife. But only by his words and in error. Nothing worse—I have misunderstood her complaint. And so I have dealt him only this little punishment. Let that,” growled he to me, “be a lesson to you to watch your manners, Mr Thessaris.” The surgeon was coming up, looking most disappointed one of us was not now lying on the earth with his viscera poured out wormlike all around. Before he reached me with his bandaging, Jem added, in a once more breathless whisper, “I will meet you in the coffeehouse on Parnassus Walk, at noon.”
I smiled. I had cause. I can deal with both, the ladies and the jacks, and am good too at that. And he was, as I have remarked, a pretty fellow.
55
The snow had begun to fall again, and more heavily than before.
I sat at the window of the coffeehouse, drinking the brew, (far superior to that of The Black Sheep, which its cost reflected) and, as I waited for my new amor vitae, I thought idly enough of my childhood and my cruel father.
It was no current love-affair, nor injury, which occasioned this, but the snow itself. In my infancy I recollect only days and nights of sumptuous heat or other days and nights clad white in snow and rime. Such were the general excesses of my beginning, supposedly, only such painted back-casts remained to my memory. (In just such a manner the back-casts behind Macbeth, in which I took the part of Banquo, are most of what remain to me of the play.)
My dam had fled my father, Jonathon Irridemus Thessaris, some seven months after I was born. Whether she had wished to take me with her and been prevented by circumstance, (most probably that of another gentleman), or purely had no wish for my company, (for infants are addled, piddled, leaky and squeaking creatures), I do not, nor shall I ever, know.
Small odds. I was left. And so, sour-nursed and whipped up by drunken sucklers and unkind servants, but none of them so dedicated to the Pitiless as my male parent.
I am sure he mauled and slapped me often, to prepare me, perhaps, as one must prepare certain types of wood, cloth or canvas, for the ultimate onslaught to come.
What I recall is the first beating, when I was five. I shall not write a word about it. By this alone, you must judge its harshness.
He had, my father, taken up the cause with me, as later, in my thirteenth year, he undertook to educate me upon, because I, being got by him on her, (my mother, that is), and brought by her in the usual way into the world, was half her child. Though half his, too, and therefore perhaps a recoverable commodity, since I was male. But being also half of her, inferior I was, too, detestable and loathsome. He had thus aimed to cast her out of me, as priests and prophets of the Church cast out demons from human flesh.
At fifteen, however, I had seen a play and found a longing in me which outweighed all doubt and fear. I, as possibly had she, would have stolen soft away. But he caught me. Accordingly, I turned upon him, and myself taking up the instruments of his wrath, I battered him senseless and left him in his house for dead. As he lived, some credit, I confess, should be given him that he did not call up the pursuit of the courts upon me. He let me go my own way, as he had once let go her.
The house is miles off, in the province of Sussex, far south of the Capital. I have never heard more of him. And if ever he has of me, which is unlikely for I am not of colossal fame either for good or ill, he has never come to chide my loss. He may even be dead. It is some fourteen years behind.
56
In comes my paramour, at some minutes before the clocks strike for noon. He is ready shaved, washed clean and perfumed, having on fresh linen and another silk coat.
“Thou art fair, my love,”
