If We Were Villains: A Novel

The second half of the show moved swiftly, recklessly forward. I was as mad and distracted as Tom o’ Bedlam should have been, but Frederick and Gloucester must have noticed a change, for they were both eyeing me suspiciously by the end of the fourth act. Act V opened with James directing the movements of his army. He spoke with undeniable urgency—perhaps as desperate as I was to close the show, sequester ourselves in the Tower, and figure out what to do next. He spoke shortly to Wren, seemed not to see her, and treated Frederick with the same cold apathy. Camilo approached, flanked by Filippa and Meredith—who looked guilty enough that I believed she might have poisoned someone. I lurked in the shadows upstage, waiting for my entrance and the end.

Filippa grew quickly ill and reached for Camilo’s arm to steady herself.

Filippa:          “Sick, O, sick!”

Meredith (aside): “If not, I’ll ne’er trust medicine.”

James (to Camilo, throwing down his glove):

“There’s my exchange. What in the world he is

That names me traitor, villain-like he lies.”

His voice rose to call me from my hiding place. The heralds were summoned, the trumpets sounded; Filippa collapsed and was carried offstage by a bevy of second-years.

Herald (reading): “‘If any man of quality or degree within the lists of the army will maintain upon Edmund, supposed Earl of Gloucester, that he is a manifold traitor, let him appear. He is bold in his defense.’”

I breathed in through the scarf tied over my mouth and nose to disguise me, then entered upstage, one hand on my sword.

Me:            “Know my name is lost;

By treason’s tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit.

Yet am I noble as the adversary

I come to cope.”

Camilo:        “Which is that adversary?”

Me: “What’s he that speaks for Edmund Earl of Gloucester?”

James: “Himself. What say’st thou to him?”

I spoke a litany of his sins to him, and he listened with keen and intimate attention. When he replied, it was without his usual malice, his usual arrogance. His words were thoughtful, humbly aware of their own falsehood.

James: “Back do I toss those treasons to thy head;

With the hell-hated lie o’erwhelm thy heart,

Which—for they yet glance by and scarcely bruise—

This sword of mine shall give them instant way

Where they shall rest for ever.”

We drew our swords, bowed to each other, and our final duel began. We moved almost in unison, blades flashing and gleaming under the artificial stars. I began to gain the upper hand, delivering more blows than I received, maneuvering James toward the narrow mouth of the Bridge. Sweat glistened on his forehead and in the hollow of his throat, his footwork growing clumsier. I forced him deep into the unfriendly darkness of the house until he could go no farther. The last ring of steel on steel echoing in my ears, I thrust my rapier under his arm. He grabbed my shoulder, gasped, his own blade clattering down on the mirrored floor of the Bridge. I let my sword fall, too, slid one arm around his back to take his weight and looked down to find him staring past me, into the gloom of the stage left wing. Gwendolyn was standing there at the edge of the light, her expression blank with shock. Holinshed stood beside her, and Detective Colborne stood beside him, the badge on his hip glinting in the fiber-optic starlight.

James’s fingertips dug into my arms. I clenched my teeth and lowered him slowly to the floor. Behind us, Meredith was being ushered from the apron to the wings. Camilo watched her go, his face dark with questions.

Meredith:            “Ask me not what I know.”

Camilo: “Go after her. She’s desperate; govern her.”

The last second-years left the stage. I crouched over James. The violet sash we used for blood had emerged from the open neck of his shirt, and I drew it out slowly as he spoke.

“What you have charg’d me with, that have I done,” he said. “And more, much more. The time will bring it out.” He shivered under me, and I laid one hand on his chest to keep him still. “’Tis past, and so am I.” A tired smile formed on his mouth. “But what art thou / That hast this fortune on me? If thou’rt noble, / I do forgive thee.”

“Let’s exchange charity.” I pulled the scarf away from my face. There was nothing else to do to comfort him. “My name is Edgar and thy father’s son.”

I glanced toward the wings. Meredith stood beside Colborne, talking close in his ear. When she realized I was watching her, she closed her lips and slowly shook her head. I turned back to James. “The gods are just,” I said, “and of our pleasant vices / Make instruments to scourge us.”

James laughed brokenly, and I felt something deep between my lungs crack clean in two. “Th’ hast spoken right; ’tis true,” he said. “The wheel is come full circle; I am here.”

Camilo spoke behind us, but I barely heard him. My next line was meant for him, but I said it to James instead. “Worthy prince, I know’t.”

He stared up at me for a moment, then lifted his head and pulled me down to meet him. It was almost a brotherly kiss, but not quite. Too fragile, too painful. Soft whispers of surprise and confusion swept through the audience. My heart throbbed, and it hurt so badly that I bit his lip. I felt his breath catch and let him go, lowered him to the floor again. Silence lingered overlong. Whatever Camilo’s line was, he had forgotten it, and so I spoke out of turn. “List a brief tale; / And when ’tis told, O that my heart would burst!”

I couldn’t remember the rest. Didn’t care to. Camilo cut my speech, perhaps to make up for his previous lapse, his voice stumbling and uncertain. James lay limp on the floor, as if Edmund’s life had left him and whatever remained of his own was not enough to move.

Camilo: “If there be more, more woeful, hold it in;

For I am almost ready to dissolve.”

I didn’t speak again. My voice was forfeit. A second-year, realizing that neither James nor I would say another word, came dashing in and shattered the spell of stillness that had descended over the stage. “Help! O, help!”

I let Camilo converse with her. Deaths were tallied and accounted. James’s time came to be carried off, but neither of us moved, sorely aware of what waited on the other side of the curtain. Servants and heralds said our lines in shy, unsteady voices. Frederick entered, with Wren dead in his arms. He, too, sank to the floor and, despite what anyone could do, died, crushed under the weight of his grief. Camilo—the last bastion of our collapsing world—finished the play as best he could, with a speech that should have been mine.

Camilo: “The weight of this sad time we must obey,

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

The oldest have borne most; we that are young

Shall never see so much, nor live so long.”

The stars all went out at once. Darkness came plunging down. The audience slid slowly, uncertainly into applause. I clung to James until the lights came up again, then helped him to his feet. Wren and Frederick reanimated like the living dead. Filippa and Meredith and Alexander emerged from the wings, without raising their eyes from their feet. We bowed stiffly from the waist and waited for the lights to go out again. When they did, we walked single file toward the wings. The curtain closed behind us, a heavy sweep of velvet, shutting out the soft human noise of the audience—climbing to its feet, recovering.

The work lights burned back to life overhead. The first- and second-years shrank away from Colborne’s unfamiliar face. He came slowly forward from his place beside the line sets, watching James as if there were nobody else in the world. “Well,” he said. “We couldn’t play make-believe forever. Are you ready to tell me the truth?”

James wavered beside me, opened his mouth to speak. Before he could make a sound I moved forward, the decision already made, made in the same instant it flashed into existence.

“Yes,” I said. Colborne turned toward me in disbelief. “Yes,” I said again. “I am.”