Chapter 1Bankside, London, 1595
After hour upon hour hunched at his desk as a humble scrivener to a notary, this was the moment Stephen had been waiting for all week long. The Rose theatre had as full an audience as it could gain today. It had gone two o’clock in the afternoon, and Stephen waited impatiently for the second trumpet sound to signal the start of the performance.
Although he had seen Christopher Marlowe’s popular play Tamburlaine during the playwright’s brief lifetime, he almost held his breath in giddy anticipation. He noted that some of the theatregoers acted as though going to St. Bartholomew’s Fair, the outing and the spectacle counting for more than the play itself. Others came for the novelty of being in Southwark, a dangerous part of town over the River Thames, outsid
