The Watchtower

his language had been too upper-class for her taste.
    Will opened the note. It was from the poet. Will recognized his elegant script immediately from drafts of sonnets the poet had shown him:
    Dearest Will,
    Your becoming a member of our troupe has been mildly delayed by some Machiavellian shenanigans among the patrons but I nonetheless expect to have Lord Grosvenor’s signature on the necessary documents within a fortnight. In the meantime it is a great pleasure for Marguerite and I to cordially invite you to a celebratory gathering we will be hosting this coming Sunday evening at 6, at 22 Lyme Street. The point of the celebration you can guess!
    Yours in deep comradeship and with even deeper admiration.
    Three evenings later, Will walked to 22 Lyme Street for the poet’s Sunday gathering. He wore the fine gray doublet, crimson-tinted black silk cape, and ruffled white shirt he had purchased the day before at Gresham’s Royal Exchange. The buckles on his new belt and boots gleamed as though polished with a cloth made from light.
    It had rained hard until the middle of the afternoon, but the sun had been out for hours now, giving the soaked streets a gloss and gleam to match his apparel; the very air had a radiance to it as if its usual smoke and odor-stained texture had received a scrubbing. With little more to go on than the aristocratic stationery of the invitation, Will was anticipating as he walked an elegant dinner for a select few. It would be thrilling to see the poet again and meet some of his theatrical friends, not to mention the beautiful Marguerite. He felt as if he were strolling into his future.
    As he approached Lyme Street he could see, a mile away at the merge of Cornhill and Threadneedle Streets, the golden grasshopper suspended above Gresham’s Market, one of the latest additions to the still sparse London skyline. It shone like a second sun, just above the horizon. You are the sun to shine on all of England, a line from the poet’s sonnet celebrating him, ran unbidden through his thoughts. He hoped the evening would be like a coronation, for more than one great public life to come.
    But as he approached 22 Lyme, he suspected that his concept of a refined occasion might not have been accurate. A raucous din seemed to be coming from the new, well-timbered house of three stories at that address, which had ceremonial pennants in an array of colors flying from all its eaves and windows. The din became more distinct the closer he approached, one percolating with chattering voices, loud guffaws, boisterous boasts, and even the occasional inebriated shriek. Will allowed himself the preposterous hope that another party was taking place in nearly the same location, but his final few strides forward educated him that this was not so.
    His mood sank in anticipation of a tiresome evening dodging drunks and feigning vulgar merriment, though he could not imagine how a sensibility as refined as the poet’s could have attracted the vulgar babble he was listening to. But he moved bravely onward. He wasn’t shy, and he could get through the evening—no doubt, if all else failed, by charming whatever circle of youthful females gathered around him.
    Will plowed through the throng congregating at the doorway and, once inside, began to methodically seek out the poet. But the crowd on the first floor was so dense that moving through it was like trying to navigate swamp grass. And the first few people he queried seemed ignorant of the gathering’s purpose, gazing back at him drunkenly, so asking for the poet’s location seemed futile. He found it convenient to fall in with a trio sitting at a cramped table playing ruff and honors in need of a fourth. After a round of introductions to Tom, Pete, and Finn, he managed to angle his rickety chair so that at least he could catch glimpses of the first floor’s entrance and main staircase and, in the meantime, pass the time tolerably well. Sooner or later the poet and Marguerite would no doubt be moved to introduce themselves to the crowd.
    Will gave an imitation of following the game’s fluctuating fortunes but primarily observed the first-floor hubbub. The swath of sound included everything from giggles to arguments; the quality and cost of attire male and female varied widely; an endlessly abundant supply of liquor was evident, though he couldn’t tell where the serving table might be; all in all the chaotic party looked as if it had been planned by pulling in