The King's Codpiece

an indelicate frivolity
By Mihangel

"Fuck the Ethelbuggers!"

"With pleasure," said Rob. "What've they done now?"

"Oh, nothing new . . ."

In fact, to be fair, they'd done nothing at all. So I tried again.

"What I really mean is, fuck Edward."

"I'd much rather not. What's he done now?"

"Oh, nothing new . . . But if only he'd keep his damned prick under control . . ."

"Well, you're safe from it. So what's bugging you?"

"Boys," I said. "Prepubescent."

"Oh, right. I see."

One of Rob's many virtues is that he does see, and fast. We've shared a room for years. He knows me, and I know him, so well that we can say what we like to each other, no holds barred and no offence taken, in language that is hardly refined. We think alike. He's a great guy.

And this time, as usual, he took my meaning at once. But then he knew the background. For you, I'll have to paint it in.

Hambledon School is as old as the hills. It is inhabited only by boys. It sits at one end of the town. At the other end sits Ethelbugger's, as we call it in our vulgar tongue. Properly, St Ethelburga's. Even more properly, the College of St Ethelburga the Virgin. Aye, there's the rub. It is inhabited only by girls, and against our adolescent lusts their virginity is zealously defended. The premises are heavily fortified. The inmates are allowed out only under armed guard. They remain, we sadly admit, beyond even our most ingenious reach. Not their fault, poor dears. Their lusts are no doubt as fierce as ours, but they are ruled by a gorgon, horrendous and ruthless. Rarely, thank God, does she cross our path. If by misfortune we do encounter her as she sweeps implacably along the street with her steel-grey wimple billowing in the wind of her passage, her steel-grey eyes threaten to turn us to stone. She is known to us as Mother Ethelbugger.

Only once in recorded history has a chink appeared in the Ethelbuggers' armour. That was last year. It was the cause of my current woes. And the whole thing had arisen from a curious aspect of the evolution of homo sapiens.

"Why," I asked Rob, who is a scientist, "is puberty getting earlier and earlier?"

"Search me. They say it's improved nutrition. OK, that might apply to people on the breadline. But surely the well-offs have always eaten as well as now. Better, even - they didn't stuff their faces with McGrease and artificial additives and all that muck. It's very odd. And it's happened so fast, in evolutionary terms. When did puberty hit in Shakespeare's time, say?"

"For boys, sixteen or even later." In my frustration I'd been researching on the web, and was well genned up. "We know because women weren't allowed on stage, and female parts were taken by boys. There was one called John Honeyman, for instance, who played women till he was seventeen, when he switched to young male leads. Which surely means his voice didn't break till then."

"Sounds reasonable."

"You could probably get away," I mused, "with a grown man playing Mistress Quickly, like a pantomime dame. But a baritone Cleopatra? A bass Juliet? It just isn't on."

Rob laughed. "So in those days," he said, "assuming new boys came to Hambledon at thirteen like they do now, they'd all have been prepubescent. Every single one."

"That's right. And even fifty years ago it wasn't too bad. Old Persimmon says that when he was a boy" - old Persimmon being our master in charge of drama - "a good half of the thirteen-year-olds still had unbroken voices. But what's the proportion now? Five per cent? Ten? Can't be any more. And not many of those can act."

It was this business of acting which had opened the chink in the Ethelbuggers' armour. Our choir suffered sorely from lack of high voices, but in that department Mother Ethelbugger gave us no help. We worshipped different gods. But she did have a soft spot for drama, and a dozen years ago, when our own supply of unbroken voices had all but dried up, she had offered Hambledon the loan of a few girls for plays. No reciprocal arrangement, mind you - boys would never cross her sacred threshold, not even over her dead body. But twice a year, for rehearsals and performances, she briefly released a small handful of girls into our sinful world.

Security was intense. Each was escorted by a formidable member of staff as a personal minder. This posse of dragons kept them under constant surveillance. They supervised the girls' dressing room. They lurked barely out of sight in the wings. They checked, when their charges incontinently demanded to obey the call of nature, that the bog was harbouring no lecherous youth. Even then they pressed a suspicious ear to the door.

For years everything went well - well for Mother Ethelbugger, that is, and the quality of our productions, if unprofitably for our desires. But in last year's Romeo and Juliet the chance finally presented itself, and someone promptly grabbed it. Once the performance was over, Juliet - nobody quite knew how - slipped her leash. She was soon recaptured, but was later overheard bragging to her cronies that during her short-lived bout of freedom she had been shagged by a member of Hambledon School.

At Ethelbugger's, we gathered, all hell broke loose. At Hambledon it was less than half a hell. Our headmaster is a tolerant old bloke who, we sensed, was neither unduly surprised nor unduly angry. It was far from a case of rape, he told a hushed and envious Assembly, but one of ready consent, and the miscreant had been gentlemanly enough to wear a condom. But a very welcome facility, he pointed out, was now under serious threat, and he was in duty bound to make diligent inquiry. He made it, but in vain. Juliet, we understood, had been closely interrogated, no doubt in a manner worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. But she steadfastly refused to name or describe her paramour. There was no evidence to work on. And no Hambledonian owned up.

We boys, none the less, had a pretty shrewd idea of who had deflowered poor Juliet. It could only be her Romeo. Even on stage he had been so passionately amorous that Mother Ethelbugger's brow had ominously contracted. When questioned by the headmaster, he doubtless denied everything. When questioned by the boys, he denied nothing. But he admitted nothing either, laughingly brushing all approaches aside with a 'wouldn't you like to know!' He revelled in our almost-certainty.

How do I describe him? His real name said it all - Edward de Vere Courtney Villiers. The sprig of a wealthy house, fair, tall and athletic, handsome as Jude Law, supercilious, vain, and an unmitigated bastard. When he wasn't going on about who he had laid in the holidays - Lady Clarissa This and the Honourable Penelope That - he was braying his political views. He supported the military presence in Iraq, the nuclear deterrent, a hereditary House of Lords, the hunting of foxes with hounds, and everything abhorrent to our radical souls. He was a Conservative with a very large C. In a school which generally favoured a centre-left line, this was not a popular stance. Everyone, apart from a few like-minded toadies, detested him. And so did I.

I would happily have ignored him were it not for two awkward facts. First, he was in my house, and a prefect, and a tyrant. Secondly, this year I was producing one of the school plays, and Edward was the best actor we had. His Romeo had been out of this world. He was the obvious choice for the lead role in any Renaissance drama.

And the third awkward fact remained. The Ethelbuggers would act with us no more. For female parts we were on our own.

"So what," asked Rob, "are you going to do?"

I sighed. We were several weeks into the autumn term and I had been assiduously scouting among the most recent intake.

"There's hardly any new talent. Very few unbroken voices. Only one boy who looks capable of a female lead. But he's not up to the big stuff. He's no Lady Macbeth. He's no Viola. There's always the risk of the little bugger's voice giving up before the show. So it's got to be something without much female presence. I'm going for Edward II. There's only his queen, which isn't a huge part, and his niece who has a few lines. Oh, and his son who finally becomes Edward III. He's only a child."

"I didn't know Shakespeare wrote Edward II." Rob, as I said, is a scientist.

"He didn't. Christopher Marlowe did. But the same sort of date. 1592, probably."

"What's it about?"

"It's the first-ever play about gays. Light-years ahead of its time."

Rob was puzzled. "But Edward II wasn't gay, was he?"

"Oh yes, he was."

"You're kidding! I didn't know we'd had a gay king."

"Oh, we've had several. Edward II was just the most blatant. Didn't you see Braveheart?"

"No, never did. Who were the others, then?"

"William II. Richard I. James I. And William III. That makes five out of, um . . ."

Muttering Willy, Willy, Harry, Stee, I counted on my fingers.

". . . five out of forty monarchs since 1066. One in eight. Twelve and a half per cent. Way above the average, isn't it?"

"So they say. But why's a congenitally straight guy like you going for a gay play? Apart from your shortage of girls?"

It was a good question.

"Well . . ." I hesitated, searching for words. "The fact that it's gay is irrelevant, really. It's about the conflict between love and duty. The same sort of set-up as Edward VIII, who flatly refused to give up the woman he loved, even though it meant abdicating. And Edward II flatly refused to give up his boyfriends. But he also refused to abdicate, till it was too late. He was a clot, but you sympathise. Braveheart slanged his gayness. But Marlowe understood."

"What did he know about it?"

"Marlowe? About being gay? Plenty. He was gay himself."

"How do you know?"

"Oh, it shows all over the place. The whole of Edward II. The French king in the Massacre, obsessed with his minions. The beginning of Dido, where Jupiter toys with young Ganymede. Hero and Leander, where Neptune tries to have it off with young Leander. The Passionate Shepherd, who carefully doesn't say which gender his love is. And we've got it from the horse's mouth, too. Marlowe himself said 'all they that love not tobacco and boys are fools'."

Rob laughed. "That's nice. Who recorded that?"

"Thomas Kyd. Another dramatist. He must've known. He shared a room with Marlowe. After all, you'd know if I were gay, wouldn't you?"

"And how! Wouldn't have a hope of keeping you out of my pants, I'm so desirable."

"Desirable my arse."

"Do they get into each other's pants in Edward II?"

"Talk about one-tracked minds and gutters! Not on stage, no. Only the odd snog or two. At least I'm hoping to bring in a snog or two. No, it's mainly about Edward's downfall. He isn't a good advertisement for gays, to be honest. Pretty camp. Spends his time in idle dissipation. Neglects his royal duties. He's under the thumb of his first boyfriend, Piers Gaveston, who's odious. And when his enemies bump Gaveston off, he takes up with another boyfriend, Young Spencer. It all ends with rebellion, led by the queen and her ghastly lover Mortimer. They depose the king and have him murdered. Disgustingly."

"Disgustingly? How?"

"A red-hot poker's rammed up his arse."

"Urrrgh! Why?"

"Well, it wasn't very wise to be openly gay, was it? Not in the early fourteenth century. Even if you were the king."

"What I meant was, why did they bump him off so disgustingly?"

"To make the punishment fit the crime, I suppose."

"And does that happen on stage?"

"Marlowe barely mentions the poker. He just has him smothered in a feather bed. Historically, though, it was the poker . . . and I'm sorely tempted to revive the poker. Because King Edward's got to be played by our Edward."

"Got to be? Our Edward's got to snog blokes? The mind boggles. Has he agreed?"

"Haven't asked him yet."

"Then what if our lady-killer Edward refuses to play the poof Edward?"

Rob had a point.

*

"Edward II! But he was a poof! You want me to play a poof?"

"We've got nobody else, Edward. Nobody who's up to it." Nothing like flattering him. "It's a great character role. Really tragic. Shakespeare modelled his Richard II on it. And it made Ian McKellen's name."

"Everyone knows McKellen's a poof anyway. And everyone knows Marlowe isn't a patch on Shakespeare."

Edward, being rich and a snob, always had to have the best or none at all.

"Not up to Shakespeare at his best," I admitted. "But better than Shakespeare on his off-days. Very much better. It's a powerful play, you know. A very modern one, too. Flip through this copy and see how it hits you."

*

Next morning, after an unusual lesson on the Earl of Rochester, I was in cheerful mood, despite umpteen essays looming, plus all the work for the play. "Cats on the rooftops," I sang to myself as I ambled back to the house for lunch, "cats on the tiles, cats with syphilis, cats with piles . . ." Why, I wondered, did I swing at the blink of an eye from serious and sophisticated to frivolous and puerile? A function of growing up, maybe. "Cats with their arseholes wreathed in smiles . . ."

"Oh, there you are, Samuel."

Edward, as well as being an arsehole, was the only person, anywhere, who did not call me Sam. He called everyone by their full name, with the purpose, I suspected, of deterring them from calling him Ed or Eddie. That would be too demeaning. And as for Ted or Teddy . . .

"About Edward II," he said, very graciously for him. "You're right. It's got a lot going for it. I think I can get the character across. So yes, I'll take it on."

My spirits rose yet higher, despite a gleam in his eye which I did not trust.

"But," he added, "on one condition . . ."

My spirits sank again. Edward's conditions were notorious.

". . . that Young Spencer is played by Hugo Spencer."

"Who?"

"In Johnson's. I thought everyone knew him."

"Yes, I know of him, but I've never spoken to him. What I meant was, it's uncanny. You see, the original of Young Spencer was Hugo Despenser. Hugo Spencer."

"Yes, I know that." Edward was impatient. He always knew everything that you knew, long in advance. "Hugo's a descendant of his. Lives near our place in Warwickshire."

"And you're a descendant of Edward II, I suppose?" I was being nasty, and it backfired.

"Of course I am. Down several lines."

I struggled to regain my plebeian poise. "I've never seen Hugo act. Is he any good?"

"I expect so. Anyway, it's only right that he should play his ancestor."

Noblesse oblige, I reckoned. Jobs for the boys. Hugo must be one of Edward's toadies. But I didn't yet have anyone in mind for the part. I did have a Gaveston lined up, the boyfriend-number-one who's older and an unctuous creep. In real life, Bill Richardson was neither unctuous nor a creep, but a gentle chap with the advantage of being gay himself, and a steady actor. He had jumped at the offer. As for Young Spencer, the boyfriend-number-two, I visualised him as younger and less unctuous, but I hadn't yet found anyone suitable. The part was smallish, but very important.

"Well, I'll talk to Hugo and see."

I talked. He proved to be younger than Edward, and Bill, and even me. Maybe fifteen. He had a reputation as a bit of a pansy, and it turned out that he was a bit of a pansy, slim and soft and attractive in a pretty-boyish kind of way, just what I was after in terms of looks. And when I ran him through some lines, he was surprisingly good at that too. Great. Thanks to Edward, for once.

*

So I assembled my team. It was a big team. It had to be big. Even with some doubling of minor parts, getting on for thirty actors. Stage manager, lighting, sound, props, wardrobe, make-up, stage-hands and front-of-house added a couple of dozen more. Old Persimmon was brilliant. He always was. Once he'd appointed a producer he gave him free rein and didn't interfere. He just pulled him to pieces afterwards. That was the object of the exercise, to learn the hard way. It was also one hell of a responsibility. It certainly was for me, since I was only sixteen, a year younger than usual for the job. I knew it would take over my life but, being green and foolish, I relished the prospect.

Old Persimmon did of course ask what play I'd chosen.

"Intriguing," he said. "And very ambitious. We haven't had a Marlowe for years, and never an Edward II. You won't find it easy, you know, Sam. What made you choose it? The homosexual theme?"

"To be honest, sir, I chose it mainly because it's got so few women."

"Ah, yes."

"But the gay theme's a bonus."

"I'll be very interested to see what you make of that. And what the school makes of it."

No problem about the theme, though. No need for a coy or cautious approach. The boys - most of the boys, Edward apart - were broad-minded and the staff splendidly liberal. There'd be few hang-ups over snogging on stage or risqué innuendos. But there was no opening in the text for sexing it up with anything more explicit. And no need, either.

The important thing was that it was entirely in my hands. I could always go to old Persimmon for help, but the only help he offered off his own bat was over costumes, where I needed his authority to hire or buy. What period dress, he asked, was I after?

"Not modern, sir. The play's got any amount of modern relevance, but I want to do it as a historical piece. Not purist, though. Edward's enemies are strait-laced, and for them I'm thinking of fourteenth-century long gowns, staid and sober. But I see Edward and his boyfriends as camp types. I want to dress them in later style, sexy and seductive. Hose and short doublet."

"I hope you've got good bodies to fill out the hose." He was a pearl among masters. "All right, see what we've got in stock, and bring me a list of what else you need."

*

There was still a term to go before the production, but rehearsals had to start early. Everyone was busy already, most had exams in the summer, and life was going to become hectic. We began with the whole cast, except for the non-speaking parts, for a complete read-through. The opening scene gives Gaveston some wonderful lines. Recalled from exile by the new-throned king, he dreams of how to please his lover . . . music . . . poetry . . . dancing . . .

Sometimes a lovely boy, in Dian's shape,
With hair that gilds the water as it glides,
Crownets of pearls upon his naked arms,
And in his sportful hands an olive-tree
To hide those parts which men delight to see,
Shall bathe him in a spring . . .

Bill read it exquisitely, and the rest of them took the tone from him. An admirable start.

But as rehearsals progressed, the going got rougher. It was wholly our Edward's fault. He was as temperamental as a prima donna. He refused to contemplate kissing Bill. He was highly dubious about having a red-hot poker up his arse, even in pretence. He was forever disputing my direction - 'anyone can see that's not what Marlowe's getting at,' 'it would be much better like this,' 'why can't I do so-and-so?'

But while it was one thing to debate the detail, Edward was taking the whole play the wrong way. As a result, it wasn't hanging together. At first you see the king in an unflattering light, easily led by the detestable Gaveston. But your sympathies gradually shift, and by the second half you're hard at work pitying him. At root, it's a tragedy of loneliness. It makes gayness human. That, I'm quite sure, is what Marlowe was after. But while our Edward started out repulsive - which was fine - he remained repulsive.

At one arduous evening session just before the Christmas break, when all the principal players were present, I tried to explain my point of view. It wasn't a play about obnoxiousness, even if most of the characters were obnoxious. It wasn't a play about power. It was a play about weakness. I'd said it all before, but it needed saying again. Edward sulked, as he always did when he smelled criticism.

But the others were already as pissed off as me. "Sam's right, Edward," they said, "and he's in charge. Play with him, not against him." At which he sulked still more.

When it was finished, Bill invited me to the school prefects' room for a mug of coffee. I needed it.

"I like the way you're doing it, Sam," he said. "Or the way you're trying to do it, if only Edward would let you."

That was good to hear. Bill was a year above me, and I had a huge respect for him.

"Thanks. But why can't he take direction? Everyone else does."

"Because he's a self-centred prat. He thinks the world revolves around him. He thinks he always knows best. To be fair, sometimes he does. Remember Romeo, when Keith was in charge? Edward over-rode his direction and played it entirely his own way. Keith hadn't a clue about love - he was a pallid wimp, to be honest, and Romeo was way above his head. So Edward simply played himself, and the result was brilliant. This year it's the other way round. You know what the play's about, but it isn't working because Edward's still playing himself."

"What do you mean?"

Bill frowned into his coffee. "It's bloody difficult, you know, pretending to love someone when you really hate his guts."

"It may be difficult, Bill, but you do it brilliantly. As Gaveston."

"Well, thanks. But our Edward can't. Or won't. He hardly pretends to love Gaveston. Because he hates my guts."

"Why does he hate your guts?"

"Because I'm gay, and he hates all gays. Look, Sam. Maybe I see things differently from you because I'm gay. Edward was a good Romeo because he was playing his lady-killer self. And he's good in odious roles because he only has to be his odious self. But he's lousy in a gay role. He's out of his depth. He can't put himself in other people's shoes."

"I see what you mean," I said slowly. "You're naturally gay and pretending to be odious. Edward's naturally odious but can't pretend to be gay. You're meant to be lovers, but you don't click. Which is why the first half isn't working. And he can't play a gay king sympathetically because he's on the wrong wavelength. So he stays odious. Which is why the second half isn't working. That right?"

"That's right. I doubt if Edward wants it to work, anyway. He's happy to be odious and show up all gays as odious. Mind you, Hugo's good as Young Spencer. I wouldn't be surprised if he's gay himself. But he can't rescue the second half single-handed, any more than I can rescue the first. Short of Edward miraculously becoming gay, there's not much can be done about it."

"I'm beginning to regret plumping for Edward II at all. Or not casting you as the king."

"Oh damn, now I'm making you feel guilty. Don't feel that, Sam. Don't feel depressed. Miracles have been known to happen. Even if they don't, the play deserves reviving, however it turns out. And don't worry, you're on the right wavelength."

Bill gave me a rather shy glance.

"Sam, I'm going to tell you something that may make you blush. If I hadn't known you were straight, I'd have been chasing you for years."

It did make me blush. I wasn't gay and surely never would be. But last summer my girlfriend had ditched me, and my heart was in need of warming.

*

I went back to our room, where I found Rob swigging Pepsi. He asked how things had gone and, on hearing of Edward's latest iniquities, belched copiously.

"That's what I think of our Edward. The bastard's been bellyaching at me too. This time for not shaving. What the hell's it matter?" He rubbed his chin. "It hardly shows."

It hardly did. Rob was, for these days, a late bloomer. As a new boy he'd been one of the five or ten per cent and was teased, almost bullied, for his unbroken voice. I had stood up for him, which started our friendship. But once puberty did hit, his sexuality had made up for lost time. Hairiness apart, he seemed already to have overtaken me.

"Our Edward," he declared, "is a pain in the arse. He's a turd. The gross sort of turd you get when you're constipated. Monstrous, hard as iron, and agonising to budge."

"He is. So what do we do about him? Apart from gulping litres of laxative?"

"Give him a real pain in the arse in return. Use a genuine red-hot poker on him. Well, maybe not. Not even Edward deserves that. Tell you what, though . . ." Rob chuckled and consulted a bit of paper on his desk. "What he does deserve is an aporaphanidosis."

"A what?"

"It cropped up in biology, of all places, and I've just been looking it up. It was a punishment for adultery in ancient Greece. They shoved a radish up your arse."

"What the heck was the point of that?"

"Not a little round red radish. A wild radish. White and thick and long, like a bloody great carrot. When peeled, highly acidic. Think horseradish sauce. You're pretty tender inside, and it'd hurt like hell. It really would be a pain in the arse."

I chuckled. "Nice thought. That'd be a private revenge, though, wouldn't it? What I'd like more than anything" - I was feeling comprehensively vindictive - "is to take the bastard down a notch in public. So that people laugh at him."

"Better still. But how?"

"Dunno. Have to think." I yawned. "But right now I've got to finish the list of costumes to order."

I sat down at the computer and found the website of the theatrical costumiers we used.

"Hose means tights, doesn't it?" asked Rob, looking over my shoulder.

"More or less."

"Is our Edward going to be in tights again?"

"Of course. To show off his masculinity to full advantage."

Rob laughed. We often saw Edward parading his masculinity in the showers. To be fair, it was something he had every right to be proud of.

"Tight tights, like in Romeo?"

"Probably. That's what I'm looking for. You can get more authentic ones if you want. But we tend to use modern-style ones, cotton or synthetic, with elastic waists. They're the easiest, and look best. They are tight. Like ballet-dancers wear."

I clicked on a thumbnail.

"These things. But in those days they only had wool, which tends to be baggy. Unflattering. And awkward. No elastic, of course, only tapes to tie them up. Points, they called them. And if . . ."

I tailed off.

"Sam, Sam," Rob prompted. "I know you. You're thinking evil thunks. If what?"

I was indeed thinking evil thunks.

"Henry IV Part 1. Falstaff says, 'Their points being broken, down fell their hose.' Could we engineer it so that Edward's points break? On stage? He'd be a laughing-stock . . . No . . . No, it wouldn't work. Baggy hose might fall down, but not tight tights. And he wouldn't be seen dead in baggy hose. Not that I can blame him."

"Hmmm." Rob was still looking at the screen. "There's a link there to codpieces. What are they for?"

"On authentic hose, for pissing and for modesty. A sort of flap."

I clicked the link and another thumbnail.

"Like this."

Rob peered. "How does it work?"

"Well, proper hose has a slit down the front, from waist to crotch. You piss through it. No buttons then. And no underpants. As long as coats or gowns were long, things were decently hidden from view. But then doublets came in - short coats - and fashion took the hemline higher and higher. In the end they barely came down below the waist."

"Oh, I see," said Rob. "Which would expose the slit and the family jewels inside?"

"That's it. In fact, if the hose is really tight, the family jewels would probably hang out. So the codpiece is there to hide them. This thing here."

I pointed on the screen with the cursor.

"A triangular pouch of cloth, apex downwards. Sewn to the hose at the bottom of the slit, here in the crotch. Held up by tapes at the top corners, which you tie with bows to points sewn on the hose, up near the waist. If you want to look better-endowed than you really are, you pad the codpiece. And to piss, you just undo the bows and it flops down. OK, Rob, I know what you're thinking."

"Obvious, isn't it? Medieval equivalent of debagging. Arrange for Edward's points to come undone and expose his kingly jewels in all their glory. His crown jewels."

"Yes. But how? And at the right time? It's got to be when he's on stage."

"Mmmm. And if his codpiece does flop down, he'll whip his hands over his jewels, won't he? Pronto. Embarrassing, but nothing like as embarrassing as a full display. Hang on, though . . . You say he's deposed. Is he ever tied up? Hands behind his back, so he can't hide his jewels?"

"You've got it, Rob! Yes, he's arrested. We could perfectly well have a soldier to hold his arms. Two soldiers would be better - Edward's pretty strong. They'd have to be in on the plot. And reliable . . . Rob, would you be one?"

Rob was rubbing his hands. "With pleasure."

"How could you undo his points?"

Rob, who is a practical man, pondered. "What about attaching threads, strongish threads, to the loose end of each of the bows? Run them back round the waist, each side."

He grabbed the mouse and demonstrated.

"Take them through the cloth once or twice to keep them in place, but leave them loose. Attach little tabs at the back, as grips. At the right moment tweak them both. The bows untie. The codpiece flops down. Et voilà!"

"Y-e-e-e-s. But won't he notice the threads when he puts his hose on? And he's arrested halfway through the second half. He'll probably have a piss in the interval. Won't he notice them when he does his codpiece up?"

"Is he wearing the same hose all the way through?"

"Doesn't have to."

"Then why not put him in a different colour for the second half? And . . . hang on a mo, let's read the small print . . . Yes, look . . . This hose isn't fully authentic. It's synthetic. It's obviously tight. And it's got an elastic waist. But the codpiece is fully operational. He wouldn't need to undo it to pull the doctored hose on. Just make sure he doesn't change till after he's had his piss. Sam, it's foolproof!"

"There's one snag, Rob. He's in disguise. I was thinking of a long cloak with a hood. OK, it could be open at the front, but it'd get in the way at the back. No . . . wait . . . it could be a short cape, just covering his shoulders, with the hood up."

I searched around and found a picture.

"This sort of thing. You'll have to let his arms go when he throws off his disguise. But that's later. God knows what'll have happened by then."

"Fine. But . . . oh damn . . . another thought. Would he wear briefs under his hose?"

"I doubt it," I said. "They'd show, wouldn't they? Maybe show through, and certainly spoil the smooth contours. He's too proud of his figure. He didn't wear briefs for Romeo."

"Great! And what colour?"

"White would show his jewels off to best advantage. And say scarlet for the first half, with the doublets the other way round. Let's look at the doublets."

We were looking at the doublets when, without any knock, Edward himself marched in, very cross.

"Your light should have been out half an hour ago!" he barked. "You're going to cop it! What are you looking at? Porn?"

"No, Edward," I said soothingly. "At costumes for you. How do you fancy white doublet and scarlet hose for the first half, and scarlet doublet and white hose for the second? Like these."

As I flicked from photo to photo, he looked closely at the screen, picturing himself in them, smiling complacently, his anger forgotten.

"Yes . . . yes . . . they're good. I haven't worn a codpiece before - last year for Romeo they gave me ballet-dancer's tights. And the colour combination's eye-catching. Yes, I'd like to try these. Good thinking, Samuel. This time you're forgiven. But bed! Now!"

Silly twat. Preening himself, he went away. Simmering, we went to bed. I lay visualising the scene.

Neath Abbey. The abbot and a few monks in the background. King Edward and his two remaining followers - Baldock (yes, Baldock, not Baldrick) and Young Spencer. Upon them burst the rebels, led by the Earl of Leicester. Add say four soldiers, one to pinion Spencer's arms, one Baldock's, two the king's. They separate them. On one side of the stage the followers, condemned to execution. On the other the king, destined for degradation and the dungeon. The soldiers hold him half-facing the audience. Powerless, anguished, he gazes across at Young Spencer in despairing love.

"Spencer, ah, sweet Spencer, thus then must we part?"

"We must, my lord, so will the angry heavens."

Without warning, the king's codpiece falls open, exposing the crown jewels . . .

No. Not right. However much Edward deserved public humiliation, this wasn't artistic. There was no reason for it, no message behind it. It wasn't fair to Marlowe or the play . . . Well, what could justify it?

Hold on . . . The king was gay . . . he was gazing at his boyfriend . . . his lover . . . his bedfellow . . .

Of course! Of course!

"Rob!" I called softly across the room. "You awake?"

"Sure. What's up? Apart from the obvious?"

"Which isn't up, for once. But Edward's ought to be, oughtn't it? In the play, on stage. As he ogles his lover-boy. Not just a pendulous if princely prick." I was inspired to heights of alliteration. "But a rigid rod, royally rampant. Isn't that better still?"

"Christ, yes!" Rob laughed delightedly. "Lovely idea! Take him down a lot of notches, not just one. But how?"

"Viagra? In his tea in the interval?"

"But that isn't how it works, Sam. It doesn't give you a hard-on. It only makes it possible to get a hard-on if you have difficulty. You still need the stimulus. I'm sure Edward doesn't have any difficulty. He doesn't need Viagra. All he needs is the right stimulus."

"Oh, shit." I was much dashed. "Well, what is the right stimulus for Edward?"

"Totty, surely. Naked come-hitherish totty."

"And where the hell," I asked despondently, "do we find naked come-hitherish totty? Go to Mother Ethelbugger on bended knee and beg to borrow some?"

There was a pause. "Well, what about a girlfriend?" Rob suggested.

"I haven't got one," I pointed out. It still rankled.

"True. But I have. I reckon Bella would play ball. She knows what an arsehole our Edward is. I've told her all about him. It isn't far, and she could drive herself over. What would we want her to do?"

"Would she really strip off?"

"I expect so. She's a sparky lass."

I had met her, and she was. And very attractive too. I was envious of Rob.

"In that case," I said, "let her cavort nude and lascivious in the wings, where Edward can't miss seeing her. And the audience will think it's Hugo who's turned him on."

Rob laughed happily again. "Bang on! And bang goes his reputation as the lady's man! OK, I'll work on her over Christmas."

"In more senses than one."

*

In the cold light of next morning, it all seemed crazy. Rob was still upbeat. I was the dead opposite. Foolproof, he'd called it. It was anything but.

"Everyone'll have to know in advance," I lamented. "Except Edward, and Hugo who's in his pocket. But everyone backstage. All the rest of the cast. It's bound to leak out."

"Don't tell 'em till the last minute."

"If anyone on the staff finds out," I moaned, "I'm up shit creek."

"And so'm I. She's my girlfriend. We'll sink in the shit together, Sam. Better than sinking alone."

"And my poor production!" I wailed. "What happens to that?"

"Once the audience has had a good eyeful, drop the curtain. Go out front and apologise. Tell them you're starting again from the beginning of that scene. Edward'll probably refuse to carry on. So have his understudy ready."

"But there isn't an understudy."

"Then you'll have to do it yourself."

"And get the red-hot poker up my own arse. Well, I'll have asked for it."

"Just remember two things, Sam. It's in a great cause. And your Edward II will be more talked about than any production in the history of the school. It'll be remembered long after Romeo's forgotten."

Well, true.

*

The Christmas holidays came and went. Too slowly, for me - there wasn't much fun in my dysfunctional family. We returned to a cold and misty Hambledon. Rob reported that Bella - what a girl! - was entirely happy to bare all for the sake of giggle, and even for the sake of the cause. Rehearsals resumed, as flat and uninspiring as before.

And my consignment of costumes arrived. I had ordered three pairs of white hose for Edward. One pair was for ordinary use. Towards the end of the play the king, poor sod, spends ten days in the cesspit of Berkeley Castle, and a second pair had to be bedaubed with the shit he's wallowed in, or something to represent it. The third was needed to doctor, to experiment with, and then to reserve for the vital scene. We found Rob's design was straightforward to construct. But the test-run raised problems.

Being taller than Rob and much the same size as Edward, I served as model. In the privacy of our room, door locked, I stripped to the buff and put on the scarlet doublet and white hose. It felt remarkably sexy. And, as I stood in front of the mirror, it looked remarkably sexy too.

"Jesus, Sam!" observed Rob. "You usually look like a baboon with galloping pox . . ."

The closer friends are, the ruder they can be to each other, and we are often very rude.

". . . but in that gear you're almost seductive. You'd better watch out, or you'll find me in your bed tonight."

"Arrrgh! A fate worse than death."

One of my arms - or rather Edward's arms - would be attended to by the second soldier. Rob twisted the other behind my back.

"Ouch! That hurts! I'm not Edward!"

"And I'm pretending you are. Right, here goes."

I didn't feel a thing, but as I watched in the mirror I saw the bows smoothly untie themselves. Nothing else happened. The codpiece stayed up.

"Bugger it!" I said. "No go."

"What?" Rob came round to look. "Oh, I see. When you tie a bow, before you make the loops, you do a sort of half-knot, don't you? Which is staying put by friction."

"Mmmm. Can you tie bows without the half-knot?"

"Dunno. Let's suck it and see. In a manner of speaking."

He knelt down and fiddled.

"There. But the bows are horribly loose. Try prancing around."

I pranced around. The bows immediately came undone, the codpiece fell down, and my jewels were revealed. As foreseen, they were hanging out. Neither of us was in the least embarrassed. We'd known each other too long. But Rob pretended disgust.

"Urrrgh," he said. "You're more than just an ugly face, Sam. Your prick's as gruesome as a baboon's as well. And therefore your arse must be baboonish too. An outrageous shade of blue. But bows obviously aren't going to work."

He cogitated, eying my display.

"Right, I think I've sussed it. Whip 'em off."

I handed them over. Clad in scarlet doublet and nothing else, I felt decidedly kinky.

"Look!" I stuck my arse out at Rob. "Is it blue?"

"Surprisingly, no. But equally nauseating. As hairy as a gorilla's, and just as unlovely. But round your prick you'll soon be bald. Why should your poor wretch of a tailor," he peeved as he stitched and snipped, "have to fight his way through a forest of pubes? Keep shedding them at this rate and you'll be back to prepubescent again in a week. And then your voice'll squeak and you can play all the ladies in literature."

In retaliation, I found Rob's stinking jockstrap on the floor where he had flung it after games, and picked it gingerly up between finger and thumb.

"Pots calling kettles black?" I asked nastily. "Thick with pubes too."

"Of course it is, after cuddling my massive member through a whole game of rugger. But your pitiful little pinkie's only been flapping around in this thing for five minutes. Ow!" I had swatted him. "You've made me jab myself. Now I'll catch gonorrhoea and rabies and all your other loathsome diseases."

We often spar like this. All in fun.

"Why's it called a codpiece anyway?" he asked after a while, rethreading his needle. "What's it got to do with fish?"

"Nothing. Cod's also an old word for a pouch. Which it is. And for your ball-sack too. Which lives inside it."

"Ah. Fair enough . . . Right, there you go," he said eventually, handing the hose back. "Pull it on again."

First I looked inside. The forest which had so offended him consisted of one pubic hair. I ostentatiously picked it out.

"Apart from insulting me," I said as I eased the hose on, "what else have you done?"

"I took the tapes off the hose, and made up the bows, and sewed the lot to the codpiece. They're purely decorative now. All that's holding the thing up is these two threads running round to the back. Not attached to anything. Just taken through the material a few times. When I pull them they'll slide out . . . Ready? Then prance."

I pranced again, and this time the codpiece stayed put.

"Good," said Rob. "There is enough friction in the threads. Right, you're Edward again. Let's give it a whirl."

I stood in front of the mirror while he twisted my arm and tweaked the threads. The codpiece obediently flopped down.

"Brill!" he said. That's the mechanics sorted, then. Now I've got to sew you up again. Leave 'em on."

"So long as you don't prick my prick."

"Next thing," he announced, having sewn me up with no more than a jab in the waist, "is the timing. I'll be behind Edward, so I won't be able to see the state of his jewels. You'll have to stand in the wings. Not alongside Bella - that'd give the show away. But behind the next . . . what d'you call those bits of scenery at the side?"

"Flats."

"Right. Stand behind the next flat, watching him. When he gets stiff, give me a signal. Not while he's still getting stiff. Wait till he's really hard. It should be pretty obvious. The codpiece'll be trying to burst."

"OK. Now I'm me, then, as well as Edward."

I posed in front of the mirror with Rob twisting my arm again.

"Right," he said. "Get a hard-on, and give me the signal."

"How the hell do I get a hard-on?"

"Christ, you're pathetic. Why ask me? It's you who's meant to be the poof. Imagine you're ogling your lover-boy, I suppose."

I should have thought of Bella, or my ex-girlfriend Dawn, but I took Rob at his word. I tried to conjure up an image of young Hugo, naked. It refused to come.

Instead, heaven help me, I got an image of a naked Rob. And, heaven help me, I went stiff. By the time I was halfway up the codpiece was straining, and suddenly it pulled free from the threads and flopped down of its own accord. There I stood in all my glory. Not up to Edward's standard, maybe, but glorious enough.

"Wheeee!" I cried. "It opened by itself! My prick forced it open!"

"Eh?" Rob came to inspect. "Ah, now that's a better sight! Much better than limp. You'd definitely better watch out tonight . . . Right, so here we have an automatically-opening codpiece. A major benefit to mankind. We ought to patent it. Very handy, too. You don't have to give a signal now, and all I've got to do is hold our Edward's arm."

But I was chuffed by my achievement. "Must have taken quite a bit of force to do that," I boasted. "I only hope it works with Edward."

"Come off it, Sam. If it works with your feeble little screwdriver, it'll work with his fucking great power tool. Still, we'd better give it one more trial. Get that thing down. I can't sew you up like that."

"How do I get it down?"

"Stop thinking of your lover-boy. Christ, you must be a poof after all!"

I stopped thinking. Reluctantly it drooped, and the next trial went equally well.

But it left me confused. Visualising Rob had given me a hard-on. It was unheard-of. I couldn't possibly tell him. I'd never hear the end of it. But I could get half the puzzle off my chest.

"Rob . . . I don't understand what's happening. I pictured a naked boy, and got a stiffy. I didn't think there was anything of the gay in me."

Rob's a good man. He saw I was disturbed, and refrained from making a joke of it.

"Don't worry, Sam. You're not the only one. I reckon there's a bit of gay in most of us. Just seeing your hard-on gave me one too."

He is a good man.

*

The pace was hotting up. As expected, the play had taken over my life and I was getting more and more fratchety. Our next informal rehearsal was with Bella. One Saturday afternoon she drove over when everyone else was watching a rugger match. We should have been watching it too, but nobody would miss us. We showed her how to let herself in and out by the stage door. The shorter the time she spent inside the theatre, the better. We showed her what to do and where. By now we had worked out all the moves, and I knew exactly where the actors would be standing. Bella, to my disappointment, did not strip off, but she practised cavorting lasciviously in the wings until Rob was satisfied.

Satisfied in one way, but not in another. Their eyes had been talking to each other.

"Sam, dear Sam. This is a chance we can't pass up. Would you mind standing guard for a few minutes?"

He was my friend. I couldn't say no. They disappeared into the dressing room. Not for a few minutes but for over half an hour, while I cooled my heels, aching with envy.

Having waved Bella goodbye, we went back to our room before the rugger buggers should emerge from the match and catch us. Rob was at peace with the world, like a cat who has just emptied a large bowl of cream. He sat down at his desk and farted rumbustiously. It's something he quite often does, and so do I. When alone together, as you'll have gathered, we observe few of the niceties. Normally I reply by farting back, or by launching into one of our slanging games. This time, I flipped my lid.

"Bloody hell! I'm sick of it! Hambledon! It's meant to be a civilised place. Cultured. Enlightened. Elite. Our parents pay through the nose. And all you do is fuck and fart. I've had enough!"

And I burst into tears. I hadn't cried since my mother died. I stumbled for the door. But Rob, after a frozen moment of astonishment, had jumped up and was barring the way. He grabbed me by the shoulders, marched me to my bed, and sat me down. He perched beside me, cuddling, stroking, soothing, almost as if I were a child. At that moment, indeed, I was a child. But there was another dimension to it, which I was in no state to analyse. I simply melted. And there, in his arms, I cried myself to sleep.

I woke in dire need of a piss. But I lay for a minute, listening to Rob's light breathing from across the room, remembering, and being ashamed. My outburst had been inexcusable. Maybe I did have one excuse, that the pressures of the damned play had driven me over the edge. But I shouldn't have lost my cool. Not with Rob of all people. Yet he'd understood. He'd hugged me, hadn't he? Comforted me. He must have understood.

It was getting light. I'd been asleep for well over twelve hours. I could postpone my piss no longer. I threw back the duvet and padded over to the washbasin. Call us disgusting, but we habitually piss in it. As I let rip, I found myself shivering, and realised I wasn't in my usual pyjamas but stark naked. And I had been in bed, too. Jesus Christ! Rob must have undressed me and tucked me up.

I staggered back to the warmth of bed, and as I reached down to pull the duvet over me I saw a large stain on its underside. I goggled blearily at it. Never, ever, do I have wet dreams. And I wank into a tissue, not onto the duvet. I felt the stain, and it was dry.

"It was just after I'd got you into bed," said Rob.

He was standing over me, in his pyjamas, smiling wickedly. Being barely half awake, I hadn't even heard him getting out of bed.

"You were out for the count last night," he explained. "So I took a liberty."

I gaped up at him. "You can't mean you wanked me?"

"Christ, no! You don't suppose I'd contaminate myself by tickling your tainted tool?" He sat down on the bed. "No, I just undressed you, and that was plenty bad enough. Had a helluva struggle getting your pants over your prick. You had a raging hard-on. And as soon as I'd got you into bed, you started humping the duvet. And came in five seconds flat. I didn't feel like mopping up streams of unsavoury semen, so I left you to stew in your own juice."

He was back to his usual outspoken self. He seemed to bear no grudge. But I had to apologise.

"Rob . . . I'm sorry. For blowing my top. I . . ."

"Forget it, Sam." He switched instantly from facetious to sober. "I know why you did. Or I can guess why."

"Why?"

"Two reasons. One's obvious. Overwork."

"Yes. But I should've been able . . ."

"And I reckon the other was me having it off with Bella, leaving you out in the cold. I'm sorry about that."

"But why should I mind? I envy you for Bella, I envied you for having it off with her. But I don't mind. You don't think I'm jealous, do you? Or even prudish?"

"Oh, I know you're not those." For once, Rob was dead serious. "But didn't it rub it in? Rub in your shortage?"

I failed to follow him. "Shortage? What am I short of?"

"Love, Sam, love. OK, you've got friendships, but that's different. You used to get love from your Mum, till she died. You used to get love from Dawn, till she threw you over. Now you're not getting love from anyone, and you've changed."

The getting-up bell rang, and we ignored it.

"At first you coped. But now you're stressed out with the play. And when Bella and I had it off . . . wasn't that a reminder that you had no love? A subconscious trigger that made you flip your lid? The last straw?"

"Mmmm." I hadn't thought about it like that, but it did make sense. "Yes, maybe . . . But Rob . . . last night . . . when you cuddled me . . . why did you do that?"

"Well, I had to. You were in a dreadful tizz. You needed, um, support."

I wrestled with it, thinking back. "It was more than support, Rob. More than friendship. You stroked me. It gave me a hard-on. It made me wank, even if I wasn't aware of it. It seemed more like love. But you don't love me. I don't love . . ."

I tailed off, remembering. This wasn't the first time, was it? I had to tell Rob of that memory. I had to tell him now, and get it off my chest.

"Rob. When we were testing the codpiece and I needed to get a hard-on, remember? I didn't think of a girl. Or of Hugo. I thought of you. God knows why. I just did. What's happening to me? I'm not gay. Am I?"

"Like I said then, Sam, I reckon there's a bit of gay in all of us. You're not getting love from anyone else, so you're looking for it from me. Subconsciously."

I wrestled again. "Well, if that's true, I'm not just looking for it. You're giving it too. You were giving me love last night. I'm sure I wasn't imagining it."

For a long time Rob said nothing. He was frowning, obviously thinking hard.

"All right," he said at last. "I suppose it's got to come out. Yes, you're right, I was trying to give love. But there's love and love, Sam. Different sorts, merging into friendship. Yes, I do love you, in a way. More than Bella even, in a way. She's fun. She's a good fuck. But she's . . . superficial. You're deeper. Much deeper. We hit it off so well, don't we? We always have, from our very first term. I was ribbed, remember? Terribly. For having a squeaky voice and no pubes. I hated it. And you stood up for me. I worshipped you, Sam, you know. Your kindness, your maturity, your . . . authority." He chuckled wryly. "Daft, I know, and I soon dropped that."

The second bell rang.

"But it turned into . . . well, something more equal . . . Put it this way. You seemed to care for me, even after I got hair and my voice broke and I didn't need protecting any more. And I cared for you. It wasn't about sex. It could've gone that way, but it didn't. You already had Dawn, and as soon as my hormones cut in I found Bella. Yet we still seemed to be made for each other, you and me. Apart from sex, you've always been closer to me than Bella ever has. Much closer. If you got squashed by a bus, it'd hit me far harder than if Bella was. I didn't understand any of this at the time, of course. I've only been working it out these last few months, since you changed."

Rob had never talked like this before. To say I was gobsmacked is an understatement. I was trying to think of a reply when he came back to the present.

"Christ! I must get dressed! Not you, Sam. You're staying in bed this morning. I went to Twankey last night and pleaded for you. I'll bring you some breakfast."

He'd thrown off his pyjamas and was at the washbasin, splashing his face and cursorily brushing his teeth. In a daze I eyed his body. Never before had I looked at it in a sexual way, but I did now.

"Bugger shaving," he said. "I defy our Edward to spot that I haven't."

He was pulling on his clothes. Still tying his tie, he was out of the door.

"See you soon."

I lay back and tried to put my mind in order. Gayness. There isn't any prejudice against it at Hambledon, except from the likes of Edward. Gay sex at school is forbidden, of course, just as straight sex is. Though if two blokes who share a room also share a bed, who's to know? But even the staff admit that gay orientation and gay love are just as valid as straight. None the less, far more people are straight than gay. There's a peer pressure, and unless there are strong reasons otherwise, boys tend to opt for the normal. So had I, with Dawn. So had Rob, with Bella. There's more kudos, in a boys' boarding school, in having a girlfriend than in having a boyfriend.

But Rob was right. Looking back, he was exactly right. From the word go we'd clicked. From the word go I'd loved him for his young pluck, his defiance, his defencelessness. Loved? I certainly hadn't seen it as love. Only now did I see that it was, in a way. Where does the boundary lie between fondness and love, between friendship and love? Especially if you're not thinking in a sexual way.

Rob was right here too. I was closer to him in everything except sex than I'd ever been to Dawn. Just as he was closer to me, he said, than to Bella. I knew now that I wanted him closer still. But I couldn't get between him and Bella. I respected him too much - all right, loved him too much. And, hidden away behind his uninhibited façade, he had his own robust sense of honour. He'd never be unfaithful to Bella. All of which meant no sex between Sam and Rob. I couldn't even suggest it, and he knew it.

And he was right again. I was short of love. True, I'd now recognised a new source, even if it was an unexpected and limited source. But, I asked myself, I'm not gay, am I? No, I decided firmly, I'm not. I'm not attracted by boys in the plural. Only by one boy, in the singular. What it boils down to, surely, is that one loves a person, not a gender.

At this point Rob reappeared with a tray of muesli, toast and coffee. He was fuming.

"Fucking Edward! He did spot it! For Christ's sake, I shaved yesterday! Or was it the day before? Better do it now. Lucky it's Sunday."

As I tackled my breakfast, he ran hot water and lathered his face.

"You're off sick till lunch, Sam. And I sent the word round to reschedule the rehearsal from last night to this afternoon."

"Christ! Thanks, Rob. I'd clean forgotten there was meant to be one. Shows how far away I've been."

"And a damn good thing too," he said, scraping. "You'll be OK for it?"

"Oh yes. I feel a new man."

"Back to normal, then?"

"Back to normal." I needed to demonstrate it. "This is what I think of Edward . . ."

I farted.

"And I second it."

He farted too. We grinned at each other. Yes, we were back to normal, back to our frivolous and earthy normal. It was good to be there.

Shortly before chapel time, Twankey drifted in and asked vaguely how I was. Nobody knows why our housemaster is called Twankey. He isn't a widow, and he doesn't act like a pantomime dame. He's just an inoffensive old bugger. He drifted out again to chapel with Rob in tow, and I drifted back to sleep.

*

The rehearsal and its successors were as dispiriting as ever. The play could be so good, if only that bastard Edward would allow it. I had long resigned myself to a lacklustre production. The only relief was that none of the unbroken voices had broken on me.

Shortly before the performance, under oath of secrecy, I told everyone except Hugo and Edward that they might see some totty not only backstage but in a state of total undress. I told them why, and so universally loathed was Edward that everyone unreservedly approved. We coached the second soldier in his duties. We made sure the dresser knew which hose Edward was to wear when he was arrested. And I prepared myself to understudy Edward from the vital scene onwards.

Thus was the stage set for the grand denouement.

*

The actors had already been introduced individually to their costumes to make sure they fitted. But it wasn't until the dress rehearsal, the night before the performance, that everyone was in costume together. The men-at-arms were professional in chain-mail and surcoat. The rebel lords were stodgy and traditional in long gowns. The queen and the niece were fetching in their finery. The little prince, the smallest boy in the school, was cute. But it was the three lovers who turned every eye.

Edward, it goes without saying, cut a magnificent figure in his white doublet and scarlet hose, and was well aware of it. Bill, stocky and swarthy, was as shifty as a member of the Mafia. The surprise was young Hugo. His doublet emphasised a slim body, but his hose was well-filled with shapely legs and his codpiece hosted a respectable package. He was a sight to make the ladies swoon, and even such boys as might be that way inclined. But not me. I could admire his shape, just as I admired Edward's, but I was far from swooning. I didn't, to be honest, much like him. We had nothing in common.

There were a few of the practical glitches that dress rehearsals are supposed to iron out. The top fell off the archbishop's crook. The poppers holding Rob's surcoat together gave way, making it flap grotesquely, and he had to use safety pins instead. Apart from two live drummers, the occasional sound effects were entirely taped, and at one point the technician played plainsong instead of the noise of battle. But the set worked well. There was no movable scenery and few props, and one scene glided slickly into the next by using different parts of the stage and different lighting.

As for the play itself, well . . . Some productions come to life only with the dress rehearsal. Not this one, not at first. It got off to a bad start when Edward had a row with the make-up bloke who was sticking a neat little blond beard on him. In the first half, instead of loving Bill, he treated him as he might a dodgy second-hand car salesman. In the second half he hardly looked at his new lover, but behaved as standoffishly as if Hugo were a rent-boy accosting him in Piccadilly. Things plodded their leaden way.

Until, that is, Edward and Hugo were arrested. Our private agenda at this point, needless to say, was not being rehearsed. Instead, something strange happened.

"Spencer, ah, sweet Spencer . . ." said Edward, looking properly at his boyfriend for the first time.

There was a long pause. I thought he had dried, and prompting was one of my jobs.

". . . thus then must we part?" I muttered from the wings.

Edward twitched back to life.

"Spencer, ah, sweet Spencer, thus then must we part?"

"We must, my lord, so will the angry heavens."

Hugo's despair was heart-rending. And so was Edward's.

"Nay, so will hell and cruel Mortimer;
The gentle heavens have not to do in this."

At last, at last, there was anguish in his voice. Thereafter, as he was swept along through all the stages of his cruel degradation to his piteous death, he seemed in a daze, but at last he was generating pathos. Were we, in the nick of time, within sight of achieving my goal?

The curtain came down. Edward, who had been dead, sat up on his bier and put his face in his hands. I called the whole cast on stage. We'd been going for well over three hours and everyone was knackered.

"Thanks, guys," was all I said, not wanting to spin things out. "Thanks very much. It's beginning to pull together properly now. Keep it that way, and we'll be OK."

They understood. Some nodded. But I had said that mainly for Edward's benefit, and he did not respond. His hands were still over his face. Typical Edward. Fair enough, though - he'd be more knackered than anyone. Yet between his fingers I saw the glint of an eye. He was looking at someone, while pretending not to. I followed his line of sight. He was looking at Hugo.

People dispersed to change, but Bill hung back.

"Sam," he said quietly. "That miracle we were talking about. I reckon it's happening. Young Hugo could melt stone, and Edward's being melted. I don't think he's hard enough to resist. Well, maybe he is hard. You know what I mean."

Rob and I finally staggered home to the house. Edward had gone ahead. From our window we could see his. He was standing silhouetted in it, staring out into the night. Half an hour later, when we turned in, he was still standing there.

*

If the lead actor changes his whole interpretation of his role without warning and without rehearsal, it is asking for trouble. It is irresponsible too, for it makes huge demands of his fellow-actors. But that, in his self-centredness, is just what Edward did. All through the performance he was in a strange withdrawn mood, strange even for him. He spoke to nobody, not even to me, but simply sat, when off-stage, and brooded. On stage he expected everyone to follow his lead. And they did, because he was now playing the king exactly as I had always wanted him to play it, as I had tried to persuade him to play it, as I had hitherto failed to get him to play it. The rest of the cast, knowing what I had been aiming for, rose to the challenge. They were magnificent. And so was Edward.

I spent the whole time hovering in the wings, biting my nails at first, trying not to offer useless advice to people who didn't need it, and finally, as the drama unfolded, subsiding into passive admiration.

The curtain rose on Gaveston gambolling slinkily and provocatively around the stage, reading his letter of recall from exile. His relationship with the king was instantly clear.

"So wouldst thou smile and take me in thine arms."

And Edward, when they met, was overjoyed.

"What, Gaveston! Welcome! Kiss not my hand;
Embrace me, Gaveston, as I do thee."

He not only embraced Bill but kissed him too, in front of the prim and startled nobles. This was unrehearsed. If it caught Bill unawares, he covered it well, and both were clearly practised kissers. But it did take the audience by surprise, and there were titters.

The nobles - and especially the cold-blooded Mortimer - were offended by Gaveston's return and by Edward's favouritism in heaping honours and estates and gold on his low-born boyfriend. They demanded that he be exiled again, and civil war threatened. The king raged.

"Make several kingdoms of this monarchy,
And share it equally amongst you all,
So I may have some nook or corner left
To frolic with my dearest Gaveston."

But finally he gave way, and sent his lover off to govern Ireland. They parted with another unrehearsed kiss, slow and lingering. Before long, because it would be easier to eliminate him at home, the nobles allowed Gaveston to return, and Edward welcomed him back with a third kiss. But when by his ineptitude he lost Scotland and Normandy, open rebellion blew up. The queen, his much-wronged and long-suffering wife, took up with Mortimer and joined the conspiracy.

By now the king was on the run. Young Spencer offered his services. Edward favoured him with a long appraising stare, a small smile on his lips. Yes, you could see him thinking, this lad's worth keeping an eye on, as a reserve. Indeed, before long, Gaveston was captured by the rebels and put to death. On this, the curtain came down.

Our Edward had held the audience in the palm of his hand. As he lost interest in ruling, as he was manipulated by his hypocritical morality-mongering enemies, as he fretted at his loss of power, his initial obnoxiousness faded imperceptibly into mere weakness. And the weakness of the anointed king became more and more pitiable. Our Edward was still a bastard, but tonight he was an inspired bastard. My mind made itself up. It was totally wrong to inflict our punishment on him. Bella must be cancelled.

*

Rob, when he came off-stage at the interval, agreed without argument. He might be a philistine scientist, as I called him when we traded insults, but even he could see that Edward was giving the performance of a lifetime. He went to the dressing room for his mobile to cancel Bella, and immediately came back.

"Now she tells us," he said, his voice flat. "She's texted me to say she's not coming. She's got another bloke. She's going out with him instead."

"Rob! Oh God, I'm sorry."

Remembering how gutted I had been when Dawn ditched me, I put an arm round him. He was in need of comforting, just as I was when I flipped my lid. Rob snuggled closer, silent, thinking. We could hear a hum of chatter from the audience, but the team was in the rehearsal room swigging coffee or OJ, and backstage it was empty and quiet.

"I'm not sure I'm sorry," he said at last. "I've half-seen this coming. Something like it. I reckon it couldn't have lasted much longer. In fact it's really a very good thing. Because she hasn't dumped me into a vacuum, like Dawn did you."

"What do you mean?"

"Jesus! How can the producer of such a brilliant show be so thick? I'm free now, Sam. I'm available. And you're here to pick up the bits. You. To give me the tender loving care I need. Starting now!"

Yes, emphatically, starting now. We went into a proper clinch, my arms under his surcoat. His chain-mail felt coarse. It wasn't real chain-mail, which costs a fortune to hire, but knitted from silver string. We kissed. Not tentatively, but in-at-the-deep-end. We knew each other too well to have to feel our way. And God! it was good. There was strength there, and love unlimited.

"I've never done that before," I observed conversationally when we came up for air. "Not with a bloke."

"Nor me. Nor had Edward, come to that. I'm glad" - he adjusted himself - "I'm not wearing a codpiece."

I adjusted myself too. "Tonight, then, Rob?"

"Tonight, Sam. The moment we get in. To celebrate. Your triumph and my freedom."

We returned to our clinch, and must have missed the first warning bell. The next thing we were conscious of was a discreet cough, and we sprang apart in the traditional way. It was Bill, grinning.

"Sorry to interrupt," he said. Although dead, he had evidently come back to watch the second half. "But Sam, Sam . . . have you been misleading me all these years?"

I probably blushed. "No, Bill. It's only just happened."

"Ah. Seems to be a lot of it about. Are we in for an epidemic?"

He clapped us both on the shoulder. The second warning bell rang and the actors assembled for the next scene. Among them was Edward, now in his scarlet doublet and white hose.

"He's wearing the doctored hose!" Rob whispered in my ear.

He had spotted the telltale threads. We hadn't told the dresser of the change of plan.

"Doesn't matter. He'll never know."

The stage manager's arm came down. To a roll of drums, the curtain went up.

*

I was a happy man. For a hundred lines I was miles away, revelling in what had just taken place, before the action swept me up again. The king, now with Young Spencer, heard of Gaveston's death, and his oath of vengeance sent shivers down the spine.

"By earth, the common mother of us all,
By heaven, and all the moving orbs thereof,
By this right hand, and by my father's sword,
And all the honours 'longing to my crown,
I will have heads and lives for him, as many
As I have manors, castles, towns and towers!
Treacherous Warwick! Traitorous Mortimer!
If I be England's king, in lakes of gore
Your headless trunks, your bodies, I will trail."

He howled it out in a paroxysm of grief. By this point one's pity was unadulterated.

And Young Spencer was now in Gaveston's shoes. When the rebels demanded that he be got rid of as well, the king's defiant and public reply was to kiss him lustily.

This too was unrehearsed, but our Edward was nobody's fool. He had guessed, correctly, that Bill knew how to kiss, and as they kissed their faces had been visible to all. Now he guessed, correctly again, that Hugo was a novice at the art. So he stood with his back to the audience and with Hugo hidden behind him. But from the wings it was full in my view. Hugo, taken utterly aback, hadn't a clue what to do. Seen close-up and at right angles, it was totally unconvincing. But the audience spotted nothing amiss. No titters from them now, only absorption.

As the civil war raged on, the king briefly regained the upper hand. Mortimer was captured and sent to the Tower of London, from which he escaped to join the queen, who was by now his lover, in France. The young prince, Edward's son, the only character to behave honourably throughout, protested against their plans. But in vain. They invaded England and put the king to flight. Heading for Ireland with Baldock and Young Spencer, he was blown ashore at Neath Abbey.

And there, though in disguise, they were betrayed to the Earl of Leicester. His soldiers seized them and separated them, and Baldock and Spencer were condemned to death.

The lights dimmed until only Edward and Spencer, on opposite sides of the stage, were spotlighted. Baldock, unimportant, was in shade. So were the rebels and the monks.

"Spencer, ah, sweet Spencer, thus then must we part?"

"We must, my lord, so will the angry heavens."

"Nay, so will hell and cruel Mortimer;
The gentle heavens have not to do in this."

"My lord, it is in vain to grieve or storm.
Here humbly of your grace we take our leaves;
Our lots are cast; I fear me, so is thine."

"In heaven we may, in earth never shall we meet;
And, Leicester, say, what shall become of us?"

He was to be taken by litter, Leicester told him, to Kenilworth Castle.

"A litter hast thou? Lay me in a hearse,
And to the gates of hell convey me hence;
Let Pluto's bells ring out my fatal knell,
And hags howl for my death at Charon's shore,
For friends hath Edward none but these, and these,
And these must die under a tyrant's sword."

Edward had, all this time, been gazing across at his boyfriend, his voice quavering. He tore his arms free of the soldiers' grip and threw back his hood to reveal his curly fair hair crowned with a narrow crown, and his noble profile framed in a short fair beard. He held out shaking arms towards Spencer, searching for a way to transmit his love. Lips trembling, he tried to speak, but failed . . . And even I could hardly believe what I saw. . .

A slight gasp from the more observant members of the audience as his codpiece visibly swelled. A prolonged intake of breath as it pulled free of the threads and fell down. Total silence as the royal sceptre was revealed, rising rampant to its full and majestic height. Edward made no attempt to hide it.

Hugo's eyes were on stalks. No matter. The audience's were elsewhere.

Edward forced out a croak.

"And go I must. Life, farewell, with my friends."

He turned on his heel. Followed by Leicester and the soldiers, he lurched off-stage.

Hugo's self-control was impressive, but disbelief was still on his face and in his voice. It lent authenticity to his final lines.

"Oh, is he gone? Is noble Edward gone?
Parted from hence, never to see us more?
Rent, sphere of heaven! And fire, forsake thy orb!
Earth, melt to air! Gone is my sovereign!"

Meanwhile there was frantic activity in the wings. There are only twenty lines between Edward's exit and the next scene, when he is on again. Rob, quick as ever on the uptake, was on his knees in front of him. He fumblingly packed the royal equipment away, whipped out the safety pins from his own surcoat, and fastened the codpiece up. Edward muttered something and, just in time, shambled on-stage.

Rob came over to me, quaking.

"Oh Christ, Sam!" he murmured. "He said he never knew his prick was that strong! And Christ! I've handled the crown jewels!"

I could not even smile. My heart was bleeding for the king. He was now at Kenilworth, bereft of friends, being persuaded to abdicate in favour of his son. Knowing that in hard fact Mortimer would rule, he long resisted. But in the end he gave way.

"Here, take my crown; the life of Edward too."

The tragedy was coming to a head. Mortimer and the queen decided the king must die, and two of their sinister dogsbodies bore him away to Berkeley Castle. En route, gross indignity, they shaved his beard off in a roadside puddle. He sank yet deeper into misery. From the auditorium there was still an absolute silence. Edward, in his powerlessness, was in total command.

At his next exit he had to change into the hose daubed with shit from the castle cesspit. Time being fairly short, he changed in the wings rather than in the dressing room. He peeled off the old hose and inspected its codpiece and bows, showing special interest in two loose threads. He inspected the shit-stained hose before putting it on. The crown jewels were quiescent. Although Hugo was watching, Edward spared him no glance. But before disappearing beneath the stage to his cesspit under the trapdoor, he gave me a long hard look.

From his foul residence the king, in the ultimate stage of wretchedness, was extracted by Lightborn, the loathsome executioner whose very name is a translation of Lucifer. Edward was laid on a bed and invited to sleep. With every reason, he smelt a rat.

"Something still buzzeth in mine ears,
And tells me if I sleep I never wake;
This fear is that which makes me tremble thus.
And therefore tell me, wherefore art thou come?"

"To rid thee of thy life."

One dogsbody pinned him down on the bed with a small table. The other lifted his legs. From a glowing brazier nearby, Lightborn pulled a poker with a sparkling orange tip. Half-hidden behind the table he plied it lovingly. Edward's dying screams split the ears.

The final scene saw the young prince, now Edward III, return to set the kingdom back on its feet and to give the villains their come-uppance. Mortimer he sent to execution, his mother to the Tower. Mortimer's severed head he dedicated to his father.

"Sweet father, here unto thy murthered ghost
I offer up the wicked traitor's head;
And let these tears, distilling from mine eyes,
Be witness of my grief and innocency."

And on the innocency of his plaintive treble the curtain fell.

*

This, for any producer, is the moment of truth.

There was a long awed hush as pent-up emotions drained out. Then a gale of applause. No salacious catcalls, no smutty cheers, but a deep roar of appreciation. I wiped my forehead and looked around my team. Everyone was on a high, fully aware of a good job well done. I smiled at them and applauded too.

I was now a doubly happy man.

The curtain rose again. The cast went on, group following group, to make their bows. The soldiers and monks and servants. The clerics. The evil dogsbodies, with Lightborn still brandishing his poker. The minor baddies. The noble baddies. Mortimer, alone. The few goodies. The ladies and the young prince.

And, last, Bill and Hugo and Edward. They bowed together. Edward bowed solo.

He gave Bill a modest little peck on the cheek, which did raise a cheer, and Bill grinned.

Then Edward turned and, pulling Hugo close, kissed him full on the mouth. And Hugo, his face as scarlet as the king's doublet, kissed Edward back, inexpertly but with undisguised passion.

Well, I'll be buggered!

Amid the wolf-whistles which ensued, Edward darted off-stage, a wild light in his eyes. As he passed Lightborn he snatched the poker from him. Flourishing it, he dragged me out from the wings to centre-stage.

I stood there blinking, knackered, in deep fulfilment . . . fulfilment present and fulfilment soon to come.

The cast was applauding me, and beyond the footlights I could make out not only a full house but a standing ovation, even from the staff in the front row.

Old Persimmon, beaming and holding up both hands, fingers extended - ten out of ten, I think he meant.

Twankey, absentmindedly smirking.

The headmaster, clapping like a maniac.

On one side of him his wife, ditto.

On his other side . . . arrrgh! . . . Mother Ethelbugger, wearing a dubious smile, still seated. But even as I looked, she too stood up. To walk out? No. She clapped with the rest.

Well, I'll be buggered, again.

Edward pushed me forward, and I bowed deep.

As I bent, I was jabbed hard in the arse.

Very hard.

It hurt.

But I knew that I deserved my punishment.

I had learned that when the gods stage their own drama, mortals interfere at their peril.

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The King's Codpiece

an indelicate frivolityBy Mihangel

an indelicate frivolity
By Mihangel