The Shakespeare Secret [antikvár]

June 29, 1613 From the river, it looked as if two suns were setting over One was sinking in the west, streaming ribbons of glory in pink and melón and gold. It was the second sun, though, that had conjured an unruly flotilla of boats and barges, skiffs and wherries, onto the dark surface of the Thames: across from the broken tower of St Pauls, a sulién orange sphere looked to have missed the horizon altogether and rammed itself into the southern bank. Hunkering down amid the taverns and brothels of Southwark, it spiked vicious blades of flame at the night. It wasnt, of course, another sun, though men who fancied themselves poets sent that conceit rippling from boát to boát. It was - or had been - a building. The most famous of London s famed theatres - the hollow wooden O, round seat of the city s dreams, the great Globe itself - was burning. And all of London had turnéd out on the water to watch. The Earl of Suffolk included. 'Upon Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord rained down fire from heaven/ purred the Earl, gazing south from the floating palace of his priváté barge. In his office of Lord Chamberlain of England, Suffolk ran the King s court. Such a disaster befalling the King s Men ~ His Majestys own beloved company of actors who not