And I seen in day's light how bad sick he was, my Will. “Oy Will,” I said, “what's done you this, what you done yourself!” Schmutzig befouled he was, not washed in lots of days, stinking from his own schmutz he beshit himself, stinking worse as Aldensmill's charcoal fires fouling the air, his doublet and breeches and hose the English call stocks, all tore and fouled, his points untied, and no buskin shoes he didn't wear, gone they was, and his hairs like a rat's nest was, and on his hands and face was a scabies or a murrain rash I don't think was pox, because when I washed him I didn't see it on his putz, and two tooths in the front more was gone, and worse was a hurt he had on his ear, all swelled, healing some but caked blood I seen, and his lips on one side also tore and caked blood. “Oy Will!” I said, and held myself and rocked like I doven prayed except I wasn't, there beside his foul pallet all bepissed it was, in Nat Weaver's shed.
It should of been a simcha rejoicing, a yontif celebration because it was me back again with my Will Kempe after his long carouse away from me, but it wasn't, it was my Will so bad sick, his schmatta attire all awry and fouled and tore, and this my letz jokester Will Kempe was, hurt bad and racked from sweats and groans from hard and hot pain in his guts.
“Pinky sweet,” he said me with his tooths closed from pain, “will't fetch me a strong draught, an' God love you for it!”
“I'll get,” I said to him.
But first I went by Nat Weaver, his hovel cottage and got clean water from his cistern where he catched rains, so it wasn't so fouled by his jakes or his stable, and cloths I got, also pretty clean, which I washed my Will so clean as I could, and from Nat Weaver I got a rude gown the English call slops to dress him in, and gave Nat Weaver his fouled attire to burn, which he did, and said the slops and cloths he'd add to his reckoning, but the pretty clean water in a wood bucket with a rope handle was no cost for, because he said any wretch dying deserved such a mercy.
“Why, Pinky,” Will said when I washed him so clean as I could, “is it not passing strange how a man's washed when first he exits his mother's loins, an' washed the same again before he exits this pale?”
“Don't make gleeks,” I said, and, “Hold still so I can wash you good,” and I said, “Your bum's all black, you beshitted yourself like a Bedlamite madman, Will Kempe!” Which he had, and he told me he didn't make a turd for days, he didn't know how many, which he thought was why his guts burned him so with pains.
I said to him, “Did you fall down fap drunk, cupshotten, and give you this bad hurt on your ear and mund?”
To which he said, “Nay, Pinky pearl, this gall an' t'other at my mouth's porch were gifted me by some whoreson rogue I fell afoul of who came upon me in a stew I can't bring to mind the name of. We bickered over a jade, or else the tapster's tally, I know not which, but only pray I gave him some small token in exchange for these his gifts to me!”
“And you squandered all your purse on carouse?” I asked him.
To which he answered me, “I do fear I spent the most upon such, Pinky, but could not Will Kempe earn his keep and more with a dance or a juggle or a quip in rhyme where'ere he wandered? And I wonder that selfsame knave who conked my noggin with his cudgel failed to cut my purse as well, for he stole my buskins off my feet, an' how shall Will dance without shoes? Cruel as any Turk was he! And so in sooth, Pinky my sweet pearl, I wandered in a daze like any Abraham Man 'til I came upon this place, and here was sudden struck in my guts, far worse than a cudgel's kiss on the ear and lip, and gave in pawn my motley—wherefore did that whoreson Turk not steal my motley? Ah, I warrant he knew not its value! And so I sent young rude swain Walter for you, as I was told by good Nat Weaver the boy knew his way to London, for he sold his father's charcoal there at market oft. And so you came to me, my Pinky!”
“And I came so soon I could,” I said.
“And God bless thee for it, may He forget thou art no Christian, but a pagan Jew, yet give you leave of Heaven when your time is upon you, Pinky pearl!”
“If it's a god he won't care I'm a Jew or Turk nor even a blackamoor,” I said, but I don't think he listened, so much his pain was.
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