“I’ll have you know I played my part just as well as Dick Tarleton would have played it!” Kemp protested.
“Well, if Dick Tarleton had been drunk to near insensibility and trotting through an Irish peat bog, then I suppose he might have played it that way,” Burbage said.
“The cheek! The impudence! Why, you young upstart…”
“Gentlemen, please…” John Fleming, one of the senior members of the company said, trying to make peace.
“Young upstart? I am just as much a member of this company as you are!” Burbage replied, hotly.
“Aye, because you rode in on your father’s coattails,” Kemp said, sneering. “If ‘twasn’t for the fact that he had built the theatre-”
“Enough!” Edward Alleyn’s stage voice at full volume cut through the air like a scythe, at once attracting the attention of all within the tavern. He put his hands upon the table and leaned forward, fixing them both with a glare worthy of an angry Zeus. “You bicker like a gaggle of small, annoying children! ‘Tis enough to give one indigestion! Keep silent!”
“Damn it, Ned, I’ll not have anyone accusing me of riding on my father’s coattails,” Burbage began, in an offended tone, but Alleyn didn’t let him finish.
“You did ride in on your father’s coattails, Dick,” said Alleyn. “ ‘Tis not to say you have no merit on your own, for you have promise as an actor, but if it wasn’t for your father, you’d still be playing girls or acting as the call boy.”
“I told you so,” said Kemp, smugly.
“And as for you, you gibbering ape, young Burbage here has more talent in his little finger than you possess in your entire, capering, bandy-legged, over-acting body!”
“Bandy-legged! Bandy-legged? Why, you insufferable stuffed ham, if not for my presence in this company, that playhouse would have been empty tonight by the end of the first act! ‘Tis me they come to see, Will Kemp, who brings some joy and laughter to their lives, not some grave, overblown windbag who possesses all the lightness and charm of a descending axe!”
The entire company fell silent as Alleyn slowly rose from his seat, his eyes as hard and cold as anthracite. Kemp realized he had gone too far. He moistened his lips and swallowed hard, but held his ground, afraid to back down in front of everyone else. He stood stiffly, his chin raised in defiance, but a slight trembling betrayed him.
“I have had all that I am going to take from you, you ridiculous buffoon,” said Alleyn. His normally commanding voice, legendary for his ability to project it like a javelin, had gone dangerously low. It was a tone no one in the company had heard from him before. He came around from behind the table, glaring at Kemp, his large hands balled into beefy fists.
“Ned,” said Burbage, rising from his seat, but Alleyn shoved him back down so hard that the younger man’s teeth clicked together as he was slammed back onto the bench.
Kemp’s lower lip was trembling and his knees shook, but his pride would still not allow him to retreat. “Y-you d-do not f-f-frighten m-me!” he stammered.
“You had best be frightened, little man,” said Alleyn, ominously, “for I am going to pound you into the ground like a tent peg!”
“You had best get out, Will,” Shakespeare said, coming up beside him.
“Y-you stay out of this, you b-bumpkin!” Kemp said, vainly trying to maintain a pretence of being unafraid. “He cannot in-t-timidate m-me!”
He had gone completely white. Smythe frankly wasn’t sure if he was simply stubbornly attempting to stand his ground or if fear had him frozen to the spot. But it was quite clear that Ned Alleyn meant precisely what he said. There was murder in his eyes. He stepped in front of the advancing actor.
“He is just a little man, Master Alleyn,” he said. “If you strike him, you shall surely kill him.”
“I fully intend to kill him,” Alleyn said. “Now get out of my way!”
“I am sorry, sir, I cannot do that,” Smythe replied, standing firmly between Alleyn and the trembling Kemp.
“You had best hold him back, for his own good!” said Kemp, his voice breaking to reveal his false bravado. “I’ll take no nonsense from the likes of him, the intemperate boor!”
“That does it!” Alleyn said, through gritted teeth, and attempted to shove his way past Smythe. But for all his considerable size, he could not budge him. He grabbed him by the upper arms, to shove him away, but Smythe countered by putting his hands upon the actor’s shoulders and squeezing. Alleyn’s eyes grew wide and he turned red with exertion as he tried, without avail, to break Smythe’s grip.
“Come on, Ned!” somebody yelled, shouting encouragement.
“No, hold him!” Burbage shouted, getting up and seizing the big actor from behind.
“Aye, hold him, else he shall face my wrath!” shouted Kemp, seeing now that Alleyn could not reach him.
“Will, get him out of here!” said Smythe, as he and Burbage wrestled with the powerful actor.
“Right, Kemp, off we go,” said Shakespeare, grabbing the older man by the scruff of the neck and the seat of his breeches and frog-marching him out of the tavern.