A Mystery of Errors (Shakespeare & Smythe 1)

“What is that smell?” Elizabeth asked.

“Herbs,” said Smythe. “Drying herbs, hanging from the beams up in the ceiling.”

The door behind them creaked shut slowly and now there was almost total darkness in the shop, save for the glow coming from a brass candle holder that looked like a little saucer with a ring attached. The tallow candle stuck in it was nearly burnt down to a stub, with lots of melted wax caked upon it and the holder.

As the man holding the candle came away from the door and moved toward them, his candle brought illumination and they could see in the dim light the bunched, drying herbs hanging from the ceiling. It looked almost like a thatch roof turned inside out. There was vervain and rosemary and thyme, bay and basil and chive, elder, fennel, lemon balm and marjoram and hyssop and many, many more. Earthenware jars of various sizes filled the wooden shelves on all four walls. In front of one row of shelves there was a long wooden counter, laden with mixing bowls and mortars and pestles and scales with weights and measures and cutting boards and knives and scoops and funnels and all the other common tools of the apothecary.

“Good evening, Master Richard,” the old man said as he approached them, in a voice that sounded surprisingly strong and resonant.

If he was the apothecary, as Smythe surmised, then he certainly looked the part. Tall and gaunt, he had an almost sepulchral aspect with his deeply set dark eyes, prominent cheekbones and high forehead. He wore a long black robe and wisps of long and very fine white hair escaped from under the matching, woven skullcap. His beard was also white and wispy, reaching down to the middle of his chest. Smythe felt Elizabeth squeeze his arm and huddle close to him. In the dim candlelight, in the dark and heavily herb-scented shop, the old man seemed the very image of a sorcerer.

“Good evening, Freddy,” said Burbage, dispelling the illusion with the entirely prosaic name. “The hour is growing late, I know, but we have come to see your wife, if we may.”

Freddy, for all the amiability of his name, appeared to have an expression that was perpetually grim and somber. He nodded gravely and replied, “Meg is always pleased to see you, Master Richard. Allow me to light your way.”

They went to the back of the small shop and passed through a narrow doorway covered with an embroidered hanging cloth, the poor man’s tapestry. Freddy had to bend over as he pushed aside the cloth and went through the doorway to lead them up a narrow flight of wooden stairs against the back wall. They climbed single-file behind him as he lit their way. Smythe noticed that Elizabeth was looking more and more apprehensive. Her nerves were already frayed from the day’s events and Freddy’s appearance had unsettled her. The cadaverous apothecary towered over her, as he towered over all of them save Smythe, and Elizabeth was doubtless thinking that if this was Granny Meg’s husband, then what must Granny Meg herself be like?

At the top of the stairs, they came to the private living quarters just above the shop. It was a small, narrow, one-room apartment longer than it was wide, with whitewashed walls and a planked wood floor that was, unusually, not strewn with sweet-smelling rushes, as in the shop below, but swept clean. The straw bed was back near the front window, the only window in the place, and partially hidden by a freestanding wooden shelf that also functioned as a divider and a screen. The furnishings were simple and rough-hewn. There were a couple of plain and sturdy chairs, several three-legged wooden stools and a number of large chests, a wood planked table and a fireplace in which hung several black cauldrons of various sizes on iron hooks over the flames.

Smythe was a bit taken aback by this. He had never before seen a fireplace on a second floor. In a nobleman’s house, perhaps, it would not have been surprising, though he had only been in one such house, Sir William’s, and then only on the first floor. However, he recalled seeing numerous chimney tops sticking up out of the roof. Perhaps Sir William had fireplaces upstairs, too. But in a thatch-roofed house such as the one Smythe had grown up in, a fireplace on a second floor would have been an invitation to disaster. With no wood between the interior and the thickly piled thatch, the fire hazard would have been extreme. When it was dry, bits of thatch-along with bugs and sometimes mice- would often fall upon the occupants, for which reason cloth canopies were usually put up on posts over the beds. And when it rained, domestic animals who often slept upon the soft thatch roof would occasionally slip through and fall into the house, giving rise to the expression that it was “raining cats and dogs.”

The overwhelming impression of the place, though it was very clean, was one of nearly incomprehensible clutter. As below, wooden shelving lined all four walls and each shelf was filled to overflowing with books, earthenware jars, and other bric-a-brac. There were little pieces of statuary on the shelves such as Smythe had never seen, little figures carved from stone, some having shapes vaguely reminiscent of pregnant women and others resembling birds and animals, though of a type that Smythe had never seen. There were little tiny clay pots and great big ones, holding God only knew what, and there were beaded necklaces and amulets and little leather pouches suspended from thongs, apparently meant to be worn around

the neck. No matter where one looked, there were a hundred things to draw the eye. Smythe’s gaze was drawn by a strange-looking dagger lying on a shelf in front of a row of jars. Curious, he reached out for it.

“Please do not touch that, young man.”

The voice was unmistakably feminine, soft and low, yet with a melodious richness that at the same time somehow managed to soothe and command authority. Startled, Smythe jerked back his hand. He felt a bit embarrassed. He, of all people, should have known better. His uncle had taught him the significance of having respect for other people’s properly, especially their blades.

“Forgive me,” he said, uncomfortably. “I did not mean to offend. I… that is, I was…”

“Drawn to it?” She came into the firelight.

“Aye,” Smythe said, softly. He blinked. He was not even entirely certain where she had come from. He had not noticed anyone come from behind the shelves dividing the main portion of the room from the sleeping area, but neither had he seen her in the room before. Yet, suddenly, there she was, as if she had somehow suddenly appeared from out of nowhere. Smythe felt Elizabeth shrink behind him, as if trying to conceal herself.

Yet, as he beheld Granny Meg, Smythe realized that she did not look anything like what he might have expected. She was of average height, with long, thick, silvery gray hair that fell in waves down past her shoulders to her waist. Her eyes were large and luminous, the sort of eyes that it was difficult to look away from. They were a pale shade of blue-gray, like cracked ice on a pond in early winter. Her features were sharp and elfin, bringing to mind some nocturnal forest creature. Her chin came almost to a point, her cheekbones were high and pronounced, and her nose had a delicate, almost birdlike sharpness. Her pale, flawless skin was practically translucent. It almost seemed to glow with vibrancy. Smythe could not begin to guess her age.

Clearly, she was no longer young, but her skin, while faintly lined in places, had no wrinkles and there were no liver spots upon her hands, neither moles or blemishes upon her face. She was slim, girlishly so, and willowy, with a figure most young women would have envied. She wore a simple homespun gown of dark blue cloth with some vine-like embroidery around the low-cut neck. The skin at her throat also belied her age. Smythe would have put Freddy’s age at around sixty-five or even seventy or more. In any case, he was obviously a man well advanced in years. Granny Meg, how ever, did not truly live up-or perhaps down-to her name. She could have been in her fifties, or her sixties, or her seventies… it was impossible to tell. She was certainly not young. But she was the most singularly beautiful older woman Smythe had ever seen.

“Good evening, Granny Meg,” said Burbage.

“And a good evening to you, Master Richard. It is good to see you again. How is your father?”

“Well, thank you, mum.”

“You are Granny Meg?” said Shakespeare, as if giving voice to Smythe’s thoughts. “The name does you an injustice. You scarcely look old enough to be beyond your middle years.”

She turned toward him and smiled. “I am old enough to be your grandmother, young man.”

“If, indeed, you do speak truly,” Shakespeare replied, “then never in all my days have I seen a woman who wore time so lightly.”

“How prettily you speak,” she said. “Yet, as you are a poet, I think that you shall write more prettily still. About time… and other things.”

“Odd’s blood! How could you possibly know I am a poet?” Shakespeare asked, taken aback. “However did you divine it?”

“ ‘Tis true,” Elizabeth whispered in Smythe’s ear, “she is a witch!”

“ ‘Tis no great feat of divination,” Granny Meg replied, with a graceful shrug. “Your pretty speech betrays you. And there are little ink spatters low upon your doublet, such as would occur when one sits and dips a pen too quickly and, in a rush to set words down, fails to shake off the excess ink. Together with the fact that you came with Master Richard, who keeps company mainly with his fellow actors and with disreputable poets, and it was no great leap of intuition to deduce your calling.”