A Mystery of Errors (Shakespeare & Smythe 1)

“I’d like to make my mark, all right,” said Shakespeare, in a surly tone. “Right on his damned jaw. I still remember all those thorns in my bum from when his coach ran us off the road that day!”

“Now don’t you be giving me any trouble,” Burbage said, sharply. “The man has come with money to invest. And we could all benefit from that. Aside from that, if you play your cards right, you never know, you might even get yourself a wealthy patron. ‘Twould be well worth taking a few stickers up the arse, I should think. Now come on, put on your best fawning, servile manner and make a decent leg. This is business, my friend, business.”

Smythe stood there and watched them head off toward the others. Dick waved to them and his father gave a jaunty wave back. Henry Darcie stood there with his arms folded, looking pompous, as if he owned the place-which, to some degree, he did-and Sir Anthony had his hands upon his hips and stood looking about like the cock of the walk. Elizabeth, however, looked on the verge of tears. She looked at Smythe and once again shook her head slightly, in jerky little motions, back and forth, like a tremor going through her.

No, thought Smythe, something here was decidedly not right. All the evidence of his senses pointed toward the explanation that Dick Burbage gave as being the only logical answer, but in his gut, Smythe could not accept it.

He did not delude himself that Elizabeth Darcie loved him or that they could ever have any sort of future together. That wasn’t how he thought of her in any case, and he knew it certainly wasn’t how she thought of him. But he recalled how terrified she had been and could not believe it was a lie, as both Shakespeare and Burbage thought.

Clearly, she had not seen Gresham killed, for here he was, in the too, too solid flesh, not even remotely ghostlike and very much alive. So then, if he was to assume she had not lied, what had she seen? She was not a girl given to the vapors. She had been apprehensive last night at Granny Meg’s, even frightened at first, and yet, she had gone through with it, with neither fainting nor faint-heartedness. And when she came to him and told him what she’d seen, she had seemed very much in earnest. Not even the great Ned Alleyn, he thought, could act a part so well. Therefore, assuming that she had been telling him the truth, she must have

seen what she had only thought was Gresham being murdered.

Could she have been mistaken? He thought back to her words. They had been most definite. She had said that Gresham fell against her, so heavily that he had dragged her down with him, as if he were dead weight. Dead weight, indeed. With a dagger plunged to the hilt between his shoulder blades. Which meant it had been thrown with considerable force, and by someone who knew what he was doing. She had left him then, a corpse upon the ground. Except here he was, alive. So if Elizabeth had told the truth, then it must have been a trick, an elaborate deception. And if that was the case, then Gresham must have been behind it.

But why?

What could be his motive? Elizabeth had said that Gresham had already been toying with her, making her out to be a liar and a shrew, the better to seem undesirable for wedlock, even in her parents’ eyes. With the arrangement already made, a daughter who suddenly began to act erratically, to the point of lying or having flights of fancy she could not control, could certainly induce a wealthy father to increase the dowry, thereby making the prospective husband more eager for the marriage and perhaps more likely to overlook the daughter’s faults.

According to Elizabeth, Gresham had even gone to the extent of using his servant, Drummond, to lie for him. Smythe remembered Drummond from that night back at the inn, and again the day that he had met Elizabeth for the first time, outside the Theatre. An officious, unpleasant, arrogantly boorish man. Smythe had disliked him from the start. And according to Elizabeth, Drummond had denied that he had even been there.

Elizabeth had said that Drummond had been driving the carriage when she had met Gresham on the street, and that Gresham had sent him on ahead, supposedly because by following them slowly in the carriage, he had blocked the way. A convenient ruse, perhaps? If he had slowed the carriage to the pace of two people walking, he would have blocked the street, of course. There were more and more carriages and coaches on the streets of London every day, so much so that they were causing blockages all over. So Gresham could have had Drummond follow until someone came up behind him and started to cause a commotion about it, then Gresham would wave him on ahead… Meet me at the Darcie residence. And Drummond drives on, out of sight, then has ample time to leave the carriage somewhere and double back on foot… so that the two of them could stage a little drama of their own?

As if he could feel Smythe’s gaze upon him, Gresham turned and glanced toward him. For a moment, their eyes met. Smythe did not look away. Gresham arched an eyebrow, frowned faintly, and then turned back to the others in the group. “No,” Smythe said softly, to himself, “by God, Elizabeth is not the liar here.”

He met her gaze again and nodded. She saw it. And she understood.

The remainder of the rehearsal was no improvement over his previous performance. If anything, it was even worse. He kept forgetting his one line, or else he came in on the wrong cue and stepped on Kemp’s line, or else missed the cue entirely, or came in on cue only to miss his mark and move too far downstage, thereby unintentionally upstaging Kemp, which only served to further infuriate the irritable comedian. Nor did it do very much to improve Shakespeare’s disposition. Since Shakespeare had punched up the old play with a new rewrite, he was, naturally enough, the logical person to function as the bookholder and prompter during the production, and therefore, the responsibility of the production running smoothly from start to finish had set-tied largely on his shoulders. It was an important job, and Shakespeare knew it represented an equally important opportunity for him in the company. Consequently, he was less than pleased with Smythe’s performance.

Smythe knew the only reason he had his small role was because Shakespeare had recommended him for it. By botching it thoroughly, he was making his roommate look bad. He hated that, but he couldn’t seem to help it. He just couldn’t get it right, no matter how hard he tried. It was almost as if he were under some sort of a curse.

They finally decided to abandon the scene altogether and move on, though Kemp had kept demanding that Smythe be replaced with someone who had more intelligence, such as one of the mules from the stable. Smythe held his temper in check in the face of Kemp’s relentless and abusive sarcasm, in large part because he knew that in the present circumstance, Kemp’s remarks were thoroughly well deserved. For almost as long as he could remember, Smythe had dreamed of being a player, and now that he had his opportunity at last, he was making a complete mess of it.

He kept telling himself that it was because he could not get his mind off the situation with Elizabeth, but deep down inside, he was beginning to wonder if that truly was the reason. Perhaps the truth was that he was never meant to be a player. He pushed that thought aside. It was his dream. This was what he’d always wanted. He would get the hang of it. He was still new to it and he was nervous, overanxious, and… preoccupied. He could not do justice even to his one miserable little line so long as he kept thinking of Elizabeth.

It certainly did not help that she had been right above him, looking down from the gallery seats, where James Burbage had taken them to watch the company rehearse and give them a good overview of the entire theatre. And every time they had run through his scene… well, his line, in any case… and he had bungled it, he had heard their laughter from the upper gallery. Gresham ’s laughter, in particular. The miraculously resurrected Sir Anthony had one of those throw-your-head-back, arch-your-back, and roar-out-to-the-heavens laughs that rang throughout the Theatre. It was booming and infectious, and Henry Darcie and James Burbage both joined in, as did many of the players. Each time, Smythe could feel his ears burning… and each time, he could feel the burning gaze of Will Kemp searing scorn into him like a branding iron.

When they became exasperated and decided to stop working on that scene and move on, Smythe left the playhouse quickly, before anyone could have a chance to speak to him. In part, it was his embarrassment and anger with himself that made him seek escape, but at the same time, it was his overwhelming desire to learn the truth about what truly had transpired the previous day. The only problem was, he was not quite sure just how he was going to go about it.

His first instinct was to follow Gresham and the Darcies when they left the Theatre, and then observe them from a distance until he could have a chance to speak with Elizabeth alone. Unlike Shakespeare and Burbage, he could not accept that she had lied to them. Her terror had been all too real. She had truly believed that she had seen Sir Anthony Gresham murdered. So what must she be thinking now? To see a man slain right before your eyes, to be convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt that he was dead, only to have him apparently come back to life and act as if nothing had happened… to someone already driven to distraction by people questioning her motives and veracity, it had to seem as if she were descending into madness.

A chill ran through Smythe at the thought, as if someone had walked over his grave. Here was yet another frightening possibility. If Elizabeth could be convinced that she were going mad, or more significantly, if everyone around her, including even her parents, could be convinced of that, then once the marriage had taken place and the dowry was safely in Gresham’s hands, she could be confined to what had once been the priory of St. Mary of Bethlehem, now better known as St. Mary’s Hospital, or Bedlam, an asylum for lunatics.

Compared to that, thought Smythe, even death would be a preferable fate. And if that was Gresham ’s plan, then the man was much worse than an unprincipled scoundrel. He was absolutely diabolical. But the more Smythe thought about it, the more the details seemed to fit. He could not allow something like that to happen. He had to stop it somehow. He would follow Gresham and, one way or another, he would find out for certain what the man was up to.

He did not have very long to wait. They did not bother to stay for the entire rehearsal. James Burbage walked them to the front gate of the Theatre, where they got into their coach-the same coach as the one that nearly ran them down that day not long ago, when Smythe and Shakespeare were on the road to London. By the t

ime they left the playhouse, Smythe had already saddled one of the post horses from the stable, a privilege he was abusing, since it was not an ostler’s due to borrow horses anytime he chose, but he had promised old Ian Banks, the stablemaster, that he would make it up to him somehow. When Gresham, Henry Darcie, and Elizabeth drove off, with Drummond at the reins, Smythe was right behind them, keeping far enough back that he could keep the coach in sight without alerting them that they were being followed.

He needn’t have worried. From inside the coach, they could not see who was behind them, and Drummond had no reason to suspect that anyone would follow, so he never turned around. When they reached the congested streets of the city, Smythe closed the distance between them so as not to lose them. He followed the coach back to the Darcie residence, then reined in, keeping back out of sight around a bend as Gresham dropped off Henry Darcie and Elizabeth. When the coach drove on, Smythe hesitated only for a moment and then followed. He decided he could double back and try to see Elizabeth later, if he had the chance, but for now, there was a more important task at hand. He wanted to find out where Gresham lived and see what sort of opportunities, if any, might present themselves.

Curiously, instead of going home, Gresham drove from the Darcie residence straight to Bishopsgate Street, where he stopped at the inn known as The Strutting Gamecock. The large, painted wooden sign outside the inn depicted a pair of fighting birds within a ring. It was one of the inns in London where sporting games were held and plays were often staged, and like The Toad and Badger, it was frequented by actors, musicians, bards, balladeers, and artists, along with other somewhat less reputable types. Smythe was unaware of any productions being staged here at the moment, so perhaps Sir Anthony had decided to take in an evening of some sport and wagering. But it was still a little early for that sort of thing and Smythe could not imagine what other business a gentleman like Gresham would have in such a place. On the other hand, he thought again, perhaps he could.

Gresham went inside the inn, but Drummond remained waiting for him with the coach, rather than driving in to stable it. It seemed that Gresham would not be staying very long. A brief assignation with some strumpet, perhaps? The corners of Smythe’s mouth turned down. If that were so, then he could not say much for Gresham ’s taste. The sort of women he would find in there would certainly be of the more common, coarser sort. Sir Anthony had not struck him as the type who would consort with harlots, but then appearances could often be deceiving. Sir William was certainly a case in point.

Smythe wondered if he could presume on his acquaintance with Sir William to ask some pointed questions about Gresham. They moved in the same circles and doubtless knew each other. But then, what exactly would he ask? He could not very well ask Sir William if Gresham was the sort of man who would stage his own murder to take advantage of an innocent girl for personal gain. Or could he? No, he thought, not really. On the face of it, the notion seemed quite daft. And suppose the two of them were friends? He needed something more. But he was not yet sure what that could be.

He waited, debating with himself whether or not to risk stabling the horse and going in to see what he could learn. What if Gresham spotted him? For that matter, would Gresham even recognize him?