A Mystery of Errors (Shakespeare & Smythe 1)

“And he signed his death warrant in the process,” replied Sir William. “ Gresham has your friend confused with Marlowe.”

“But… why would Sir Anthony make such a mistake?”

“Because he is not Sir Anthony!”

“What? Not Sir Anthony? What do you mean? You called him Gresham.”

“Aye, Alastair Gresham. Anthony’s twin brother.”

“His twin brother?”

“I shall explain later. There is no time now, we have to find those men. The guard will be arriving shortly. We need to get to your friend, Shakespeare, in the meantime, and keep him out of sight. ‘Tis doubtful that they shall try anything during the play, but afterward, when everyone is leaving, would

be the perfect time for them to make their move. Or perhaps during the break between the acts. Then they could slip away in the confusion. How long is the first act? When does the break come?”

Smythe was at a loss. “I… I cannot remember! After the second act, I think. Aye, after the second act. But as to the time…”

“Never mind. Get to your friend. Warn him and tell him to stay out of sight. When your ostler friends arrive, have several of them stay with him to protect him, then take the others and get out among the groundlings in the yard. ‘Tis where those men will be. If you recognize the one you saw, point him out discreetly and have your ostler friends get as close to him as they can. Watch to see with whom he speaks, that will help us to spot the others. I will look for the one in the black cloak. With any luck, we shall have them before they can make their move.” He glanced down and frowned. “Where the devil is your sword?”

“I… I left it in the tiring room.”

“Well, there’s a useful place for it,” Sir William said, wryly. “Be a good lad and get it, will you? I suspect you may have use for it before too long.”

As they went into the crowded yard, they separated and Sir William made his way around to the far side, heading toward the stairs leading to the upper galleries. Smythe made his way along the railing of the lower gallery toward the stage, which projected out into the yard.

The groundlings, those members of the audience who had paid the cheapest rate of admission and stood in the dirt yard to watch the play, had packed the yard so completely that there was scarcely any room to move. Under any other circumstances, Smythe would have been pleased to see that, for it meant more money for the ostlers, more revenue for the company, more profit for the Theatre, and a boost in Shakespeare’s reputation for having so improved the play that the size of the audience had nearly tripled. The groundlings stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the yard and as Smythe looked up, it seemed to him that every seat in the upper galleries was filled, as well. Good news for the company, bad news for anyone trying to pick out four men amongst this crowd… four men who could easily have split up by now.

It occurred to Smythe as he tried to make his way through the crowd that none of this was as he had imagined it would be. Back home, somehow, he had always pictured the London stage as being so much more elegant, so much more… refined. Actually, quite the opposite was true. All around him, coarse and common-looking people were shifting their weight from foot to foot, changing position to avoid discomfort or else in an attempt to get a better view. They talked amongst themselves and laughed and belched and farted boistrously and called out to others they recognized among the crowd, even while the play was already in progress. A steady drizzle had started to come down into the open yard, which so strongly resembled the courtyards of the country’s inns, upon which the design of the Theatre had been modeled, with only the galleries upon the upper stories covered over with wood and thatch roofing. The light rain was soaking into the thick thatch and making the rushes strewn over the hard packed dirt of the yard slippery underfoot, the wet smell of the straw mingling with the steamy smell of bodies in damp woollen cloaks and the acrid odor of urine from theatregoers relieving themselves into the scattered straw. The briney smell of the Thames blown in upon the breeze hung over everything, occasionally bringing with it on the air the shouts of the rivermen in their boats not too far distant. Together with the creaking of the floorboards on the stage and on the walkways of the galleries, it all had a strangely nautical feel, as if the entire edifice were some sort of crudely constructed ship, its timbers sagging wetly as it floated at its moorings.

Smythe looked for Sir William and spotted him after a few moments, heading up the back stairs to the uppermost gallery, where he would have a commanding view of the stage and the entire courtyard. Smythe quickly swept the galleries with his gaze, but saw no sign of the mysterious man in the black cloak.

He continued to make his way up toward the stage, shouldering through the crowd and getting some shoves and surly remarks back as he went. It was maddening. They simply would not get out of his way and a couple of times, he almost got into fights as he pushed and bulled his way through. Then, with a sudden burst of inspiration, he started coughing, bringing a handkerchief up to his mouth, as if he were spewing every time he coughed. Ever mindful of the Plague, people suddenly shrank back from him, turning their faces away with expressions of alarm, and he made much quicker progress. Soon, he had reached the front of the stage, which projected out into the courtyard like a wooden pier into a river of churning flesh.

The crowd was packed so thickly, people were even sitting on the edge of the stage, watching the performance, so close to the actors that they could reach out and touch them. Smythe tried to determine at what point in the play they were. The production ran about two hours long, with the acts divided into roughly equal parts. Two acts in the beginning, two acts at the end, with a break in the middle. They were at least halfway through the first act, perhaps a little more. He wasn’t sure. He had enough trouble remembering his one line, much less everybody else’s. All he knew was that his line had come a short way into the second act, right after Kemp announced, “I would give a king’s ransom for a horse!”

He grimaced. Now he remembered his cue! And, inexplicably, he remembered his line, too. “Milord, the post horses have arrived!” Of course, now that it made no difference, he remembered. Well, clearly, someone else would have already been picked to play his tiny part. It would only mean an extra line for one of the other hired men. Something as insignificant as that would pose no difficulty for the production, and would probably improve it, Smythe thought, since he could never seem to get it right and only managed to succeed in getting on Kemp’s nerves. But just the same, it rankled him that he remembered now, when it no longer mattered.

As he had made his way toward the front of the stage, he kept looking at the faces all around him, desperately seeking the man that he had seen back at the inn, but from where he was, he could not see much more than several feet around him in the yard. The killers could all be within fifteen or twenty feet of him and he would have no way of knowing. He would need to get some height so he could see better.

He had now reached a spot roughly parallel to the middle of the stage. A bit further and he could get backstage, into the tiring room where he had left his sword and where he could warn the other members of the company about what was going on. He continued to push his way through, coughing hard and hacking like a man on his last legs, trying to get the people to make way for him. It worked, and soon he was even with the rear of the stage and then climbing up and going through into the backstage area. The fist person he ran into was Robert Speed, costumed and waiting to go on.

“Tuck! What the devil! Where in God’s name have you been?”

“There is no time to explain, Bobby. We’ve got trouble.”

“You mean you’ve got trouble. Shakespeare was furious when you simply took off in the middle of rehearsal. And now Kemp wants you out of the company entirely.”

“Never mind all that,” said Smythe. “Will is in terrible danger. Four men are here to kill him.”

“What, Kempt?”

“No, Shakespeare!”

“Why would anyone want to kill him? What has he done?”

“Nothing. ‘Tis a mistake. They think that he is someone else.”

“Well, then, explain things to them, for God’s sake. I have no time for this sort of nonsense now, I have to go on in a moment!”