A Mystery of Errors (Shakespeare & Smythe 1)

“Aye, I think so,” Shakespeare replied. “Odd’s blood, they really were trying to kill me! But why?”

“I am not entirely sure of that myself,” Smythe replied, “but I think I may have an idea. Stay here with the others. And watch yourself. Their leader is still unaccounted for. I must go and find Sir William.”

He jumped down off the stage and struggled to make his way through the throng of groundlings to the entrance. There he found Sir William, waiting for him along with several of the ostlers.

“Did you get him?” Smythe asked, anxiously.

“No, curse the luck,” Sir William said. “But we got his cloak.” He held up the garment. “A couple of the ostlers found it on the stairs.”

Smythe exhaled heavily. “Damn it! So he got away, then?”

“Not yet,” Sir William said grimly, shaking his head. “Come with me.”

They moved toward the theatre entrance. Outside, Smythe saw the guardsmen in their helms and breastplates, posted at the gate. Sir William smiled. “I do not think he had a chance to slip past them,” he said. “They arrived not long after we did.”

The Captain of the Guard came up to Sir William and saluted. “We stand by for your orders, milord.”

“No one has been allowed out past you?”

“No, milord, no one. Only the lady.”

Worley’s eyes narrowed. “What lady?” he said, sharply.

“Why, the one you told to leave, milord.”

“The one I told to leave? What the devil are you talking about? I told no one to leave! I gave strict orders that no one was to be allowed out! No one!”

The captain looked concerned. “Aye, milord, that was what I told her. I said that Sir William gave strict instructions that no one was to leave, but she said that you had sent her home, because it would be too dangerous for her to remain. There would be trouble and you did not wish to see her placed at risk-”

“You damn fool!” Sir William said. “Where did she go?”

“Why, she… she left in the coach, milord.”

“What coach?”

There was now panic in the captain’s eyes. “Well, the one she said you sent for her, milord! A very handsome coach, ‘twas, milord. She… she said it bore your crest-”

“ Gresham!” Smythe said. He looked out and across the field. “Look! There!” He pointed.

“Damn! Where is my horse?”

“Right here, milord,” the ostler who had been holding both their horses all along called out to him.

“Mount up!” Sir William shouted to the guard as he and Smythe ran to get their horses. “There’ll be a gold sovereign for you when we return,” he said to the ostler, as he swung up into the saddle. “And Captain, if you do not catch that coach, you shall be a stableboy by sunset!”

“Aye, milord!”

They all set spurs and galloped off full speed across the field. The coach was well ahead of them, but the driver could not match their pace and they closed the distance rapidly. Before long, Smythe, riding up front with Sir William, could see the driver of the coach whipping up the horses, glancing back nervously over his shoulder. That would be Drummond, surely. But who was in the coach?

If Sir Anthony was not Sir Anthony, as Sir William had said, but his twin brother, who then was the woman? Smythe hoped it wasn’t who he thought it might be. She could not possibly be part of this, he thought, could she?

They had nearly closed with the coach as they reached the city limits and the chase continued through the cobbled streets. But here the coach was even more at a disadvantage. People scattered, crying out in fear, as the black coach careened wildly through the streets, and then the inevitable happened. Another coach was coming the other way as Drummond whipped his horses round a bend. In a desperate effort to avoid a collision, Drummond swung wide and tried to go around the other coach, but there simply wasn’t enough room. The horses screamed as they collided and the coaches struck one another with a tremendous impact. Gresham ’s coach overturned and the horses fell in a horrible, thrashing tangle.

As the pursuing guard reined in, Sir William dismounted and went with several of the guardsmen to see if anyone was injured. There was only one occupant of the smaller coach, a young gen-tleman, but though he was shaken up and bruised, with a cut lip and a bloody nose, he seemed otherwise unhurt. Gresham ’s coach had not fared nearly so well.

Drummond had been thrown from the seat with such force that he had flown through the air more than a dozen feet and struck a building wall, snapping his spine on impact. His battered body was twisted and bent at an unnatural angle when they found it lying in a puddle on the street. Inside the coach, they found Gresham, with his neck broken. But there was one survivor.

She was badly bruised and bloody when they pulled her out, but Smythe immediately noticed the striking resemblance that he had not marked before, when he had glimpsed her only very briefly at The Hawk and Mouse, on the road outside of London. She looked up at Sir William with a venemous gaze and spat right into his face. “Heretic pig!” she snarled.