A Mystery of Errors (Shakespeare & Smythe 1)

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Sir William, wiping his cheek with his handkerchief. “Triplets.”

EPILOGUE

“SO THEN SIR ANTHONY REALLY is dead?” asked Shakespeare.

“I am afraid so,” Sir William replied. He turned to Elizabeth Darcie. “What you must have seen that day was his actual murder, the very murder that enabled his twin brother, Alastair, to take his place once and for all, after trying out his impersonation upon you to make certain he could pull it off.”

“And here I was convinced ‘twas all some sort of trick,” said Smythe. “I thought Sir Anthony had staged his own death to undermine Elizabeth ’s credibility and make it seem as if she were losing her mind.”

Elizabeth bit her lower lip at the thought and shook her head.

“An interesting theory,” said Sir William. “And you were not very far from truth, save that ‘twas Alastair Gresham and not his brother, Anthony, who was trying to make it seem as if Elizabeth were mad.”

They were sitting at a table in The Toad and Badger with Sir William. It was very late and everybody else had long since gone to bed after discussing the day’s tumultuous events. It had been quite a day for all concerned. Sir William had only recently arrived with some wine, and an exceedingly fine wine it was, and now Smythe, Shakespeare, and Elizabeth, who had arrived along with her father, Henry Darcie, were finally discovering the whole truth behind the strange events they had become caught up in.

“So then Sir Anthony never knew that he had a twin brother? And a sister?” Smythe shook his head. “How could that be?”

“ ‘Tis a long and complicated story,” said Sir William. “The sister, Allison, confessed it all to me. And I heard the rest from their aging father, James, earlier tonight. When they were children, they were all on a sea voyage together and there was a storm, which caused a shipwreck. Anthony and his father were picked up by a passing ship after drifting for two days, clinging to some wreckage. They were convinced that there were no other survivors. But as it turns out, there were. Alastair and Allison, together with their mother, had also survived and were picked up by another ship, which took them not to England, but to Spain. Their mother, Helena, never fully recovered from her ordeal. She lingered for some time, and finally died, leaving her two children orphans. Or so ‘twas believed, since no one knew that their father and brother had survived and were in England.”

“Incredible,” said Henry Darcie.

“It grows even more so,” said Sir William. “The children were raised by Jesuits, and so of course, they were raised as devout Catholics. Anthony and his father, needless to say, were Church of England. And for years, they were all unaware of one another. Until Drummond came upon the scene. Or, perhaps, I should call him Brother Andrew.”

“Brother Andrew!” Smythe said. “You mean he was a priest?“

“A member of the Jesuit order, and a fanatic,” Sir William said. “A diabolical provocateur if there ever was one. For years, ever since King Henry broke with the Church of Rome, the Papists had been sending agents into England, many of them priests, in an attempt to undermine the Church of England and eventually bring what they saw as our heretic nation back into the fold.”

“For which reason, of course, ‘tis a crime to give aid or shelter to a priest,” said Shakespeare.

“Precisely. Well, Brother Andrew was one such agent, and he traveled often between England and Spain, though secretly, of

course, for ‘twould have meant his death if his true identity were known. He knew Alastair and Allison quite well, because when he was younger, he had been their tutor. Alastair, raised in the strong traditions of the Catholic Church, had wanted to be a priest himself, but Brother Andrew found a better use for him when he learned, apparently quite by accident, that Alastair and Allison had a twin, or perhaps I should say a triplet brother back in England.”

“So then he turned them against their own family?” said Shakespeare.

“And quite successfully, it seems. He played upon their sense of loss and fanned it into hatred. He made them believe their father had abandoned them, together with their mother, and that he and Anthony were now living a life of privileged position, having turned their backs on God along with the rest of heretic England, save for those loyal Catholic souls who still maintained the true faith in secret, at risk to their very lives. And he convinced Alastair and his sister that they both could best serve the Church by coming back to England, taking their rightful place, and working in secret for the cause. And thus the plan was hatched.

“As Andrew Drummond, he managed to secure a position as a servant to Sir Anthony. With his manners and his education, ‘twas probably not difficult at all for him to do. Then, once he was secure in his position, he proceeded with his incredible plan to substitute Alastair for Anthony. But there were two obstacles in his way. One was Mistress Darcie, who had been betrothed to Anthony. Well, you have already surmised what they must have planned for her.” Elizabeth shivered in her cloak and her father clenched his fists upon the table. “The other impediment to their plan,” Sir William continued, “was a spy who appeared to be very effective at exposing Papist agents who were being sent to England. The identity of this spy was not known to Brother Andrew, but he had managed to discover ‘twas a poet, a gifted poet who had achieved considerable acclaim among the players.”

“Marlowe!” Smythe said.

“Aye, Marlowe,” said Sir William, nodding. “Only they did not know his name.” He glanced at Shakespeare. “Alastair was posing as his brother Anthony, by then already slain, when Burbage, anxious to secure some patronage, rather bombastically introduced you to him as a man about to make his mark as England’s greatest poet, so Alastair thought you were the one. And there are some other similarities between you and Marlowe. You are both roughly the same age, both poets, both involved with companies of players… Well, Alastair at once went to meet with his sister and report what he had discovered. And they hired those men to kill you.”

“They very nearly did,” said Shakespeare.

“Indeed. ‘Twas fortunate that Tuck, here, became involved and followed them, or else they might well have succeeded.”

“But what puzzles me is what you were doing there, Sir William,” Smythe said.

“I was following you,” Sir William said.

“Me?” Smythe was astonished. “You followed me? But why?”

“Because, I am sorry to say, I had suspected you of being the one sent to dispose of Marlowe.”

“You thought that I was a hired killer?” Smythe said, scarcely able to believe it.

“Well, to borrow your theatrical terms, if I were to cast the role of an assassin, you would fill it admirably,” explained Sir William. “A stranger come to town with no connections, young, very fit, powerfully strong, and you at once sought employment with a company of players. Black Billy the brigand is an agent of mine who often enables me to keep track of who is coming to the city at certain times, when information reaches me through other sources that a spy or provocateur may be en route to London. If soldiers were to stop every coach and wagon coming into London along certain routes, there would be repercussions, and a spy might be prepared for that sort of thing. On the other hand, if a highwayman accosts them…”