"Master Symington Smythe," he said.
But instead of Tuck, to her surprise, a man that she had never seen before came in.
"How do you do, Madame?" he said, with a slight bow. "Symington Smythe II, Esquire, at your service. Have I the honour and the pleasure of addressing Mistress Portia Mayhew?"
Chapter 8
The rain had abated slightly by the time Smythe and Shakespeare reached the London Bridge, but the sky was dark and the wind had picked up significantly, producing a sheering effect that came and went with the irregular gusts. There were still a few wherries out on the Thames, but there was a strong chop out on the water, and most of the boats had pulled in to await a lessening of the storm.
The water moving through the narrow arches between the twenty stone piers supporting the bridge was flowing very rapidly and churning with foam. Originally constructed from a ring of wooden beams driven into the riverbed, forming an enclosure that was then filled with rock and crossbeams, the piers had been rebuilt with stone, along with the rest of the bridge, and then widened a number of times over the years until the openings between them were made narrow enough to cause rapids underneath the archways of the bridge. Even wherry-men were wary of trying to "shoot the arches" at ebb tide, and among those who had tried, not a few had drowned. At flood tide, the arches were impassable.
As Smythe and Shakespeare stepped out onto the bridge, they could hear the loud creaking of the water-wheels powering the corn-mills beneath some of the archways. Two arches out from the south bank of the river stood the Great Stone Gate of London Bridge, originally constructed to help defend the city. Like a medieval castle, it was a gatehouse with large and heavy wooden doors set in a Gothic-arched opening with a portcullis. About a hundred years earlier, the stone gatehouse had collapsed. It had been rebuilt, but ever since, the citizens of London gathering in alehouses sang a traditional song about how London Bridge was "falling down."
It was at the Great Stone Gate that heads of traitors were displayed on iron spikes, where they were left to rot and moulder and be picked at by the rooks until nothing but bone was left and the skull was eventually pitched into the river. Shakespeare paused at one such head as they came up to the gate, gazing at it quizzically.
"I do not seem to remember who this fellow is, do you?" he asked Smythe, as he contemplated the wet and rotting head, all but unrecognizable now after the ravages of the crows, the elements, and decomposition.
"It looks a bit like Kemp, methinks," said Smythe.
"'Strewth, and so it does! Ah, alas, poor Kemp! I knew him, Tuck. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy! Where be your gibes now, Kemp? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the groundlings in a roar, eh! What, nothing to say? Or have you forgot your lines again? Speak up!"
Smythe laughed. "I do not think. he can hear you, Will."
"What, drunk. and senseless once again? Dead to the world?
Pah! You are of no use to me, Kemp! Nay, none at all! Stay here and rot, then. Let the crows pick ant your eyes." He peered closer at the head. "Oh. I see that they already have. Well, never mind, then."
Smythe laughed once more. "Come on, then, Will, before we get soaked through to the skin. 'Tis a warm fire and a heady brew for me."
"You hear that, Kemp? We are going now to drink with men who know how to hold their grog. No room for the likes of you, you old reprobate. Go back to the Lord Admiral's Men, for we have had our fill of you."
In good spirits, they passed through the gate together, entering upon the main thoroughfare of the bridge, which was lined with buildings on both sides. These were shops and houses constructed on the bridge itself of timber frames with wattle-and-daub walls. The wooden counters that folded down and out from the shops front windows were now folded up and shut against the weather, of course, which made the bridge appear like a residential block that spanned the Thames, rather than the marketplace it more closely resembled on a sunny day.
There were several galleries that spanned the bridge from one side to the other, connecting the third stories of some of the buildings and allowing residents to cross over. And as in many of the streets throughout the city, the upper floors of many of the houses hung out over the thoroughfare. With the exception of the drawbridge, it looked just like many another street running through the city, save that it was straighter than most.
On this day, with the weather as beastly as it was, there was not as much traffic on the bridge as usual, and there were only a few pedestrians moving along quickly through the rain. Each year, it seemed, the
traffic in the city continued to grow worse and worse. Sometimes, the streets became so congested that traffic came to an absolute standstill and fights broke out. On a day like this, however, even Londoners long accustomed to the rain and cold had hurried to find shelter somewhere inside.
"Ah, 'tis a marvellous day, Will, a marvellous day!" said Smythe, spreading out his arms as if to embrace the weather.
"'Tis a very wet day, if you ask me," Shakespeare replied. "'Tis a marvellous day if you are a turtle."
"Well, then I must be part turtle, for I love walking in the rain." said Smythe. "It reminds me of walks I took through the forest in my childhood. On such days as this, Will, do you not find yourself missing your home in Stratford?"
"I seldom find myself missing my home in Stratford," Shakespeare replied. "My wife is at my home in Stratford. And I suspect she seldom finds herself. missing me, either."
"Well, marriage is not for everyone, perhaps," said Smythe with a shrug.
"Happiness is not for everyone," said Shakespeare. "Marriage, on the other hand, is a most democratic institution."
"One that not all people live to experience," said Smythe.
"I see that you are thinking of Thomas Locke again."
"Aye. Regardless of my disposition, he keeps returning to haunt my thoughts, like some poor, benighted ghost."
Shakespeare shook his head. "'Twill do you no good to dwell upon it, you know," he said.