Much Ado About Murder (Shakespeare & Smythe 3)

“Old man, is it? I’ll bloody well show ye who’s old, ye miserable guttersnipe!” He swung the adze handle and it made a sound like the Grim Reaper’s scythe cutting through the air. It narrowly missed Bruce as he ducked at the last instant, barely avoiding having his skull split. Before Stackpole could swing again, Jack shoved Bruce toward the door and quickly followed.

“You shouldn’t turn your back on your old friends, Ben!” he called back over his shoulder. “You were one of us, one of the Steady Boys, and we ain’t never let you down!”

“You just did, Jack,” Dickens replied, with a wry grimace. “You just did.”

“Out, I said!” roared Stackpole, brandishing his adze handle.

Bruce held up two fingers and went out the door, with Jack on his heels.

“And good bloody riddance!” Fleming said, emphatically.

“And those were truly friends of yours?” asked Burbage, with distaste.

“Aye, at one time,” said Dickens. “And great good friends they were. Or at least, so I believed back then.”

“And now at last you see them for what they truly were,” said Fleming, with a righteous air.

Dickens smiled. “Perhaps,” he said. “But if so, John, then I see myself for what I truly was, as well.”

“Well, now, methinks you judge yourself a bit too harshly, lad,” Fleming said, patting him on the shoulder. “I never knew you to be a coarse, ill-mannered ruffian, like that lot. And even if you once did have some common ground with the likes of those two scalawags, why, you have been out to see the world and you know much better now.”

“Do I?” Dicken said. “I wonder. ‘Tis indeed a thing devoutly to be wished, however things may stand. A man can only hope to grow wiser as the years accumulate, though I fear not all men do.”

“And in that observation, there is wisdom, Ben,” said Burbage, with a smile, “so ‘twould seem that you are on the right path after all.”

“I wish I felt as certain of that as you, old friend,” Dickens replied.

Burbage frowned. “What do mean by that? You mean to say that you have doubts about the course you chose?”

“I have been giving it much thought of late,” said Dickens, nodding. “And especially so on the voyage home with Master Leonardo. He has made his fortune on his voyages and now seeks to settle down to a gentleman’s life. He desires to use some of his profits to invest in business. ‘Tis possible that his interests and mine may coincide in some degree.”

“So then you plan to give up soldiering and remain in London?” Fleming said.

“Well, I have, as yet, made no firm decisions,” Dickens answered, “but I have found that the adventuring life has lost much of its allure for me. It feels good to be back home in England once again, amongst old friends. And new ones, of course.” He smiled at Smythe and Shakespeare and the other players who had joined the company since he left.

“ ‘Tis good to have you back, as well, Ben,” Burbage said. “And if, by chance, your plans with Master Leonardo do not come to fruition, although we wish you all success, I am sure that we could find a place for you with the Queen’s Men once again, at the very least until you should decide upon which path your future lies.”

“I’ll drink to that!” said Speed.

“So shall we all!” said Fleming. “Stackpole, my good man, more ale, if you please!”

Later that night, as he lay in bed upstairs, Smythe thought about the events of the evening, feeling an unsettling disquiet that he could not account for. It was not simply that Bruce McEnery had tried to draw steel in the Toad and Badger. At least, Smythe did not think that was the reason for his apprehension. Although that sort of thing did not usually happen downstairs in the tavern, it was not entirely unheard of, and it was not the sort of thing that made him feel particularly squeamish. He had seen tavern brawls before and on occasion been involved in them. On at least one of those occasions, that memorable day when he and Will had first arrived in London and met Chris Marlowe and Sir William Worley at the Swan and Maiden, both blades and blood were drawn. On that day too, as he recalled, a street riot had preceeded the festivities, setting the tone for the violence to follow. Mob violence always seemed to get people’s blood up, even if they were not themselves involved. But there was something else that gnawed at him, maybe something unrelated that he could not quite put his finger on. Something about those two apprentices, perhaps…

“Well, all right, what is it?” Shakespeare said, putting down his quill pen and turning round from his work desk to face him.

“What? I said nothing,” Smythe replied, glancing at him with sur

prise.

The gentle glow of candlelight illuminated Shakespeare’s face as he sighed and rolled his eyes. “I know,” he said. “You said nothing, but your restlessness spoke volumes. You grunted and you sighed, time and time again, and as if that were not enough, you keep squirming on that mattress like a nervous virgin on her wedding night. By Heaven, for all the noise you’re making, ‘tis like trying to work with a bull grazing in one’s bedroom!”

“I am sorry, Will. I did not mean to disturb you at your work.”

“Aye, you never mean to, and yet you always do.” He removed his ink-stained writing glove and tossed it on his desk. The kidskin glove had no mate, for he had made only the one, expressly for the task of keeping ink stains off his fingers while he wrote, so that people would not constantly mistake him for a scribe. It also served as a reminder that if he did not become successful as a poet or a player, there was always his father’s trade of glovemaking to go back to, something he earnestly wanted to avoid.

He sighed wearily and ran his hands through his thinning, chestnut hair. “I do not know how I shall ever manage to write anything at all with the likes of you about. At this rate, I do not think that I shall ever manage to get past ‘Act I, Scene I, Enter funeral.’”

“ ‘Enter funeral?’ Well, there’s a cheery opening. What happens in Act II? A war?”