Much Ado About Murder (Shakespeare & Smythe 3)

tell me the truth. Who was speaking ill of me?”

Shakespeare ignored him.

“Will? Did you hear me?”

There was no response.

Shakespeare reached for his quill and held it poised over the parchment.

“Oh, very well, then,” Smythe said, irritably, as he got to his feet and reached for his boots and short woolen cloak. “Be a stubborn jade! See if I care! I can find better things to do than waste my time with your nonsense!”

He slammed the door on his way out.

Without looking up, Shakespeare chuckled softly to himself. “Ah, would that ‘twere all so simple and predictable,” he said. And then he sighed. “Now then, where was I? Act I, Scene I. Enter funeral…”

3

THERE WERE STILL PEOPLE DRINKING in the tavern as Smythe came back downstairs, carrying his boots and cloak. Bobby Speed was among them, as well as George Bryan and several other members of the company, although they would not have much coin left among them to divide for drinking. Will’s largesse notwithstanding, Smythe knew they would all have to make some money very soon, or else many of them would stand in danger of being thrown out into the street. Most of the players saved money by sharing quarters, as he and Will did, but things were getting tight, and with the shortage of rooms in London these days, if it came down to a choice, then it was better to starve and have a place to sleep than placate a growling stomach and risk losing a roof over one’s head. With the recent setbacks they had suffered, even before the playhouses had been closed, they all needed to have the Theatre reopen very soon or else it might well spell the end of the Queen’s Men.

Sitting on the bottom steps, Smythe pulled on his boots. He did not particularly feel like going back into the tavern. Drinking held little fascination for him. Until he came to London, he had never used to drink spirits at all. For a cool drink, he prefered spring water, and for a hot beverage, he had often enjoyed a healthful herbal infusion that a local cunning woman in his village had taught him to brew. He was still able to get the ingredients from Granny Meg’s apothecary shop, but now he mostly drank it cold, after brewing it in an earthen jar on his window. More and more, however, he found himself drinking small beer or ale, primarily because it was what everybody else drank. Londoners had ale for breakfast, ale for dinner, ale for supper, and ale in between. Those who could afford it drank imported wine, but absolutely no one in the city drank water and the idea of brewing an infusion from “weeds” seemed very peculiar to most people.

Smythe had learned to drink ale in order to be sociable, but he was careful not to drink too much, because he knew he had no head for it. Shakespeare, on the other hand, indulged heavily, sometimes to the point of near insensibility, though that point for him was reached long after most people had become utterly paralyzed with drink. There were few players in the Queen’s Men who could keep up with him and Smythe knew better than to try. He had learned that it was best to nurse his ale and drink sparingly, otherwise his head would pay the price.

It was a lesson a lot of people never seemed to learn. At this hour, Smythe knew those players still remaining in the tavern would be three sheets to the wind, and there was nothing quite as uninteresting as being sober in the midst of drunken revelry. Besides, he was not much in the mood for company. He felt like going for a walk. And in all fairness, Will needed his time alone, as well. Smythe knew that Shakespeare could work best when left completely on his own, without any distractions, which was perhaps the main reason why he seemed to work best during the night.

Will was still trying to work on several ideas for original plays, but much to his frustration, playwriting was not what was bringing in the money for him right now. Shakespeare’s sonnets were becoming rather popular among some of the fashionable young gentlemen at court and if he kept on his present course, there was a good chance that he would soon find a wealthy nobleman to be his patron. In fact, judging by what had happened earlier that day, he may already have found one, though he was being rather circumspect about it. Smythe could understand the reasons for that, but if Will had found himself a patron, then it could easily turn out to be a two-edged sword.

The other players were all happy for his good fortune, and grateful that he chose to share the wealth, but at the same time, Smythe could see that they were somewhat apprehensive. Will had quickly become a valuable commodity to the Queen’s Men. He was industrious and capable of working quickly. He had already rewritten several of the plays in their repertoire, improving them significantly in the process, and the proof was in the pudding. Audiences had responded far more favorably to the rewritten versions than they had to the earlier ones, and Will had a knack of revising as they went along, making alterations from performance to performance by taking into account the reactions of the audiences and the contributions of the players.

Unlike many of the university men, who often seemed to act as if their words had emananted from a burning bush and thus were sacrosanct, Shakespeare understood that plays were a collaborative effort, depending upon the contributions of everybody in the company for their success. As a result, within a fairly short time, he had risen in stature from ostler and hired man to book holder and stage manager for the company. Both Burbages, father and son, were anxious to see what he could do when it came to writing an original play.

However, revising the current plays in their repertoire had taken precedence, for that was where the immediate improvements to their fortunes could be made. Now, with the playhouses closed, even that work was being put off while Shakespeare had to strike where the iron was hot. His writing of sonnets on commission was helping to support them all right now, so the other players could hardly begrudge him his efforts in that regard. Yet, if his “strumpet sonneteering,” as he called it, happened to secure a wealthy patron for him, which was the true heart’s desire of every poet in London, then perforce that patron would be the one who called the tune, and he might well choose to have his house poet spend all of his time creating sonnets for publication, rather than writing plays or acting with a company of players.

On the other hand, it was also possible that a wealthy patron might enjoy having a poet in his service who wrote plays. Some of the university men, such as Kit Marlowe, had such patrons and were allowed considerable freedom in writing what they chose. Robert Greene, for instance, wrote not only plays and poetry, but also cautionary pamphlets on the art of “cony-catching.” To Smythe, coming from the country, cony-catching had always meant hunting rabbits, but in the underworld of London ’s criminals, it had another meaning altogether.

To the cutpurses, foists, and alleymen of London, a “cony” was a victim, an innocent rabbit to be caught and skinned, whether by outright theft or trickery. And though Greene’s plays had not impressed Smythe particularly, his pamphlets had proved very educational. John Fleming had told him that they should be required reading for anyone coming to London from the country and on his recommendation, Smythe had purchased several and found them well worth the few pennies he had spent.

They described how the criminals of London plied their trade, from the “lifters” who stole goods from shops by concealing them upon their persons, to “curbers” who used hooks on poles to steal things out of windows that had been left open, to the “jackmen” who forged licenses, to “divers” who used small boys to squeeze through windows or other narrow openings and steal for them, to “nips” and “foists” or cutpurses and their accomplices, Green’s pamphlets described all manner of thievery and “cozenage,” which was the art of gaining someone’s confidence so that the “cozener” or “con man” could then cheat or steal from the “gull” or the person being deceived. There was an entire language, called a “cant,” that was spoken by the members of the London underworld and doubtless, Smythe thought, Greene was not endearing himself to London ’s criminals by exposing so many of their tricks and secrets.

As he went outside, the bellman came walking by, carrying his pike and bell and lantern. The city gates were closed at nightfall and now he made his rounds, calling out the hour in his singsong chant:

“Remember the clocks, look well to your locks,

fire and your light, an’ God give ye good night,

for now the bell ringeth, eight of the clock!”

As part of the watch, the bellman ostensibly patrolled the streets in order to protect the citizenry at night, but in truth, he provided little more protection than did the other constables of the watch, which was to say practically none at all. His primary value was in his ability to sound the call in case of fire, which aside from the plague was probably the single greatest danger to the city, especially with so much shoddy construction and the buildings piled up so closely against one another. And in the event of fire, there was usually not much that could be saved, for the only recourse was to fight it with hooks and buckets brigaded from the wells, and the buildings, for the most part, were so cheaply made that they went up like kindling.

As he came out into the street, Smythe nodded to the bellman as he went by, then stood there for a few moments, enjoying the cool night air. The stench of the streets was somewhat tempered on this night by a good, strong breeze coming in off the river, for which Smythe was thankful. He did not know if he would ever become fully accustomed to the city’s smells. The little country village where he grew up was clean and fresh compared to London. Here, everyone simply threw their refuse out into the streets, so that the cobbles were almost perpetually covered with a coating of slime, which was rinsed away only by a hard rain, though not even a good downpour would wash away all of the refuse piled up and stinking in the streets. And the streets that were not cobbled were almost continually churned into a quagmire, so that navigating them became a challenge to man and horse alike. Here, where Smythe stood, the filth drained down into a depression that ran down the center of the street, and that in turn drained into Fleet Ditch, which stank so badly that it made the eyes water and sting.

He hopped over the ditch as he crossed the street, thinking perhaps to wander down by the river for a while, but then he looked back and saw Molly coming out of the tavern, wrapped in her threadbare, brown woolen cloak, her cap upon her head. She did not see him where he stood. It looked as if she were going home for the night, and Smythe thought that perhaps he should offer to escort her, for being abroad alone in London’s streets at night was not safe for a woman. Especially a woman as young and pretty as Molly. However, before he could go across the street and make the offer, Smythe

saw her meet a man who had apparently been waiting for her outside.

In the darkness, as the man came up to her, Smythe did not get a very good look at him, but he seemed to be a tall, long-legged fellow, dressed in high boots and dark breeches, a long dark cloak, and a wide-brimmed, rakish hat. From the way the cloak poked out at the bottom, Smythe could tell that the man also wore a sword.

The dark stranger and Molly acted as if they knew each other as they walked off together down the muddy, refuse-strewn street. Out of curiosity, Smythe followed. He liked Molly, as did all the players, with whom she was quite popular for her vivacity, ready smile, and quick, sharp wit. They all felt rather protective of her. On more than one occasion, he had seen patrons of the Toad and Badger try their luck with her, but all to no avail. Molly’s heart was spoken for. He had heard it said that Molly had loved a soldier who had gone away some time ago to fight in foreign lands. Now, after the events of earlier that day, it was evident to him who that soldier must have been. Anyone could clearly see that Molly and Ben Dickens had a strong mutual attraction. Anyone, apparently, except for Molly and Ben themselves. For some reason, they seemed either unable or unwilling to admit it to themselves or to one another. And to a point, Smythe could sympathize.