Darnley’s eyes were like anthracite as he gazed at them with loathing. “So what?” he said. “So you have played a clever trick. What do you think that has accomplished? Nothing! The trick is going to be on you.” He raised his voice. “Gather round, lads!”
The Steady Boys who had been waiting outside came running. They formed a semicircle in the street around the door, surrounding the entrance to the shop.
“Now so cocky now, Smythe, are we?” said McEnery, with an ugly sneer.
“I am sorry, Ben,” said Darnley. “But you made your choice.” “Aye,” said Dickens, “so did you, Jack.” “Now?” said Smythe, raising one eyebrow. “Aye, Tuck,” said Dickens. “Now.”
Smythe raised two fingers to his mouth and gave a piercing whistle. Darnley’s eyes narrowed and he quickly turned around. Beyond the semicircle of Steady Boys out in the street, figures seemed to melt out of the shadows, dozens of them, men carrying clubs and knives and staves and swords. The Steady Boys glanced all around in alarm as they found themselves suddenly surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered. Moll Cutpurse stepped out from the crowd, her hand upon the pommel of her sword.
“If there is any thieving to be done in London,” she said, “you come and ask permission from the Guild. We do not look very kindly on those who come poaching on our ground.”
Darnley spun around to face Smythe. “Damn you!” he said, with a snarl. “ ‘Tis all your doing! We should have killed you that night! Well, you may get in your licks in return for the drubbing that you got, but ‘tis all you’ll bloody get! You can still prove nothing! And Corwin still bloody well hangs!”
“Are you quite certain of that, Jack?” asked Smythe. And he raised his fingers to his lips and whistled once again.
Darnley’s eyes grew wide as the clatter of hoofbeats on the cobblestones rang out through the night and Sir William Worley, leading a squad of the sheriff’s men, came riding into the street. Moll Cutpurse’s men parted ranks to let them through.
“What is this?” Darnley demanded, suddenly looking afraid.
“You said we could prove nothing, Jack,” said Smythe, “but you were wrong. You are carrying the proof right there. We had placed several chests inside the shop. But only one was in Leonardo’s house. You went straight to it.”
“That drunken bugger in the tavern told us all about it!” Darnley protested. “He said ‘twas an old sea chest that had the money hidden in it!”
“He merely said the money was hidden within a secret compartment in a chest,” said Smythe. “He never said anything about an old chest, or a sea chest. He merely said ‘a chest.’ You were the one who said ‘twas an old sea chest, Jack. And there was only one way that you could have known that.”
“You are all under arrest in the queen’s name,” Sir William said. “For robbery, and for the murder of Master Leonardo.”
“Nay! I never murdered no one!” Bruce McEnery cried out, in a panic. “ ‘Twas Jack! Jack did it! Jack Darnley killed ‘im!”
“You bastard whoreson!” Darnley said, and plunged a knife deep into McEnery’s chest. McEnery screamed and fell to the street, clutching at the blade protruding from his chest.
With a swift sweep of his arm, Sir William hurled his dagger. It struck Darnley in the back and buried itself deep between his shoulder blades. Darnley grunted and his eyes popped, then glazed over as he fell. He was dead before he struck the street.
The members of the Thieves Guild melted away into the shadows as the sheriff’s men rounded up the remaining Steady Boys, some o
f whom had started whimpering and crying.
“Thank you, Sir William,” Smythe said, with a slight bow.
Worley touched the brim of his plumed hat in a salute of acknowledgement. “Your friend shall be freed within the hour,” he said, then wheeled his mount, and rode off into the night.
EPILOGUE
THE DOUBLE WEDDING WAS ATTENDED by all the Queen’s Men. It took place in St. Dunstan’s Church, not far from where Hera and her late father, Captain Leonardo, had briefly made their home in London. The congregation was an interesting agglomeration of thespians and thieves, together with craftsmen and apprentices, for not all apprentices were hellions like the Steady Boys, many of whom would serve some time in prison, either in the Marshalsea, the Newgate, or the Clink. The chief malefactors, Darnley and McEnery, were both dead and without them, one of the most notorious of the ‘prentice gangs was now no more, an object lesson to other working-class young men with too little sense and too many high spirits.
Of course, Hera could never reside with her new husband in the house where her father had been murdered. The constant memory would be much too disturbing for her. So with the proceeds from the sale of the house, Corwin had purchased a modest new home for them not far from the shop of Master Peters, where he continued to work as a journeyman, doubtless soon to be a master craftsman in his own right.
Ben and Molly were, of course, the second couple that were married at the ceremony, though much to the company’s regret, Ben had decided to leave the Queen’s Men once again. A player’s life, he felt, was really too uncertain, and so with some of his remaining money that had been recovered from the Steady Boys, together with some money from Molly and her sister, Ben went into partnership with several journeymen and opened up a small shop selling arms and armor. It quickly became a thriving business, perhaps the one place in London where members of the upper classes could rub shoulders with members of the Thieves Guild and not be concerned about the safety of their purses.
The Queen’s Men, sadly, did not fare so well. By the time the playhouses finally reopened, after numerous postponements and delays, the companies had all suffered from the length of the enforced closure. The Burbage Theatre was as much in need of refurbishing as ever, and there was simply no money to effect the necessary repairs. The chief rivals of the Queen’s Men, the Lord Admiral’s Men, also found themselves in difficulties. After a number of their productions had done poorly, their biggest draw, the celebrated and mercurial Ned Alleyn, had bolted their ranks and joined another company, Lord Strange’s Men. Will Kemp soon followed suit, leaving the Queen’s Men to join Alleyn’s new company. The difficult times brought about a reorganization in which companies of players that had formerly competed with one another now combined in order to survive. The Lord Admiral’s Men joined with Lord Strange’s company to act together at the Rose. And this alliance made the future of the Queen’s Men very grim.
“How do you feel about leaving the Queen’s Men?” Shakespeare asked Smythe one night.
For a moment, Smythe did not respond. Finally, he took a deep breath and asked his roommate, “Are they going to let me go?”
Shakespeare chuckled. “Nay, Tuck, we are going to let them go. I have been invited to join Lord Strange’s company. I told them that I would consider it if they took you as well.”
“You did? And they agreed?” said Smythe.