“I have murdered no one! And he drew steel first!” protested Braithwaite, looking around with alarm at the throng surrounding him.

“You challenged him!” shouted someone in the crowd, and then a scuffle suddenly broke out. More people started shouting and in the next moment, a well-dressed, older man was shoved out of the crowd to fall sprawling next to the slain Hughe Camden, only he fell with a cry, followed by a grunt of pain on impact, demonstrating that he was still very much alive.

“There is your killer, Sir Richard!” a familiar voice called out, and Shakespeare stared in astonishment as the grizzled old pie vendor stepped out from the crowd, only now he was no longer stooped over, but stood straight and tall, and there was nothing even remotely subservient in his bearing. He reached up and removed his eyepatch and the wig he wore and stood revealed as none other than Her Majesty’s own councillor and confidante, Sir William Worley. “I saw the blackguard stab your son from behind with a dagger when he fell back into the crowd.”

“Nay, ‘tis not true!” the man cried out, as he got up to his knees. “ ‘Tis entirely innocent I am!”

“Why, ‘tis the elder Chevalier Dubois!” Shakespeare exclaimed.

“Well, well,” said Worley, standing over him. “And here we all thought you were deaf, monsieur, and did not speak because you could not hear. Yet you seem to have recovered miraculously. And ‘tis even more miraculous that a nobleman from France should speak with a Cornish accent!”

From out of nowhere, it seemed, grim-faced men armed with swords and maces stepped out of the crowd and surrounded the faux Frenchman, and Shakespeare realized that Sir William had not returned alone, but had brought a squad of guardsmen with him. Dressed in ordinary clothing, they had blended with the crowd, standing by for Worley’s signal. The man’s face fell as he realized that his situation was completely hopeless.

“My apologies, sir,” said Worley, turning to Braithwaite. “I had thought that the killer might be you, and in his haste to take advantage of your duel and make it seem as if you had killed a rival, this cowardly assassin very nearly made me sure of it. But although he tried to shelter himself within the crowd, I saw the fatal stroke when he

stabbed Camden with this very bodkin.” He displayed a bloody dagger that he had wrested from the killer. “Sir Richard…” He turned to the ashen-faced elder Camden. “I am most profoundly sorry for your loss, but in death, your son has helped us apprehend not only his own killer, but the murderer of both Catherine Middleton and Daniel Holland.”

“Nay!” the killer shouted. “Nay, I tell you! S’trewth, I may be damned now, but I shall not bear the blame for what I have not done! God shall be my judge, for I did kill young Camden, but I swear I never killed the wench! And I never slew Holland, neither! ‘Twas all his doing, I tell you! ‘Twas all his plan from the start, and I’ll not bear the blame for it alone!!”

“Dubois!” said Shakespeare.

The man spat upon the ground. “His name ain’t no more Dubois than mine is. Why, he’s no Frenchman. He-”

With a sharp, whizzing sound, a crossbow bolt penetrated his skull right between the eyes, causing his head to jerk back abruptly. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Pandemonium ensued as everyone started shouting at once and running in all directions. Most of the onlookers desperately fled the scene, fearful lest they should be the next targets of the unseen archer, but everyone ran in different directions, many of them colliding with one another, and the scene erupted into chaos in an instant.

Two of the guardsmen immediately threw themselves upon Sir William, bearing him down to the ground and covering him with their bodies, but he shoved them away, cursing furiously. “Never mind me, blast it! Search the fairgrounds! Get me that archer!”

So fascinated was he by everything that suddenly began happening around him that Shakespeare completely forgot to be frightened. He simply stood there watching as people ran shouting and screaming in different directions, tripping over one another and knocking each other down in their mad rush to get away.

The entire scene, somehow, took on the aspect of a dream to him. It was as if he were not a part of it, but stood on the outside somewhere, watching as if from a distance or from an audience. In his mind’s eye, he replayed the scene of the assassin on his knees before them, at first protesting his innocence, then accepting his fate with resignation, then growing angry at the thought of being blamed for everything alone while his partner had planned it all… and then the slim, black bolt, flying straight and true, appearing to sprout all of a sudden from the killer’s forehead…

It had flown in at an angle.

For the archer to have made the shot, over the heads of the crowd surrounding the assassin on his knees, he had to have been shooting from a height, an elevation…

Shakespeare turned in the direction from which the arrow must have come, judging by the angle of the shot, and as he looked up the slope, back toward the house, he saw the stone wall that ran around the courtyard, and just beyond it, an open window.

It was an amazing shot to have come from atop that wall. Robin Hood himself could not have bettered it. And of course, it could only have been Phillipe Dubois… or whoever “Dubois” really was. He must have made the shot, then climbed in through that open window. It was astonishing marksmanship. But then, Tuck had said that whoever had shot that bolt at him had come within a hair’s breadth of hitting his head from a good distance-

Good Lord, he thought, Tuck! The realization struck him suddenly that Tuck was still back at house. He turned, quickly. “Sir William!” he shouted. “Sir William! This way! Hurry, for God’s sake!”

Smythe felt guilty, apprehensive and confused as he slowly descended the stairs to the first floor. What had happened, or nearly happened, with Blanche Middleton had quite unnerved him. Unlike Shakespeare, who already had a family of his own, he had no experience with women. When he was younger, there had been a few girls in his village who had cast coy glances in his direction a time or two, but he had always been too shy to do much else than avert his eyes and blush. Then he would hear their girlish laughter and that would only make it seem much worse the next time that it happened.

Since he came to London and started working at the theatre, there had been opportunities for him to gain a little more experience-and very likely more than a little, especially at The Toad and Badger, after their performances-but what had kept him from pursuing those opportunities were the feelings that he had for Elizabeth. On more than one occasion, Shakespeare had admonished him for his restraint, telling him that it was pointless and even ludicrous for him to remain faithful to a girl that he could never have, but that still had not changed his feelings or his constancy. He was in love with Elizabeth, and when one was in love, one remained true and faithful to that love. That was only as it should be.

What now should he make of his response to Blanche? Knowing full well that she was a wanton, he had nevertheless felt such a strong desire for her that it had made his head swim. What did that say about his character, and even more important, what did it say about his feelings towards Elizabeth?

If he had truly loved Elizabeth, he thought, then he should not have responded to Blanche the way he had. Certainly, there had been other times when he had not felt tempted by the saucy glances and the bawdy speech of the wenches at The Toad and Badger, but this had been completely different. It seemed to have taken every ounce of strength he had possessed to walk out of that room. And much to his chagrin, he realized that there was still a part of him-he knew only too well which part-that wanted very much to turn around and go back up the stairs, knock upon her door, and tell her that he had changed his mind. She had, quite simply, taken his breath away, and he had still not fully recovered.

What sort of man am I, he thought, who could profess love for one woman and yet be so basely tempted by another? Even now, after he had turned her down, having mustered all his strength of will to do so, he still wanted her, in spite of everything. If I am so weak, he thought, then truly, I must not be deserving of a good woman’s love.

He stepped off the stairs into the deserted great hall of the manor. If Elizabeth had seen him leaving Blanche’s room, then he was sure that nothing he could say would make the slightest bit of difference. For that matter, how could he protest his innocence when, in his heart, he knew that he was guilty, in thought if not in deed?

So preoccupied was he with his own thoughts that he almost failed to respond to the sound he heard behind him, but in the silence of the empty hall, he could not fail to hear the footsteps coming down the stairs that he had just descended.

He froze, thinking that it could only be Elizabeth. Just as he had feared, it had, indeed, been she who had shut the door upstairs in the hall after seeing him coming out of Blanche’s room, and now she had decided to come down and confront him. How would he ever convince her that he had not done anything? And then another possibility occurred to him. What if it were Blanche, coming after him to try to make him change his mind? Just the thought of it made his heart beat a little faster, and he felt ashamed for it. He took a deep breath and turned to face whoever it would be.

Tags: Simon Hawke Shakespeare & Smythe Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net