The Merchant of Vengeance (Shakespeare & Smythe 4)

She kept her gaze firmly fixed upon Antonia. 'The day he told me that she was pregnant with his child," she replied. She winced and brought her hand up to touch her ear.

"And what day was that?" asked Shakespeare.

"The day I killed him," she replied softly. She winced once more and shook her head several times.

There was a collective gasp in the room.

"Oh, my God," Elizabeth murmured.

Mayhew turned to face his daughter with astonished disbelief.

"Nay, it cannot be!" he said.

"Tell us what happened, Portia," Shakespeare said. "Please."

"He confessed to me that he and Antonia had been lovers," she replied in a flat tone. "He said that she had seduced him, and that he had not been able to resist. He begged for my forgiveness and said that he was weak."

Once more, she winced, as if with pain, and touched her ears. "He said that a man had needs… and then he told me that Antonia was pregnant with his child, and had threatened to tell my father unless he helped her to be rid of it. So he took her to see a cunning woman, and obtained for her a brew of pennyroyal and mugwort that would banish the child before it quickened…

She bit her lower lip and shook her head once more, wincing as if with pain.

"And then he told me that it was finished with Antonia and that it did not matter, but that all the trouble he had gone to would be in vain if I did not run away with him at once, because my father had discovered that his mother was a Jew and had forbidden us to marry."

There was not a sound within the room. No one spoke. Nobody moved.

"And what happened then?" asked Shakespeare softly.

"I felt as if my world had crumbled all around me," she said wearily. "I turned away from him… my head was spinning… and then I saw his dagger where he had laid it down upon the table… there was a roaring in my ears, a terrible roaring, like the wind… a sound so loud… so very, very loud… oh, I hear it still… I hear it still… It will not go away!" She brought her hands up to her ears to block out a sound that only she could hear.

"Make it go away! Please, make it go away!"

She sank to her knees upon the floor, rocking back and forth, her hands covering her ears.

"Make it go away!" she whimpered. "Please, make it go away!"

"Oh, Portia!" Mayhew cried, crouching at her side and putting his arms around her. "My poor Portia!"

Charles Locke rose to his feet, staring down at her, holding the hammer clutched tightly in his fist. Then he looked down at it, dropped it on the table, and walked out of the room without a word.

Antonia still stood there, as if rooted to the spot, staring at Portia with horror and dismay. Mayhew sobbed quietly as he held his daughter, who seemed no longer able to hear him. Or anything else.

Smythe came up to Shakespeare and took him by the arm.

"However did you guess that she had done it?" he asked.

Shakespeare shook his head. "I had no idea," he said.

"'Strewth, I thought Antonia had killed him."

Epilogue

"And so we were all blindfolded once again, and then taken back to where they found us," Shakespeare said. "Tuck and I were dropped off on London Bridge. Elizabeth and Winifred were taken to their homes, as were all the others, I would assume."

"And what became of Portia Mayhew and her father" asked John Hemings.

"Well, Portia will likely live out the remainder of her days in Bedlam," Shakespeare said. "And as for Mayhew… Shy Locke could not truly blame him for the death of his son. He knew that what happened to Henry Mayhew's daughter shall haunt him evermore. Rachel Locke had lost her son. And now, in a different way, Mayhew has lost his daughter. Mayhap Winifred shall be of some comfort to him."

"'Tis a tragedy worthy of the Greeks," Gus Phillips said, shaking his head.