A Mystery Of Errors

1

There was nothing quite so invigorating to the senses, Smythe decided, as ending a long and dusty day by being robbed.

The mounted highwayman came plunging out of the thick underbrush at the side of the road like a specter rising from the mist as he reined in with one hand and drew his wheel-lock with the other. His black courser reared and neighed loudly as the masked man shouted out, “Stand and deliver!”

Even under such startling and intimidating circumstances, Smythe could not help an instinctual assessment of the brigand’s mount. A powerful and heavily muscled Hungarian with a proud carriage and admirable conformation, the courser pawed at the ground and pranced in place, responding to the knee pressure of its rider. The hooked head and bushy tail were characteristic of the breed, as was the long, thick mane that reached below the knees and would require a good deal of loving curry-combing to look so splendid and silky. A magnificent animal, thought Smythe, well-schooled and obviously well cared for. And the horse’s master had a sense of the dramatic, too, something else Smythe could not help appreciating, despite the pistol aimed squarely at his chest.

The brigand was clad from head to toe in black, with a silk mask that covered the entire lower portion of his face. He wore a black quilted leather doublet, tight breeches, high boots, and a long black riding cloak that billowed out behind him. No ordinary road agent this, thought Smythe, but a man with a true sense of style. And apparently some substance, judging by his steed and his apparel. A flamboyant highwayman who was evidently successful at his trade and clearly understood the impact made by a good entrance.

“Did you hear me, man, or are you deaf? I said, stand and deliver!”

“Deliver what, my friend?” asked Smythe, with a shrug. “I haven’t a brass farthing to my name.”

“What, nothing?” said the highwayman through the black silk scarf covering most of his face. “Come, come, let’s see your purse!”

Smythe took hold of the small brown leather pouch at his belt and gave it a shake, to demonstrate that it was empty. “You may dismount and search me if you like,” he said, “but you shall find that I haven’t a tuppence or ha’penny anywhere about my person.”

“Dismount and search a strapping young drayhorse like yourself? Methinks not. You look like you could pose some difficulty if I gave you half a chance.”

“Spoken with a pistol in your hand and a rapier and main gauche at your belt,” said Smythe, wryly. “And me with nothing but a staff and poor man’s bodkin.”

“Aye, well, one cannot take too many chances,” said the highwayman. “The roads are not very safe these days.” He chuckled and looked Smythe over, then tucked his pistol in his belt. “So, no money, eh?”

“None, sir.”

“And how will you be paying for your next meal?” “If I shan’t be catching it tonight with a snare or hook and line, then I fear that I shall not be eating,” Smythe said.

“Oh, well, we cannot have that,” the highwayman replied.

“Here’s a silver crown for you. Buy yourself an ordinary and a night’s rest at the next crossroads.”

Surprised, Smythe almost missed catching the coin the robber tossed to him. “You are a strange sort of highwayman, indeed,” he said, perplexed. “You demand money and end up giving it away, instead!”

“Ah, you look as if you need it more than I do. No matter. I shall make it up and then some with the next fat merchantman who comes along.”

“However that may be, I am nevertheless grateful,” Smythe replied. “I shall be sure to say a prayer tonight that they do not catch and hang you very soon.”

“Most kind of you. What a splendid young fellow you are. I take it you are bound for London?”

“I am,” said Smythe, nodding.

“In search of work.” It was less a question than a statement. More than half the travelers on the road were starving beggars, making their way toward London in hopes of finding a better life. Or any kind of life at all.

“Aye,” said Smythe. “And God willing, I shall I find it.”

“You have a trade? You have the look of a blacksmith, with those shoulders.”

“My uncle is a farrier and a smith,” said Smythe. “I apprenticed at his forge. But I hope to be an actor on the stage.”

“An actor?” The man snorted. “You had best stick to shoeing horses, lad. ‘Tis a much more respectable profession.”

“So says the brigand.”

“Indeed, it takes one mountebank to know another,” the highwayman replied. “But then, each to the devil after his own fashion. I wish you good fortune, young man. And if you care to, you can remember Black Billy in your prayers tonight. A word from an innocent like you might do some good, you never know. The Almighty bloody well stopped listening to me long since.”

The highwayman touched the brim of his black hat in salute and then spurred off into the woods. The sound of his mount’s hoofbeats quickly receded in the distance. Smythe decided that he probably wouldn’t need to worry about hanging, riding through the thickets like that. He’d likely break his neck long before some magistrate could stretch it for him.

It was certainly an interesting conclusion to a rather dreary and otherwise uneventful day, although it was his fourth time being robbed in as many days since he had left the midlands. Well, attempt at being robbed, in any event, he thought. The first three had been unsuccessful and this last one hardly seemed to count, seeing as how the highwayman had left him better off than he had been before. That was certainly a switch. He had never heard the like of it.

The first attempted robbery had taken place shortly after sundown on his first day out, as he had made his way toward London. Two men brandishing clubs had leaped out at him from under the cover of the woods. They had been more desperate than dangerous and he had made short work of them with his staff and left them both insensible in the middle of the road, or what passed for a road, at any rate, in that part of the country. It was little more than a pair of muddy ruts running side by side through the forest, tracks made by peddlers’ carts as they made their way from one small village to another, passing news and trying to sell their wares.,

The second attempt took place the very next day, but in broad daylight. Well, not quite daylight, perhaps, for little daylight had actually penetrated the thick canopy of branches overhead. This time, three surly and bedraggled men had accosted him, looking a bit more competent, armed with staves and daggers and demanding that he surrender all his money. The trouble was, he didn’t have any. He had tried explaining that to them, in a reasonable fashion, but for some reason, highwaymen seemed a rather skeptical lot. They had insisted on searching him. Smythe had complied with their demand, seeing no harm in proving his point by demonstration and taking no unnecessary risks. On seeing that he was, in fact, as penniless as they, without even any decent clothes or weapons worth stealing, the disgusted robbers had let him go his way.

The third attempt had taken place early in the morning, proving to Smythe that there was actually no safe time to travel at all. He had been walking through the woods when an arrow from a longbow thudded into a tree trunk just to his left, passing so closely that he had felt its breeze. Immediately, he ducked behind that very tree trunk, so as not to give the unseen archer a target for a second shot, then wasted no time in slipping back further into the woods and putting some distance between himself and the bowman. He had left the unseen archer behind him, the sound of his cursing receding in the distance, and took his time before he ventured out upon the road again. He then continued on his way without further incident, until the mounted highwayman accosted him… only instead of robbing him or trying to kill him, the brigand had given him a silver crown. It was a singular occurrence, indeed. All in all, Smythe had to admit that he had met more interesting people in the past four days on the road than he had during all the years that he had spent in the village of his birth… save for the time the actors had come through.

The Queen’s Players, featuring the famous Dick Tarleton, had put on a performance in the courtyard of The Goose and Gander. With the open sky above them, they had erected a small stage in the courtyard of the inn, with several screens behind the stage to make a tiring-room where costumes could be changed, and the entire village had attended their performance. Smythe had never seen anything like it. Somehow, that little group of men had managed to turn a small wooden platform supported by several barrels into another world, another place and time. Tarleton and Will Kemp, the two comedians of the troupe, had everyone helpless with laughter at their jigs and capers and from that moment on, Smythe had wanted nothing more than to be among those men and on that stage himself.

His father disapproved, of course. A life as a player was totally unsuitable and utterly out of the question. While working at his uncle’s forge was no more a fit occupation for a gentleman, his father had believed that it could do a lad no harm to learn a bit of industry and develop an eye for iron, steel, and horseflesh. Those would certainly be useful things to know for a man of standing and position. But acting? The very mention of it had driven his father to apoplexy. Actors were nothing but immoral vagabonds whose careers were built on lies and fancy. He had stormed and thundered and threatened to disown him. The dream of acting, it had seemed, was destined to wither on the vine. Instead, it was his father’s dream which had died before ever bearing fruit.

Symington Smythe’s great, ambitious dream had been the — achievement of a peerage. To this end, he had worked ceaselessly for most of his adult life. He had inherited and married well, but it was not enough to be a man of means and property. That property needed to be increased and increase in the means, in turn, begat more property. An improved estate could bring improved position and, these days, an improved position could bring a state of knighthood.

In the old days, titled blood had needed to be blue and preferably spilt in the name of king and country over several generations. But though the glory days of armor had, except for tournaments of sport, largely passed away, arms were still in very great demand. It was not unheard of for a prosperous merchant or a privateer to attain a peerage through some service to the Crown, or someone close to it. And becoming a gentleman with a claim to an established lineage was a necessary first step. Nowadays, every successful glover, stationer, and vintner who fancied himself a gentleman applied to Derby House for an escutcheon with which to grace his mantelpiece.

Even a man with blood less venous than venial could petition the offices of arms for the design of a device he could engrave on silver bowls to grace his dining room or have glazed into the leaded windows to lend an air of stature to his home. He could have a local glover embroider the arms upon his gauntlets and commission a goldsmith to craft a handsome seal ring to be worn upon the thumb as a sigil of importance. And if the fees were promptly paid and embellished with a few gratuities, then the heralds’ inquiries into oft exaggerated claims to bear the port and charge and countenance of rank were not particularly scrupulous.

Thus, Symington Smythe II had applied for and received a coat of arms, so elaborate as to be positively tasteless, with engrailed crosses, lions passant, sable this and purpure that and argent every which way, which device he had then proceeded to emblazon on everything from the arched entryway over the front doorway of their country house to the handkerchiefs he had elaborately embroidered, apparently not seeing the irony of blowing his nose into his prized, dearly bought escutcheon.

A coat of arms, however, did not yet a knighthood make, so much more had needed to be done to curry influence and favor and prove merit. And in his rashly injudicious pursuit of that vainglorious ambition, Symington Smythe II had thoroughly bankrupted himself. In the process, he had denied his son any inheritance at all save for his name, to which he could append a lofty “III,” if he so wished.

He did not wish. The appellation was, in his consideration, a bit too grand for a young man whose menial skills so far surpassed his means. Symington Smythe alone was cumbersome enough for a man with an uncertain future. He could, in all likelihood, secure an apprenticeship with some smith or farrier in London, for he had some good experience of those crafts, thanks to his uncle, who had taught him well. Thomas Smythe had not, by virtue of his later birth, inherited any part of the family estate, save for what his brother chose to settle on him. However, if he bore any resentment for his older brother’s preferment, then he had never shown it.

As loathe as his would-be aristocratic brother was to get his hands dirty, Thomas Smythe was never quite so happy as when he labored at his forge. He loved working with his hands, and while he was kept busy as a smith and farrier, on occasion he would pursue his true love, which was the forging of a blade. He alone had lent support to his nephew’s dream of acting, even if he had not entirely understood it. It seemed to him much too intangible and frivolous a way to make a living. Nevertheless, he had not opposed the notion.

“Your father has ruined your future in pursuit of his ambition,” Uncle Tom had said, “so it would only serve him right if you lent rancor to his future in pursuit of yours. His threats to disown you have no weight now, for he has squandered his estate. He will count himself lucky to avoid the debtor’s prison. He is my brother, and I will help to what extent I can, even if he is a thoroughgoing ass. But as for you, if what you truly want to do is act, lad, why then go and be an actor. Odds blood, life is short enough. Go live it as you like it.”

It seemed like sound advice, so Smythe had taken it. And it was all that he had taken, for he’d left home with nothing more than the clothing on his back, a wooden staff, and a plain-handled, serviceable, if unpolished bodkin that his Uncle Tom had made and given to him as a present on his fifteenth birthday. The thieves who had accosted him had not even deemed the sturdy blade worth stealing. But though there were prettier daggers, to be sure, there were none so strong or sharp. And it was the only thing Smythe had that truly meant anything to him. He would have defended that ugly dagger to the death.

His mother had died shortly after he was born, so he had never known her, and though he had spent his childhood years in the same house with his father and his stepmother, he had never truly known them, either. He had known his wet nurse, Nan, much better. While still a boy, he had been sent to his Uncle Tom’s to be raised and educated and taught the value of hard work while his father chased his lofty dreams. But he felt that it was not as if his father and stepmother were alone or even necessarily at fault for being so distant. Smythe knew that it was not unusual for children to be sent away to live with other families. Children often did not survive and convention held that if parents became overly attached, then the grief over a dead child would be too difficult to bear. In his case, there had been no siblings, either alive or dead, because his father’s second marriage had not been blessed with offspring. He would have been the heir, therefore, had his father left him something to inherit. Now there was nothing to hold him to the life he’d lived before, nothing to stop him from seeking the life that he so earnestly desired. The question was, how to make the transition from the one life to the other?

He was not even sure how one went about trying to join an acting company. Was there a waiting list for openings? He imagined there probably had to be, for he knew that most companies had only a few regular players who were shareholders and the rest were hired men who might be taken on for no more than one production, or even one performance. There would likely be apprentices that the senior actors would take into their homes and train in stagecraft, just as was done with apprentices in every craft and guild, but these would be young boys who would play the female roles in the productions until their voices changed or until they grew too big. And he was already too old for such consideration, to say nothing of his being much too large of frame to play a woman, and too deep of voice.

So what if there were no openings, he wondered as he proceeded on his way. What then? It was not as if there were an unlimited number of opportunities. There were only a few acting companies in London. Much like his father, the London city council did not look very favorably upon actors. The Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds, passed in 1572, stipulated that all fencers, bear-wards, common players in interludes, and minstrels not belonging to any baron of the realm or other honorable personage of greater degree would be taken, adjudged, and deemed rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars. And the punishments were harsh.

A man so charged and then found guilty would be whipped and then burned through the ear with a hot poker. This was done in order to discourage gypsies and others of their ilk from wandering the countryside and making their living dishonestly at the expense of others, or cozenage, as it was known. And such idlers and masterless men were not tolerated within the London city limits, where they could at best make a nuisance of themselves or, at worst, instigate a riot that could cause damage to property and loss of life.

What the law meant for actors was that they had to be members of a company that had a noble for a patron, so they would then be “in service” to that lord, rather than masterless men. Thus, Lord Strange had his own company of players who bore his name, and then there were the Admiral’s Men, under the patronage of Lord Howard of Effingham, as well as Lord Worcester’s Men, and the Queen’s Players, under Her Majesty’s Master of the Revels. But there were not many more established companies than that and taking up with some itinerant band that merely claimed a noble’s patronage was only courting trouble.

Performances still took place in the courtyards of inns in the city and the surrounding countryside, with the audience of groundlings gathered around a stage erected in the courtyard and the wealthier people who had rooms at the inn watching the productions from the galleries. However, in 1576, a former carpenter named Burbage had built a playhouse where the old Holywell Priory had been in Shoreditch and the Theatre, as he called it, became the first permanent building for the purposes of staging plays. With the patronage of the Earl of Leicester, Burbage had secured a royal warrant, granting him permission to perform comedies, tragedies, interludes, and stage plays, subject to the approval of the Master of the Revels. And in the decade since, the Theatre had become famous throughout England.

Ever since he had seen his first play, acted in the courtyard of the local inn, Smythe had obsessively collected every bit of news and information he could glean from travelers and peddlers about the players and their world. He knew, or at least he could imagine, what the Theatre looked like in its arrangement, how James Burbage had departed from the inn-yard layout by designing a building that was circular instead, similar to the rings where bear- and bull-baitings were staged. And while performances continued to be held at some of the larger inns in London, such as the White Hart and the Bell-Savage, this new arena for the production of the drama had spawned similar buildings, such as The Curtin and, most recently, the new Rose Theatre, which had been built by a man named Henslowe in Bankside, just west of London Bridge, primarily as a home for the Lord Admiral’s Men. And it was this distinguished company, Smythe knew, that boasted the greatest actor of them all, the legendary Edward Alleyn.

He had never seen Alleyn perform, but he had heard the name often enough. One could not talk of players without hearing Alleyn’s name invoked. Only some twenty years of age, scarcely two years older than himself, and already he boasted such renown. Smythe imagined what it must be like to achieve fame. Symington Smythe, the actor? Ah, yes, of course, we saw him in that new play by Greene. He could not walk out on stage without all eyes being riveted upon him! Such intensity! Such fervor! Such horsedroppings, Smythe thought, shaking himself out of his reverie. Daydreaming would certainly not get him there.

True to the brigand’s word, there was an inn at the next crossroads, only a few miles from the spot where Smythe encountered him. And there was not much more there than that. It was just a crossroads marked by a small, two-storied building that was the inn, a barn and stables to the side, and several small cottages clustered around a sign that showed the way to London.

He would probably reach the city by tomorrow night if he made good time and started out bright and early in the morning, well rested after a hearty meal and a good night’s sleep in a warm straw bed. The thought filled him with eager anticipation. Strange that he would owe it all to a man who’d meant to rob him! Perhaps it was a good omen, Smythe thought, a potentially bad situation resolved to his advantage. It would be nice to think it was a harbinger of better things to come.

The Hawk and Mouse was an unpretentious roadside inn with a large green-painted sign over the front door that showed a hungry raptor stooping over a panic-stricken rodent. An ironic sight, thought Smythe, to greet the weary traveler, especially with conditions on the road being as precarious as they were. No one paid him any mind as he walked up to the front door, but as he was about to enter, the sound of rapid hoofbeats coming up behind him made him turn back to face the darkening road.

A horseman galloped up to the front door and, immediately, several servants came running out to meet him. One held his horse-a well-lathered, dark bay barb, Smythe noticed-and after the rider had dismounted, the servant proceeded to walk the hard-ridden animal around to cool it before he would lead it to the stable for a rub and feed. The other servant followed, or at least tried to keep pace with the rider as the man swept up the steps past Smythe without giving him a glance, flung open the door, and stepped inside. Smythe entered behind them.

“Call out your servants!” the flushed rider demanded loudly, as the innkeeper approached. “Tell them to arm themselves and mount pursuit! We have been robbed!”

“Robbed, did you say?”

“Aye, robbed! By a mounted brigand dressed in black from head to foot, the ill-omened knave! The coach with my master follows hard upon. If you send your men out now, you might still manage to catch the god-cursed ruffian!”

It seemed, thought Smythe, that Black Billy had made back his silver crown and then some.

“I have no men to send chasing after outlaws,” the innkeeper replied.

“What? Preposterous! What about your servants?”

“They are needed here,” the innkeeper insisted, maintaining his calm in the face of the other’s agitation. “This is not one of your larger inns, sir, and I have but a small staff of servants and a few post horses to serve my guests. I have no men that I can spare to go gallivanting off into the night on a wild goose chase. Leastwise after the likes of Black Billy, unless I miss my guess. He’ll be long gone by now, and if he wasn’t, I would not envy the man who found him. And what men I do have must remain here to look after my guests.”

The already red-faced man turned positively crimson. “This is an outrage! Someone will surely be held responsible for this!”

“As an innkeeper, sir, I am held responsible solely for losses that travelers may sustain while they remain as guests under my roof. That, sir, is the law, and the full extent of the law. Whatever happens while they are not beneath my roof is quite out of my control; thus, I cannot be held responsible.”

Before the angry rider could reply, there came the sounds of a coach pulling up outside and the servants at once ran out to greet it. The man looked toward the door, his lips compressed into a tight grimace, then apparently decided not to pursue the argument. “Well… we shall need four of your best rooms for the night,” he said, curtly.

“Very well, sir. And how, if I might ask, sir, shall you be paying for them?”

“What the devil do you mean, how shall we be paying for them?”

“Well, sir, you did say you had been robbed.”

The man turned beet red and his eyes bulged with outrage. “Why, you impertinent, cheeky bastard! I ought to thrash you!”

The red-faced man pulled out his riding quirt and looked quite prepared to make good on his threat, but the innkeeper countered by reaching down to his boot and pulling out a dagger. At the same time, he called out, “Duff!“ and a man the size of an oak tree appeared in the doorway behind him. The bearded giant wore an apron, but he did not look terribly domestic, Smythe thought.

“Trouble, Master Martin?” the giant said, in a voice that sounded like the crack of doom.

“No trouble,” said a new voice, and Smythe turned to see a group of men who had just come through the door. There were three of them, two apparently servants, for they were not as well-dressed and were carrying bags. The man in front wore a brown velvet hat with a large red plume and a floppy brim, which he removed as he came toward them with a steady, purposeful stride, his long cloak hanging open and fanning out behind him slightly. A gentleman, by his look and his demeanor, Smythe thought. Elegant hose and boots and a dark brown damask doublet of a shade to match his dark brown hair, worked with gold and silver that looked rather too frail and expensive for traveling. “Put away your pigsticker, innkeeper,” he said, “and call off your colossus. There will be no bloodletting here tonight.”

“Your man here threatened to thrash me,” the innkeeper replied, truculently. But the commanding demeanor of the new arrival had its effect. He put away the knife, albeit reluctantly.

“Did you do that, Andrew?” the gentleman inquired casually, as he removed his lace-trimmed and gauntleted calfskin gloves.

“The scoundrel is impertinent, milord. He presumes to question our ability to pay.” At the mention of the word “milord,” the innkeeper instantly assumed a more respectful posture.

“Did you inform him that we were robbed back there on the road?”

“Indeed, I did, milord, and the wretch refused to send men in pursuit of that damned brigand.”

“Doubtless because he had nothing to gain by it. And if you told him we were robbed, then it seems entirely understandable that he might assume we lack the means to pay for our accommodations. You can scarce blame the man for reaching that conclusion.”

“His manner was offensive.”

“Well, if you went around thrashing everyone who offended you, Andrew, you would be bloody well exhausted all the time. Now put away your quirt, there’s a good lad, and go see to our belongings, or what remains of them.” He turned to the innkeeper. “As it happens, the highwayman did not make off with all our money, though he did manage an uncomfortably good take for his trouble. We are quite able to pay, thanks to some judicious foresight, and in good English gold, at that. As soon as Andrew sees to your servants bringing in the remainder of our baggage and mine making proper disposition, we shall then be able to secure our accommodations for the night. I trust that will be acceptable?”

“Oh aye, of course, certainly, milord,” the innkeeper replied, all sudden subservience. “Four of our best rooms, as your man said. It will be done. They shall be prepared for you at once.” He clapped his hands and another servant appeared. The innkeeper barked orders and the gentleman was led upstairs, with Andrew and the rest of his retinue following.

Smythe cleared his throat. “If ‘twould not be too much trouble, innkeeper, I would like a room as well. And an ordinary for my supper.”

“I have no rooms left,” the innkeeper replied.

Taken aback, Smythe assumed that it was his appearance that made the man balk at giving him accommodation, so he held up the coin the brigand gave him. “But I can pay,” he said.

“It matters not. I have no rooms left to give you. That gentleman took the last. We are now full up. I can let you make a bed of some clean straw in the barn and I shall let you sleep there without charge if you pay for your supper. That is the best that I can do.”

Smythe sighed. “Well, I shall take your offer, then. A bed in the barn is better than no bed at all.”

“Perhaps I can make you a slightly better offer,” said a stranger, sitting at one of the nearby tables. Smythe turned to face him. “As it happens,” the stranger continued, “I already have a room, having arrived earlier tonight. But I am also somewhat short of funds. If you are not too proud to share a bed, then mayhap we could split the expense of our accommodation and both benefit.”

Smythe looked the stranger over carefully. He was not richly dressed, so the claim of being short of funds did not seem hard to credit. He wore a short, dark cloak over a plain russet cloth doublet with a falling collar and simple, inexpensive pewter buttons, loose, country galligaskins, and sensible, sturdy, side strap shoes. Good kidskin gloves, almost new, well made. He wore no gold or silver rings, no enameled chains, no bracelets; his one affectation was a golden earring worn in the left ear. His hair was a dark brown, with a wispy, slightly pointed beard and mournful eyes to match, eyes that bespoke intelligence, alertness, and a touch of sadness, but not-to Smythe’s perception, anyway-corruption. There was a softness about the face that suggested femininity, but did not proclaim it. The forehead was high, like his Uncle Tom’s, a prophecy, some said, of wisdom, but more often merely a harbinger of baldness coming early. He looked between twenty-two and twenty-five years old, too old for a roaring boy, too young for a settled ancient, and yet, somehow, there was an unsettled ancientness about him.

The stranger flushed at Smythe’s coldly appraising gaze. “It was, I should perhaps make plain, merely my room and bed that I proposed to share… and nothing more. My frugality, born of necessity in this event, led me to speak perhaps too boldly. Forgive me, I did not mean to presume.”

“No, ‘twas not taken as presumption,” Smythe replied. He approached the stranger and perceived he had been drinking. “You have an honest face. And I, too, am short of funds and would benefit from a sharing of expense.” He held out his hand. “My name is Smythe. Symington Smythe.”

The stranger stood only a bit unsteadily and took his hand. “Will Shakespeare, at your service.”

Over a hearty ordinary of meat stew, bread, and ale, they began to know each other. Smythe told his story, without any elaborations or embellishments, not making much of it, and when he reached the part about his traveling to London in hopes of joining a company of players, his companion smiled and his dark eyes sparkled with amusement.

“You think it is a foolish notion,” Smythe said, in anticipation of some moralizing lecture.

“Nothing of the sort,” Shakespeare replied, with a grin. He tapped his temple with his index finger. “That is my plan, exactly.”

“You jest.”

“Not at all. Save that it is not acting that is my main ambition, so much as the writing of the plays. I fancy myself something of a decent hand with verses. It is a small conceit of mine, but I do love to write. But acting, writing, prompting, helping with the props and scenery, helping mend the costumes, I would perform whatever tasks were asked of me to get on and make a start.”

“That is my intent, as well,” said Smythe. “Though I must admit,” he added, uncertainly, “I did not think that writing might be asked of me.”

“You cannot write?”

“Oh, I can read and write,” said Smythe. “I was given my first hornbook early and my uncle saw to it that I attended grammar school and had some Latin. But I am no hand at all with verses. I could no more write a song nor concoct a story for a play than I could fly. I had never even thought that such would be expected of me.”

“Nor shall it be,” his new friend assured him. “Never fear, most men in a company of players are not poets. Each player may, from time to time, contribute a line or two or an idea, perhaps even a speech, but no one expects every man to write. The Benchers and the Masters of the Arts residing at the Inns of Court have written, in their spare time, many of the plays they act today. Indeed, many plays were first performed there by the young barristers for the better class of people.”

“That is much as I would have assumed,” said Smythe, “that one would have to be a learned scholar in order to write a play. It would seem quite an undertaking.”

“Aye, well, that is what all the academic gentlemen would have you think,” said Shakespeare, with a grimace. “But herein lies the truth of it: No amount of academic training can bestow the gift of words, my friend. It can add to one’s vocabulary, as indeed can a sojourn among Bristol whores and seamen, but it cannot teach the skill of putting words together in novel and surprising patterns which reflect some previously unguessed truth of life. A proper scholar from the Inns of Court might pepper his dramatic stew with references to the Greek classics or to Holinshed, but all the learning in the world will bring him no true insight into the soul of man.”

He set his tankard down upon the table a bit more solidly than necessary and then belched. “Bollocks. We need more ale. And you have scarce touched yours.”

“I have no head for it, nor stomach,” Smythe replied.

“You know, they say you cannot trust a man who will not drink.”

“Well, I think I would hesitate to trust one who drinks too much.”

“Aye, well, there’s the rub,” said Shakespeare, as he signaled for another pot of ale with a raising of his tankard. “In vino Veritas… and so truth served, in his cups, did he like Caesar vidi, vici, veni and then hoisted on his own petard into the bloody state of matrimony…”

Smythe frowned. “I have but a little Latin learning, Will.” What was he babbling? Something about truth in wine and Caesar? What was it? “I saw, I conquered, I came?” That did not sound quite right. It seemed that his new friend had not the head for drinking, either, and yet he drank to rapid stupefaction, as if all in a rush to get there. He found it difficult to follow the man’s cant.

“ ‘Tis nevermind to thee, Symington, old sport.” A frown. He had rather badly slurred the name. “We shall need another name with which to call you, Smythe, old sod, one that trips more off the tongue than trips it up. What shall it be, then? Faith, an’ you barely touch your ale, an’ I am on my fourth pot, or is’t my fifth or sixth? Yet you inhale your food as if Hephaestus himself did hammer in your belly, tucking into it like some ravening beast withal… Hal There we have it! Tuck! You shall be Tuck!” He raised his tankard. “A toast to you, my new friend Tuck! Tuck Smythe, my friend and fellow player!”

“Tuck?” said Smythe. He considered briefly, then he shrugged. “Why not?” It was, to be sure, a lot less cumbersome and high-flown than Symington, and he had always despised having his Christian name shortened to some horrid and cloying familiarity as Symie or Simmie, as they used to do back home. Symington he was christened, and Symington his name would stay, but Tuck his friends would call him. Tuck Smythe. It even sounded like a player’s name. Ned Alleyn and Tuck Smythe. “Why not, indeed?” he said.

“Well, Tuck, my new old friend, I fear I am inebriated.”

“Come on, then, poet,” he said, rising and reaching out to help Shakespeare to his feet. “Let us go and find our room, before we have to lay you out right here, beneath the table.”

“Ah, I have laid beneath the table once or twice before. And lustily upon it, too.”

Smythe wrapped Shakespeare’s arm around his shoulders to support his weight as he staggered toward the stairs, dragging his feet. “Oh, bloody hell,” said Smythe, “hang on. ‘Twill be much easier to carry you.”

“Nay, I am too heavy…”

Smythe hoisted him up onto his shoulder effortlessly. “Zounds! You are strong as an ox!”

“And you are drunk as a lord,” said Smythe, with a grin as he climbed up the stairs.

“ ‘Tis my only lordly ambition.”

“Well, before you swoon, milord, be so kind as to inform me which room is yours.”

“Second door from the top of the stairs.”

“Second door it is.”

“Or perhaps ‘twas the third.”

“Well, which is it?”

“Second. Aye, second door.”

Smythe came to the second door and opened it. However, the room was already occupied. The gentleman who had arrived in the coach earlier that night stood bare-headed and without his cloak in the center of the room and opposite him stood a dark-haired woman Smythe had not seen before. They both turned, startled, at the intrusion, and Smythe caught only a brief glance of them before the servant, Andrew, stepped in front of him, scowling, and slammed the door in his face.

“I think you meant the third door,” Smythe said.

“Third. Aye, third door,” slurred the dead weight on his shoulder.

Smythe sighed and shook his head. He found the right room, entered, and deposited his burden on the bed. The poet rolled over onto his back and promptly started snoring.

“Wonderful,” said Smythe, with a grimace. He sighed. “I start out on my new life and my first bedmate is a drunken poet. But I suppose it does beat sleeping with the horses in the barn.” Though perhaps, he thought, not by very much.