Much Ado About Murder

2

"I‘ll be thanking ye to turn right around and haul your carcasses back out into the street, afore I break both of your heads open,” Stackpole said, in a voice that clearly brooked no argument.

The two apprentices glared at him belligerently, but his imposing presence made them think twice about making any rude retorts. “We want no trouble, see?” one of them said. He smiled and made a show of sheathing his knife. He put his hands out to his sides, then nudged his pockmarked friend to drop his club. “Nice and peaceful, eh? We have no quarrel with you, Innkeeper, nor would we be wanting one. We’d just like to buy ourselves a pint or two now, with your kind permission, and then be on our way, right?”

Stackpole pointed at them with the adze handle. “A pint apiece,” he said gruffly, “and then be off with ye. And mind, I’ll be remembering your faces. If I get me windows broken once again, ‘tis you that I’ll be looking for.”

“Well now, what if ‘twasn’t us who broke ‘em then, eh?” the pockmarked apprentice said. Smythe noted that he had one of those unpleasant, sneering sorts of faces that wore a perpetual expression of insolent aggression.

“I suppose ‘twould add incentive then for you to persuade the other Steady Boys you run with to leave Master Stackpole’s windows well enough alone,” said Dickens.

They glanced toward him sharply, then Smythe saw recognition dawn on both their faces. “Well, smite me, if it ain’t Ben Dickens!” the first one said. Unlike his pockmarked friend, he was rather handsome in a pugnacious sort of way, with a thick shock of black hair and deeply set, dark eyes that glinted with insolent amusement.

“ ‘Allo, Jack,” said Dickens. “ ‘Allo, Bruce.”

“When did you get back, then?” asked Jack, approaching him.

“Only just this morning,” Dickens replied.

“Come back to visit some of your old friends, I see,” said Bruce, who seemed to have a whiney, spiteful tone no matter what he said. “But there were some old friends I suppose ye couldn’t be bothered with, eh?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Dickens replied. “I first went to pay my respects to Master Peters, as ‘twas only right and proper. ‘Twas there I encountered my new friend, Will Shakespeare here. Upon discovering that he had joined the Queen’s Men, my old company, why I at once informed him that I would next be coming here to pay them my respects. Now, had I encountered you and Jack first, then I might well have stopped by at your shop before ever coming here, although ‘twould seem from what I heard outside just now that I would not have found you there. Either way, lads, never let it be said that Ben Dickens would slight any of his old friends. Not even you, Bruce.”

“Oh, and what’s that supposed to mean then, eh?” asked Bruce, taking a step towards him belligerently. However, his fellow apprentice quickly intervened.

“It means that he remembers his old friends, Bruce. Just as he remembers still how easily you can be baited. Don’t get your back up. It’s just our old friend Ben, see?”

“Well, ‘tis growing late and I really should be going,” Corwin said, getting to his feet. “You will speak on my behalf to Master Leonardo, won’t you, Ben? You did promise.”

“I promised that I would and so I shall, my friend,” said Dickens, holding out his hand. As Corwin took it, he added, “And if my word bears any weight, why then, you may soon receive permission to go courting your young goddess, Hera. After that, why ‘tis up to you, entirely.”

“I could never ask for more,” said Corwin with a smile. “Gentlemen, I bid you all good night.”

“Good night, Corwin,” Shakespeare said.

“And good luck in your suit,” added Burbage, with a grin. “Come and bring your pretty Hera to see us at the theatre when we open once again.”

“If her father proves agreeable, why then I may even spring for a box up in the galleries,” Corwin replied with a smile.

“So speaks the prosperous new journeyman,” said Jack, with a heavy touch of sarcasm in his tone. “One might think that you could easily afford box seats at each performance with all of your success these days. Or perhaps ‘tis an apprentice’s frugality that still lingers out of force of habit?”

“Frugality is not a habit that I would discard as easily as some might discard a perfectly good cloak merely because it has gone slightly out of fashion,” Corwin replied, with an obvious reference to Jack’s brand new velvet cloak. “The habit lingers because it makes good sense, for either an apprentice or a journeyman, and ‘tis a habit, I might add, that you might do well to emulate. Good night, sir.”

“Do you presume, then, to instruct me?” Jack called after Corwin as he left. “You are not a master guildsman yet, sir! It ill behooves a man to put on airs above his station!”

“Oh, enough of that, now. Come sit down and have a drink, lads,” Dickens said, good naturedly. “Gentlemen,” he said, turning to the others, “allow me to present Jack Darnley and Bruce McEnery, old friends of mine from my apprentice days.”

“Well met, lads,” Burbage said jovially, moving over to make room for them, though Smythe did not think that he was truly eager for their company. Nevertheless, Burbage politely introduced himself and all the other players in their group. Stackpole brought the drinks himself, giving the two apprentices a wary eye in the process. Smythe had the distinct impression that they were no more eager for the company of players than the players were to sit with them. However, Ben Dickens seemed to provide a sort of buffer between them, acting as a conversational go between in a way that seemed to lessen the tension.

As they talked, Smythe could not decide if it was all a skillful display of diplomacy or merely a natural way that Dickens had of controlling the flow of conversation around him. The discussion centered, for the most part, on his experiences as a soldier and the things that he had seen while he was away in foreign lands. When he did not actually dominate the conversation, Dickens seemed to steer it in directions that were basically innocuous and safe, allowing the others to take part without ever losing his command of the discussion. Smythe could easily see why Ben Dickens had been so well liked by the members of the company. He possessed an easygoing charm and had a way of creating a sense of cameraderie around him. It was clear that he would have been a natural as a player. He had the way about him.

Not so Bruce and Jack, Smythe noted. They nursed their drinks, mindful that they would only be allowed the one pint each, and as they listened to Ben talk, the envy was clearly written on their faces. In the case of Bruce, it was more than merely envy; it was spiteful resentment, and ill-concealed at that.

Smythe thought it rather strange. Here they were, senior apprentices still enjoying their rowdy youth while on the threshold of becoming journeymen-which would bring them a good living and in time, with diligence and perseverence, would likely bring them wealth-while on the other hand, there was Ben Dickens, a mercenary soldier whose prospects, unless Fortune were to smile upon him, were very poor, indeed. He could only sell his sword arm to whoever needed fighting men at any given time, and while the world had not yet banished war, the employment of a soldier was often interspersed with protracted periods of peace. At present, there was no shortage of soldiers in the city searching for employment, not all of it gainful, nor even honest work. And few soldiers of fortune, a misnomer if Smythe had ever heard one, were fortunate enough to live to a ripe and whole old age. Of those who did not die in battle, many became maimed or crippled and were reduced to begging in the streets. He saw them every day, dressed in their worn-out soldier’s motley, many of them missing arms or legs. It was not a life for anyone to envy. And yet, as he watched Bruce and Jack listening to Dickens, he could see they envied him. True, he was still young and whole and healthy, but his future was as uncertain as their futures seemed assured. But perhaps they could not see that.

What they could see, though, was Molly. Perhaps because of the words she had with Dickens, or perhaps because Stackpole had chosen to serve them himself, so as to keep an eye on the troublesome twosome, Molly had not come near their tables since the pair came in. But they both noticed her, all right, and their gazes followed her everywhere she went. Smythe saw Shakespeare notice it, as well, but it did not seem as though anybody else did.

“So then,” Dickens said to them, as he finished off an anecdote, “if memory serves me, you lads should both be nearing the completion of your apprenticeships with Master St. John, is that not right?”

“Indeed, I have but a few months to go,” said Jack, “whilst Bruce, here, has a bit less than a year remaining. Then we shall both be journeymen, as you could have been by now, Ben, had you not run off to war.”

“Run off?” said Fleming, rising to the defense of his former protege. “By Heaven, I daresay I would scarce call putting life and limb at hazard ‘running off!’ Life in London poses fewer risks, by far, than what life as a soldier would entail. Now who could gainsay that?”

“Not I,” Jack hastily replied. “Do not mistake my meaning, good sirs. Odd’s blood, Ben always was the man you wanted at your back when things got nasty. Why, I remember that time we had a set-to with the Paris Garden Boys and that rotter, Mercutio, God curse his swarthy Roman forebears, slashed me with his stiletto. I still have the scar, see?” He pulled back the long hair from his forehead, revealing a livid scar that ran across his forehead to his temple. “Damn near took me ear off. He would’ve done for me for sure if Ben here hadn’t pulled him off and slammed his face into a wall. Blind me, you should have seen him! Mashed his nose right flat, he did, and knocked out his two front teeth. We dusted ‘em off right proper that night, didn’t we, Ben? Those were the days, eh? The Steady Boys owned the streets then, didn’t we?”

“Well, you seem to have somewhat fonder recollections of those days than I,” said Dickens, wryly. “All told, we were fortunate not to have wound up in prison or, worse yet, cut up and with our skulls busted in some alleyway.”

“And how is it any different for a soldier?” asked Bruce, with a sneer. “Tell me that, then.”

“Perhaps ‘tis not so different after all,” Dickens replied, “but at least a soldier gets paid for risking life and limb, though not nearly enough, if you ask me. And truth be told, if I knew then what I know now, why, ‘tis doubtful that I would have made the same decision. Either way, when I was with the Steady Boys, as I recall, we risked life and limb for no more reward than the thrill of breaking someone else’s skull. Even back then, I thought ‘twas rash and foolhardy to behave so, although I went along with all the others. And ‘twould seem that with your apprenticeships nearly completed, ‘tis even more rash and foolhardy to take such chances now. Odd’s blood, why risk your future, lads? You’ve worked hard for all these years, and the payoff is now nearly at hand. Why risk throwing it all away for a few thrills?”

“Well, smite me!” said Jack, with surprise. “I must say, you certainly seem changed, Ben. That does not at all sound like the Ben Dickens I once knew.”

“Perhaps he has changed, then. Perhaps he came back from the wars because he lost his nerve,” said Bruce, contemptuously.

“Here now…” Fleming began, but Dickens put his hand out, forestalling his comment. He fixed Bruce with a steady gaze, transfixing him with an unblinking stare the surly apprentice gamely tried to meet, but after a moment, Bruce found himself forced to blink and look away.

“I do not need some lickspittle street brawler to tell me I have lost my nerve,” said Dickens, softy. “When you have seen men dying on the field of battle by the thousands, when the stench of bodies swelling and bursting in the sun assails your senses til your head reels and your eyes burn, when the buzzing of the flies over the carrion fills your ears, so that you go on hearing it for days and days after the battle has been fought until you think you will go mad with it, when you have seen women and old men searching for their fallen sons amongst the corpses and when you have heard their wails of grief on finding the mutilated objects of their quest, why, then you can come and speak to me about my nerve. Until then, apprentice, best stick with your clubs and daggers and your cocksure roaring boys, posturing and puffing out their chests, and speak not to me of things that you cannot even begin to understand.”

Bruce rose to his feet with a snarl, reaching for his dagger, but before he could unsheath it, Jack grabbed his hand in both of his, preventing him from drawing it.

As Smythe and several of the others leapt to their feet, Bruce sputtered with rage as he struggled angrily against his friend. “Let me go, damn you!”

“Don’t be a fool,” Jack replied in a steady voice, maintaining his grip and strengthening it by pressing his body up close against his friend, immobilizing his arms between them. “You only have your dirk, whilst he wears a rapier. Aside from that, in the event you have not noticed, we are quite outnumbered here.”

“That does it!” Stackpole said, hefting the adze handle once again as he came out from behind the bar. “Out with you! And don’t be coming back!”

“You’ve not seen the last of us, old man,” said Bruce, sneering at him.

“Old man, is it? I’ll bloody well show ye who’s old, ye miserable guttersnipe!” He swung the adze handle and it made a sound like the Grim Reaper’s scythe cutting through the air. It narrowly missed Bruce as he ducked at the last instant, barely avoiding having his skull split. Before Stackpole could swing again, Jack shoved Bruce toward the door and quickly followed.

“You shouldn’t turn your back on your old friends, Ben!” he called back over his shoulder. “You were one of us, one of the Steady Boys, and we ain’t never let you down!”

“You just did, Jack,” Dickens replied, with a wry grimace. “You just did.”

“Out, I said!” roared Stackpole, brandishing his adze handle.

Bruce held up two fingers and went out the door, with Jack on his heels.

“And good bloody riddance!” Fleming said, emphatically.

“And those were truly friends of yours?” asked Burbage, with distaste.

“Aye, at one time,” said Dickens. “And great good friends they were. Or at least, so I believed back then.”

“And now at last you see them for what they truly were,” said Fleming, with a righteous air.

Dickens smiled. “Perhaps,” he said. “But if so, John, then I see myself for what I truly was, as well.”

“Well, now, methinks you judge yourself a bit too harshly, lad,” Fleming said, patting him on the shoulder. “I never knew you to be a coarse, ill-mannered ruffian, like that lot. And even if you once did have some common ground with the likes of those two scalawags, why, you have been out to see the world and you know much better now.”

“Do I?” Dicken said. “I wonder. ‘Tis indeed a thing devoutly to be wished, however things may stand. A man can only hope to grow wiser as the years accumulate, though I fear not all men do.”

“And in that observation, there is wisdom, Ben,” said Burbage, with a smile, “so ‘twould seem that you are on the right path after all.”

“I wish I felt as certain of that as you, old friend,” Dickens replied.

Burbage frowned. “What do mean by that? You mean to say that you have doubts about the course you chose?”

“I have been giving it much thought of late,” said Dickens, nodding. “And especially so on the voyage home with Master Leonardo. He has made his fortune on his voyages and now seeks to settle down to a gentleman’s life. He desires to use some of his profits to invest in business. ‘Tis possible that his interests and mine may coincide in some degree.”

“So then you plan to give up soldiering and remain in London?” Fleming said.

“Well, I have, as yet, made no firm decisions,” Dickens answered, “but I have found that the adventuring life has lost much of its allure for me. It feels good to be back home in England once again, amongst old friends. And new ones, of course.” He smiled at Smythe and Shakespeare and the other players who had joined the company since he left.

“ ‘Tis good to have you back, as well, Ben,” Burbage said. “And if, by chance, your plans with Master Leonardo do not come to fruition, although we wish you all success, I am sure that we could find a place for you with the Queen’s Men once again, at the very least until you should decide upon which path your future lies.”

“I’ll drink to that!” said Speed.

“So shall we all!” said Fleming. “Stackpole, my good man, more ale, if you please!”

Later that night, as he lay in bed upstairs, Smythe thought about the events of the evening, feeling an unsettling disquiet that he could not account for. It was not simply that Bruce McEnery had tried to draw steel in the Toad and Badger. At least, Smythe did not think that was the reason for his apprehension. Although that sort of thing did not usually happen downstairs in the tavern, it was not entirely unheard of, and it was not the sort of thing that made him feel particularly squeamish. He had seen tavern brawls before and on occasion been involved in them. On at least one of those occasions, that memorable day when he and Will had first arrived in London and met Chris Marlowe and Sir William Worley at the Swan and Maiden, both blades and blood were drawn. On that day too, as he recalled, a street riot had preceeded the festivities, setting the tone for the violence to follow. Mob violence always seemed to get people’s blood up, even if they were not themselves involved. But there was something else that gnawed at him, maybe something unrelated that he could not quite put his finger on. Something about those two apprentices, perhaps…

“Well, all right, what is it?” Shakespeare said, putting down his quill pen and turning round from his work desk to face him.

“What? I said nothing,” Smythe replied, glancing at him with surprise.

The gentle glow of candlelight illuminated Shakespeare’s face as he sighed and rolled his eyes. “I know,” he said. “You said nothing, but your restlessness spoke volumes. You grunted and you sighed, time and time again, and as if that were not enough, you keep squirming on that mattress like a nervous virgin on her wedding night. By Heaven, for all the noise you’re making, ‘tis like trying to work with a bull grazing in one’s bedroom!”

“I am sorry, Will. I did not mean to disturb you at your work.”

“Aye, you never mean to, and yet you always do.” He removed his ink-stained writing glove and tossed it on his desk. The kidskin glove had no mate, for he had made only the one, expressly for the task of keeping ink stains off his fingers while he wrote, so that people would not constantly mistake him for a scribe. It also served as a reminder that if he did not become successful as a poet or a player, there was always his father’s trade of glovemaking to go back to, something he earnestly wanted to avoid.

He sighed wearily and ran his hands through his thinning, chestnut hair. “I do not know how I shall ever manage to write anything at all with the likes of you about. At this rate, I do not think that I shall ever manage to get past ‘Act I, Scene I, Enter funeral.’”

“ ‘Enter funeral?’ Well, there’s a cheery opening. What happens in Act II? A war?”

“What, are you a critic now? ‘Strewth, you may as well be. You cannot write, you cannot act; clearly, you have all of the right qualifications. You even add a new one; you review my play before I have even written it. A brilliant innovation, I must say. Just think of all the time it saves.”

Smythe grimaced. “Never mind, go back to work if you are going to be so surly.”

“Well, now that you have muddled up my muse beyond all recognition, you may as well tell me what is on your mind, for clearly, something troubles you. I know that mien of yours when something preys upon your brain. The very air around you is turbid and oppressive. So, come on, give voice to it, or else neither of us shall have any peace upon this night.”

“To be truthful, I am not quite certain what the matter is,” Smythe said, with a grimace.

“Hmm. Twill be like pulling teeth, I see. Very well, then, what does it concern?”

“Not what so much as whom. Methinks ‘tis your new friend, Ben Dickens.”

“Ben? Why? He seems like an absolutely splendid fellow.”

“Oh, I grant you that,” Smythe replied. “He does seem like a decent sort, yet there is still something about him… something… I do not know what; I cannot quite put my finger on it.”

“You are not envious of him, surely?”

“I should not like to think so. I but bemoan my own shortcomings, as you know, and I admit them freely. Now that you mention it, however, I can see how others might well envy Ben his winning ways. To wit, those two apprentices, Jack and Bruce, his friends of old.”

“He would be better off without such friends, if you ask me,” said Shakespeare, disapprovingly.

“Oh, I quite agree,” said Smythe. “A thoroughly unpleasant pair, they were. You saw the way they looked at Molly?”

“Aye,” Shakespeare replied, with a grimace of distaste. “The way a hungry wolf looks upon a lamb. Especially that Bruce. And did you mark how she never once came near our table after those two came in?”

“So you noted that, as well. I thought you did.”

“I did, indeed. And from it I deduce that Molly is an excellent judge of character. But what has any of this to do with Ben?”

Smythe shook his head. “I cannot say.” He frowned. “And yet I feel a disquiet in my soul about him.”

“A disquiet in your soul?” Shakespeare grinned. “Odd’s blood, have you developed poetic sensibilities?”

Smythe snorted. “If so, then ‘tis entirely your fault, for you are a bad influence. The way you walk about, mumbling verses to yourself, ‘tis bound to rub off on one sooner or later.”

Shakespeare raised his eyebrows. “I mumble verses?”

“Constantly. Under your breath, sometimes even in your sleep.”

“Indeed? I had no earthly idea. In my sleep, you say?”

“Aye. Not all the time, but often enough that you wake me upon occasion.”

“Truly? How extraordinary. When I do so, would it trouble you to write it down?”

“Now there speaks a writer,” Smythe replied. “Not ‘I am sorry, Tuck, for troubling your sleep with my dreamful babble,’ but ‘Would it trouble you to write it down?’ Selfishness, thy name is poetry!”

“Oh, say, that is not bad at all! Wait, let me set it down…”

Smythe threw a pillow at him.

“Zounds! Watch out, for God’s sake! You will upset my inkwell!”

“If I do, then ‘twill be the first time that any ink was set down upon that page this night,” Smythe replied, dryly. “Sod off!”

“Sod off yourself. You are getting nowhere and you seek to blame it all on me, when in truth the fault lies entirely with you. I can see, you know. You sit there and stare off into the distance, as if your very gaze could penetrate the ceiling and look out upon the starry firmament, and your lips move as you mumble softly to yourself, and then you make a motion as if to set your pen to paper, but soft! You pause… your quill hovers as if in expectation, and then you set it down once more and stare off into the distance, and so it goes, with little variation, as it has gone so many nights of late, whether I have been plagued with restlessness or not.”

“You are a foul villain!”

“And you are a prating capon.”

“Dissentious rogue!”

“Soused goose!”

“Carrion kite!”

“Perfidious wretch!”

“Churlish minion!”

“Mincing queen!”

“Oh, you venemous monster! I do not mince! ‘Tis but a slight limp in my leg.”

“Limpness resides in more than just thy leg, methinks.”

“You abominable apparition! Ungrateful bounder! Thus you impugn me when I have spoken up for you and fed you and defended you-”

“Defended me? ‘Gainst whom?”

“Well… ‘gainst certain individuals who wouldst’ have others think base things of you.”

“What individuals? What base things? What others?”

“Nay, now, let us speak no more of this. ‘Twould serve no useful purpose.”

“Who speaks ill of me?” persisted Smythe. “Someone in the company?”

“Well, now, I did not say that…”

“Not in the company? Then who… surely not Elizabeth!”

“Nay, not Elizabeth. What have I to do with her or she with me? It matters not. Forget I even mentioned it.”

“But I do not even know what was mentioned!”

“So much the better, then. Let sleeping dogs lie. ‘Tis for the best.”

“Will!”

“Nay, I have said all that I shall say. Thus let there be an end to it.”

Smythe folded his arms and gazed at him truculently. “Ah. So I see. No one has said anything, is that not so? You are but baiting me again, as is your wont.”

“Just so, Tuck. You have found me out. See, you are much too clever for me. I cannot outwit you.”

“Nay, you throw in your cards too quickly. Someone truly said something about me, did they not?”

“Not at all. ‘Twas all in jest, I tell you. You had it right the first time. I did but bait you, as I so often do.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

Smythe lay back on the bed and put his hands behind his head, frowning as he stared up at the ceiling. He gave an irritated, sidelong glance toward Shakespeare, who had turned back to the sheets of parchment spread out on his writing desk. Smythe took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He cleared his throat. He wiggled his foot back and forth. He tried hard to lie still. He clicked his teeth together. Finally, he could stand it no longer.

“Will, honestly, 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…”