Much Ado About Murder (5 page)

"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."