Much Ado About Murder (8 page)

She reached out her hand and one of her men returned her sword to her. As she put it back into its scabbard, another man picked up her hat and gave it back to her. She put it back on, touched her brim to Smythe, and then one by one, they all melted away into the darkness without a sound.

"Hmpf. Now I know why they call them 'footpads,' " Smythe said to himself. He looked around.

The streets were dark and foggy, and it was difficult to see much more than a few paces ahead. However, despite that, and despite the lateness of the hour, he was nevertheless struck by the fact that on a street crowded with buildings, in a part of the city where rooms were often shared by as many as a dozen people crowded in together and sleeping on the floor, apparently no one had even opened a window and looked out during his encounter with Moll Cutpurse and her men.

He was also struck by how quickly she had been able to summon those men. Surely, she could not have had the time to do so in the brief interval between leaving Molly at her doorstep and accosting him only a few blocks later.

She had known that he had followed her and Molly from the Toad and Badger. She had said as much, though he did not know how she could have noticed him. He had never once seen her look around. But she must have known somehow that he was there, just the same, for she had to have sent word to those men, through some sort of signal… but to whom? And how? Once again, he felt out of his depth, a country bumpkin from the Midlands wandering through London like a perfect gull, ignorant and clueless.

He had never considered himself gullible or foolish, but then, he reminded himself, gullible and foolish people never do, do they? That is one of the things that makes them so. London truly is a different world, he thought. More than one, in fact. The worlds of London society were like layers. Begin to unearth and discover one, and soon another became revealed underneath it… an "underworld," so to speak.

He needed to obtain more of those pamphlets of Robert Greene's. He felt as if what he had learned from them had merely scratched the surface of London's underworld of thieves. How was it, he wondered, that Greene came by all his knowledge of the world of London's criminals? He was a poet, a university man who, one would think, would be much more accustomed to the ways and customs of the Inns of Court rather than the "stews" or brothels and "boozing kens" or alehouses of Cheapside and Southwark. He wondered if it would be possible to meet Greene somehow and ask him questions.

"Were I in your place, I should not bother," Shakespeare said, when Smythe returned home and put the question to him.

"Why not?"

Still at his writing desk when Smythe returned, Shakespeare had managed to get a number of pages written and felt pleased enough with his progress to retire for the night. They both prepared for bed, stripping down to their white linen shirts.

As Smythe sat down on the mattress and brushed off stray bits of rushes that had adhered to his bare feet, Shakespeare hiked up his shirt and urinated in the chamber pot they kept on the floor in the corner of their room. To help keep down foul odors, they avoided using the chamber pot for anything else, and instead shat in the jakes, a tiny room where Stackpole kept a close stool, which was nothing more than a small, crude, wooden box seat with a hole in the top and a lid, inside of which was kept a large chamber pot partially filled with water. In the interests of keeping his establishment as clean as possible, Stackpole dutifully saw to it that the jakes was emptied out into the street several times a day, and fresh rushes were strewn on the floors in all the rooms each morning, mixed with chips of wormwood to help keep down the fleas. It was, truly, among the cleanest inns that Smythe had seen in the working-class neighborhoods of London, despite its somewhat tumbledown appearance, and any tenant who violated Stackpole's scrupulous edicts on decorum by voiding, spitting, or vomiting upon the floor without cleaning it up was soundly boxed about the ears and then thrown out into the street. Consequently, most of Stackpole's tenants tended to follow his rules out of both self-interest and self-preservation.

"From what I hear, Greene has descended into dissipation," Shakespeare said, as he opened the window and flung the contents of the chamber pot out into the street.

"
Oy
!" someone yelled out from below.

Shakespeare glanced out briefly. "Sorry, Constable," he called down.

"Seems to me as if you have made that particular descent a time or two yourself," Smythe replied.

"S'trewth, I have enjoyed, upon more than one occasion, the happy state of drunkenness," Shakespeare replied, as he got into bed, "but I have never sought to wallow in the desolate depravity of dissipation. Greene, poor soul, has fallen to that saddest of all states wherein his talent, such as 'twas, has sailed away upon a sea of spirits. 'Tis not a pretty story, I fear. He is but six years my senior, and yet Dick Burbage tells me that he looks almost twice my age. He has fallen upon hard times, it seems, and taken up with still harder company. When I asked Dick the same question that you just asked me, Burbage cautioned me to give him a wide berth and from what he said, 'twould seem like very sound advice. I might recommend the same to you."

"Pity," Smythe said. "I have much enjoyed his writings. They have the mark of a well-educated man."

"Aye, they do at that," Shakespeare agreed. "The writings of well-educated men are oft' filled with their contempt for the common man, who does not share their education. Which, of course, is why they always fail to understand him. But then enough of Greene and all his ilk. Tell me more about Moll Cutpurse. I find her much more to my interest!"

"I can understand that well enough," said Smythe. "I could easily see her as a character portrayed upon the stage. She is positively filled with the stuff of drama, from her head down to her toes."

"Go on! Describe her to me!" Shakespeare said, his eyes alight with curiosity.

"Well, to begin, she is quite tall for a woman," Smythe replied. "We are nearly the same height. I took her for a man, at first, because of the way that she was dressed. She wore high leather boots, dark breeches, and a long dark cloak together with a rakish, wide-brimmed hat, rather in the French style, with an ostrich plume stuck into the band. She also wore a sword. I did not have much opportunity to take the weapon's measure and make some determination of its quality, for at the time, I was rather more attentive to making certain that its point did not transfix my throat."

"What of her features?" Shakespeare asked. "How did she look?"

" 'Twas difficult to see well in the darkness, though we stood close enough that I do believe that I would know her if I saw her once again," said Smythe. "Her hair was dark, or it seemed dark, at any rate. I suppose 'twas possible that it could have been red or auburn, though I had the impression that 'twas raven-hued. Her skin seemed fair, and I could not discern a blemish nor any marks of pox or the like."

"Was she pretty? Or was she rather plain? Or ugly?"

"I would not call her plain," said Smythe. "Neither would I call her pretty. Nor ugly, for that matter."

"Well, what then?"

"Striking, I should say. S'trewth, she did not seem hard at all upon the eyes, but her face had rather too much… too much…" He searched for the right words as his hand floated up in front of him, as if grasping at something. "Too much
forth-rightness,
I should say, to call it pretty."

"Ah," said Shakespeare. "A face with strength of character."

"Just so, precisely."

"Tell me about her gaze."

"Her gaze?"

"The eyes, when she looked upon you… Did they sparlde with a pleasant humor? Or did they seem cold and distant? Cruel? Mocking? Lustful, perhaps?"

"Lustful!" Smythe snorted. "Surely, you jest! The woman had a
swordpoint
at my throat!"

"Well, with some women, that sort of thing might induce an… excitation."

"Odd's blood! I shudder to think what sort of women you must have known!"

"I shudder to think what sort I married," Shakespeare replied, dryly. "But that is quite another matter. What I meant was, did you have any feeling that having you so at a disadvantage gave her a sense of satisfaction or, perhaps, of pleasure?"

"She did seem to enjoy my discomfort, come to think on it," Smythe said.

"What about after you turned the tables on her?" Shakespeare asked. "When you had your knife to her throat… what then? Was she afraid?"

"Not in the least," Smythe said. "She was aware of the danger, I should say, and from what she asked me later, I do not think she was truly sure if I would have used my knife or not, but she seemed to take it all in stride. I found that quite extraordinary."

"Indeed," said Shakespeare. "The portrait you have painted has a most unusual aspect. And not at all unpleasing, at that. It brings to mind our mutual friend, Black Billy, does it not?"

"Sir William's other self?" said Smythe. "Aye, there does seem to be a sort of family resemblance."

Shakespeare's eyebrows raised. "You don't suppose… ?"

"Certainly not!" Smythe said. "What an astonishing idea!"

"Any more astonishing than a knight of the realm galloping about the countryside as a common highwayman?" countered Shakespeare.

"Aye, perhaps not, when you put it that way," Smythe replied. "Still, they are much more different than the same. Moll's speech has a Highland ring to it, which tells me for a certainty that she did not grow up in England, as did Sir William. And their faces are both shaped rather differently. Sir William's has a sharp and hawkish cast, whilst Moll's is rounder, with somewhat gentler features."

"But you said that you could not see her all that clearly."

"I saw her clear enough to know her face again. I could not tell you for certain what the precise hue of her hair was, whether 'twas black or chestnut rather than auburn, or if she was more pale than ruddy, but I believe that I would know her features."

"Then you must be sure to point her out to me if we should chance to pass her in the street," said Shakespeare. "I wonder what she was doing with our Molly."

"I was wondering the same," said Smythe. "Moll and Molly. Two women with the same name, or near enough, and yet they could not be more different. Of course, 'twas not her real name, Moll Cutpurse, but her canting name, as she admitted to me. I wonder who she really is. Truly, 'tis a different world these people live in, what with their own made-up names and manners of speech, even their own society, with its own rules."

"One might say the same of the queen's own court," said Shakespeare. "Save that with the thieves guild, we have less pomp and more circumstance. Did you think to ask our Molly what she was doing abroad with such a wolf's head?"

"How could I? Then she would know that I had followed her."

"And are you ashamed of that? Were your motives less than honorable in that regard?"

"Surely, Will, you know me better! Besides, you know that my affections are already spoken for."

"Aye, indeed, I do know that, my friend. But when it comes to women, men oft' do such addle-pated things as to defy and mystify all those who know and love them. Although, once all is said and done, Molly is a much more suitable object for the affections of a player than your Elizabeth, who stands well beyond your humble reach, as I have told you more than once."

"Indeed, you have," said Smythe, "but I assure you nonetheless that any affection that I have for Molly are the affections of a friend and not a lover."

"Then why are you afraid to tell her that you followed her tonight?"

"Why? Well, because… because she might not understand my motives."

"Which were concern for her safety and well-being, purely as a friend, of course."

"Just so, precisely."

"Just so, my rump and bollocks," Shakespeare said. "You followed her for no other reason than that you were curious to see who it was that she was meeting and what would transpire between them."

"Not so," Smythe replied. "I went out to take a walk, so as not to disturb you at your work, and when I saw Molly come out all alone, why, I was going to offer to escort her home, as the streets are not safe at night—"

"And on how many previous nights had you offered to escort her home, out of concern for her safety and well-being, as you put it?" Shakespeare asked. "Or was tonight merely the first time that the notion of her safety and well-being alit upon your chivalrous young brain? How long has she been working at the Toad and Badger, hmm? She has been in service here ever since we came to London, and yet you never once before evinced an interest in her safety!"

"Well… I… I suppose it simply never before occurred to me…"

"Nay, it did not, Tuck, which is just my point. You followed the girl out of simple curiosity and nothing more. You followed her because you, my friend, are as curious as a marten sniffing round a henhouse. Tis a thing we have in common, so do not attempt to tell me that your motives were any loftier than that. And 'tis why you are afraid to tell Molly that you followed her, because that is the truth of it, and if you tell her any different, then she will think there is a stronger reason for your interest and you know it!"

Smythe simply lay there for a moment, without speaking. Then he sighed. "Very well, then. I suppose 'tis true. I followed her more for the sake of curiosity than for any other reason. And if I told her that, then she might be offended, or else she might misconstrue my motives. Either way, you see my dilemma. I cannot tell her that I followed her, and so I cannot ask what she was doing with a brigand like Moll Cutpurse. So… where does that leave us?"

"Us? How did I become involved in this?"

"Because you are now as curious as I. Admit it."

"Oh, I suppose I am," Shakespeare conceded, grudgingly. "But I do not intend to lose my sleep over this conundrum. I suspect it shall resolve itself upon the morrow."

"How so?"

"Because even if you do not tell Molly that you followed her, there is a very good chance that your new friend, Moll Cutpurse, will," said Shakespeare. "And I must admit that I am curious to know how she shall respond to that. You will be sure to tell me, won't you?" He smiled and blew out the candle. "Good night."