The Merchant of Vengeance Page 14

  Antonia raised her eyebrows. "Well, I see I have offended you, though such was not my intent. Should I take that as a dismissal, then?"

  "Take it any way you please," Elizabeth said curtly, turning away from her.

  Antonia gazed at her for a moment, her head cocked thoughtfully, then she sniffed, stood, and made her way outside, back to her carriage, without saying another word.

  Elizabeth heard the door shut behind her and bit her lower lip. She felt tom. She felt angry with herself for having become angry, and at the same time she felt justified in feeling so. She had known Antonia for a long time. Though she was a few years older, they had grown up together and she had always considered Antonia one of her closest friends. And even though she had not seen Antonia as often since her marriage, she certainly knew her much better than she did Portia. Yet it was to Portia that her heart went out, while Antonia had shown her a side of her character that seemed harsh and insensitive, even a little cruel. And that both surprised and disappointed her.

  Yet at the same time, she had to admit that Antonia was not entirely in the wrong. Elizabeth had to acknowledge that she lived a life of privilege, as did Portia. Yet she was still dissatisfied with her lot in life. So did that make her ungrateful? Or was there, in fact, more to life than simply being well taken care of? Had every need truly been supplied?

  If a woman were provided with a home, however comfortable that home might be, and if she were well fed and clothed and granted every material comfort that she might desire, then did that mean that she should not wish for anything more—or, if she did desire something further, pursue such desires quietly. "with careful judgement and discretion"?

  Elizabeth looked inside herself… looked hard… and found that she could not accept that. It just did not seem right. "Gild a cage howsoever you may choose," she murmured to herself, "and yet still 'twill be a cage. Forge chains from gold or silver, and yet still they will be chains." At the same time, she reminded herself that her own chains, such as they were, were certainly of silver, if not gold, and she wore them fairly lightly. There were many women whose lives were far more difficult than hers. She truly had very little about which to complain.

  And yet… there was that cage. Let a woman try to step outside, she thought, and the world would gently usher her back in, or else revile her for a shrew and chastise her accordingly. If only I were born a man, she thought… and then realised that even if, by some strange and supernatural twist of fate, she could somehow have been given such a choice, it was not what she would have chosen. She would no more wish to be a man than she would wish to be a horse. No, what she wanted was the freedom that went with being a man. She wondered if the day would ever come when women could enjoy such freedom. Most likely, it would not, she thought. Men would never allow it. And women like Antonia would continue having to resort to "careful judgement and discretion." Perhaps, as Antonia had advised, that was what she should do, as well.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when one of the servants entered and announced, "Mistress, there is a Master Symington Smythe to see Miss Portia."

  She turned. 'To see Miss Portia?"

  "Aye, mistress, that was what he said."

  She frowned. Why would Tuck come to see Portia and not ask to see her first? "Show him in, Albert," she replied.

  "Aye, mistress."

  A moment later, Albert announced the visitor once more.

  "Master Symington Smythe," he said.

  But instead of Tuck, to her surprise, a man that she had never seen before came in.

  "How do you do, Madame?" he said, with a slight bow. "Symington Smythe II, Esquire, at your service. Have I the honour and the pleasure of addressing Mistress Portia Mayhew?"

  Chapter 8

  The rain had abated slightly by the time Smythe and Shakespeare reached the London Bridge, but the sky was dark and the wind had picked up significantly, producing a sheering effect that came and went with the irregular gusts. There were still a few wherries out on the Thames, but there was a strong chop out on the water, and most of the boats had pulled in to await a lessening of the storm.

  The water moving through the narrow arches between the twenty stone piers supporting the bridge was flowing very rapidly and churning with foam. Originally constructed from a ring of wooden beams driven into the riverbed, forming an enclosure that was then filled with rock and crossbeams, the piers had been rebuilt with stone, along with the rest of the bridge, and then widened a number of times over the years until the openings between them were made narrow enough to cause rapids underneath the archways of the bridge. Even wherry-men were wary of trying to "shoot the arches" at ebb tide, and among those who had tried, not a few had drowned. At flood tide, the arches were impassable.

  As Smythe and Shakespeare stepped out onto the bridge, they could hear the loud creaking of the water-wheels powering the corn-mills beneath some of the archways. Two arches out from the south bank of the river stood the Great Stone Gate of London Bridge, originally constructed to help defend the city. Like a medieval castle, it was a gatehouse with large and heavy wooden doors set in a Gothic-arched opening with a portcullis. About a hundred years earlier, the stone gatehouse had collapsed. It had been rebuilt, but ever since, the citizens of London gathering in alehouses sang a traditional song about how London Bridge was "falling down."

  It was at the Great Stone Gate that heads of traitors were displayed on iron spikes, where they were left to rot and moulder and be picked at by the rooks until nothing but bone was left and the skull was eventually pitched into the river. Shakespeare paused at one such head as they came up to the gate, gazing at it quizzically.

  "I do not seem to remember who this fellow is, do you?" he asked Smythe, as he contemplated the wet and rotting head, all but unrecognizable now after the ravages of the crows, the elements, and decomposition.

  "It looks a bit like Kemp, methinks," said Smythe.

  "'Strewth, and so it does! Ah, alas, poor Kemp! I knew him, Tuck. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy! Where be your gibes now, Kemp? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the groundlings in a roar, eh! What, nothing to say? Or have you forgot your lines again? Speak up!"

  Smythe laughed. "I do not think. he can hear you, Will."

  "What, drunk. and senseless once again? Dead to the world?

  Pah! You are of no use to me, Kemp! Nay, none at all! Stay here and rot, then. Let the crows pick ant your eyes." He peered closer at the head. "Oh. I see that they already have. Well, never mind, then."

  Smythe laughed once more. "Come on, then, Will, before we get soaked through to the skin. 'Tis a warm fire and a heady brew for me."

  "You hear that, Kemp? We are going now to drink with men who know how to hold their grog. No room for the likes of you, you old reprobate. Go back to the Lord Admiral's Men, for we have had our fill of you."

  In good spirits, they passed through the gate together, entering upon the main thoroughfare of the bridge, which was lined with buildings on both sides. These were shops and houses constructed on the bridge itself of timber frames with wattle-and-daub walls. The wooden counters that folded down and out from the shops front windows were now folded up and shut against the weather, of course, which made the bridge appear like a residential block that spanned the Thames, rather than the marketplace it more closely resembled on a sunny day.

  There were several galleries that spanned the bridge from one side to the other, connecting the third stories of some of the buildings and allowing residents to cross over. And as in many of the streets throughout the city, the upper floors of many of the houses hung out over the thoroughfare. With the exception of the drawbridge, it looked just like many another street running through the city, save that it was straighter than most.

  On this day, with the weather as beastly as it was, there was not as much traffic on the bridge as usual, and there were only a few pedestrians moving along quickly through the rain. Each year, it seemed, the
traffic in the city continued to grow worse and worse. Sometimes, the streets became so congested that traffic came to an absolute standstill and fights broke out. On a day like this, however, even Londoners long accustomed to the rain and cold had hurried to find shelter somewhere inside.

  "Ah, 'tis a marvellous day, Will, a marvellous day!" said Smythe, spreading out his arms as if to embrace the weather.

  "'Tis a very wet day, if you ask me," Shakespeare replied. "'Tis a marvellous day if you are a turtle."

  "Well, then I must be part turtle, for I love walking in the rain." said Smythe. "It reminds me of walks I took through the forest in my childhood. On such days as this, Will, do you not find yourself missing your home in Stratford?"

  "I seldom find myself missing my home in Stratford," Shakespeare replied. "My wife is at my home in Stratford. And I suspect she seldom finds herself. missing me, either."

  "Well, marriage is not for everyone, perhaps," said Smythe with a shrug.

  "Happiness is not for everyone," said Shakespeare. "Marriage, on the other hand, is a most democratic institution."

  "One that not all people live to experience," said Smythe.

  "I see that you are thinking of Thomas Locke again."

  "Aye. Regardless of my disposition, he keeps returning to haunt my thoughts, like some poor, benighted ghost."

  Shakespeare shook his head. "'Twill do you no good to dwell upon it, you know," he said.

  "Perhaps. But arc you not in the least bit curious what will come of it all?" asked Smythe.

  "I have found, in general, that such curiosity can be decidedly unhealthy," Shakespeare said. "I have found so in particular since meeting you. In truth, I would have been perfectly satisfied to have remained completely in ignorance of the entire affair."

  "And yet ‘twas your curiosity, in a manner of speaking, that led to it," said Smythe.

  "My curiosity? However so?"

  "You wanted to learn something of the Jews," said Smythe. "'Twas why we went to visit Ben Dickens in the first place, if you will recall."

  "I was merely trying to learn something about them as a people, the better to enable me to write about a Jew, so that I would not do quite as laughable a job as Marlowe did."

  "The audiences at The Jew of Malta were not laughing."

  "Well, they should have been," Shakespeare replied. "That they were not merely goes to prove that they do not know any better."

  "Be that as it may," said Smythe, "'twas still your curiosity that took us to Ben Dickens's shop, where we met Thomas, which was where this whole thing began."

  "Aye, when you decided to stick your fine, peasant Saxon nose where it most certainly did not belong," countered Shakespeare.

  "What, so then you are saying that 'twas all my fault?"

  "'Twas merely your fault that we became involved," said Shakespeare with a sigh. "'Twas not your fault that Thomas Locke was killed. That, in all likelihood, had nothing at all to do with us and would have happened anyway. However, had you never spoken with him, or sought to counsel him, we could have gone on about our business in blissful ignorance of the poor lad's fate."

  "Save that you would probably have spoken to him as soon as you had heard him say he was a Jew," said Smythe.

  "Under the circumstances, I doubt very much I would have spoken to him," Shakespeare protested. "The poor lad was much distressed. 'Twould scarcely have been seemly for me to have subjected him to questions at such a time, much as I might have wished to."

  "Nonsense. I know you, Will. You would have been unable to resist."

  "Oh, I like that!" said Shakespeare, stopping in the middle of the drawbridge and placing his hands upon his hips. "Was I the one, then, who went running off at my mouth about love and elopement and what all?"

  Several pedestrians brushed past and went around them quickly, hurrying with their heads down and the hoods of their cloaks up against the rain.

  "Will, come on! 'Tis raining cats and dogs out here!"

  "But I thought you loved walking in the rain?" said Shakespeare, still standing motionless with his hands upon his hips. "I thought the rain reminded you of your native bogs or some such thing."

  "Forest," Smythe said. "'Twas a forrest not a bloody bog! And the trees provided a deal more shelter from the rain than do these buildings on this windswept bridge."

  "Well, then I am simply going to stand here just like these bloody buildings until you admit that 'twas you who could not resist prattling away at Thomas and that therefore 'twas not my curiosity but your utter inability to keep your busy little mind on your own business that got us involved in all this in the first place!"

  "Will…."

  "Forget it! Save your breath! I am deaf to your protestations! I am not moving until you admit that you are in the wrong and being absolutely bullheaded about it!"

  "Will…."

  "And do not tell me again how hard it is raining! It may be raining hippogriffs and unicorns for all I care, but I am not going anywhere until you confess that you are—aüyeeee!"

  He cried out as Smythe suddenly reached out with his left hand, seized him by his cloak, and yanked him forward roughly, nearly pulling him off his feet as he swung him around behind him. In almost the same motion, Smythe drew his rapier.

  Half a dozen men stood only a few feet from where Shakespeare had been standing a moment earlier. All wore dark, hooded cloaks, wet from the rain, and all now produced serious-looking clubs from within the folds of those cloaks.

  "Best move along, you men!" Smythe said to them sharply.

  "You shall find no easy pickings here."

  "Master Locke wishes to see you," a gruff voice said from behind them.

  Smythe spun around. The men who had passed them moments earlier were now behind them. There were four of them, two of whom were armed with clubs, just like the others. The other two, however, now produced crossbows from beneath their long cloaks. That changed things considerably. Half a dozen men armed with clubs did not make for good odds when there were only two of them, and Will was not armed, not that he would have been much help even if he were. But ten men, two of whom were armed with crossbows, made any resistance absolutely pointless—something the man who had spoken to them underscored with his next comment.

  "Mind now, Master Locke did not say in what condition 'e wished to see you," he said, his voice calm and otherwise perfectly conversational.

  "’E could see you whole… or else'e could see you broke up a bit. It makes not a brass farthing’s worth o' difference to us, one way or the other. The choice is yours my friends. And you 'ave the space o' three breaths in which co make it."

  "Right," said Smythe, taking a deep breath. "Well… when you put it that way…" He slowly sheathed the blade and started co unbuckle his sword belt so that he could hand it over to them.

  "Now, that's more like it," said the man who spoke. "No need for 'eroics, eh? We understand each other. I would much prefer to keep this friendly like."

  "By all means, let us keep it friendly-like," said Smythe with a tight grimace, as he handed over his sword belt.

  "Oh, hellspite!" Shakespeare said, in a tone of fearful exasperation. "Why in God's name do you keep doing this to us?"

  "Be quiet, Will."

  "It never ends! It simply never ends! You positively rain death and devastation upon us!"

  "We have not died yet, Will," Smythe replied. "And if we keep our heads about us, we shall not die today. If Master Locke wanted us dead, then we would have been dead already."

  "Now, that's what I like," said the leader, his face nearly invisible inside the hood of his cloak. "A man with a practical turn of mind."

  He seemed to speak for all the others, who simply stood there motionless, yet watchful and ready. Smythe was all too uncomfortably aware of the two crossbows aimed straight at their chests. He was a good archer, having grown up hunting in the woods around his village, but crossbows made him nervous. He had seen what they could do. And unlike a good, stout Englis
h longbow, which required a deliberate pull and release, it did not take much more than a couch to release a bolt from a crossbow. Merely a moment's in attentiveness on the part of either of those two archers and death would come swiftly and decisively.

  The clip-clopping of horses' hooves made Smythe look around, though he was careful to avoid any sudden movements. A coach was approaching from the south side of the bridge, the direction from which they had come. It stopped when it drew even with them.

  "If you gentlemen would be so good as to turn around," the man said.

  They did so, and a couple of the other men stepped forward and tied blindfolds over their eyes.

  "Your 'ands behind your backs, please… "

  "Tuck, I do not like this," Shakespeare said, trying hard to keep his voice even.

  "Nor do I, Will. Steady on. There is naught else we can do but comply with their wishes."

  "This is merely to ensure that you do not try anything foolish once we get inside the coach." The man continued speaking to them, though they could no longer see him. "There shall be one of us sitting beside each of you, "with a dagger at the ready. So let us all sit quietly and merely enjoy the ride, eh?"

  They were assisted into the coach, and then the door was closed behind them. A moment later, they felt the coach lurch forward. They seemed to be continuing across the bridge and toward the city.

  "I do not suppose that Master Locke happened to mention why, specifically, he wished to see us?" Smythe heard Shakespeare say.

  "I am quite sure that 'e shall tell you when 'e sees you," came the reply. "Now be quiet, like a good lad, eh?"

  "Of course," said Shakespeare, and fell silent.

  The silence made their ride seem much more tense and ominous. Smythe listened intently, trying to determine where they were by the sounds coming from outside the coach. It was difficult to tell exactly when they reached the other side and entered the city. He could not see anything. The blindfold had been tied well. Alert to every sound, he listened as hard as he could, but could not determine where they where. He thought he could feel it when the coach turned, but even that seemed uncertain. The blindfold made him realise just how much he depended upon his sight. It must be a terrible thing to be blind, he thought. It felt even worse to be unable to see than to have his hands tied behind his back. He had never felt so helpless.