A Mystery Of Errors Read online

  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 i
nform 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 t
o 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.”