Much Ado About Murder (3 page)

"Oh, 'tis a weighty purse, and there is always more where that came from," said Shakespeare, lightly.

"Just the same," said Burbage, "we would be poor companions if we drank up all your earnings. 'Tis good news, indeed, that the playhouses may soon be open once again, but have a care, Will. We do not yet know how soon that 'soon' shall be. Unless, that is, you happen to be privy to more knowledge than you have thus far shared with us."

"In good time, Dick, in good time," said Shakespeare. "For now, let the lads enjoy themselves. 'Tis money well spent if it gladdens them, for then it gladdens me. I shall not begrudge them so much as a farthing."

"Who is this Ben Dickens of whom everyone is speaking?" Smythe asked, puzzled. "I do not recall the name."

"That is because you have never met him, Tuck," Burbage replied. "He was with the company some years ago, when he was just a lad. Fleming took him on as an apprentice, to play the women's parts, but he left us before you and Will came to join the company."

"Do you mean to tell me that he left the players to become an
armorer's apprentice?"
Smythe asked, with surprise.

Burbage chuckled. "You know something of the armorer's trade, so you are thinking, no doubt, that Ben Dickens left an easy trade for one much more laborious. However, in truth, his heart was never in the player's life. He was a real roaring boy, and playing at adventure on the stage never truly suited him when there was genuine adventure to be had. Besides, his voice changed early on and grew much too deep to play the female roles, though he was still too small to play the adult male parts. We would still have kept him on, of course, for we all loved him well and he would have grown into his voice soon, but then he found an armorer to take him on as an apprentice and so he chose to leave us, thinking to learn the trade of arms from the crafting to the plying of them."

"We parted on the very best of terms," added John Fleming, "and he still came to see us now and then, whenever he could spare the time, but then one day his master fell to a palsy and the shop was closed, so Ben went off to war with some of the soldiers he had met."

"How did you happen upon him?" asked Burbage, turning to Shakespeare.

"He was part of the company at dinner with the gentleman who was kind enough to give me this," Shakespeare replied, picking up his purse and tossing it lightly in his palm to hear it jingle before putting it away. "When he discovered that I was a player with the Queen's Men, he introduced himself and greeted me with such warmth and affection as to win me over on the instant."

"Aye, that's Ben," said Fleming, smiling. "He faces all the world with open heart and countenance. I have never met a man who from the start could not perceive his merits."

"Nor has Ben Dickens ever met a man to whom he would not recite them," Molly added wryly, as she swept by with several tankards.

"Nay, Molly, you do him an injustice," said Will Kemp. "Ben was ever modest to a fault."

"If he were modest to a fault, then he would find it needful to abandon modesty, the better to be faultless," she tossed back over her shoulder.

"He never held himself to be so," Kemp replied. "Why blow your own horn when you can have heralds trumpet all your fanfares for you?" Molly said, as she served some patrons at another table. "Ben gathers friends who extol his virtues the way a vain woman surrounds herself with mirrors, the better to bask in her reflections. Much as you all seem to love him, I vouchsafe he loves himself the better."

" 'Twould seem as if you have some grievances against him, Molly," Smythe said. "Has the man done you some injury?"

"Oh, no injury was done to me, though one might think his own vaunted opinion of himself effects an injury to good prudence," she replied, as she retrieved some empty tankards and wiped off a table. "As for grievances against Ben Dickens, I have none. Why should I? What is Ben Dickens to me? I pay no more heed to him that I would to the wind which constitutes the greater part of him."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks," said Shakespeare, in an aside to the others. "If she truly cared so little for Ben Dickens, 'twould seem she would not speak so much of him. Or, perhaps, so ill."

"She does seem to dislike the fellow," Smythe said.

"You must not mistake her, though," Burbage replied. "There always was a kind of merry war betwixt them, and they never met without some skirmish of wit between them. In truth, I do believe that Ben and Molly share a more than passing fancy, though neither would admit to so much as a brass farthing's worth of fondness for the other."

"Well, disdain is oft the obverse of the coin of fondness," Shakespeare said. "And skirmishes of wit can oft preclude the larger and more earnest battle of the sexes, known as marriage."

"I like that," Burbage said. "Skirmishes of wit precluding the battle of the sexes. Perhaps we can use that line somewhere."

" 'Tis yours, my dear Burbage," said Shakespeare, with a magnanimous gesture. "Make what use of it you will, so long as you put to good usage."

"So then, who else was present, Will, 'mongst this distinguished company where you met our Ben?" asked Fleming.

"Well, now let me put memory to the test," said Shakespeare, frowning. "There were several in the company, along with the gentleman I mentioned, among them a stout, older, balding fellow called Master Peters by the others, by which tide and by whose fine apparel and accoutrements I would infer that he must be a guildsman of some standing in his company, though which company that was I cannot say."

"Oh, well, I can tell you that," interjected Burbage. "He is a master in the company of goldsmiths. He likely has more journeymen and apprentices in service at his shop than any other hammerman in Cheapside. He comes often to our theatre, where he takes a box up in the galleries and entertains his friends. Word has it he may soon be made a peer, for he surely has the means and the connections to move up. You
were
civil to him, I trust?"

"I am civil to the world, Dick," Shakespeare replied. "And as Master Peters was civil in regard to me, so was I to him. Never fear, I did not embarrass your fine patron, nor did he give me cause to. He had with him a handsome young man by the name of Corwin, whom I might have taken for his son, but for the lack of any resemblance between them, for his manner toward the lad was very much that of a father or perhaps an uncle."

"There, too, I may supply elaboration," Burbage said, "for I have met the young man of whom you speak. Master Peters might indeed show favor to him, for Corwin is a journeyman in his shop, lately raised up from an apprentice. His work as an artisan in gold and silver has garnered much praise and is thus a favorable reflection on his master."

"He seemed to be on close terms with your friend, Ben Dickens," Shakespeare said.

"They doubtless knew each other when both were still apprentices, albeit to different masters," Fleming said.

"Aye, that would account for it. They seemed to be old friends," said Shakespeare. "There was one other present in the company, a dark and foreign-looking fellow by the name of Leonardo. He wore a seaman's boots, and spoke English passing well, but with an accent that sounded Genoan to me."

"Him I know not," said Burbage, "but if you say he is a seaman, and a Genoan at that, then I would venture that he must be a merchant trader, doubtless the master of his own ship, for I cannot quite see Master Peters breaking bread with common seamen. Methinks that he would find their company a bit too coarse for his tastes."

"Why, no more coarse than the company of players, I should think, eh, Burbage?" a deep and resonant voice came from behind them. "A man who would suffer the company of players might well be said to suffer the insufferable."

"
Ben
!" cried Fleming, jumping to his feet and rushing to embrace him. The older players eagerly surrounded him as well, while the younger ones who had joined the company after he had left looked on with interest, having heard so much about him.

"Odd's blood!" Will Kemp exclaimed, embracing him in turn. "Look how you've grown, my boy! How time hath flown! Step back now and let me look at you! How you have changed!"

Ben Dickens grinned at him. "And you have not changed at all, Will Kemp. Tell me, are you still as cantankerous as ever? Or has time's passage mellowed you, like wine?"

"Soured him like vinegar, more like, if ye ask me," said Speed.

"Bob Speed, as I live and breathe!" said Dickens, clapping him upon the shoulders. " 'Tis good to see you, my old friend. How well I remember all you taught me!"

"Do ye remember how to drink, then?" asked Speed.

"Often and prodigiously," Dickens replied, with a grin.

"Marry, then you remembered the most important part," said Speed, slapping him upon the back. "Come join us!"

"That I will," said Dickens, "if you wouldst allow my good friend Corwin to join your merry company, as well." He indicated a young man who had politely stood back a bit while he had greeted all the others.

As Ben Dickens made the introductions, Smythe took the measure of both men. They each looked to be roughly the same age as himself, which would have put them in their early twenties, and they both looked very fit, though of the two, Ben Dickens seemed somewhat more robust and carried himself with a greater air of confidence. Perhaps that was not surprising for someone who had fought on foreign soil and distinguished himself in battle. Many men never had such a chance to prove themselves, thought Smythe, and Dickens had the air and bearing of a man who had faced up to the test and passed with colors flying. He bore himself with self assurance but not arrogance, and his manner was open, natural, and direct, rather than forced, studied, or pretentious. His chestnut colored hair was worn loosely to his shoulders and he took no trouble to arrange it beyond simply combing it to keep it neat. His brown leather doubtlet was likewise simple, functional, and unpretentious, as was most of his apparel. Like his woolen cloak, it matched his boots and breeches, and the only touch of bright color in his clothing was his crimson shirt, visible through his fashionably slashed sleeves. He wore a blade, as did most men in London, but it was a utilitarian rapier rather than a showpiece, well made, probably of Spanish origin, with a basket hilt and no fancy embellishments for decoration. It was the sort of blade a soldier would wear, useful, but not ostentatious.

Corwin, on the other hand, took rather more trouble with his appearance. His dark blond hair was worn longer, down below the shoulders as was fashionable among many of the young aristocrats at court these days, and his short, elegant beard and moustache were carefully trimmed in the French style. He obviously spent more money on his clothes, as evidenced by his three-piled, burgundy velvet doublet with twin rows of pewter buttons and slashed sleeves displaying a black silk shirt, his new black leather kidskin breeches, his fine hose in the dark eggplant color known among the fashionable tailors as "dead Spaniard," his stack-heeled shoes with silver buckles, and his silk-lined burgundy wool cloak. He looked very pretty, Smythe thought wryly, like a journeyman who spent all his money on his clothes and skipped meals in order to look prosperous. Save that in Corwin's case, he corrected himself, it was very likely that he might not have to skip meals, if what they said about his work was true. Either way, thought Smythe, it still looked as if he were trying a bit too hard, and next to Dickens, he still came up a little short, despite the plainness of the latter's apparel. All in all, a decidedly odd couple, it seemed. Somehow, they were not two men he would have put together.

Corwin greeted everyone politely, yet without the same warm enthusiasm as did Dickens. True, these were not old friends of his, thought Smythe, but at the same time, he marked how Corwin's gaze held a touch of condescension in it that he either disguised poorly or else made a poor effort to disguise. And there was a smug superiority in his manner for which Smythe did not much care. His recent elevation from an apprentice to a journeyman must have made him dizzy, so much so that the height seemed rather greater to him than it was.

At that moment, Molly came out from the back. She saw Dickens and her step faltered for a moment, though Smythe did not think that anyone but he had noticed, and then she swept into the taproom, carrying her tray, her manner blithe, carefree, and a touch sardonic, as usual.

"Hark, I thought I heard the door fly open and a great wind come blowing through," she said, without even glancing at Dickens.

Dickens turned and saw her, cocked his head, and smiled. "What, my dear Lady Disdain," he said, insouciantly. "Are you still living?"

"Now how could disdain die with such abundant food as you to feed it, Ben?" she countered, as she went about her work.

"Oh, marry, that was well struck!" said Shakespeare. "Would that I had thought of that!"

"Never fear, doubtless you shall," replied Smythe, with a smile.

"Burbage, strike him for me," Shakespeare said. "He sits too far away, I cannot reach him."

"Not I," said Burbage, shaking his head. "He would make two of me."

"Two of you? He looks more like three of you," said Speed.

"I am not too far away to reach
you,
Bobby," Smythe cautioned him good naturedly.

"Then I shall bestir myself and get me hence," said Speed, changing his seat to a nearby table. "Here, Ben, take my old seat, next to this stout infant."

"I shall, indeed, afore yon lady's lashing tongue doth trip me up," said Dickens.

"It takes no tongue lashing from the likes of me to do that, Ben," Molly said. "I must have seen your own tongue trip you up a thousand times."

"A thousand! Zounds, a thousand, you say?"

"Well, at least a hundred, surely."

"Look how she retreats from her first estimate," he said to the others.

"But never from my first impression," Molly added, to the amusement of the others.

"Tart," said Dickens, with a wry grimace.

"What speech is this?" asked Molly, rounding on him, her eyes flashing.