by Simon Hawke
He hurried after her. A moment later, he lost sight of her among the stalls and tents, but then he caught a glimpse of green and spotted her again. She was moving quickly, purposefully it seemed, and he trotted after her. In his haste, he collided with someone and the man fell sprawling to the ground, landing flat on his back in a puddle of mud and horse manure that made a mess of his fine clothes.
“Your pardon,” Smythe said over his shoulder as he hurried to catch up with Elizabeth.
“Damn your eyes, you ruffian!” the man called after him, angrily. “Look what you’ve done! Come back here! Come back here at once, I said! Somebody stop that man!”
Smythe quickly put as much distance as possible between them, ducking between the stalls and tents. The last thing he needed now was to be taken for a thief, especially amongst this company! He could still hear the man blustering behind him, but he seemed to have made good his escape. Except that now, once again, he had lost sight of Elizabeth. He seemed to have come almost full circle around the fairground. He now found himself standing on the perimeter of the tents and stalls, among some carts and wagons. To his left, some thirty or forty yards away, were the wedding pavillions and the house. To his right, the field continued to slope away towards the pond and the road leading up to the house from the main thoroughfare. Behind him was the fairground, and further on, the river. And to his front ran the road, and beyond it, just below the house, were the gardens and the maze. And as the shadows of dusk lengthened, Smythe caught a glimpse of Elizabeth ’s green cloak billowing in the evening breeze, just before she disappeared from sight on the stone steps leading down to the gardens and the maze.
Once again, he felt tempted to call out to her, and once again, he hesitated. Where was she going? And what was she doing, going down to the gardens all alone at this hour? He frowned and started after her.
The sun was going down, and the merchants would soon be closing down their stalls until the morning, camping out with their goods or in their wagons. Already, he could see a few lanterns and torches being lit in the fairground behind him. It would not be long before it would grow dark. Smythe started to run.
He reached the top of the terraced steps from which he could look out over the garden below. As with his elegant manor home, Middleton had clearly spared no expense with his gardens. Even in the fading light, Smythe could see that a great deal of time and attention had been lavished on them. There were several garden plots spread out below in a circular pattern, each exquisitely laid out and painstakingly maintained. There were stone benches and ivy-covered bowers placed along gently curving flagstoned pathways. And just beyond the gardens, disappearing into the entrance to the tall and perfectly clipped hedges of the maze, was the billowing swirl of a cloak.
4
THERE COULD ONLY BE ONE reason why Elizabeth would be coming out to the gardens alone at this time of the evening, Smythe thought, and it was not to smell the flowers. She had come to meet someone. Why else make the pretence of going out to see the merchants’ stalls, only to circle round them and make her way clandestinely down to the gardens? As Smythe ran down the steps after her and along the garden pathways leading to the maze, anger and jealousy flared within him.
Was this why she had picked a fight with him at Paul’s? It had made quite a convenient excuse for her not to see him at the wedding of her friend. Now that he thought of it, he recalled that the first thing she had asked him then was if he would be coming with the Queen’s Men to the wedding celebration. And when she found out that he would, indeed, inconveniently be there, she had started an argument with him that gave her an excuse to walk out on him angrily. And after such a heated quarrel, what reason would he have to think that she would bother to find time for him while they were at the Middleton estate?
He stopped for a moment to catch his breath as he reached the entrance to the maze, and in that moment, his initial burst of anger, spent partially in his run down the steps and across the gardens, began to give way to hesitance and indecision. Just what, exactly, was he doing? After all, what right had he to feel jealous or possessive of Elizabeth? She was not his wife nor was she his betrothed. She was not even his lover. The truth of the matter was that they had no formal understandings between them of any sort, nor had they made any promises to one another. As Shakespeare had pointed out to him on more than one occasion, there could be no hope of any match between them. They had never even spoken of it. In truth, they had not spoken of anything that could define any relationship between them, other than simple friendship. So what, after all, was Elizabeth to him or he to Elizabeth?
Nevertheless, since he had helped her out of her predicament with an arranged marriage that she did not desire and that would, as it turned out in the end, have had her wed to an imposter and an enemy of England and thereby imperilled her very life, they had afterward contrived to see each other whenever the opportunity arose. Perhaps, thought Smythe, it was only gratitude or a sense of obligation that made her seek or at the very least tolerate his company, but even if they had spent their time merely strolling together or perusing the book stalls of St. Paul’s while making idle conversation, were those not assignations? Did he tell his friends-well, anyone else save Will-where he was going? Did she tell her friends or her parents? Or were not plausible stories invented on both sides so that they could be with one another? For that matter, Smythe thought, would they have argued as heatedly as they had if there had been no feelings of any sort between them, other than mere friendship?
No, there was something more there. From the first moment they had met, Smythe felt something pass between them, a sort of spark, a momentary incandescence that they had both acknowledged without ever speaking of it openly. They had flirted in a harmless sort of way, but beneath their witty badinage was a subtext of something more significant.
Infatuation, Shakespeare had called it. “Aye, ‘tis infatuation, nothing more,” he’d said. “ Tis much too innocent in its own way to call it lust, although I daresay it may come to that, should the two of you decide to stop acting like a coy pair of besotted children. However foolish it may be, there is an innocent sort of sweetness to it, but the world, I fear, does not long tolerate innocence and sweetness.”
Perhaps Elizabeth could no longer tolerate it, either, Smythe thought. Maybe she had found something that she could believe was not doomed to failure and frustration. And if she had found something… someone with whom she could have a future, then who was he, an impoverished ostler and sometime player, to deny her? He had nothing, nothing whatsoever to offer her.
He stood for several moments, hesitating at the entrance to the maze, looking back over his shoulder and watching the lights coming on inside the house as darkness gathered and the candles were brought out. Tomorrow, there would be a wedding and two people would be beginning a new life together. And what might be happening right here, right now, he thought, was not a beginning, but an ending. He had to know for certain. He stepped into the maze.
It became immediately darker as he stood between two tall rows of hedges, clipped into the form of straight, rectangular walls that rose above his head by several feet. Before him was a solid wall of leafy green shrubbery so thick that he could not see through it. There was no question of pushing his way through to the other side. He could go either to his left or to his right, down a grassy passageway between the hedges wide enough to accommodate two people walking side-by-side. He had no idea which way Elizabeth had gone. When he ran after her, he had closed the distance between them, but in the moment or two that he had hesitated at the entrance, she had moved ahead, intent on her errand and doubtless unaware that she was being followed. But which way had she gone?
Smythe knelt to examine the grass. What little light remained was fading quickly and while he had grown up in the country and spent his share of time out in the woods, he was no tracker.
It was growing darker, so that he could scarcely see more than several feet ahead of him now. It was impossible to dis
cern any sign of which way Elizabeth may have gone. In a little while, it would be pitch black and he would be reduced to feeling his way along the pathways. It struck him that he might have some difficulty finding his way back out again. What, he wondered, could Elizabeth be thinking? But at the same time, it occurred to him that this was the home of her good friend, and she had almost certainly visited here before. She probably knew her way through the maze. Why else would she have chosen such a place for a discreet rendezvous? He listened intently for any sounds, but now the crickets had begun their song and it was difficult to hear anything else.
He made a few more turns and still there was no sign of her. Here and there, stone benches had been placed throughout the maze and he chose one and sat down, frowning, trying to get his bearings. It had seemed simple and straightforward enough at first. Simply remember the turns that he had made and then, on the way out, reverse them. But by now, he had made so many turns that he was no longer certain of their order. He had no idea how far into the maze he’d gone. Once within it, the maze of hedgerows seemed somehow much larger and more labyrinthine than it had from the outside. He had been certain that he would have caught up to Elizabeth by now, but instead, all he had succeeded in doing was getting lost. He was about to get up and start moving once again when he heard the sound of voices approaching.
At first, he could not make out what was being said, only that it seemed to be two men in quiet conversation. A moment or two later, as they came closer, the dialogue became more clear.
“… and with Catherine gone, my way at last shall be made clear with Blanche, so that with fortune’s blessing, I shall ere long succeed in securing the old man’s consent.”
“Aye, the one impediment shall have been removed, perhaps, but the other yet remains. However shall you circumvent the matter of your more than modest means?”
The first speaker, Smythe surmised, was fairly young, perhaps of an age with him, if not a little older. He spoke with the firm, brash confidence of youth and if it could be said that one could have a cocksure swagger in his voice, then this man had that very quality. The second man sounded somewhat older, with a voice that had something of an aspect of consideration and reflection, though in tone, he seemed to defer to his companion.
“Rest assured that I have thought of that, as well. You did not think I would venture into this without taking all into account? I do not play at being fortune’s child, old sod, I work at it.”
“Aye, that you do, beyond a doubt, and I have seen your efforts bear fruit on more than one occasion. Yet at the same time, I have seen that fruit consumed without your taking any care to plant some of its seed so that still more could sprout.”
“Well, that, my friend, is because I am not a common ploughman. I would much sooner seek to find an orchard ready planted, so that I could make my choice of only the ripest fruit, rather than squander all my time and effort ploughing furrows and planting seed, not all of which may sprout, and of that which sprouts and flourishes, not all of which may bear rich fruit. ‘Tis entirely too much labor for not enough reward.”
They sounded close enough by now that Smythe was surprised that he could not yet see them, even in the darkness. Yet a moment later, he realized why he could not. They were almost exactly abreast with him, strolling at a leisurely pace, but on the opposite side of the hedgerow, and though he was aware of their presence because he could hear them speaking, they seemed completely unaware of his.
Indeed, Smythe thought, there was no reason for them to assume that at this late hour, in the darkness, there might be anyone within the maze except themselves, and yet, apparently unbeknownst to them, there were at least three others-himself, Elizabeth, and the still unknown individual with whom she came to rendezvous. Unless, of course, that very unknown individual happened to be one of these two men.
Curious to find out, Smythe fell in step with them, pacing them on his side of the hedge. The moist grass underfoot and the chirping of the crickets masked any sounds his footsteps might have made, although he still walked softly so as not to give himself away.
“I have a plan,” the first man continued, “that by its very boldness should succeed and leave no room for suspicion.”
“But in time, the truth will out,” the second man replied. “What then?”
“Why, by that time, it shall no longer matter,” the younger man said, with a chuckle. “For by the time the truth can be discovered, I shall be long gone with Blanche, and with her dowry. The old man can raise a hue and cry, for all the good that it shall do him, for by then I shall be well beyond his reach or the reach of any authority that he might try to bring to bear against me.”
“And what of the girl?”
“What of her?”
“Well, what should she think when she learns the truth?”
“What matters that to me? Faith, by the time she learns the truth of things, she shall be my wife. As such, she is my goods, my chattels, and my house, my household stuff, my field, my barn, my horse, my ox, my ass, my anything. What should she think of the truth? Why, sink me, only what I tell her she should think and there’s an end to it!”
Now there’s a charming fellow, Smythe thought, with a grimace of distaste. And something of a scoundrel, from the sound of things. But whoever he was, at least he had answered one of Smythe’s unspoken questions. It seemed clear that he had not come here to meet Elizabeth after all, for it was somebody named Blanche on whom he had apparently set his sights. And from what Smythe had overheard, this Blanche was in some way a relative of Catherine’s, perhaps a sister or a cousin, but undoubtedly the reference was to the very same Catherine Middleton whose wedding they had all come to attend. And the next exchange he overheard confirmed it.
“Well, you seem confident enough of bringing her to heel,” the second man replied, “but afore that can be done, you must first bring her to the altar, and I daresay you will have a deal of competition there. Blanche Middleton is as well known for all the suitors trailing after her as she is for her beauty. How will you be able to assure that above all those who clamor for her hand ‘twill be yourself who shall find her father’s favor and win out?”
“As I have told you, I do not leave such things to chance,” the first man answered him. “I have a plan. Now whom do you suppose a rich merchant with aspirations to improve himself would favor most as a suitor for his youngest daughter’s hand, some young, ambitious roaring boy looking for a leg up on his station as well as on the wench, or some corpulent, newly wealthy tradesman with a grossness of class exceeded only by the grossness of his girth or, perhaps, the dashingly handsome and courtly mannered son of an aristocrat?”
“What,you?“
“I and none other.”
“But, Odd’s blood, your father, rest his soul, was no aristocrat! He was a ruffler and a cozener who was drawn and quartered and had his head displayed on London Bridge!”
“I know not of whom you speak. My father stands before me.”
“Merciful God preserve us! Where?”
The reply was mocking laughter. “Cast not about in search of ghostly spirits, my friend. ‘Twas you I meant.”
“Me!”
“Aye, my father stands before me in your person.”
“Good God! Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“On the contrary, what I propose is emminently sensible. If one is going to brew up a bit of cozenage, then there is little to be served in making it small beer. A fine and heady ale is called for. What I intend to do is – “
The statement never was completed, because Smythe had grown so fascinated in listening to the intriguing conversation that he had neglected to observe what, in the darkness, he might easily have missed in any case… some clippings from the hedge, dead branches taken off earlier that afternoon and raked together into a small pile on the path preparatory to being gathered in a wheelbarrow and removed. Whether by chance or by design, they had been left there, and as Smythe kept pace with the two men on his
side of the hedge, he stepped straight into the clippings, and the dry branches underfoot made a sharp, crackling sound that was easily audible over the chirping of the crickets.
For a moment, there was utter silence. Even the crickets had seemed startled by the sound. And then, as Smythe glanced down and stepped back quickly, there came an angry oath from the other side of the hedge and, almost at the same time, a blade came plunging through. That single step back was what had saved him. Smythe felt the sharp steel of the rapier graze his stomach, close enough to slice through his leather doublet and draw a little blood.
As quickly as it came stabbing through, the blade was drawn back again through the hedge and Smythe danced back out of the way as another lunge came at him through the shrubbery. The thickness of the hedge impeded the assault, but it was no less deadly if the blade happened to strike a vital spot. Unarmed save for the dagger that he always carried with him, Smythe was under no illusions as to its efficacy against a sword, much less a pair of swords, for it seemed now that there were two blades stabbing at him through the hedge, not one. Smythe decided that the only prudent thing to do was run for it. The only problem was, he was not really sure where he was going.
He would have found it difficult enough to retrace his steps without two assassins in pursuit of him. Running in the darkness only made things worse. However, if racing headlong through the dark corridors of the grassy maze confused him, then it also served to confuse those who pursued him, for it struck him that as visitors to the estate, they were probably no more familiar with the maze than he was. What at first must have seemed to them an ideal place to discuss their plans in secret now became a maddening impediment to their need to eliminate an eavesdropper. Smythe heard them furiously cursing behind him as they apparently missed a turn and ran blindly straight into a hedge. A moment later, he did almost exactly the same thing as he missed a turn and stopped only at the last instant, narrowly avoiding running straight into a wall of thick shrubbery.