by Simon Hawke
Men in elaborate saffron ruffs and scarlet doublets, puffed at the shoulders, slashed at the sleeves, and padded at the chest, with matching breeches and contrasting hose in hues of periwinkle, marigold, and popinjay vied for attention with gold pomander-sniffing ladies attired in elegant gowns of Venetian satin or taffeta, festooned with precious stones and shot through with gold and silver thread, or else sewn from rich, three-piled-piece Genoan velvets, with dainty leather or satin shoes that were pinked, raced, and rosetted, their hair dyed in fantastic colors and braided with pearls or tucked beneath elaborate caps with large gold and silver brooches holding flowing plumes and feathers to set off the carcanet collars of small, linked enameled plates adorned with jewels and tiny pendants, wrists languidly displayed bracelets of gold or enameled silver with beads of amber, coral, or agate, rings everywhere, on every finger of both men and women… it was a visual feast, a writhing tableau of endless fascination.
And then the play would begin.
From the moment that the first player stepped out onto the stage, Elizabeth became transported to another world, one that seemed even more real than the romances that she read, for these were living, breathing people bringing to life real characters upon the stage. And if, much of the time, these characters seemed less real than stagy, she did not mind and nevertheless allowed herself to be carried away by the illusion. For as long as the play would last, her gaze would remain riveted upon the stage, and if there were other gazes riveted upon her from some other vantage point, she was unaware of them and could thus forget them.
But now, there was a new drama unfolding that she wished she could avert her gaze from, for it was her drama and the ending she foresaw was not a happy one. Somewhere along the way, someone had gazed at her particularly long and hard, and favorably, and unbeknownst to her, her father had been approached, discussions had been initiated, and a marriage had been arranged.
She had no idea who Anthony Gresham was. Apparently, it was not really her concern, so she hadn’t been consulted. What little knowledge she had was painfully sketchy. The mysterious Anthony Gresham was young, supposedly well set up, and handsome, although she had long since realized that, to her father, any eligible young man from a socially prominent family was certain to be “well set up and handsome.” His father was a privateer, one of Drake’s celebrated Sea Hawks, who was in line, so it was said, to receive a knighthood. She knew next to nothing of such things, but she knew that the idea of marrying his daughter to the son of a knight would send her father off into transports of ecstasy. There was little else that he would need to know or care about.
Chances were, she thought, that she was just as much a mystery to this young Anthony Gresham as he was to her, although it was certainly possible, even probable, that he had at least seen her, perhaps during one of her visits to The Theatre with her father. Yes, she thought, that had to be how it must have happened. The socially prominent son of a knight, or knight-to-be, could certainly not be expected to marry a young woman sight unseen, regardless of her father’s wealth. She, on the other hand, was expected to do her filial duty to her parents and marry someone whom she not only did not love, but had never even seen.
And if, as her mother claimed, most girls “her age” would gladly trade places with her in an instant, Elizabeth felt equally certain that she would trade places with them just as readily, even if they were of the poorest and most common stock. As she sat alone in her room, feeling miserable and lost, she entertained the notion of what it would be like to run away somewhere and find a job in some distant town or village, working in a tavern or an inn, or as a seamstress with threadworn fingers or a laundress with waterlogged skirts and wrinkled hands. Perhaps that was precisely what she should do, she thought, dramatically. Pack up a few belongings and then run away in the middle of the night. That would certainly teach them a lesson. And it would serve them right.
The only trouble was, she had no idea where to go or how to get there. And so she sat, and wept in anger and frustration.
4
LONDON WAS EVERYTHING HE HAD expected and much more. A recent census had reported the city’s population as over 120,000 and it seemed to Smythe as if they were all out on the streets at once. Cobblers, drapers, merchant tailors, younkers, ironmongers, weavers, goldsmiths and ropemakers, skinners, saddlers, tanners, vintners and apothecaries, discharged soldiers, dyers, pewterers and cutlers, hosiers, stationers, haberdashers, whores and grocers, barbers, balladeers and barristers, scriveners, booksellers, pickpockets and portrait painters and cozeners of every stripe, everywhere he looked, a different walk of life was represented, often loudly, sometimes repellantly, but always interestingly.
Dominating the city was the massive, gothic Cathedral of St. Paul’s, where people gathered in Paul’s Walk among the open stalls and bookshops to post bills or hire servants or be regaled by lurid tales of far-off lands from seamen-some of whom might even have been sober as they passed their hats-or else receive forecasts from robed and long-bearded astrologers, who were listened to with wary fascination and respect because they were believed by many to consort with demons. Here also was Paul’s Cross, where Sunday sermons could be heard preached from the outdoor pulpit on those mornings when it didn’t rain and turn the cobbled streets even more dangerously slippery with muck and slime than they usually were.
With so many carriers’ carts and carriages and horse litters and coaches clogging up the narrow streets and alleyways, making passage hazardous for those who rode and walked alike, the Thames was the main thoroughfare for many, with the watermen plying their way up and down the river and across in their small rowboats, ferrying those who chose not to use the crowded London Bridge, which was the only bridge across the undulating river to Bankside.
Downstream, to the east, stood the famous Tower of London, built as a palace citadel to guard the city from invasion from the sea. The Tower was an armory, as well as a prison for the most dangerous offenders, and the only place of coinage for the realm, in addition to being a treasury for the Crown Jewels and home of a menagerie that included several lions. To the west, roughly two miles from the city of London and connected to it by the Strand, was the Royal City of Westminster, which contained the Palace of Whitehall, the main residence of the queen, and the Abbey of St. Peter, where the monarchs of the realm were crowned and often buried.
In the city streets, Smythe noticed that many if not most men went armed, although a recent proclamation had reduced the allowable length of swords to no more than three feet and daggers to twelve inches. The fast, slim rapiers were more and more coming into vogue and fashionable ladies carried little bodkins tucked away somewhere discreetly. Those less concerned with fashion wore their poignards or stilettos openly, the better to defend themselves in the event of one of the frequent brawls or riots that broke out from time to time, often the result of young apprentices swaggering about in raucous gangs, needing little more excuse than youth and drunkenness, always an incendiary combination, to start a sudden, bloody street fight.
And drunkenness was less the exception than the rule. Smythe had long since learned that his habit of making an infusion of boiling water with dried clover flowers, mint, and raspberry leaves with honey, a healthful and revitalizing recipe meant to clarify the mind, taught him in his boyhood by old Mary, the village cunning woman, would be considered quite the eccentricity. Water, as everybody knew, was merely for washing up and cooking, certainly not for drinking. Ale was the universal beverage, imbibed at breakfast, dinner, supper, and all throughout the day, save by the more affluent citizens of London, who drank wine, all of which created a constant state of ferment where violence could brew and street fights could erupt at any time.
Shakespeare and Smythe stumbled into just such a street fight shortly after they had entered the city, passing through one of the large, arched gates in the encircling stone wall. For Smythe, it had felt like passing through a gate from one world into another. They were assailed by a dizzying caco
phony of smells, from the market stalls selling fish, meats, produce, breads, and cheeses, to the heady, pungent odor of the horse droppings and the still fouler stench of human waste and garbage that was simply dumped into the streets, to be picked at by the crows and ravens who nested in the trees and made their meals out of whatever refuse they could find, in addition to the fleshy morsels that they tore from the severed heads stuck up on the spikes outside the law courts.
There was noise and tumult assailing them from every quarter, with the squeaking, clomping sounds of ungreased cart wheels jouncing by on cobblestones, the snorting and neighing of the horses and the jingling of their tack, the clacking of the beggars’ clap-dishes, the ringing of shopkeepers’ bells, and the cries of the peddlers and costermongers-”Hot oakcake! Hot oatcake! Come an’ buy! Come an’ buy!” “New brooms ‘ere! New brooms!” “Whaddyalack-whaddyalack-whaddyalack now?” “Rock samphires! Getchyer fresh rock samphires!”
As they moved through the streets, another cry suddenly went up with great alacrity, rising over and above the din they heard around them as it was taken up by many other voices. “Clubs! Clubs! Clubs!”
“Clubs?” said Smythe, frowning with puzzlement.
No sooner had he spoken than they found themselves engulfed by a stampeding mob that came streaming out from around the corner like the abruptly released waters of a sluiceway, forcing them back toward the gutter that held all the filth and garbage that would ferment there like an odious, swampy brew until the next rain washed it down into Fleet Ditch.
“Street riot!” Shakespeare cried out, pulling hard at Smythe’s arm in an effort to drag him back out of the way, but the crowd had already surged around them and they found themselves caught up in its momentum and carried back the way they came.
It was impossible to tell who was fighting whom or how the whole thing had started. All they knew was that they were suddenly caught up in a crush of people trying to get away from the rising and falling clubs and flashing blades that were at the heart of it. Smythe slipped and tried to keep his footing on the slimy cobblestones near the gutter running down the center of the street, where most of the noxious muck had gathered and where people, forced into it by the press of bodies all around them, were falling down into the stinking, toxic ooze and being trampled. Someone bumped into him and Smythe pushed the man away roughly, sending him sprawling as he glanced around quickly for the poet.
“Will! Will!”
“Tuck!”
He spotted him, reaching out for help, being jostled repeatedly and trying desperately to keep his footing. He had lost his staff and he looked panic-stricken. Smythe stretched out his arm and, just at that instant, the poet lost his footing, slipped, and fell.
“Got you!” Smythe said, seizing his wrist and yanking him up and back from the filthy mire at the center of the street.
“Odd’s blood!” said Shakespeare, gasping for breath as Smythe shoved their way roughly through the crowd to the nearest wall. “A man could get himself hurt around here.”
“Watch out, the City Marshal’s men!” somebody cried.
The sound of hoofbeats on cobblestones rose over the shouting and the clanging of steel as the marshal’s men came galloping upon the scene, responding to the riot that had been moving through the streets and causing considerable damage. There was a rather large group of young men, in various styles of dress, going at it with a vengeance with both clubs and swords, though Smythe had no way of telling who was on whose side. It looked like a wild melee. The combatants, however, either did not seem to suffer from that problem, or else they were simply fighting with anyone within reach.
As Smythe pressed back against the wall with Shakespeare, he saw the mounted men come galloping around the corner, an unwise thing to do, it seemed to him, considering the uneven surface of the streets and the slick condition of the cobblestones. And sure enough, even as they watched, one of the lead horses went down, pitching its rider off as its hooves slipped on the cobbles, and the rider coming up behind it was brought down, as well. The others did not even slow down as they rode down the rioters, laying about them indiscriminately with their swords and truncheons. One young rioter’s head was split open like a melon in a spray of blood and brains. Another screamed hoarsely as he had his arm and most of his shoulder chopped clean through. Unlike some of the fashionable, rapier-toting toughs, the City Marshal’s men were armed with broadswords. Not as quick, perhaps, but devastatingly effective, especially from horseback.
“We had best get inside someplace and quickly,” Smythe said, “before we get caught up in all that.”
“Aye, they do not seem to care much whom they chop down, do they?” said Shakespeare. “They are a most profligate bunch of butchers.”
“Over there,” said Smythe, pointing out a painted wooden sign for a tavern just a few doors down.
Shakespeare glanced up at the sign. “The Swan and Maiden, eh? Well, by Zeus, it seems like just the place. If we can make it there.”
They made it through the door mere seconds before the carnage would have caught up with them, plunging through it so quickly that they tripped upon the threshold and fell sprawling to the rush-strewn floor. A group of men had gathered at the windows to watch and they were heartily cheering each brutal stroke, raising their tankards, slapping one another on the back, laughing boisterously, and toasting the slaughter outside in the street as if it were being staged purely for their benefit.
“Hah! Well struck!”
“Again! Get him!”
“Kill him!”
“Run him through!”
“Mow down the bloody bastards!”
“Look! Here’s two of them come bursting in here, trying to flee! What do you say, lads? Shall we toss them back out into the street to get their just desserts? Or should we carve them up in here ourselves and save the marshal’s men some trouble?”
Smythe turned, fixed the speaker with a glare, and rose to his feet. The man’s eyes widened and he swallowed nervously, backing off a step. His hand went to his sword hilt. Smythe hefted his staff. The man who’d spoken hesitated, suddenly uncertain if he wanted to draw steel and commit himself to a fight he might not win. He looked to his comrades for support, his gaze quickly flicking from Smythe to them and back again, as if seeking a prompt for action.
Smythe made a quick assessment of his potential opponent. He had the look of a tradesman, middle-aged and bearded, as they all were, in his early to mid-thirties, and fashionably, if not ostentatiously dressed in a brown leather doublet with the rough side out and buttons of polished brass set close together. Slashed sleeves, showing touches of red cloth underneath, were in conformity with the latest style. The sword, too, looked more worn for fashion than for function. Doubtless, it was reasonably functional, but the hilt and scabbard looked a bit too ornamental for serious work to Smythe’s trained eye. The workmanship was gaudy, but strictly second-rate. The man was a barroom bravo, a loudmouthed bully with a few tankards of ale under his belt, but judging by his weapon, he was not a real swordsman.
“Oh, we’ve got ourselves a roaring boy,” one of the others said. This one, Smythe noted, was a larger man, but soft around the middle and bleary-eyed with drink. His large and red-veined nose betrayed his fondness for the cask. His gut-stuffed, ale-stained, blue and buff striped doublet confirmed it. “I think this one wants a fight, lads,” he added, with ale-fueled belligerence.
“He’s a strapping big bugger,” the first one said, uneasily.
“Aye, but he’s only got a staff,” the third man replied. “And the other one’s just a skinny little bloke, and there’s five of us.”
Smythe glanced at the man in the dark green doublet with the puffed shoulders and black-slashed sleeves. He was beefy, though not as heavy as the one in blue and gold. He wore a short black cloak that made it difficult to tell his true dimensions, particularly with the latest padded and puffed fashions. But he did not seem quite as drunk as his fat friend. A more serious threat, p
erhaps.
“Please, gentlemen,” Shakespeare said, rising to his feet unsteadily and holding out his hands, “we wish to cause no trouble. We are not roaring boys or duelists. As you can see, we have no swords. I am but a poor poet and my friend, here, is an aspiring actor. We were merely caught up in that commotion out there in the street. We had no part in it ourselves, I assure you.”
“Oh, you assure us, do you?” the fourth man replied, mockingly. “Well, a pox on your assurances!”
Medium height, medium build, but not muscular looking, Smythe observed, as he appraised the man in the red and gold doublet and floppy, plumed red cap. He seemed more drunk than his compatriots, and even less of a threat on his own. There was nothing about any of them or their weapons from what Smythe could see that indicated serious fighters, but then five drunkards armed with swords and egging one another on were still nothing to be sneezed at. He made a quick determination. If it came to a fight, and he saw that it was looking more and more that way, then he could not be sure if he could count on Shakespeare for much help. Glovemaking and poetry did not normally develop strength or fast responses. And the poet was neither a large nor a strong man. Best look to the one with the brown leather doublet first, Smythe thought, because he seemed the most sober of the bunch and therefore, perhaps, the greatest threat. Then the one in dark green, and then the fat one in the buff and blue, and then the fourth…
“And a pox on bleedin’ poets, too,” the fifth man said contemptuously, staring at Shakespeare with an ugly scowl. As Smythe turned his attention to him, he immediately revised his estimation. No, this one would be the greater threat, he thought, looking him over. He seemed more fit than any of the others, and though he had a large pewter tankard in his hand, he did not look drunk at all. His eyes seemed clear and more alert, like those of the first man, only more so. He also filled out the chest of his brown and black quartered doublet with more thick muscle than the others had, and his shoulders looked more massive, too. This one was a craftsman or a laborer, Smythe thought. A man who did work with his hands and would not shy from getting them dirty. A cooper, or an ironmonger, or perhaps a farrier…