Much Ado About Murder

“Not I,” Jack hastily replied. “Do not mistake my meaning, good sirs. Odd’s blood, Ben always was the man you wanted at your back when things got nasty. Why, I remember that time we had a set-to with the Paris Garden Boys and that rotter, Mercutio, God curse his swarthy Roman forebears, slashed me with his stiletto. I still have the scar, see?” He pulled back the long hair from his forehead, revealing a livid scar that ran across his forehead to his temple. “Damn near took me ear off. He would’ve done for me for sure if Ben here hadn’t pulled him off and slammed his face into a wall. Blind me, you should have seen him! Mashed his nose right flat, he did, and knocked out his two front teeth. We dusted ‘em off right proper that night, didn’t we, Ben? Those were the days, eh? The Steady Boys owned the streets then, didn’t we?”

“Well, you seem to have somewhat fonder recollections of those days than I,” said Dickens, wryly. “All told, we were fortunate not to have wound up in prison or, worse yet, cut up and with our skulls busted in some alleyway.”

“And how is it any different for a soldier?” asked Bruce, with a sneer. “Tell me that, then.”

“Perhaps ‘tis not so different after all,” Dickens replied, “but at least a soldier gets paid for risking life and limb, though not nearly enough, if you ask me. And truth be told, if I knew then what I know now, why, ‘tis doubtful that I would have made the same decision. Either way, when I was with the Steady Boys, as I recall, we risked life and limb for no more reward than the thrill of breaking someone else’s skull. Even back then, I thought ‘twas rash and foolhardy to behave so, although I went along with all the others. And ‘twould seem that with your apprenticeships nearly completed, ‘tis even more rash and foolhardy to take such chances now. Odd’s blood, why risk your future, lads? You’ve worked hard for all these years, and the payoff is now nearly at hand. Why risk throwing it all away for a few thrills?”

“Well, smite me!” said Jack, with surprise. “I must say, you certainly seem changed, Ben. That does not at all sound like the Ben Dickens I once knew.”

“Perhaps he has changed, then. Perhaps he came back from the wars because he lost his nerve,” said Bruce, contemptuously.

“Here now…” Fleming began, but Dickens put his hand out, forestalling his comment. He fixed Bruce with a steady gaze, transfixing him with an unblinking stare the surly apprentice gamely tried to meet, but after a moment, Bruce found himself forced to blink and look away.

“I do not need some lickspittle street brawler to tell me I have lost my nerve,” said Dickens, softy. “When you have seen men dying on the field of battle by the thousands, when the stench of bodies swelling and bursting in the sun assails your senses til your head reels and your eyes burn, when the buzzing of the flies over the carrion fills your ears, so that you go on hearing it for days and days after the battle has been fought until you think you will go mad with it, when you have seen women and old men searching for their fallen sons amongst the corpses and when you have heard their wails of grief on finding the mutilated objects of their quest, why, then you can come and speak to me about my nerve. Until then, apprentice, best stick with your clubs and daggers and your cocksure roaring boys, posturing and puffing out their chests, and speak not to me of things that you cannot even begin to understand.”

Bruce rose to his feet with a snarl, reaching for his dagger, but before he could unsheath it, Jack grabbed his hand in both of his, preventing him from drawing it.

As Smythe and several of the others leapt to their feet, Bruce sputtered with rage as he struggled angrily against his friend. “Let me go, damn you!”

“Don’t be a fool,” Jack replied in a steady voice, maintaining his grip and strengthening it by pressing his body up close against his friend, immobilizing his arms between them. “You only have your dirk, whilst he wears a rapier. Aside from that, in the event you have not noticed, we are quite outnumbered here.”

“That does it!” Stackpole said, hefting the adze handle once again as he came out from behind the bar. “Out with you! And don’t be coming back!”

“You’ve not seen the last of us, old man,” said Bruce, sneering at him.

“Old man, is it? I’ll bloody well show ye who’s old, ye miserable guttersnipe!” He swung the adze handle and it made a sound like the Grim Reaper’s scythe cutting through the air. It narrowly missed Bruce as he ducked at the last instant, barely avoiding having his skull split. Before Stackpole could swing again, Jack shoved Bruce toward the door and quickly followed.

“You shouldn’t turn your back on your old friends, Ben!” he called back over his shoulder. “You were one of us, one of the Steady Boys, and we ain’t never let you down!”

“You just did, Jack,” Dickens replied, with a wry grimace. “You just did.”

“Out, I said!” roared Stackpole, brandishing his adze handle.