Much Ado About Murder

As Smythe sat down on the mattress and brushed off stray bits of rushes that had adhered to his bare feet, Shakespeare hiked up his shirt and urinated in the chamber pot they kept on the floor in the corner of their room. To help keep down foul odors, they avoided using the chamber pot for anything else, and instead shat in the jakes, a tiny room where Stackpole kept a close stool, which was nothing more than a small, crude, wooden box seat with a hole in the top and a lid, inside of which was kept a large chamber pot partially filled with water. In the interests of keeping his establishment as clean as possible, Stackpole dutifully saw to it that the jakes was emptied out into the street several times a day, and fresh rushes were strewn on the floors in all the rooms each morning, mixed with chips of wormwood to help keep down the fleas. It was, truly, among the cleanest inns that Smythe had seen in the working-class neighborhoods of London, despite its somewhat tumbledown appearance, and any tenant who violated Stackpole’s scrupulous edicts on decorum by voiding, spitting, or vomiting upon the floor without cleaning it up was soundly boxed about the ears and then thrown out into the street. Consequently, most of Stackpole’s tenants tended to follow his rules out of both self-interest and self-preservation.

“From what I hear, Greene has descended into dissipation,” Shakespeare said, as he opened the window and flung the contents of the chamber pot out into the street.

“Oy!” someone yelled out from below.

Shakespeare glanced out briefly. “Sorry, Constable,” he called down.

“Seems to me as if you have made that particular descent a time or two yourself,” Smythe replied.

“S’trewth, I have enjoyed, upon more than one occasion, the happy state of drunkenness,” Shakespeare replied, as he got into bed, “but I have never sought to wallow in the desolate depravity of dissipation. Greene, poor soul, has fallen to that saddest of all states wherein his talent, such as ‘twas, has sailed away upon a sea of spirits. ‘Tis not a pretty story, I fear. He is but six years my senior, and yet Dick Burbage tells me that he looks almost twice my age. He has fallen upon hard times, it seems, and taken up with still harder company. When I asked Dick the same question that you just asked me, Burbage cautioned me to give him a wide berth and from what he said, ‘twould seem like very sound advice. I might recommend the same to you.”

“Pity,” Smythe said. “I have much enjoyed his writings. They have the mark of a well-educated man.”

“Aye, they do at that,” Shakespeare agreed. “The writings of well-educated men are oft’ filled with their contempt for the common man, who does not share their education. Which, of course, is why they always fail to understand him. But then enough of Greene and all his ilk. Tell me more about Moll Cutpurse. I find her much more to my interest!”

“I can understand that well enough,” said Smythe. “I could easily see her as a character portrayed upon the stage. She is positively filled with the stuff of drama, from her head down to her toes.”

“Go on! Describe her to me!” Shakespeare said, his eyes alight with curiosity.

“Well, to begin, she is quite tall for a woman,” Smythe replied. “We are nearly the same height. I took her for a man, at first, because of the way that she was dressed. She wore high leather boots, dark breeches, and a long dark cloak together with a rakish, wide-brimmed hat, rather in the French style, with an ostrich plume stuck into the band. She also wore a sword. I did not have much opportunity to take the weapon’s measure and make some determination of its quality, for at the time, I was rather more attentive to making certain that its point did not transfix my throat.”

“What of her features?” Shakespeare asked. “How did she look?”

“ ‘Twas difficult to see well in the darkness, though we stood close enough that I do believe that I would know her if I saw her once again,” said Smythe. “Her hair was dark, or it seemed dark, at any rate. I suppose ‘twas possible that it could have been red or auburn, though I had the impression that ‘twas raven-hued. Her skin seemed fair, and I could not discern a blemish nor any marks of pox or the like.”

“Was she pretty? Or was she rather plain? Or ugly?”

“I would not call her plain,” said Smythe. “Neither would I call her pretty. Nor ugly, for that matter.”

“Well, what then?”

“Striking, I should say. S’trewth, she did not seem hard at all upon the eyes, but her face had rather too much… too much…” He searched for the right words as his hand floated up in front of him, as if grasping at something. “Too much forth-rightness, I should say, to call it pretty.”

“Ah,” said Shakespeare. “A face with strength of character.”

“Just so, precisely.”

“Tell me about her gaze.”

“Her gaze?”

“The eyes, when she looked upon you… Did they sparlde with a pleasant humor? Or did they seem cold and distant? Cruel? Mocking? Lustful, perhaps?”