Much Ado About Murder

“She had been with you earlier that day?” asked Smythe.

Elizabeth nodded. “And what a happy time we had.” She smiled at the memory. “We spoke of English weddings. She wanted to know all about our marriage customs. She was so full of happy expectation… Such a marked contrast to her present, mournful humor.”

“She was happy about the engagement, then?” said Smythe. “Her father had approved?”

Elizabeth nodded. “ ‘Twas all settled save for the setting of the date and the arrangements for the wedding,” she said.

“Were they not Catholic?” Shakespeare asked. “Would that not have posed some impediment to the marriage?”

“I had thought the same,” Elizabeth replied, “but it seems not to have presented any difficulty. Hera had told me that her father said to her, ‘We are in England now, and we shall do things as the English do.’ He was, I believe, content to provide the dowry and leave all the arrangements for the wedding to Corwin and Master Peters.”

“I see,” said Smythe, gazing at the Genoan girl. “But your father seemed to think that Master Leonardo may not have approved of Corwin.”

Elizabeth glanced at Smythe with surprise. “Whatever gave him that idea?”

“Did he have reason to think otherwise?” Smythe asked.

Elizabeth frowned. “I do not know. I have no idea why he would have thought so. I know that he and Master Leonardo spoke at length that day when we came to the Theatre, but I think that they discussed matters of business. I do not recall if they spoke of anything else. I do not know that anything at all was said of Hera and Corwin, one way or the other.”

“Corwin seemed smitten with her,” said Shakespeare. “Was she in love with him?”

Elizabeth glanced at him. “She seemed excited at the prospect of the marriage,” she replied.

“Aye, but was she in love with him?” Shakespeare asked again.

“Do you doubt that she was?”

Shakespeare shrugged. “I do not know. That is why I asked. She scarcely knew him.”

“He knew her no better,” Elizabeth replied. “Have you never heard of two people falling in love upon first sight?”

Smythe glanced at her sharply, but she did not look at him. Almost as if she were carefully avoiding it, he thought.

“I am a poet,” Shakespeare replied. “Of course I know that people can fall in love upon first sight. The question is, was she one of those people?”

Elizabeth did not seem to have an answer.

Shakespeare tried another tack. “Did she know that Corwin had gone to her house to see her father and break off the engagement?” he asked, softly.

Elizabeth gasped and her eyes grew wide. “Is this true?” she asked with astonishment.

“He told me so himself,” Shakespeare replied.

“But… why?”

“It seems he believed she had deceived him about her virtue,” he replied.

“What!” Elizabeth said, with disbelief.

“I do not know precisely what Corwin had heard, or from whom,” Shakespeare said, “for he was in a fever of outrage and indignation when he came to the Theatre, but it seems that someone had convinced him that Hera was not… chaste.”

Elizabeth brought her hands up to her face. “Who would do such a vile thing?”

“We do not know,” said Shakespeare. “But we intend to do our utmost to find out.”

“She sits there as if she does not even hear us,” Smythe said, staring at Hera where she sat by the window on the other side of the room. “I know that we are speaking softly, so perhaps she cannot tell what we are saying from over there, but just the same, you would think that she would respond to our presence in some way, at least.”

Elizabeth ’s eyes were glistening with tears. “I have tried speaking to her,” she said, “but she simply does not answer.”

“Let me try,” said Smythe.

“Be gentle with her,” said Elizabeth.

He crossed the room and knelt on the floor by her side. She did not respond to his approach. “Hera…” he said, softy.

She did not respond.

“Hera?”

She kept on staring out the window, as if she hadn’t heard him.

“Hem” he said, more firmly and emphatically, though without raising his voice. He reached out and gently placed two fingers on her cheek, carefully turning her face toward his.

He was not certain if she really saw him, although she seemed to. Her gaze met his and, for a moment, it was as if she were looking through him. Then her eyes focused on his. He wanted to say something to her, but suddenly, he could not seem to find the words. The look in her eyes was one of unbearable pain and sadness, a grief that ran so deep it went down to her very soul. She blinked, and a single tear trickled down her cheek.

***

“What did you see when you gazed into her eyes?” asked Shakespeare, as they left the Darcie house.

“Unutterable sadness,” Smythe replied. “A grief so deep and all-encompassing that there was no room within her for aught else. It filled her to the very brim.”