The Merchant of Vengeance (15 page)

"And you do not think that he could have gone to Mayhew's home and stood up to him? Cannot even a tailor be driven to a fury born of anger and frustration?"

"I suppose 'tis possible," said Smythe. "But I should think that he would have wished to speak with Portia first. After all, how else would he have known she would be willing to elope with him? And you just told me that Portia was with you and had not seen him. At least, not since Will and I had met him at Ben's shop."

Elizabeth shook her head. "Nay, she had not. We had been together all that time. And Antonia was with us and may vouch for that."

Smythe frowned and gave her a sharp glance. "Why would she need to?"

Elizabeth grimaced. "You would not ask that had you seen the way the sheriff's men behaved," she said. "They were very boorish and suspicious."

"They merely want someone to deliver up to the hangman for the crime," said Smythe contemptuously. "I believe they would have arrested me and Will for it if they thought they could have pinned the blame upon us without too much trouble."

"Well, Portia could never have done such a terrible thing," Elizabeth replied. "In any event, she was with me and Antonia when it must have happened."

"How did she respond to their questioning?" Smythe asked. "She could not speak with them," Elizabeth replied. "She ran from the room, sobbing with grief. I was left to answer all of their questions, and then I gave those ruffians a good talking-to for the way they treated her!"

"I should imagine that you did," Smythe said with a smile, easily able to picture it. "'Where was your father during all this?"

"He was away on business," she replied. "Else he would have had a thing or two to say about it, too!"

"I have no doubt," said Smythe, feeling at least momentarily relieved. "And your mother?"

"In the country, visiting her sister," said Elizabeth. "And just as well, I should say. I see no reason to trouble my parents with any of this."

"Nor do I," said Smythe, nodding. "At least, not unless anything should happen that might involve you further. Well then, given what they had heard from Will and me, and what they learned from you this morning, I would gather that they next went to Henry Mayhew's house. I take it that Antonia ,vas there with you, as well, when the sheriff's men came?"

"Nay, she had gone home to her husband yester-night," Elizabeth replied, "after we had failed to find Thomas."

"So then you never went to his room across the street from Leffingwell's?"

She shook her head. "There was no reason, as Master Leffingwell had said he was not there." She shuddered. "Thank God we had not gone there. Then we should have found him slain."

"A sad business, indeed," said Smythe. "I wonder if they have arrested Henry Mayhew?"

"Do you suppose he did it?" Elizabeth asked.

Smythe shook his head. "I do not know. what sort of man is he?"

"Well .. I should not think he was the sort who would be capable of murder," Elizabeth replied, "bur then one never truly knows, does one?"

"Nay, one does not," Smythe agreed. "If there is one thing I have learned, Elizabeth, 'tis that most any man could be capable of murder, given the right circumstances and the provocation."

"Even you?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"Aye, even me," he said. "In truth, I can imagine certain circumstances that could drive me to it, such as if some villain were to harm… someone that I cared about."

She gave him a sidelong glance. '"You mean Will?" she asked, in a slightly mocking tone.

"Well, Will is my closest friend," he said, a little awkwardly. "But I can think. of others on whose behalf I might be moved to some act of violence, if the occasion warranted."

"If the occasion warranted," she repeated. "Aye, there's the rub, indeed. Who is to say what sort of occasion may warrant such a deed? You? Or I? Or Portia's father? If he believed that his daughter had been disgraced or, worse yet, defiled, might he not consider that an occasion which warranted an act of violence? Or even murder?"

"I suppose that would depend upon what he believed may have occurred and how strongly he detested Jews," he replied. "Strangely enough, come to think of it, 'twas the desire to learn more about the Jews that started all of this."

"Indeed?" Elizabeth asked with a slight frown. "How so?"

Briefly, Smythe explained to her how he and Will had met with Robert Greene and how that, in turn, had led to the discussion of Marlowe's Jew of Malta) which Shakespeare had deter-mined to surpass.

"So that was why you went to see Ben Dickens?" asked Elizabeth. "So that Will could find out if he knew any Jews?"

"Aye," said Smythe. "Ben is the most well-travelled person that we know, and we supposed perhaps he might have met some in his soldiering days. Little did we suspect that we were about to meet one in the flesh." He frowned. "Although I must admit, the thought of Thomas being a Jew did not impress itself upon my mind especially, save that he had mentioned it as being the reason for his troubles. Otherwise, he seemed much like any other man."

"Why would he not?" she asked.

"'Well, in truth, I do not know," Smythe said. "But he was nothing at all like Marlowe's evil villain. He seemed a decent enough fellow, and struck me as no different from any other Englishman."

"Did you expect him to be different somehow?"

Smythe shook his head. "I do not know that I expected anything, in truth, having never met a Jew. Perhaps I had expected that a Jew would look different somehow, more like Marlowe's Barabas, I do not rightly know. But then, Thomas Locke's father is an Englishman."

"And so is he," Elizabeth replied. "Or, I should say, was he," she added sadly. "Did he not go to church? I seem to recall Portia telling me that they had gone together."

Smythe nodded. "Aye, since you mention it, I recall he did say so. Thomas told us that he had been raised in his father's faith, and not his mother's. Was that not the only way a Jew could have remained in England?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "I truly know nothing of such things. But from what I understood from Portia, 'twould make no difference to her father yea or nay. Once he had discovered that Thomas's mother was a Jewess, then that made Thomas a Jew, as well, even by the standards of his own people."

"Curious. I wonder how Mayhew would have known that," Smythe said. "And how did he happen to discover that Thomas's mother was a Jewess?"

"Portia made no mention of it," Elizabeth replied. "But 'tis an interesting question, I must say. Unless he had found out from Thomas."

"'Why would Thomas even mention it, especially to Mayhew?" asked Smythe. "Knowing that Jews had been barred from England since King Edward's time, one would think 'twould be the last thing he would do."

Elizabeth glanced at him. "You have become all caught up in this, I see."

"And you have not?"

"To the extent that Portia is my friend, I have," she replied. "But for me, it ends with my concern for her. Not so with you, however."

"Well, as I told you, I feel at least in part responsible for what has happened," he replied.

"And as I have told you, even had you not spoken with Thomas at all, he still would have at least considered an elopement, if not purely on his own, then certainly after Portia told him that she was willing to run off with him."

"Except by that time, he would already have been dead," said Smythe. "'Tis the timing of it all that troubles me. Like a hungry dog that worries at a bone, I cannot seem to let it go. Did Portia happen to mention if Thomas had any other enemies? Perhaps someone with whom he may have quarrelled of late?"

Elizabeth frowned, thinking for a moment, then shook her head. "Nay, I do not think she mentioned Thomas having any enemies. Of course, that does not mean he did not have them. Are you thinking that Henry Mayhew may not have been the one who did it?"

"Well, 'twould seem unlikely he would have done it by himself," said Smythe. "He could have hired someone and had it done, which would not have been very difficult at all." He glanced around. "We could probably find men willing to perform such work right here. And yet, the more I dwell upon it, the more it troubles me, Elizabeth. I do not think. Mayhew could have acted so quickly to have had it done within so brief a span of time."

"Unless he had already planned to do it earlier," Elizabeth replied.

"'Tis possible," said Smythe, nodding as he considered it.

"And yet, methinks 'twould seem unlikely."

"Why so?" she asked.

"Consider this," he said. "Mayhew discovered somehow that Thomas was a Jew, and let us not trouble for the moment about how he happened to come by this knowledge, although that is a point which puzzles me considerably. We shall assume, for the moment, that he was outraged and infuriated by this knowledge to the point where he was willing to commit murder, or else hire someone else to do it. Well then, why not simply go ahead and have it done? "Why bother formally withdrawing his permission for the marriage? Why bother saying anything at all, to Portia or to Thomas or to anyone, for that matter, Would it not have been simpler by far for him to have poor Thomas killed, and then feign ignorance and commiserate with his daughter over the terrible tragedy that had occurred? In that event, would anyone have seen any reason at all to tie him in with it? Assuming that he was not an utter fool, which he could not have been, else he would not have made such a success in business, then would he not have found such a course much more expedient?"

"Indeed, 'twould seem so," Elizabeth replied, after considering it a moment. "So then, why did he not do so?"

"Perhaps," said Smythe, "because he was not the one who did it."

"But… if that is true…" Elizabeth began with a worried frown.

"Then the sheriff's men may very likely be arresting an innocent man even as we speak," said Smythe.

Chapter 7

Built to house the company of players known as the Lord Admiral's Men, the Rose Theatre was the crown jewel of Philip Henslowe's various enterprises, among which were also a pawnshop and a number of thriving Southwark brothels situated conveniently nearby. Originally hexagonal in shape, the playhouse was three stories high and timber framed, with thatch-roofed galleries and an open yard. At considerable expense, the Rose had recently been renovated and enlarged by pushing back the walls behind the stage, along with the stage itself and the tiring room behind it, then lengthening the sides of the building. This expansion increased the available area for the groundlings, those members of the audience who paid the cheapest admission price of one penny and stood in the open yard, the surface of which had been mortared and sloped upward, so that those who stood toward the rear could enjoy an unobstructed view. This sloping of the yard also facilitated drainage, so that rainwater and other natural fluids could run down to the wooden box drain that ran from just behind the stage to a ditch beyond the playhouse walls. This made cleanup after the performances easier and, with the regular changing of the rushes, helped keep down the smell. Now shaped like an asymmetrical polygon, the playhouse was currently home to both the Lord Admiral's Men and Lord Strange's Men, the company to which Smythe and Shakespeare now belonged.

They had left their first company, the Queen's Men, though not without some regret, for they had thought of the Theatre as their home ever since they came to London. Dick Burbage, the son of the owner, James Burbage, was a fellow player and had become a good friend to them both. However, despite the Theatre's legacy of lending its name to other stages — all playhouses in London were now increasingly being called "theatres" -the Queen's Men had fallen upon hard times. The company had been in decline ever since the death of Dick Tarleton, their celebrated comic player, followed by the defection of their star, the celebrated Edward Alleyn, who had joined the Lord Admiral's Men. Ned had subsequently married Henslowe's daughter, thereby cementing his relationship to the entrepreneur and assuring his own future. To make matters worse, the Queen's Men had then lost both of their juvenile apprentice players when one had died of the plague and the other, perhaps fearing the same fate, ran off.

After that, the company's bad luck only continued to grow worse.

Will Kemp, for all his efforts, had never quite been able to fill Dick Tarleton's shoes, and before long he, too, had left the company, following Alleyn to the Lord Admiral's Men. The lengthy forced closure of the playhouses due to plague and a dismal touring season for the company had already strained the finances of the Queen's Men to the limit. Most of the players were broke, and a number of the hired men had quit and gone in search of other work. And in a time when work in London was becoming increasingly difficult to come by, this bespoke a degree of desperation that was telling. When the playhouses had at last reopened, the powerful combination of Ned Alleyn's bombastic acting and Kit Marlowe's luridly dramatic writing drew most of the Queen's Men's audience to the Rose. The wind was whistling through the empty galleries of the Theatre, and even the ever optimistic Dick Burbage had seen the ominous writing on the wall.

"Go," he had told them, when Will received an invitation to join Lord Strange's Men. "Go on and join them. Never fear for me. 'Tis true that things do not look very promising at present. The company is but a shadow of what it once had been; our audiences have deserted us, and our greedy landlord keeps threatening not to renew our lease upon the property in the hope that he may seize the playhouse for himself. But though the carrion kites may circle overhead, my friends, my father and I are far from finished. For a time, Henslowe and the Lord Admiral's Men have us at a decided disadvantage, to be sure, but remember that fortunes ever change. We are already planning a new Theatre, much improved over the present one, and although the time is not yet ripe, our plan…ill soon come to fruition. But in the meantime, you must eat, my friends, and you must pay your rent, and though your loyalty is the very nectar of sweet nourishment to me, I fear 'tis but poor provender for you. So please, I beg you, go with my blessings, both of you. There shall yet be another time for us to play together."