"Tut! tut!--the wench will come to fast enough in the fresh air. A
dare-devil jade, too, to be sparking it on Bankside at this hour!
But it takes more than a woman, they say, to kill a mouse, and with
serpents her sex hath an ancient feud. What's her name, I wonder?"
The candles, burning low and guttering in the draught of the open
window, showed a banquet-hall deserted, or all but deserted. A small
crowd of the guests--our apprentice among them--had trooped downstairs
after Shakespeare and his burden. Others, reminded by the grey dawn,
had slipped away on their own account to hire a passage home from the
sleepy watermen before Paris Garden Stairs.
"Can any one tell me her name, now?" repeated John Shakespeare, rolling
to the table and pouring himself yet another glass of wine. But no
one answered him. The snake-woman had folded back her pets within her
bodice and resumed her meal as though nothing had happened. The burly
drummer had chosen a chair beside her and fallen to on the remains of a
pasty. Both were eating voraciously. Francisco, the pipe-player, sat
sidesaddle-wise on a form at a little distance and drank and watched
them, still with the horror in his eyes. One or two women lingered, and
searched the tables, pocketing crusts--searched with faces such as on
battlefields, at dawn, go peering among the dead and wounded.
"But hullo!" John Shakespeare swung round, glass in hand, as the
apprentice stood panting in the doorway. "Faith, you return before I
had well missed you."
The lad's eyes twinkled with mischief.
"An thou hasten not, master, I fear me thou may'st miss higher game;
with our hosts--your son amongst 'em--even now departing by boat and,
for aught I know, leaving thee to pay the shot."
"Michael and all his angels preserve us! I had forgot----"
John Shakespeare clapped a hand on his empty pocket, and ran for the
stairhead. "Will!" he bawled. "Will! My son Will!"
The apprentice laughed and stepped toward the window, tittuping
slightly; for (to tell the truth) he had drunk more wine than agreed
with him. Standing by the window, he laughed again vacuously, drew a
long breath, and so spun round on his heels at the sound of a choking
cry and a rush of feet. With that he saw, as in a haze--his head being
yet dizzy--the heavy man catch up his drum by its strap and, using
it as a shield, with a backward sweep of the arm hurl off the youth
Francisco, who had leapt on him knife in hand. Clutching the curtain,
he heard the knife rip through the drum's parchment and saw the young
man's face of hate as the swift parry flung him back staggering,
upsetting a form, against the table's edge. He saw the glasses there
leap and totter from the shock, heard their rims jar and ring together
like a peal of bells.
The sound seemed to clear his brain. He could not guess what had
provoked the brawl; but in one and the same instant he saw the drummer
reach back an arm as if to draw the dancing woman on his knee; heard
his jeering laugh as he slipped a hand down past her bare shoulder; saw
her unmoved face, sullenly watching; saw Francisco, still clutching his
knife, gather himself up for another spring. As he sprang the drummer's
hand slid round from behind the woman's back, and it too grasped a
knife. An overturned chair lay between the two, and the rail of it as
Francisco leapt caught his foot, so that with a clutch he fell sideways
against the table. Again the glasses jarred and rang, and yet again
and more loudly as the drummer's hand went up and drove the dagger
through the neck, pinning it to the board. The youth's legs contracted
in a horrible kick, contracted again and fell limp. There was a gush of
blood across the cloth, a sound of breath escaping and choked in its
escape: and as the killer wrenched out his knife for a second stroke,
the body slid with a thud to the floor.
The apprentice had feasted, and feasted well; yet throughout the feast
(he bethought himself of this later), no serving-man and but one
serving-maid had entered the room. Wines and dishes had come at call to
a hatch in the wall at the far end of the room. One serving-maid had
done all the rest, moving behind the guests' chairs with a face and
mien which reminded him of a tall angel he had seen once borne in a car
of triumph at a City show. But now as he left his curtain, twittering,
crazed with fear, spreading out both hands toward the stain on the
tablecloth, a door beside the hatch opened noiselessly, and swift and
prompt as though they had been watching, two men entered, flung a dark
coverlet over the body, lifted and bore it off, closing the door behind
them. They went as they had come, swiftly, without a word. He had seen
it as plainly as he saw now the murderer sheathing his knife, the
woman sullenly watching him. The other women, too, had vanished--they
that had been gleaning among the broken crusts. Had they decamped,
scurrying, at the first hint of the brawl? He could not tell: they had
been, and were not.
He stretched out both hands towards the man, the woman--would they,
too, vanish?--and the damning stain? A cry worked in his throat, but
would not come.
"Gone!" a voice called, hearty at once and disconsolate, from the
doorway behind him. "Gone--given me the slip, as I am a Christian
sinner. What? You three left alone here? But where is our friend the
piper?"
The apprentice made a snatch at a flask of wine, and, turning, let its
contents spill wildly over the bloodied tablecloth.
"Art drunk, lad--shamefully drunk," said John Shakespeare, lurching
forward. "They have given me the slip, I say, and ne'er a groat have I
to redeem my promises."
"They paid the score below--I saw them; and this thy son charged me to
hand to thee." The apprentice drew a full purse from his pocket and
flung it on the table. "I--I played thee a trick, master: but let me
forth into fresh air. This room dizzies me...."
"Go thy ways--go thy ways, child. For my part I was ever last at a
feast to leave it, and would crack one more cup with these good folk.
To your health, Madam!" He reached a hand for the wine-flask as the
apprentice set it down and went forth, tottering yet.