“Good Lord!” said Fleming.
“She said he gave a sort of grunt and fell against her. She almost went down herself, trying to support his weight, and then noticed a dagger protruding from between his shoulder blades. She quite understandably panicked and took to her heels. She ran straight back here.”
“The poor girl!” said Fleming.
“I do not understand,” said Burbage, frowning. “How could he have been stabbed and she not have seen who did it?”
“I was a bit confused about that, too,” said Smythe. “It took a while to calm her down and she does not seem to remember what happened very clearly. But she does recall that there was an alleyway behind them, so my conjecture is that someone threw the dagger from within the alleyway.”
“Threw it!” Fleming said. “Lord! It might have hit the girl!”
Smythe shook his head. “I doubt it. She said it had gone in up to the hilt. That much, she remembers vividly. Whoever threw that dagger knew what he was about.”
“What do you mean?” asked Burbage.
“He means the man was an assassin,” Shakespeare said.
“What!”
“An assassin!”
“But how could you know that?” asked Burbage.
“It only stands to reason,” Shakespeare replied. “There seems to have been no attempt at robbery. And Gresham ’s clothes alone would have fetched a tidy sum, to say nothing of his jewelry and what he must have had in his purse. Elizabeth certainly would not have deterred a robber who was willing to kill to get what he wanted. So, if the man was not killed for what he had, then he was killed for who he was. Somebody wanted Anthony Gresham dead.”
“But there is no way you can know any of this for certain,” Kemp said.
“No, not yet, anyway,” Smythe replied. “But for the moment, I can think of no other explanation.”
“So then she simply left the body lying in the street?” asked Kemp.
“What did you expect her to do, pick it up and carry it back here?” said Speed, with a grimace.
“Well, I merely meant that someone would certainly have discovered it by now,” said Kemp.
“That would be a reasonable assumption,” agreed Burbage. “Men are killed on the streets of London every night, but they are not often noblemen. The sheriff’s men will surely be asking questions.”
“But not necessarily of us,” said Speed.
“And why not?” asked Fleming.
“Well, Gresham was killed a considerable distance from here,” Speed replied. “And none of us had anything to do with it. We were all right here, in the tavern. All night long. So why, then, would the sheriff’s men want to question any of us about anything?”
“But the girl came here,” said Fleming. “She came here straight afterward.”
“And she was here before,” said Kemp.
“And the less said about that, the better,” Speed replied. “If she knows what’s good for her, then she will keep her mouth shut about the whole thing.”
Smythe frowned. “What are you saying?”
“Just this, my lad,” Speed replied, “that she should not have been here with you in the first place, and in the second place, if everything she told you about this Gresham chap was true, then this neatly solves her problem for her, does it not? Gresham ’s dead.” He shrugged. “His body will be found, if it has not been found already, and the sheriff’s men will ask their questions, and it shall turn out, as it always does, that no one has seen anything or heard anything. And even if anyone did, why then, they heard no more than a woman screaming and they saw no more than a woman running. It is highly unlikely that anyone will ever connect her with any of this.”
“You are forgetting the servant, Drummond,” Smythe said. “He was driving Gresham in the carriage. And he saw Elizabeth.”
“What of it?” Speed replied. “You said she told you that Gresham told him to drive off. So he was not there when it happened. Elizabeth will simply say they spoke on the street and then they parted and he must have been killed afterward. The point is, there is no reason to drag any of us into this. And if she does, then it shall only make things worse for her. If it comes out that she has been with you, then her reputation will be ruined and Henry Darcie will certainly hold you to blame, if not all of us. There is simply nothing to be served in her being honest here. ‘Twill certainly not bring Gresham back. ‘Twill only bring disaster down on one and all.”
For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Stackpole broke the silence. “He has a point, you know-”
“Aye, he does,” agreed Burbage, nodding. “I cannot say that I like it, but it does make sense.” “Makes sense to me,” said Kemp.
Smythe looked from one to the other of them. Finally, his gaze fell on Shakespeare. “Will?” he said.
The poet pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I hate to admit it,” he said, “but Speed does have a point. I cannot see where honesty in this case would be the best policy at all. Quite the contrary, ‘twould only hurt everyone concerned. Especially the two of you.”
“The question is,” said Burbage, gazing at Smythe intently, “can you make her see that?”
Smythe exhaled heavily. “I suppose that I shall have to try. For her sake, and for all of yours, if not for my own.”
“Then we are all agreed?” said Burbage, glancing around at his comrades. “Elizabeth Darcie was never here at all. Not tonight, not earlier today… not at all. We never saw her. None of us. We do not know anything about this. Is that quite clearly understood?”
Everyone agreed.
“But what shall she tell her parents she was doing tonight?” Shakespeare asked. “If she does not have a good story for them, one that they would easily accept, then if they pressed her for the truth, she would probably break down and tell them.”
“Is there not some friend she could say she was visiting?” asked Speed.
“Perhaps,” said Smythe. “But whereas a friend might lie for her, the others in the household probably would not. Parents, servants, any of them could give her away.”
“True,” said Shakespeare. “We would need a rather more convincing fiction, I should think.”
Burbage glanced at Stackpole. “Granny Meg?” he said.
The innkeeper grinned and nodded. “Granny Meg,” he agreed.
11
“WHO IS GRANNY MEG?” ASKED Elizabeth, as they rode through the nearly deserted streets together in the small carriage Burbage had arrived in.
“She is what some people call a ‘cunning woman,’ “ Burbage replied.
“In other words, she is what other people would call a witch,” Shakespeare said, wryly.
“A witch!“ Elizabeth ’s eyes grew wide. “You are not taking me to see a witch?”
“My dear Mistress Darcie,” Burbage said, “you have just, by your own account, witnessed a murder. Surely you are not going to quail before the notion of visiting a harmless old woman?”
“But a witch!” Elizabeth replied. “They are said to be in league with the Devil!”
“They are no such thing at all,” Burbage said, calmly. “Cunning women such as Granny Meg have been around long before your doctors and apothecaries. For hundreds of years, in fact. They are folk healers and charmers and diviners whose knowledge is passed on from mother to daughter throughout the generations.”
“But they practice sorcery and black magic, do they not?” Elizabeth asked, apparently not quite reassured.
“There are some who would say that sorcery and black magic were one and the same thing,” Burbage replied. “And there are others who would differentiate between sorcerers and witches. Yet still others who would claim that magic is simply magic, neither white nor black, just as intent can be either good or evil. If you ask me, most of the talk one hears about magic, white or black, is all a lot of arrant nonsense. But call it what you will, I can attest that there is something to be said for the skills of cunning women.”