“Right,” said Darnley. “It has to be in here someplace. Look around, lads.”

“Jack!” one of the others said. “There’s a big chest right here!”

Darnley glanced around, saw it, and shook his head. “Wrong one,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m bloody sure, you cankerous mongrel, I’ve seen the bloody thing, haven’t I?”

“What about this one, Jack?” another one asked.

He turned. “Nay, nor that one, neither. ‘Tis too new.”

“Jack! I found a chest right here!” another of the boys called out.

“Be quiet, you scurvy crow! You want to bring the watch? Where is it?” Darnley went to take a look. “Nay, nay, ‘tis not the one! Bloody hell! Is this a smithy or a chest-maker’s shop? We are looking for a sea chest! An old sea chest!”

“Jack…” said McEnery.

Darnley turned. McEnery had raised an old saddle blanket under which was an old sea chest. “That is the very one!” “Should we break it open?”

“Nay, ‘twould make too much noise,” said Darnley. “We shall take it with us and find that compartment at our leisure. Lift it up, boys.”

They picked up the chest and started to carry it toward the door.

“Cover up that lantern, Bruce, ‘afore we go outside,” said Darnley. He waited a moment, then snapped back over his shoulder, “I said, cover up that bloody lantern!”

“I did cover it up!”

“Well, then, where the hell’s that light coming from, you pustule?”

They turned around.

“ ‘Allo, Jack,” Ben Dickens said, standing behind them with a lantern. “ ‘Allo, Bruce. Nice night for a break-in, eh boys?”

Smythe stepped out beside him, holding another lantern. “Good to see you again, Jack,” he said. “You know, I have been meaning to speak with you about these lumps you and your boys gave me. I was hoping to pay you back, with interest.”

Darnley gave a small, derisive snort. “Well, well,” he said. “Are we not the clever ones? ‘Tis you who shall be paying, Smythe, my friend. And as for you, Ben, you could have joined us again when you had the chance. You could have shared in all this money. But ‘tis a bit too late now.”

“You truly are a clownish half-wit, Darnley,” Shakespeare said, from over by the door. Liam Bailey stepped out from hiding along with him and threw open the door. “There is no money. There is nothing in that sea chest but old clothes.”

Darnley’s eyes were like anthracite as he gazed at them with loathing. “So what?” he said. “So you have played a clever trick. What do you think that has accomplished? Nothing! The trick is going to be on you.” He raised his voice. “Gather round, lads!”

The Steady Boys who had been waiting outside came running. They formed a semicircle in the street around the door, surrounding the entrance to the shop.

“Now so cocky now, Smythe, are we?” said McEnery, with an ugly sneer.

“I am sorry, Ben,” said Darnley. “But you made your choice.” “Aye,” said Dickens, “so did you, Jack.” “Now?” said Smythe, raising one eyebrow. “Aye, Tuck,” said Dickens. “Now.”

Smythe raised two fingers to his mouth and gave a piercing whistle. Darnley’s eyes narrowed and he quickly turned around. Beyond the semicircle of Steady Boys out in the street, figures seemed to melt out of the shadows, dozens of them, men carrying clubs and knives and staves and swords. The Steady Boys glanced all around in alarm as they found themselves suddenly surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered. Moll Cutpurse stepped out from the crowd, her hand upon the pommel of her sword.

“If there is any thieving to be done in London,” she said, “you come and ask permission from the Guild. We do not look very kindly on those who come poaching on our ground.”

Darnley spun around to face Smythe. “Damn you!” he said, with a snarl. “ ‘Tis all your doing! We should have killed you that night! Well, you may get in your licks in return for the drubbing that you got, but ‘tis all you’ll bloody get! You can still prove nothing! And Corwin still bloody well hangs!”

“Are you quite certain of that, Jack?” asked Smythe. And he raised his fingers to his lips and whistled once again.

Darnley’s eyes grew wide as the clatter of hoofbeats on the cobblestones rang out through the night and Sir William Worley, leading a squad of the sheriff’s men, came riding into the street. Moll Cutpurse’s men parted ranks to let them through.

“What is this?” Darnley demanded, suddenly looking afraid.

“You said we could prove nothing, Jack,” said Smythe, “but you were wrong. You are carrying the proof right there. We had placed several chests inside the shop. But only one was in Leonardo’s house. You went straight to it.”

“That drunken bugger in the tavern told us all about it!” Darnley protested. “He said ‘twas an old sea chest that had the money hidden in it!”

“He merely said the money was hidden within a secret compartment in a chest,” said Smythe. “He never said anything about an old chest, or a sea chest. He merely said ‘a chest.’ You were the one who said ‘twas an old sea chest, Jack. And there was only one way that you could have known that.”

“You are all under arrest in the queen’s name,” Sir William said. “For robbery, and for the murder of Master Leonardo.”

“Nay! I never murdered no one!” Bruce McEnery cried out, in a panic. “ ‘Twas Jack! Jack did it! Jack Darnley killed ‘im!”

“You bastard whoreson!” Darnley said, and plunged a knife deep into McEnery’s chest. McEnery screamed and fell to the street, clutching at the blade protruding from his chest.

With a swift sweep of his arm, Sir William hurled his dagger. It struck Darnley in the back and buried itself deep between his shoulder blades. Darnley grunted and his eyes popped, then glazed over as he fell. He was dead before he struck the street.

The members of the Thieves Guild melted away into the shadows as the sheriff’s men rounded up the remaining Steady Boys, some of whom had started whimpering and crying.

“Thank you, Sir William,” Smythe said, with a slight bow.

Worley touched the brim of his plumed hat in a salute of acknowledgement. “Your friend shall be freed within the hour,” he said, then wheeled his mount, and rode off into the night.

EPILOGUE

THE DOUBLE WEDDING WAS ATTENDED by all the Queen’s Men. It took place in St. Dunstan’s Church, not far from where Hera and her late father, Captain Leonardo, had briefly made their home in London. The congregation was an interesting agglomeration of thespians and thieves, together with craftsmen and apprentices, for not all apprentices were hellions like the Steady Boys, many of whom would serve some time in prison, either in the Marshalsea, the Newgate, or the Clink. The chief malefactors, Darnley and McEnery, were both dead and without them, one of the most notorious of the ‘prentice gangs was now no more, an object lesson to other working-class young men with too little sense and too many high spirits.

Of course, Hera could never reside with her new husband in the house where her father had been murdered. The constant memory would be much too disturbing for her. So with the proceeds from the sale of the house, Corwin had purchased a modest new home for them not far from the shop of Master Peters, where he continued to work as a journeyman, doubtless soon to be a master craftsman in his own right.

Ben and Molly were, of course, the second couple that were married at the ceremony, though much to the company’s regret, Ben had decided to leave the Queen’s Men once again. A player’s life, he felt, was really too uncertain, and so with some of his remaining money that had been recovered from the Steady Boys, together with some money from Molly and her sister, Ben went into partnership with several journeymen and opened up a small shop selling arms and armor. It quickly became a thriving business, perhaps the one place in London where members of the upper classes could rub shoulders with members of the Thieves Guild and not be concerned about the safety of their purses.