He sighed wearily and ran his hands through his thinning, chestnut hair. “I do not know how I shall ever manage to write anything at all with the likes of you about. At this rate, I do not think that I shall ever manage to get past ‘Act I, Scene I, Enter funeral.’”

“ ‘Enter funeral?’ Well, there’s a cheery opening. What happens in Act II? A war?”

“What, are you a critic now? ‘Strewth, you may as well be. You cannot write, you cannot act; clearly, you have all of the right qualifications. You even add a new one; you review my play before I have even written it. A brilliant innovation, I must say. Just think of all the time it saves.”

Smythe grimaced. “Never mind, go back to work if you are going to be so surly.”

“Well, now that you have muddled up my muse beyond all recognition, you may as well tell me what is on your mind, for clearly, something troubles you. I know that mien of yours when something preys upon your brain. The very air around you is turbid and oppressive. So, come on, give voice to it, or else neither of us shall have any peace upon this night.”

“To be truthful, I am not quite certain what the matter is,” Smythe said, with a grimace.

“Hmm. Twill be like pulling teeth, I see. Very well, then, what does it concern?”

“Not what so much as whom. Methinks ‘tis your new friend, Ben Dickens.”

“Ben? Why? He seems like an absolutely splendid fellow.”

“Oh, I grant you that,” Smythe replied. “He does seem like a decent sort, yet there is still something about him… something… I do not know what; I cannot quite put my finger on it.”

“You are not envious of him, surely?”

“I should not like to think so. I but bemoan my own shortcomings, as you know, and I admit them freely. Now that you mention it, however, I can see how others might well envy Ben his winning ways. To wit, those two apprentices, Jack and Bruce, his friends of old.”

“He would be better off without such friends, if you ask me,” said Shakespeare, disapprovingly.

“Oh, I quite agree,” said Smythe. “A thoroughly unpleasant pair, they were. You saw the way they looked at Molly?”

“Aye,” Shakespeare replied, with a grimace of distaste. “The way a hungry wolf looks upon a lamb. Especially that Bruce. And did you mark how she never once came near our table after those two came in?”

“So you noted that, as well. I thought you did.”

“I did, indeed. And from it I deduce that Molly is an excellent judge of character. But what has any of this to do with Ben?”

Smythe shook his head. “I cannot say.” He frowned. “And yet I feel a disquiet in my soul about him.”

“A disquiet in your soul?” Shakespeare grinned. “Odd’s blood, have you developed poetic sensibilities?”

Smythe snorted. “If so, then ‘tis entirely your fault, for you are a bad influence. The way you walk about, mumbling verses to yourself, ‘tis bound to rub off on one sooner or later.”

Shakespeare raised his eyebrows. “I mumble verses?”

“Constantly. Under your breath, sometimes even in your sleep.”

“Indeed? I had no earthly idea. In my sleep, you say?”

“Aye. Not all the time, but often enough that you wake me upon occasion.”

“Truly? How extraordinary. When I do so, would it trouble you to write it down?”

“Now there speaks a writer,” Smythe replied. “Not ‘I am sorry, Tuck, for troubling your sleep with my dreamful babble,’ but ‘Would it trouble you to write it down?’ Selfishness, thy name is poetry!”

“Oh, say, that is not bad at all! Wait, let me set it down…”

Smythe threw a pillow at him.

“Zounds! Watch out, for God’s sake! You will upset my inkwell!”

“If I do, then ‘twill be the first time that any ink was set down upon that page this night,” Smythe replied, dryly. “Sod off!”

“Sod off yourself. You are getting nowhere and you seek to blame it all on me, when in truth the fault lies entirely with you. I can see, you know. You sit there and stare off into the distance, as if your very gaze could penetrate the ceiling and look out upon the starry firmament, and your lips move as you mumble softly to yourself, and then you make a motion as if to set your pen to paper, but soft! You pause… your quill hovers as if in expectation, and then you set it down once more and stare off into the distance, and so it goes, with little variation, as it has gone so many nights of late, whether I have been plagued with restlessness or not.”

“You are a foul villain!”

“And you are a prating capon.”

“Dissentious rogue!”

“Soused goose!”

“Carrion kite!”

“Perfidious wretch!”

“Churlish minion!”

“Mincing queen!”

“Oh, you venemous monster! I do not mince! ‘Tis but a slight limp in my leg.”

“Limpness resides in more than just thy leg, methinks.”

“You abominable apparition! Ungrateful bounder! Thus you impugn me when I have spoken up for you and fed you and defended you-”

“Defended me? ‘Gainst whom?”

“Well… ‘gainst certain individuals who wouldst’ have others think base things of you.”

“What individuals? What base things? What others?”

“Nay, now, let us speak no more of this. ‘Twould serve no useful purpose.”

“Who speaks ill of me?” persisted Smythe. “Someone in the company?”

“Well, now, I did not say that…”

“Not in the company? Then who… surely not Elizabeth!”

“Nay, not Elizabeth. What have I to do with her or she with me? It matters not. Forget I even mentioned it.”

“But I do not even know what was mentioned!”

“So much the better, then. Let sleeping dogs lie. ‘Tis for the best.”

“Will!”

“Nay, I have said all that I shall say. Thus let there be an end to it.”

Smythe folded his arms and gazed at him truculently. “Ah. So I see. No one has said anything, is that not so? You are but baiting me again, as is your wont.”

“Just so, Tuck. You have found me out. See, you are much too clever for me. I cannot outwit you.”

“Nay, you throw in your cards too quickly. Someone truly said something about me, did they not?”

“Not at all. ‘Twas all in jest, I tell you. You had it right the first time. I did but bait you, as I so often do.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

Smythe lay back on the bed and put his hands behind his head, frowning as he stared up at the ceiling. He gave an irritated, sidelong glance toward Shakespeare, who had turned back to the sheets of parchment spread out on his writing desk. Smythe took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He cleared his throat. He wiggled his foot back and forth. He tried hard to lie still. He clicked his teeth together. Finally, he could stand it no longer.

“Will, honestly, tell me the truth. Who was speaking ill of me?”

Shakespeare ignored him.

“Will? Did you hear me?”

There was no response.

Shakespeare reached for his quill and held it poised over the parchment.

“Oh, very well, then,” Smythe said, irritably, as he got to his feet and reached for his boots and short woolen cloak. “Be a stubborn jade! See if I care! I can find better things to do than waste my time with your nonsense!”

He slammed the door on his way out.

Without looking up, Shakespeare chuckled softly to himself. “Ah, would that ‘twere all so simple and predictable,” he said. And then he sighed. “Now then, where was I? Act I, Scene I. Enter funeral…”