Shakespeare and Smythe stumbled into just such a street fight shortly after they had entered the city, passing through one of the large, arched gates in the encircling stone wall. For Smythe, it had felt like passing through a gate from one world into another. They were assailed by a dizzying cacophony of smells, from the market stalls selling fish, meats, produce, breads, and cheeses, to the heady, pungent odor of the horse droppings and the still fouler stench of human waste and garbage that was simply dumped into the streets, to be picked at by the crows and ravens who nested in the trees and made their meals out of whatever refuse they could find, in addition to the fleshy morsels that they tore from the severed heads stuck up on the spikes outside the law courts.
There was noise and tumult assailing them from every quarter, with the squeaking, clomping sounds of ungreased cart wheels jouncing by on cobblestones, the snorting and neighing of the horses and the jingling of their tack, the clacking of the beggars’ clap-dishes, the ringing of shopkeepers’ bells, and the cries of the peddlers and costermongers-”Hot oakcake! Hot oatcake! Come an’ buy! Come an’ buy!” “New brooms ‘ere! New brooms!” “Whaddyalack-whaddyalack-whaddyalack now?” “Rock samphires! Getchyer fresh rock samphires!”
As they moved through the streets, another cry suddenly went up with great alacrity, rising over and above the din they heard around them as it was taken up by many other voices. “Clubs! Clubs! Clubs!”
“Clubs?” said Smythe, frowning with puzzlement.
No sooner had he spoken than they found themselves engulfed by a stampeding mob that came streaming out from around the corner like the abruptly released waters of a sluiceway, forcing them back toward the gutter that held all the filth and garbage that would ferment there like an odious, swampy brew until the next rain washed it down into Fleet Ditch.
“Street riot!” Shakespeare cried out, pulling hard at Smythe’s arm in an effort to drag him back out of the way, but the crowd had already surged around them and they found themselves caught up in its momentum and carried back the way they came.
It was impossible to tell who was fighting whom or how the whole thing had started. All they knew was that they were suddenly caught up in a crush of people trying to get away from the rising and falling clubs and flashing blades that were at the heart of it. Smythe slipped and tried to keep his footing on the slimy cobblestones near the gutter running down the center of the street, where most of the noxious muck had gathered and where people, forced into it by the press of bodies all around them, were falling down into the stinking, toxic ooze and being trampled. Someone bumped into him and Smythe pushed the man away roughly, sending him sprawling as he glanced around quickly for the poet.
“Will! Will!”
“Tuck!”
He spotted him, reaching out for help, being jostled repeatedly and trying desperately to keep his footing. He had lost his staff and he looked panic-stricken. Smythe stretched out his arm and, just at that instant, the poet lost his footing, slipped, and fell.
“Got you!” Smythe said, seizing his wrist and yanking him up and back from the filthy mire at the center of the street.
“Odd’s blood!” said Shakespeare, gasping for breath as Smythe shoved their way roughly through the crowd to the nearest wall. “A man could get himself hurt around here.”
“Watch out, the City Marshal’s men!” somebody cried.
The sound of hoofbeats on cobblestones rose over the shouting and the clanging of steel as the marshal’s men came galloping upon the scene, responding to the riot that had been moving through the streets and causing considerable damage. There was a rather large group of young men, in various styles of dress, going at it with a vengeance with both clubs and swords, though Smythe had no way of telling who was on whose side. It looked like a wild melee. The combatants, however, either did not seem to suffer from that problem, or else they were simply fighting with anyone within reach.
As Smythe pressed back against the wall with Shakespeare, he saw the mounted men come galloping around the corner, an unwise thing to do, it seemed to him, considering the uneven surface of the streets and the slick condition of the cobblestones. And sure enough, even as they watched, one of the lead horses went down, pitching its rider off as its hooves slipped on the cobbles, and the rider coming up behind it was brought down, as well. The others did not even slow down as they rode down the rioters, laying about them indiscriminately with their swords and truncheons. One young rioter’s head was split open like a melon in a spray of blood and brains. Another screamed hoarsely as he had his arm and most of his shoulder chopped clean through. Unlike some of the fashionable, rapier-toting toughs, the City Marshal’s men were armed with broadswords. Not as quick, perhaps, but devastatingly effective, especially from horseback.
“We had best get inside someplace and quickly,” Smythe said, “before we get caught up in all that.”
“Aye, they do not seem to care much whom they chop down, do they?” said Shakespeare. “They are a most profligate bunch of butchers.”
“Over there,” said Smythe, pointing out a painted wooden sign for a tavern just a few doors down.
Shakespeare glanced up at the sign. “The Swan and Maiden, eh? Well, by Zeus, it seems like just the place. If we can make it there.”
They made it through the door mere seconds before the carnage would have caught up with them, plunging through it so quickly that they tripped upon the threshold and fell sprawling to the rush-strewn floor. A group of men had gathered at the windows to watch and they were heartily cheering each brutal stroke, raising their tankards, slapping one another on the back, laughing boisterously, and toasting the slaughter outside in the street as if it were being staged purely for their benefit.
“Hah! Well struck!”
“Again! Get him!”
“Kill him!”
“Run him through!”
“Mow down the bloody bastards!”
“Look! Here’s two of them come bursting in here, trying to flee! What do you say, lads? Shall we toss them back out into the street to get their just desserts? Or should we carve them up in here ourselves and save the marshal’s men some trouble?”
Smythe turned, fixed the speaker with a glare, and rose to his feet. The man’s eyes widened and he swallowed nervously, backing off a step. His hand went to his sword hilt. Smythe hefted his staff. The man who’d spoken hesitated, suddenly uncertain if he wanted to draw steel and commit himself to a fight he might not win. He looked to his comrades for support, his gaze quickly flicking from Smythe to them and back again, as if seeking a prompt for action.
Smythe made a quick assessment of his potential opponent. He had the look of a tradesman, middle-aged and bearded, as they all were, in his early to mid-thirties, and fashionably, if not ostentatiously dressed in a brown leather doublet with the rough side out and buttons of polished brass set close together. Slashed sleeves, showing touches of red cloth underneath, were in conformity with the latest style. The sword, too, looked more worn for fashion than for function. Doubtless, it was reasonably functional, but the hilt and scabbard looked a bit too ornamental for serious work to Smythe’s trained eye. The workmanship was gaudy, but strictly second-rate. The man was a barroom bravo, a loudmouthed bully with a few tankards of ale under his belt, but judging by his weapon, he was not a real swordsman.
“Oh, we’ve got ourselves a roaring boy,” one of the others said. This one, Smythe noted, was a larger man, but soft around the middle and bleary-eyed with drink. His large and red-veined nose betrayed his fondness for the cask. His gut-stuffed, ale-stained, blue and buff striped doublet confirmed it. “I think this one wants a fight, lads,” he added, with ale-fueled belligerence.