“ ‘Sdeath! You have me there. I should think that I would know them if I heard them once again, but to say they are the ones beyond any shadow of a doubt… but wait… there is one thing! I know that they plan to pose as a nobleman and his son! That should enable us to identify them!”

“Indeed?” said Shakespeare. “And how many noblemen do you suppose will be in attendance at this wedding, hmm? Considering, of course, that this celebration is to be the single most significant social event of the season. And how many of them, do you suppose, shall bring their sons along, as well, especially considering that the extremely, one might even say obscenely wealthy Master Middleton still has an emminently marriageable and, by all accounts, extremely beautiful younger daughter?”

“Ah,” said Smythe, weakly.

“Ah, indeed.”

“So then… what are we to do?”

“Well, ‘twould seem to me that you have a number of things to consider before we can answer that question,” Shakespeare replied. “For one thing, you seem to have neglected, at least for the moment, the matter of what brought you out to the garden maze last night in the first place.”

“ Elizabeth!”

“Precisely. Now, can you be certain that she is not somehow involved in this?”

“ Elizabeth? I could never believe that of her!” Smythe replied. “Not after what she went through herself! Zounds, does anyone get betrothed in London without all manner of plots and counterplots?”

“One might say that marriage is a plot in and of itself, but that is neither here nor there,” said Shakespeare, wryly. “If you are going to be reporting what you heard tonight to Master Middleton, or to anyone else, for that matter, then quite aside from being questioned closely about what you had heard, you will doubtless be questioned about why you were out there in the first place, especially at such an hour. Now, would you be comfortable saying that you were there because you had seen Elizabeth entering the maze alone and therefore followed her? For if you were to say that, then chances are it would cast suspicion upon her, and she would be summoned to explain why she went out there all alone, with darkness falling.”

“I would like to hear that explanation, myself,” said Smythe.

“Ah, but are you entitled to it?” Shakespeare countered. “And even if you were, which is certainly open to argument, then how do you suppose Elizabeth would feel about that?”

“She would probably be furious with me,” Smythe said, glumly. “She does have quite the temper.”

“Mmm, don’t they all?” said Shakespeare.

“What are we to do then?”

“We?”The poet raised his eyebrows. “I thought ‘twas your problem that we were discussing. How does it happen, Tuck, that I always manage somehow to be pulled into your intrigues?”

“Because you are my friend,” said Smythe.

“Aye, worse luck.”

“And because you cannot resist it. You are as curious as a cat, Will.”

“True, and worse luck, still,” said Shakespeare, with a grimace. “So then, where does that leave us?”

Shakespeare sighed. “Well… it leaves us with not one, but two puzzles, it would seem. The first, and the most immediate, since it nearly resulted in your getting skewered tonight, is the matter of these two mysterious and rather unpleasant gentlemen and their plot involving Blanche Middleton. The second is the question of what Elizabeth was doing out in the maze tonight, and whether or not her business there had aught to do with these two gentlemen. I know that you do not believe it, but we cannot dismiss the possibility. We must keep our heads about us and not allow our feelings to influence our better judgement. You say that you neither saw nor heard her after you had entered the maze yourself?”

Smythe shook his head. “No. It seemed to me that she must have known her way around in there, for I lost track of her and became confused myself.”

“You became what you had already become, else you would not have gone out there in the first place,” Shakespeare said, dryly.

“Are you going to help me or criticize me?”

“I criticize you only to help you, my lad,” the poet replied. He took a deep breath. “That girl is going to be the ruin of you yet. But… you are my very best friend, Tuck, for better or for worse, and so, as I am a loyal friend, your ruin shall be our ruin, and we shall both go down magnificently.”

Tuck rolled his eyes. “You are being melodramatic.”

“Of course, I am being melodramatic, you ninny. I am a poet.”

“And a player.”

“Aye, and thus stand doubly damned. Well then, what shall we do about this curious predicament?” He stroked his beard and thought for a moment. Then he nodded to himself. “ Twould seem to me that saying anything to Master Middleton at this point would serve no useful purpose. We do not know enough to tell him anything of substance. That someone might plot to take advantage of him and his daughter, to marry her for money, well, that is something that any man in his position would readily surmise and take steps to prepare for. And who are we, after all, to be pointing accusatory fingers at any of his guests? We are but two lowly players, whose own motives might easily be suspect. We need much more than just the few remarks you overheard tonight before we can go to Master Middleton.”

“But we are only here for one more day,” said Smythe. “Or two, at most, if we depart the day after our performance.”

“Which argues well for doing nothing,” Shakespeare replied. “This is truly none of our affair.”

“When someone tries to run me through with a rapier, I consider that very much my affair!”

“Oh, very well, then. If you insist. We shall have to see if we can discover anything about who Blanche Middleton’s suitors might be, and who, among them, is an aristocrat-or pretends to be one- and who, among those, may be here together with his father-or a man who pretends to be his father. Then you must listen to them speak and see if you can recognize their voices. And ‘twill be interesting to see if they can recognize yours, as well, for if so, then that may suit our purpose admirably.”

“And just how would it do that?” asked Smythe, frowning.

Shakespeare shrugged. “Well, they have already tried to kill you once. They would doubtless try it once again to ensure that you did not give them away. And doing so, they might well give themselves away. And that would suit our purpose, you see?”

“ ‘Twould not suit my purpose very well if I were killed!”

“Quite. Therefore, we shall endeavor to keep you alive as long as possible. Long enough, at least, to get to the bottom of this nefarious intrigue and find out if Master Middleton is grateful enough to offer some reward.”

“I see. So I should therefore place my life at risk so that you might collect a reward from Master Middleton?”

“Well, I would share it with you, of course. Assuming you survived, that is.”

“How good of you.”

“Think nothing of it. What are friends for?”

“For getting other friends killed, it would seem.”

“Look, did I ask you to go out to the maze tonight on the trail of some pouty girl? Or did you, in fact, come to me to help you out with this?”

Smythe made a sour face. “I came to you,” he admitted.

“Indeed. Tis not too late to change your mind, however. We could still choose to act as if none of this had ever happened and blithely go about minding our own business as if we were naught but mere players hired to perform a foolish little play for the amusement of the wedding guests, then take our bows, and pack our things, and continue on our merry way to new adventures and amusements. And I, for one, would have no trouble whatsoever if we were to do precisely that. So then… what shall it be?”

Smythe sighed. “You know, Will, you can be a very irritating person.”