The Twelfth Night Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

known.”
    Daniel let out a long guffaw.
    The Goat and Boar was lively that night. When Suzanne and Daniel arrived they were hard-pressed to find a seat in the throng. An extra table had been brought to seat patrons, and even so, every chair in the room was occupied. Several men stood by the hearth where a mutton joint that dropped fragrant grease into the fire was nearing edibility. They were holding cups and tankards as they argued amiably about bears and bulls that fought dogs in the arenas near the bridge. Some tarts loitered here and there, young girls Suzanne didn’t know. The faces of the whores changed far more often than those of the men in this place, and keeping up with the comings and goings of the girls on Bank Side was near impossible.
    Suzanne looked around to see if any of her Players were there, and her heart lifted to find an entire table of them. The small one at the back was surrounded by actors and musicians from the Globe. Matthew, Liza, Louis, Big Willie, whose physique belied his name, and Horatio, whose wig just would not stay straight on his entirely bald head. It canted to one side, though he was forever straightening it with an absent shove.
    And Ramsay. Diarmid was there, wearing his bright red kilt and a clean, white linen shirt with the drawstring at its neck untied and hanging loose over his chest. His Highland bonnet of blue wool sat on the table before him, next to his cup of whisky. At the moment he was laughing at something someone had just said, but when he looked up and saw Suzanne on Daniel’s arm his smile died.
    Then he resurrected it, for Ramsay was not one to let himself appear defeated. Or even damaged. He leapt to his feet and gestured to his chair that Suzanne should sit instead of himself. Suzanne sat, gladly, for she didn’t care to stand and had not come with Daniel. She didn’t mind letting Ramsay play the gentleman in front of the actual gentleman.
    Now Ramsay and Daniel stood, Ramsay with his whisky and Daniel looking around for somewhere to sit. Louis, knowing his place as the least man present, hopped to his feet so the earl could take his chair. But Daniel, though he gazed at it for a moment to consider sitting, smiled and shook his head. His glance at Ramsay told Suzanne that though his rank entitled him to the chair, he would stand as long as Ramsay did. Daniel was a veteran of the civil war, and he liked to remind everyone that Ramsay was nothing but a soft actor. He gestured to Young Dent, the proprietor, for a whisky for himself and wine in a clean glass for Suzanne.
Expensive
wine.
    Matthew said, loudly over the roar of voices in the close room, “I’m surprised, Suzanne, to see you so near the river tonight.”
    She laughed. “It takes more than dark mutterings from an old witch to keep me away from the Goat and Boar.”
    “What dark mutterings do you mean, Suze?” Ramsay asked. His far northern brogue had smoothed out some during his months in London, but his speech was still quite crisp with rolling Rs and slender vowels.
    She waved away the subject as if it were nothing, though she didn’t really feel it was. “Oh, just an old woman who told me to stay away from the water for some weeks.”
    “Said she was going to drown, she did,” said Louis.
    “Did not. She only said my life would change and death was involved.”
    “Sounds a great deal like drowning to me.”
    She shrugged and laughed. “In any case, I can hardly stay away from the Thames for so long. Most weeks I cross it more than once. I’d hate to be utterly trapped in Southwark.” She tossed an insouciant grin to Ramsay and Daniel, and found them staring hard at each other, their postures with chests out and chins up, like roosters in a fighting ring. A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. Men had fought over her before, but only when very drunk, and the contest had always been over the money she cost rather than her affections. To see Daniel and Ramsay like this was not just a