The Poyson Garden Read Free

came so close he knew they'd find him. He squinted his eyes shut tight in pain, in childish hope they would not see him. He tried to picture his wife, still in Switzerland with his sister, Catherine. And in his last moment he cursed himself that, once again, he dared not--could not--just stand up and fight for what was good and right.
    "We canna be leaving this half done." But Henry heard his chance at deliverance now: more than one man's voice in some rollicking song. Or had he died and was being welcomed at the sacred gates to leave behind this regret, this fear and pain?
    "Let's fly then, and we'll be settling later with them all."
    The next cry clanged in Henry's ears like doomsday bells.
    "Down wi' the bloody Boleyns--e'en the royal one!"
     
    Edward Thompson, alias Ned Topside, stopped singing when he thought he heard some sort of shout just up ahead on the road. He couldn't
    discern the words, but it was definitely not someone joining in his romping chorus of "Between your thighs your beauty lies."
    "You hear that, Uncle Wat?" he asked, turning his head to survey the new leader of their troupe. Wat Thompson had taken over when Ned's father had died of the sweat this summer. Wat rode their only horse at a plodding pace that kept up with the cart the mule pulled. When they emerged from this dense woods, Wat would ride ahead to a tavern or manor house to inquire if they wished a revel, masque, or play from The Queen's Country Players.
    Meanwhile, Randall Greene, a pompous popinjay Ned secretly called Grand Rand, rode the cart because he felt peckish today, the sot. The two boys, Rob and Lucas, who did the women's parts, walked as Ned did, their high voices echoing his deep tones.
    "Don't think that man's shout was a hurrah we're coming, sounding clear out from Colchester, not out here," his uncle said, seeming to rouse himself a bit. "Best fetch our pikes and stage swords in case we meet up with some rural louts ahead, eh, lads?"
    But Ned had already reached for one of the ax-headed pikes that protruded from the bundles of costumes and makeshift bits of scenery. He was not a tall man, but wiry and strong. Despite his shock of curly black hair and boyish-if-rugged face, he'd long yearned for the meaty roles--the Italian dukes, English kings, even villains--the ones Wat usually took himself or gave to Grand Rand. Ned wearied of his uncle making him play the fond lover or young captain just because the ladies liked the turn of his leg and the mere hint of his smile.
    But worse, he hated playing the fool, the clown, the country rustic whenever a comedy came along, however good his ear for it. And right now he was sure that voice up ahead had not been some rural lout at all. Though he could not discern the words, it had been a defiant if lilting shout.
    Gesturing for them to slow, Ned strode ahead on the bend of road and came first upon a nervous horse, well-fed and curried, lathered yet from a run. He smacked its flank to send it along the road to his companions.
    "Stay back," he warned when young Rob came first around the bend. Wide-eyed, the boy nodded and
    seized the horse's dangling reins. "And tell them to halt the cart till I call the all-clear."
    Warily, Ned advanced, then stopped and stared. A body studded with arrows lay ahead in the middle of the road, not moving. Eyes darting both ways, Ned shuffled carefully forward. A corpse dressed well enough, with his jerkin all bloodied and his warm wool cloak splayed out under him black as night. His first instinct was to hurry everyone past, for some folks didn't trust the likes of traveling troupes and might blame them. But that would be unworthy of him and of what he promised his sire just afore he died.
    And then he heard a rustle in the bushes. Instinctively, he shouted and charged with his pike, just as he did in act the third of Victory at Agincourt.
    But in a sudden bramble brush he banged his shins and took a tumble over a tree trunk--and a second body. Gasping, Ned