About this audiobook

September 22nd, 1598. Hoxton Fields, London. The evening mist was beginning to rise from the Thames as Ben Jonson faced Gabriel Spenser in a patch of scrubland just north of London's theater district. Both men held drawn rapiers—the elegant, deadly swords that had become the weapon of choice for gentlemen settling their differences. Both had spent their professional lives bringing fictional violence to life on stage, but this evening's performance would have no curtain call. Jonson was twenty-six, built like a brick mason (which he had been, briefly, before discovering he had a talent for putting words together in ways that made people laugh, cry, and occasionally riot). He had a playwright's eye for drama and a bricklayer's understanding of what it meant to fight for your living. This wasn't his first time with a sword in his hand, and everyone present knew it wouldn't be his last—assuming he survived the next few minutes...