Martyr (41 page)

Shakespeare looked about her cell with some amazement. She had set it up as well as any room to be found in a luxurious trugging house or inn. There were wax candles burning all about and fine linen on the bed. Starling herself looked well fed and rosy cheeked. “I can see you are well provided for here, Mistress Day, but I have come to set you free. On one condition: that you tell me the whereabouts of a whore called Isabella Clermont and her procuress, one Mother Davis.”

“Sorry, ducks, never heard of them. Try Parsey. She knows all the game girls.”

Parsimony’s door was shut. She was just finishing off with a customer. Two minutes later the door opened and a red-faced, well-fed man emerged. He wore expensive courtier’s clothes, which he was busy adjusting. He briefly caught Shakespeare’s eye and hastily looked away. Parsimony held the door open. “Come in, Mr. Shakespeare, come in. This is a fine vaulting house you sent us to. A wondrous place full of gentlemen of fine birth.”

The room was every bit as well appointed as Starling’s. “I have come to offer you a deal that will lead to your freedom, Mistress Field.”

She laughed. “I am well set up already, sir. And I have forgiven you for sending us here. I suppose we met in difficult circumstances, Mr. Shakespeare. It was a sad day that the lovely Harry Slide was done for. God rest his soul. Harry Slide knew how to make a girl happy. Attended to
our
pleasures as well as his own, which is uncommon in a man of any breeding. He was a good friend.”

Starling noted Shakespeare’s impatience. “He’s looking for a couple of Winchester geese, Parsey, and he’s in a hurry.”

“I need to find Mother Davis and Isabella Clermont. Do you know of them?”

Parsimony turned pale. “Know of them? I know of Mother Witch, Mr. Shakespeare. Don’t go near her. That woman consorts with demons and Satan himself. She is succubus and incubus and every worm with sharpened teeth and poisoned talons in hell.”

“You have had dealings with her?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve had dealings. She snatched two of our best girls when I was with Gilbert Cogg. Took them in broad daylight and shacked them up with her own lice-crawling punks. That’s not right. By the time we found out where they were, they both had the pox, their paps had shrunk from lack of food, they had rat bites on their legs and arms. Looked as appetizing to a man as a baggage of foul-smelling bones. Those girls were worthless to us, sir. Worthless.”

“I need to find her.”

“And what do I get in return?”

“Your freedom … and vengeance on Davis?”

“And the lease back on our house of entertainment?”

“If at all possible. I can’t give you any money.”

“Just vouch for us, Mr. Shakespeare.”

Shakespeare felt uneasy. But what option did he have? “All right,” he agreed. “If you lead me to her, I’ll do what I can.”

Parsimony smiled. She had nice white teeth. “That witch is like smoke,” she told him. “But I will give you a place to try, sir. …”

Chapter 46

T
HERE WAS A LOCKED DOOR AT THE BACK OF THE GAOL
into a yard, then more doors through outhouses. The gaoler unlocked them and showed Shakespeare the way into a long, muddy garden, where a pair of pigs were rutting energetically.

At the end of the garden was an eight-foot-high wall. The gaoler thrust an apple-tree ladder into Shakespeare’s arms.

Shakespeare scaled the wall easily. There was no sign of Jones. He began loping through the streets away from the Clink, eastward. He was heading for London Bridge to get north of the river. As he ran onto the bridge, he felt the deathly gaze of the traitors’ heads bearing down on him from their pikes atop the gatehouse. The heads were boiled in brine so that they might last many months as a warning to others.

Parsimony had mentioned a house in Billiter Lane, not far from his own home in Seething Lane. It was not the sort of place you would expect to find a sorceress and her whores, for it was the heart of the City, an expensive street where traders and their fur-clad wives resided. But perhaps that was the attraction of the area for Mother Davis; she could affect the ways of the wealthy there and gain anonymity.

Past Fen Church, he trotted along the broad sweep of Blanch Appleton. His heart pounded; his lungs dragged harshly at the air. To his left he noticed the huge works that were being carried out on Ironmongers’ Hall. Enormous cranes of oak and elm with dangling ropes and pulleys towered over the skeletal structure.

He turned into Billiter Lane and stopped in his tracks. Ahead of him, like a wall of steel and black leather, stood twenty pursuivants, swords drawn, wheel-locks armed and pointed along the street toward him.

For a moment he stood frozen, scarcely comprehending what he saw. He turned to run the other way, but his face met the fist of the chief pursuivant Newall full on. Shakespeare’s legs buckled and he fell into the muddy ditch in the center of the street. Then his temple was hit by another blow, delivered by a silver-topped blackthorn, and darkness fell.

H
E AWOKE INTO GLOOM
. His skull hurt in a way it had never hurt before. A heavy, insistent throbbing that made death seem preferable to life. He tried to move and realized his feet were fettered in cramp-rings, fixed solidly into the ground. He was in a cell, lit by a tallow candle in a black iron wall sconce. He looked up and saw Nicholas Jones, Topcliffe’s apprentice, smirking at him. “Thought you could get away from Jonesy, did you?” The boy had a pipe in his mouth and belched fumes as he taunted him. “We’ve got some laughs and merriment in store for you, John Shakespeare, I’ll tell you that for nothing. You wait there and I’ll just go and tell Mr. Topcliffe that you’ve come around. No strolling off now …” He took the pipe from his mouth and tapped the burning sotweed and ashes over Shakespeare’s head.

Shakespeare longed to shake his head to rid himself of the hot embers, but he did not have the strength. His vision came in drifts like snow in the wind.

He collapsed once more into nothingness.

W
HEN HE WOKE AGAIN
, shakespeare knew he was in a dream. Above him were the warm oak beams of his bedroom ceiling. Sunshine flooded in through the window across the bed in which he lay. He turned his head and winced with pain. At his side, on a three-legged stool, sat Jane, his maidservant.

“Master Shakespeare?”

“Jane? Is that really you?”

“You are awake at last.”

He closed his eyes. A feeling of immense fatigue enveloped him. Had he dreamed the time in the cell watched by Jones? Some wicked nightmare? An incursion by demons?

“How long have I been here, Jane?”

“Three days and three nights, master. Thank the Lord you are with us. We feared you might never wake. The blow to your head …”

“How did I get here?”

Jane reached out and held his hand. “You were brought here on a cart by Mr. Secretary Walsingham’s men. Don’t talk now. Let me bring you some light food and drink.”

As he came more awake, he became aware of his body: various regions throbbed with a dull ache—his arm where it had been cut by Herrick’s blade, his beaten face, his temple. “Walsingham’s men brought me here? I believed I was in a cell, held by Richard Topcliffe.”

Jane stood from the stool and fussed around him, smoothing his bedclothes and plumping his bolster beneath his head. “Sir, you have not eaten for three days or more. The physician said you must keep still when you have come around and take food and drink slowly.”

Shakespeare raised himself on his elbows. “Jane, enough. I am not a baby to be coddled. Tell me what I need to know.”

“You
were
held by Topcliffe, Master Shakespeare. We feared the worst. But Boltfoot went to Mr. Secretary Walsingham and he straightway sent his men with a warrant to free you. When you were brought here, you looked no better than a corpse, sir, covered in blood and filth. Your breathing was so faint I could scarce detect it.”

Shakespeare tried to collect his thoughts. He recalled his dash from the Clink to Billiter Lane, coming face to face with the pursuivants, the brutish blow to the face and the crack on the head. Then nothing, except lightning glimpses of Topcliffe’s torture room and of Nicholas Jones, his infernal boy.

“Is Catherine here?”

Jane busied herself opening the casement window. “Not at the moment, master, no.”

“Where, then, is she?”

Jane’s eyes were still averted. She looked out over the little garden at the rear of the house. Birdsong filtered in through the open window. “She is at her master’s home in Dowgate, sir. She has left a letter for you.” She handed it to Shakespeare, then hurriedly made for the door.

“No, Jane, wait here.”

Shakespeare carefully opened the seal with the knife that always lay on the table beside his bed. The letter, in a fair hand of well-formed writing, was not long but it seemed to take him an age to read.

John, If you are reading this letter, I know that you are recovered, for which I give thanks to God that our prayers have been answered. Yet there is no happy ending to this story. I do not have words adequately to explain how it sorrows me to write you this letter. My master, Thomas Woode, is now at home in Dowgate and I must go to him with his children. He is broken. He cannot walk, nor can he raise his arms and hands even to feed himself. He has been close to death and will never be whole again. I must be nurse to him as well as mother and governess to Andrew and Grace. It is my Christian duty so to do
.

You know my love for you, John. You can have no doubt. For a few short hours we were as one, and I shall, at least, always have memories of that night. But I cannot be yours for their need is greater than ours. Do not be angry with me, nor come after me to Dowgate. I could not bear the pain of saying goodbye to you again
.

John, your efforts have brought about the release of my master, for which I thank you. I regret many of the things I said to you and know you to be a good man. I must also thank Jane and your brother and his company, and I will write to them all, for they undoubtedly saved me and the children from a terrible fate
.

Forgive me, John
.

Yours, in the love of Christ
,

Catherine
.

After a while, Shakespeare looked up from the letter. He breathed shallowly. “Do you know what is in this letter, Jane?”

“Yes, master.” Her voice was choked and she would still not look at him.

“Do you think there is any hope that she might change her mind?”

Jane shook her head. Her tears flowed and she could not speak.

“None?”

She shook her head once again.

“Thank you, Jane. You may go.”

She ran from his chamber. He heard her howling like a wounded animal as she ran down the stairs. He crumpled the letter into a tight ball and threw it to the floor. Moments later, he slipped tentatively from between the sheets. He felt unsteady, but he was able to walk across the room and pick up the crushed paper. He took it to the window, where he smoothed it out and read it once more.