Martyr (9 page)

Well then, be done with it and give me the knave. I’ll remind him what it is to be Drake’s man. But he is under
my
command, you understand, Mr. Shakespeare.

I understand, Admiral.

Drake’s eye suddenly twinkled. I think I will set him to making casks for the fleet. That is a far more useful occupation; it is well-barreled water, ale, and salt pork that keeps a man alive at sea.

Shakespeare had to intervene. Forgive me, Sir Francis, but I think not in this instance. Your own life is what will keep your men alive at sea on this occasion.

Drake gave Shakespeare a hard look, thought a moment, then changed the subject. And tell me, what has happened to John Doughty? Is he hanged yet?

I fear I do not know, Admiral. The last I heard he had been consigned to the Marshalsea, but that was four or five years ago. God willing, he has died of the plague … but I mean to find out.

Chapter 11

S
TARLING DAY COULD SCARCE CONTAIN HER FEAR AND
excitement. What could she do with all these riches? Where could she hide them? And what of the body?

She sat on a trunk looking at Gilbert Cogg’s corpse. In the palms of her open, spread hands was a bar of gold which, though she had never seen its like before, she knew to be worth riches beyond her imagining. Upstairs, in a coffer, hidden behind a barely visible door in a low cupboard to the side of the hearth, there was yet more gold, much more gold, along with silver and stones set as jewelry. Much more than she could reckon.

She clenched her fingers into talons over the gold as she tried to concentrate. She had to get the treasure out of this house quickly. Unless she moved Cogg’s body, it would soon be found. But there was too much treasure, and too heavy. Her mind kept drifting. How would she use this wealth? Fine clothes, a great house, good wine and food. But how could she buy all this and ensure her sudden wealth went unnoticed? Her dearest wish would be to return to her home village, Strelley, and parade in finery in front of her cruel husband and his witch of a mother to show him what she had become, but that would never be possible.

Alice. She would have to bring her cousin Alice in as her confederate in this. She could not cope with this alone. And anyway, there was more than enough to share; they would both be left wealthy. She looked again at the body. It was the size of a two-month heifer, more than three times her weight. She would never be able to move it alone. Perhaps, together, she and Alice could shift it. In the meantime she would have to cover it with something. She knew that Cogg had many visitors and he could be discovered at any moment.

The body was uncomfortably close to the front door. There was a bolt on the inside, which she had slid into place. Two people had already knocked on the door since she had been there, both eventually leaving disappointed. How long before someone broke in? She feared, too, that if someone looked closely through the window, they would glimpse the corpse.

Starling went back upstairs and took the covers from the bed where she had endured Cogg’s grunting, slathering weight. There was a carpet bag there, into which she put the gold bar she already held and a second one. Then, after concealing the rest of the hoard as well as she could, she brought the bag and the bedcovers back downstairs. She used the bedcovers to cover Cogg. Then she shifted the table so that the huge mound of his body was less visible from the window near the door.

She waited, listening for footsteps with trepidation. Finally, she slid back the bolt and wrenched open the door. Her heart thumped in her slender chest. She looked right, left, then shut the door behind her and moved quickly down Cow Lane, clutching the heavy bag to her breast, hunched forward into the cold, cold wind.

It was a brisk ten-minute walk through the mud and slush to the Bel Savage by Fleet Prison, hemmed in between the ditch and the western wall of London. The tavern was one of London’s most famed, attracting a fine crowd of lawyers, merchants, market traders, whores, and those who merely wanted to get knockdown drunk. There was always good entertainment to be had: lively minstrels and players staging entertainments. The tenement next door to it was well maintained considering its purpose as a bawdy house for the selling of women’s bodies. Downstairs was an anteroom, where customers—many of whom spilled straight out of the Bel Savage with a bellyful of ale or brandy befuddling their better judgment and keeping them from their wives and homes—could come to consider their purchase. Upstairs there were a dozen rooms, each with a bed and a fire and each shared by two whores for sleeping but with a different purpose when customers were to be entertained.

Alice had just finished with one of her regulars, a balding, half-blind old retainer from the Earl of Leicester’s great mansion just along the Strand. He was so decrepit it had taken him an hour to get started and another hour to finish. Starling pushed past him into Alice’s second-floor room and slammed the door shut with her shoulder. She dropped the bag with the gold bars on the far side of the bed in case anyone entered unannounced, then clenched her fists and let out a silent scream of joy. Alice, something has happened which I must tell you. We must be quick.

Alice finished washing herself and began dressing. That bastardly gullion. He took two hours and paid me for one. He’s getting worse. She pulled her blouse about her breasts. She was more rounded than Starling, her skin was clearer and more luminous, and her hair was fairer. Cogg had made sure she was properly fed with meat from the market at Smith Field and had plenty of ale.

Alice, forget about him. You must listen to me.

What, cousin, have you won at the cockfights?

Better. Oh, Alice, riches beyond your imagining. She clasped her cousin in a hug. Look in the bag, but hurry. I’ll stay by the door.

Alice went beside the bed and opened the bag. As she looked at the gold bars she could not at first work out what she was seeing. Then she thrust in her hands and pulled one of them out.

Leave it in the bag, Alice. Someone might come in.

Starling,
where
did you get this?

It was Cogg’s but now he’s backed, good and proper.

Cogg? Dead?

Starling nodded furiously. Dead, Alice, murdered … She saw the horror in her cousin’s face. No, no, no, not by me. Hastily she gabbled out the sequence of events as they had unfolded at the house in Cow Lane. Alice listened, still unbuttoned but her clothing forgotten.

I need you, Starling said at last. We’ve got to hide Cogg and get the gold out of there to somewhere safe. I’ll give you half of everything.

Starling, this is dangerous. You’ll get us both strung up at Tyburn.

It’s our one chance, Alice. You’ve got to help me.

W
ALKING FROM THE RIVER STAIRS
by London Bridge back to Seething Lane, John Shakespeare felt uneasy. He kept turning, certain he was being followed, but he could make out no one suspicious among the rowdy throngs of merchants, clerks, and apprentices who crowded the streets, nor among those driving the slow, ox-drawn wagons, laden with produce from Kent.

He had left Boltfoot at Greenwich with Drake. Boltfoot had been discomfited and Shakespeare felt bad, realizing the other man was in for a hard time staying close to his former captain twenty-four hours a day.

As Shakespeare left the palace, there had been a great excitement along the royal jetty. He saw Robert Beale there, among a group of courtiers, just about to get into a state barge. Beale was Clerk to the Privy Council and brother-in-law to Walsingham. Shakespeare knew him well.

He greeted Beale with a wave. What news, Robert? And then he saw that Beale was white and drained and distracted.

The best and the worst, John. I would say more but cannot.

Has she signed the warrant?

I can say no more. And with that Beale stepped into the barge and disappeared from view.

Shakespeare felt his heart pounding. This sounded very much as though the Queen had signed the warrant for the execution of Mary Stuart. But Elizabeth could change her mind a dozen times within a day. If it was to be done, it would have to be done quickly before she thought better of it. And what if the head fell? The reaction from the Catholic world could be bloody and swift. This sobering thought occupied him on the long journey back upriver against the tide. He reclined beneath the canopy on cushions and pulled a blanket around him, closing his eyes as the watermen strained their sinews to their oars. He thought, too, of his father and his refusal to attend church, and worried again. Did Topcliffe really have influence in the Midlands?

At his door, Jane was waiting anxiously. Someone has been here, master, while I was out at the market.

Well, did they leave a message?

No, master, I fear we have been robbed by them.

It was then that Shakespeare saw the door was broken around the lock. He went in to his anteroom. It looked undisturbed.

Your solar, Master Shakespeare, I fear they have disturbed your papers and books.

Shakespeare went upstairs to his solar, the light-filled room that he used for working. His papers were strewn all over the floor; cabinets and tables were overturned. There was damage to the wall paneling, and boards had been ripped from the floor as if someone had been searching for something. Topcliffe. Shakespeare slammed his fist against the wall in frustration and anger. He turned and saw Jane.

I’m sorry, Jane. A cup of wine, I think. He could see the shock and incomprehension in her face. And one for yourself if you wish it. He liked Jane. He liked her openness, the generous proportion of her breasts, her moon face framed by auburn hair that always crept untidily from beneath a lawn coif, the way she carried herself She had come to London from the county of Essex, the eldest daughter of a family of twelve girls and no boys, and she had been with him two years now. She was easy to live with, but he knew this was not the perfect position for her; she was hungry for a husband and would find none here in this house, unless she took a liking for Boltfoot Cooper, which was about as probable as a man growing wings and flying. She was accustomed to a big, noisy, peasant farm household, full of shouting and tears on a daily basis; this house was quiet and contemplative, with just the three of them.

There were times when Shakespeare wondered whether she entertained hopes she might be his one day. Yes, he liked to gaze upon her body. What man would not? But a marriage had to be based on more than common lust. He would tire of her and they would resent each other.

He started picking up papers. He wondered if Topcliffe had been looking for the paper he had found near Blanche Howard’s body. The constable’s runner or the bellman had probably told him that Shakespeare had ordered them burned; perhaps he suspected that a sample had been kept.

Later, as Shakespeare sat with his wine, having cleared up the papers and righted the furniture—the damage to the paneling and boards would have to be repaired by a joiner on the morrow—Harry Slide arrived. He looked disheveled and slipped in quietly with none of his characteristic fanfare.

Well, Harry?

Not at all well, Mr. Shakespeare. I have not felt so bad in all my life.

Are you ill, Harry? Sit with me by the fire and take some warming hippocras.

As Slide seated himself awkwardly on a bench by the fire, shivering, his face turned. By the candlelight Shakespeare saw that it was bruised and bloody. He looked like the loser in a Bartholomew Fair bout of the heavyweights. His nose was cut and his eye blackened, while his expensively barbered fair hair, normally swept back to good effect, now looked ragged. His neat beard was rusty with caked blood. Harry, by the Lord, what has happened to you?

I was set upon, Mr. Shakespeare. My purse was cut from me. He came at me from behind. Before I could draw my sword I was flat down on the ice, being kicked in the face. Look at my clothes. Slide pulled off his cape, which was relatively unscathed, to reveal his fine yellow doublet, torn and muddy.

Shakespeare rose and called to Jane to bring warm water and towels to wash his wounds. Where did this happen, Harry?

Holborn. I’d been in a few ordinaries and taverns, asking the gossip. It was gullish of me to be caught like that….

Jane returned with water and began washing Slide’s face. Shakespeare poured him a large goblet of spiced wine.

At least I discovered where to find Walstan Glebe, Slide continued. It seems he has a press not far from where I was drinking. Fleet Lane. I’m told he’s not always there—the fox has many lairs—but he could be about tomorrow morning, early.

Are you all right, Harry?

Slide sipped the wine. Well, my head feels as if the headsman had taken an axe to it and caught it a glancing blow, but I’ll survive.

Yes, Harry, please do survive. Stay here tonight. Jane will make you up a bed.

I shall take you up on your offer, Mr. Shakespeare, but first I have other things to tell you.

Yes?

It may be nothing. But I was told of a curious dinner at Marshalsea two nights past. Two priests were there, already in custody, and they had four visitors and together they broke bread and took fine wine and one of the priests said Mass.