Prince - John Shakespeare 03 - (28 page)

The ship’s sails were catching the wind and she was gathering a little speed. Shakespeare hesitated no more than a few seconds. He divested himself of his weapons and doublet and dived into the mud-churned water.

William Sarjent had taken the whipstaff, the lever that swung the tiller, and was steering a course away from the creek. He felt a rush of irritation that this man had somehow got so close to them. He seemed to be alone, though. Better to finish him now, before setting sail. They could not afford to miss this tide, so it had to be a well-aimed musket-ball.

At the side of the vessel, Jeremiah Quincesmith reloaded the matchlock and fired downwards at the swimming man. The weapon was accurate enough when fired horizontally with the support of a stand, but firing downwards from a moving vessel was near to hopeless. The balls slapped silently into the grey water, one after the other as Quincesmith loaded and reloaded. He cursed the Scots for their maddening superstition. Why hadn’t they merely put a dagger up beneath the cooper’s ribcage?

Shakespeare swam with all his strength. He was a strong swimmer, but he was encumbered by his clothing and held back by the tidal current that swept in and kept him from the bundle he had to reach.

‘Boltfoot!’ he roared above the waves, and choked on a mouthful of salt water for his pains.

He redoubled his stroke power. But the distance did not seem to shrink. On and on he drove himself, his muscles cramping, his lungs in agony. Suddenly he was there. He grasped hold of the canvas-wrapped weight. From his belt he took his dagger and slashed and slashed at the ropes and canvas that bound the limp parcel.

Desperately paddling his legs beneath the surface, he clawed at the bundle, ripping, shredding, hacking with no plan other than to free whatever was inside it.

Piece by piece, the canvas and ropes came away. And there was Boltfoot Cooper, motionless in his arms. Shakespeare slapped his face for a response but there was nothing, just cold blue flesh. Regardless, he lay back and stretched Boltfoot’s limp body atop his, clasping him beneath the armpits and kicking out with his feet to draw him, inch by inch, to shore and away from the musket-fire.

Chapter 35

S
HAKESPEARE FELL BACK
into the mud, his feet in the water. He panted for breath. Boltfoot lay beside him, still as death. He had been far lighter to carry here through the waves than Shakespeare would have imagined. It was no effort at all, but now all his energy was expended.

Had he really lost Catherine and Boltfoot within the space of a week? The two people, apart from his children, that he loved best in the world. He could not let it happen. With a force born of rage, he struggled to his knees, then turned Boltfoot on his side.

‘You are going to live, Mr Cooper,’ he said. ‘I order you to live.’

He pulled back his right hand, full swing, and slammed it into Boltfoot’s back as if he were a midwife determined that an uncrying newborn should utter its first wail and take its first breath. The back arched at the blow and a terrible scream broke forth from somewhere inside. Boltfoot spewed out water, then retched and howled again.

‘Boltfoot!’

Shakespeare tried to turn Boltfoot over, but he fought against it, spluttering, gasping for breath, coughing up water.

‘Help me, Boltfoot,’ Shakespeare ordered, once again trying to turn him over.

Boltfoot let out a yell of pain, the noise of a dying animal, the scream he had refused to emit even when he lay long hours in the coffin and when he was passed across the fire. Now it came from him, as if from the ravines of hell.

Shakespeare stopped trying to move Boltfoot and he flopped forward, taking in great aching breaths.

‘I thought you were dead.’

‘Blood of Christ, Mr Shakespeare! My back …’

Shakespeare examined Boltfoot’s back and saw the tatters and flaming crust of red blisters. He looked out across the creek. The bark was just disappearing around the low headland, its sails unfurled and billowing with the breeze that came up the Thames from the North Sea. He tried to gauge whether it would head up the river towards the bridge or down to the open sea, but could not tell from here.

‘Boltfoot, I see your terrible injuries, but we have little time. Are you able to walk?’

Boltfoot turned on to his front, on all fours. Slowly, he rose to his knees. Shakespeare got up and stood before him. He reached out and took his hands, lifting him to his feet. ‘What has happened to your back? What did they do?’

‘Those madpike Scotch witches roasted me like a suckling pig. Nine times they held me over the fire.’ Boltfoot winced as he spoke.

‘I say again, can you walk, or shall I leave you here and go for assistance?’

‘I’m coming, master. I wish to drown those black-clad drabs as they tried to do for me.’

Shakespeare was about to turn away, inland, when the fishing boat hove into view, drifting in on the tide.

‘I think assistance has arrived, Boltfoot.’

‘Did you see the bark, master fisher?’

‘Indeed, sir. Driving upriver with the tide, and with the wind for the moment. But it will soon change against her and she will have to tack, even though the tide’s swell will give her a ride. She did look a mighty cumbersome vessel, lumbering low in the water.’

‘She carries a heavy burden of death. Can we catch her?’

‘Given time, aye. But then what will you do? I don’t believe a broadside from your pistols will cause them much consternation.’

‘We’ll fetch Gulden, then head for Gravesend.’

Shakespeare settled back beside the fisher. Boltfoot sat with his back over the low bulwark, his burns soothed by the wind. Shakespeare had inspected the scorching and realised there was nothing he could do but get him to an apothecary. ‘You smell like roast pork, Boltfoot, but I fear you will survive.’

Boltfoot tried to smile, glad of Master Shakespeare’s disrespectful jesting. The last thing he wanted was sympathy.

Gulden lay, bound, in the bottom of the hull, soaking in fish-stinking bilge-water. Shakespeare had tossed him there, saying he would serve as ballast.

In the distance, as they rounded the cape of Blythe Sands, they could make out the sails of a bark, three miles distant. Was that the
Sieve
?

The harbour-master at Gravesend was a straight-backed former mariner named Winch. He looked at the fishing smack and its occupants with undisguised scorn.

‘Look what the tide brought in today, Mr Adam,’ he said to the man at his side on the dock. ‘Never have I seen such miserable flotsam.’

‘I’d throw them back, Mr Finch.’ James Adam was about forty. He was a man of middling height, with the weathered forehead of a mariner, though the cut of his clothes suggested he was a ship’s officer rather than an ordinary seaman.

‘We need help,’ Shakespeare said, stepping unsteadily from the boat. ‘This is Queen’s business.’

‘And I’m the King of France,’ Winch said.

‘A plague of toads, I know that dismal face,’ Adam said suddenly. ‘I’d recognise that face and that excuse for a foot anywhere. Why, it’s Boltfoot Cooper!’

‘Mr Adam,’ Boltfoot said grimly.

‘Aye, Cooper, I’m your master. Finest ship’s master you ever served under. How in England’s name have you landed here? Are you shipwrecked?’

‘Something like that.’

‘I will explain,’ Shakespeare said, taking Adam’s arm and holding it unnecessarily tight, ‘if you will be silent a minute or two …’

Chapter 36

L
UKE
L
AVEROKE’S HIRED
horse clattered into the cobbled stable-yard behind the Waggoner’s Arms, a post inn a little way south of Derby. He had beaten the horse mercilessly. Its sides were blood-streaked from his sharp-wheeled spurs and it was flecked with sweat. Quickly he dismounted and handed the reins to the ostler.

‘Have a fresh horse saddled for me in three hours,’ he ordered, affecting a French accent.

The ostler looked at the post-horse in dismay. ‘You’ll have no horse from here if you treat him like that, master.’

Laveroke tossed him a gold sovereign. ‘Three hours.’ He strode through into the inn’s taproom and demanded a room with food: roast capon with pickled cabbage and Levant raisins. ‘And half a flagon of good Gascon wine, unsweetened.’

The chamber was on the first floor with a four-poster bed. He removed his dusty boots and lay back on the sheets, his doublet loosened. He would eat quickly, rest without sleeping, then resume his journey. Riding post, he believed he could make Edinburgh in three days. When the
Sieve
blew, he would be well away from London. No man would outride him to Scotland. The King of Scots would have no knowledge of events in England; his guard would be down and he would be content to meet an envoy – an old friend – from France.

Their meeting would be in the presence-chamber, alone, for he would say he had possession of a secret missive from Henri of Navarre. Laveroke had met James twice before, under another, French name, and he had charmed the monarch with much flattery, extravagant gifts of gold and tales of the French court’s debauchery. The King would welcome him again, but this time Laveroke’s long-bladed dagger would be in his sleeve. It would slide down into his right hand, then sink into James’s soft, unsuspecting belly and drive upwards into his heart. All the while, Laveroke’s left hand would be at the King’s weakling mouth, stifling his cries, holding him close and silent until death. Speed was all.
Unhurried
speed. Kill, then walk away. Nod to the guards, smile at the courtiers, touch them lightly on the shoulder and bow extravagantly to their ladies, walk without haste, but depart. Then ride eastward like the furies, for North Berwick where the kin of Agnes Sampson and Gellie Duncan would smuggle him aboard a collier-ship to safety.

A girl of seventeen or so arrived with his food and wine. He watched her closely as she lay the tray down upon a table near the window. She looked like any one of the peasant girls he had supplied for Don Antonio. They were all the same to him, all available at the right price, all disposable. He smiled at her and held up a shilling coin for her to take.

Her blue eyes opened wide. A shilling was a week’s wages in this part of England. ‘Thank you, sir.’ She took the coin in her small hand.

‘My pleasure, mam’selle.’

She giggled at the strange tone of his words and the healthy sheen of his handsome face and hair.

‘Will you pour me a cup of wine?’

She bowed again and did so, then brought the cup to him where he lay, reclining on the pillows beneath the bed’s canopy.

‘And a cup for you, mam’selle.’

She reddened. ‘I shouldn’t, sir.’

‘But you will – for me, yes.’ His hand touched her pale arm and she did not move away.

A shy smile crossed her lips. ‘If you wish.’

‘I do.’

‘But there is only one cup, sir.’

‘Then you will have to drink from mine. Here.’ He held it to her rich lips as if she were a communicant. ‘Do you like it?’

She nodded.

‘Sit with me here.’ His arm circled her slender waist and brought her down so that she sat on the edge of the bed.

‘Where are you from, sir? You have a most curious voice.’

‘You do not like it?’

‘No, no, sir, I like it very much.’

‘Today I think I am a sultan from Turkey, and I should like you in my seraglio.’ He held up another coin, a small gold one. ‘This for a kiss, mam’selle.’

‘You do not need to pay me, sir.’ She leaned over and kissed him, quickly, on his bristled cheek.

‘Take the money, please, for I am a wealthy man and you are a beautiful girl.’
Oh, you want the money
, he thought,
you just do not like the connotation. But you will take the money. I will make it easy for you.
‘It is worth a sovereign just to gaze upon your face. From the Russias to Peru, from the Moluccas to Africa, I swear I never set eyes on such beauty.’

No one had ever called the girl beautiful before. In truth, she had only once seen her face in a looking-glass and had wondered whether she might be fair. Her skin was clear and her eyes were bright. Many men passed this way and sojourned here on their ride north or south, yet she had never met one such as this. She accepted the compliment and, glowing inside from his words, she accepted the coin too.

Rabbie Bruce ate his supper alone in a booth of the Waggoner’s Arms taproom. The young capon was excellent, with crispy, blackened skin and juice running from the flesh. He had seen Laveroke enter the hostelry and had smiled to himself. This was going to be easier than he had expected. He would not have to make the long journey to Edinburgh after all. He carved a slice of breast flesh with his dagger. It was a good knife, crafted from hard steel and bone. He had killed with it before and it would serve its purpose again.

In the back room of The Pelican, sometimes known as the Devil’s Tavern, close by Wapping, to the east of the Tower, Holy Trinity Curl rattled a pair of wheel-lock pistols in the air. ‘Will you die like dogs or fight like men?’ he bellowed.

‘We’ll fight!’ the powerfully armed men roared back. There were thirty-eight of them in the room, too few to fill it. There should have been seventy or more, fifty at the very least. Warboys had even suggested there could be more than a hundred.

‘Where are the others?’ Curl had whispered to his lieutenant, Oliver Kettle, a few minutes earlier.

‘Slipped away, scared, the mangy-arsed maggots.’

‘And Warboys? Why is he not here? He’s not scared. Never, not Warboys.’

‘Tom says Warboys is sick with the flux. But I reckon he’s cup-shot in a gutter somewhere. He’s always been one for the strong ale and aqua coelestis when things got rough. Maybe he’ll turn up.’

‘Well, the devil’s puke on them all. We’ll stand and fight, Mr Kettle.’

‘Aye, that we will.’

‘The poor will join us for they have nothing to lose, the prentices will fight with us for they hate the strangers, and the merchants will do nothing to stop us for they want their trade back. Our only foes are the Cecils and their council of traitors. Who could fear Little Crookback or Old Whitebeard? Wait until the
Sieve
blows, then we will strike. Then the people will join our apostle band and tear down the walls of the palaces. It will be as if Bedlam had opened wide its doors. Do the men all know their separate duties?’

‘They do. Eight to the Dutch church with me, with honed blades and sharp axes; twenty on the street with you to march on the bridge and gather men as you go; those remaining – the ones who should have been under Mr Warboys’s command – will cross the river with Mr Foal instead, there to meet Mr Sarjent, Mr Quincesmith and the Scots contingent when they disembark. Together, they will march on Greenwich. All will stand firm. There is not a craven spirit in this room.’

Curl had his doubts. He surveyed the men ranged before him; they were hard enough now, but how would they be when the firing began? He banged the butts of his wheel-locks on the table, repeatedly, like a drumroll. The men roared back their approval, and Curl’s misgivings began to evaporate into the smoke-filled room.

‘Will you cut their Dutch throats, in their temple praying?’ he bellowed.

‘Aye,’ the men called back, ‘we will cut their throats.’

Curl’s mouth tightened, his lips turned down; he banged the butts of his pistols down on the table once more. ‘Then stand with me, brothers-in-arms. Our swords shall play the orators for us. Be bold, be resolute – and this day you shall see a victory for England as great as Agincourt or Crécy!’

The
Swiftsure
, a royal ship of three hundred tons with thirty-four guns, cruised upstream with elegant majesty. As a fighting ship against the Armada, she had carried a complement of one hundred and eighty men, but James Adam had been able to muster no more than thirty, which was enough to get the ship under way and man the cannon.

They had departed from Gravesend with great speed. She was well scrubbed, having recently been refitted and armed in preparation for a tour of duty patrolling the narrow sea.

‘Well, Mr Cooper,’ Adam said as they rode the churning flood past Dartford, ‘it seems we are shipmates once more. I had heard you were now a scurvy freshwater mariner.’

Boltfoot ignored his old master’s insult. They had been together before Drake’s circumnavigation. Adam had always been fair enough, but he had been hard, too.

‘Catch her, Mr Adam,’ Shakespeare said. ‘That is all I demand of you – catch this wretched vessel.’

‘If the
Swiftsure
cannot, nothing can. I reckon her the fleetest galleon in the Navy Royal, sir. With the wind and tide behind us, we’ll make ten knots. Your floundering bark will not make half that speed.’

‘How do we do this? Can we board the
Sieve
? Gulden insists he is able to disarm the clock.’

‘I trust you are making jest with me, Mr Shakespeare.’ Adam glanced at the Dutchman who stood with them on the poop, his brow creased in fear. ‘If it was my decision, I would string the man up from the yard-arm here and now.’ He turned back to Shakespeare. ‘There is but one thing to do – blow her out of the water, and all in her.’

Shakespeare had feared this was what he would say. It was not an option that brought him joy. Cecil might be pleased to learn that they had saved London Bridge, but he would not be happy with a thunderous blast breaking the peace of Her Majesty.

‘Now then, Mr Shakespeare,’ Adam said, ‘pray tell me, what do you think that ship is, ahead one mile? Does that bark look like your
Sieve
?’

Shakespeare shrugged his shoulders. One vessel looked like another to him. From this distance there was no way of knowing. ‘We will need to close on her to tell.’

‘Close to four cables,’ Adam ordered his helmsman. He turned back to Shakespeare. ‘Eight hundred yards. Nearer than that would be insanity. I am not firing cannon at a ship packed with ten thousand or more pounds of powder when I’m broadside to her, sir, for she would blast us all to heaven.’

Boltfoot nodded grimly. ‘That’s her. I’d recognise the bastardly bark from ten miles, let alone one.’

‘Helm,’ Adam called. ‘Bark ahead, mid-stream. Master gunner, prepare to fire starboard sakers, four cables. Helmsman, maintain course, then turn about on order.’

Shakespeare grasped James Adam’s sleeve. ‘God’s blood, you cannot fire on her. Look about her, sir. The river teems with ships and boats.’

Adam shook his arm free from Shakespeare’s grip. ‘Would you have us wait until we are outside Greenwich Palace, or the Tower? Or why not let her sail merrily into the bridge itself, which is, you say, their plan? Do you think there will be fewer vessels as we approach the great wharves and dockyards? The Thames is the busiest waterway on the face of the earth, Mr Shakespeare. There is no safe place to do this. I will attempt to take her as she passes the Erith marshes, then all we can do is pray.’

He sighed in resignation. ‘Fire at will, Mr Adam.’

James Adam grinned. ‘Our figurehead is a tiger, Mr Shakespeare. Let me show you how we open our jaws and bite …’

The first volley fell fifty yards short of the
Sieve
. ‘Come about, helmsman,’ Adam called. ‘Master gunner, prepare for a second salvo, larboard sakers, range plus fifty yards.’

From the poop of the
Swiftsure
, Shakespeare could see frantic activity aboard the target ship. He felt the tight knot of fear. If the
Sieve
got through to London Bridge, it would be slaughter on a scale never known.

‘Fire all guns!’

The second volley roared forth and the
Swiftsure
reverberated with the recoil, throwing up a great wash of water.

‘A hit!’ the master gunner cried out.

They had all seen the ball smash into the sterncastle of the bark. They saw, too, the mad racing of those aboard the
Sieve
, crowding to the back of the ship to see whence the attack had come.

‘Come about again, master gunner. Starboard sakers, three and a half cables.’

Shakespeare squinted through the fug of gunpowder smoke that belched from the saker cannons, medium-sized guns that could hurl a five-pound ball a mile or more. He tried to peer closer; one of those on the
Sieve
was climbing down a rope ladder to a cockboat.

‘Fire!’

The sakers boomed again. The
Swiftsure
rocked violently. Smoke billowed up. Time seemed to stand still.

And then it happened …