Prince - John Shakespeare 03 - (4 page)

Silence descended on the room. Sir Robert Cecil, privy councillor, chief minister in all but name, did not expect Shakespeare and Mills to speak unless they had something noteworthy to say. In many ways he was like his predecessor, Walsingham; that fastidious attention to detail, that utter belief in the power of secret knowledge. Yet Cecil was
not
Walsingham. He was too worldly for that. Cecil’s father had brought him up to understand the mechanics of power – and how to acquire it – without ever asking himself why he should want it. It was power for duty’s sake and it was as natural as eating, breathing or pissing to Robert Cecil. Walsingham, on the other hand, had acquired power for a purpose. It was for his sovereign, his religion and his country. He had beggared himself getting it and holding it, and had died in penury because of it.

The seconds passed in the meeting room, hidden deep in the somewhat anonymous house. Cecil’s father, Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s longest-serving and most faithful minister, had bought it for his second son so that he should have a town place of his own; his other, greater mansion on the Strand, would go to Robert’s older half-brother, Thomas, along with the title Burghley. Robert knew, however, that he was his father’s chosen son and that he would inherit the jewel of his father’s holdings, the great palace of Theobalds in Hertfordshire.

‘And yet we cannot ignore the Marlowe connection,’ Shakespeare said, breaking the silence at last, glancing towards Mills for support. ‘Anything that involves Rob Poley must always raise suspicion. And what is Topcliffe’s interest?’

Shakespeare noticed the tightening of Cecil’s little fist, the stretching of the short and slender neck away from the hunch; most would not. Was it the name Poley or Topcliffe that brought a chill to this room?

‘Frank?’ Cecil demanded, as if Shakespeare had not spoken.

Mills studiously avoided the question of Marlowe. ‘There are many in this city who would wish harm to our Dutch friends, Sir Robert—’

Shakespeare recoiled slightly as Mills spoke. The man had midden breath and it wafted across the table at him. Before Mills could expound further, he interrupted. ‘If Marlowe was in any way involved in the intimidating placards posted outside the Dutch church, then we
must
wonder about a possible connection to the men who laid powder in that very place. Their method was more extreme, yet their target was the same. The Council – and you Sir Robert – thought Marlowe a fit subject for investigation alive. Has so much changed now he is dead?’

Once more, Cecil ignored Shakespeare and addressed Mills. ‘Who, Frank? Who in this city – Marlowe apart – would harm those who have sought refuge here? You called these strangers “our friends” – and they
are
friends of England. They bring skills and wealth with them at a time of great need. They help us open new trade routes. They help fill the war chest. And, above all, they abhor the Pope.’

Mills consulted a paper on the table in front of him. He smoothed it flat with the palm of his hand. ‘The welcome offered by the Crown and Council is easily understood, but it is worth looking at this from the perspective of the merchants and the common man. Consider this,’ he said, indicating the paper. ‘It is a summary of the recent Return of Strangers, dated May the fourth – four weeks ago. The aldermen and constables of each of the twenty-six wards have been diligent in their searches and have noted the names of more than seven thousand refugees and their children. We must assume, however, that the true figure is considerably higher. Many strangers keep others illegally about their houses as servants and apprentices. They hide when the word gets about that searchers are in the area. It would not be unreasonable to suggest that a true figure of fifteen or even twenty thousand incomers now live here.’

‘Out of perhaps two hundred thousand … possibly one in ten.’

‘Indeed, Sir Robert. And they make their presence felt, for they have a wide variety of trades and crafts. They bring skills to produce fine lace, glass, shoes, starch, hats and many more items. Their produce is much admired and desired by the English – yet they resent them, too. It cannot be denied that in some cases they
do
take trade away from their English neighbours. And it is true that they often keep themselves aloof and do not learn to speak English. Many English merchants, shopkeepers and craftsmen hate them. They fear their livelihoods are threatened and feel that parts of the city – Blackfriars, Billingsgate, St Martin le Grand and, further afield, Southwark – are become strange lands where a very Babel of languages is spoken.’

Cecil stopped pacing. He drew up the chair at the head of the table where Lee had recently been positioned, and sat down. He leaned forward purposefully. ‘Is there any evidence that Englishmen are joining together against the refugees?’ he demanded. ‘Have there been illegal gatherings? Will there be mobs in the street or insurrection?’ Cecil took a draught of ale and wiped a finger across his thin lip.

Mills hesitated.

‘Well?’

‘I cannot give assurances that there will be no riots; no man could. We know that the apprentices, when they are in drink, often cast stones at those they take to be refugees. But I would say this: there is no evidence that such events are organised.’

‘Somebody is organising gunpowder, however. It is a short step from there to insurrection.’

‘As yet we have no suspects,’ Mills said dolefully. ‘Nowhere to start.’

Shakespeare sat in irritated silence. Cecil turned to him.

‘John?’

‘You know my feelings, Sir Robert.’

‘Yes, I do. And I am mighty confused by them. You do not believe Marlowe wrote the outrage – and yet you think you should waste time and effort inquiring further into his death. I am surprised a man of your wit does not see the contradiction here. Furthermore, you talk of Poley: are you suggesting Robert Poley was somehow involved in this gunpowder incident? My understanding is that it occurred within a short time of Marlowe’s inquest. Poley was there as a witness, was he not? And Topcliffe was there to report back to Her Majesty. How could either man have been in two places at once?’

Cecil’s words were sharp, but Shakespeare would not roll over so easily. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘that is not it. I have not accused Poley or Topcliffe of complicity in the gunpowder intrigue. My point is that Marlowe’s death was not straightforward. For one thing, there was the time discrepancy …’

For a moment, he wondered whether he had gone too far to speak to a senior minister thus. The moment passed. Nothing he could say would ever shock or dismay Cecil; that was why he worked for him – because he
could
talk to him man to man, he could disagree with him where others in power would expect to be fawned upon by obsequious underlings.

Cecil sat back from the table. ‘Mr Shakespeare,’ he said, his voice quieter, more intense. ‘John … the discrepancy over the time of Christopher Marlowe’s death is irrelevant. He still died from a blow of a dagger struck by Ingram Frizer. Even Searcher Peace agrees with that. And who are Poley, Frizer and Skeres anyway? Just the sort of low company that Marlowe always kept. There is no mystery here. He is buried. That is the end of it.’ Cecil turned back to Mills. ‘Now then, Frank, let us talk of the
other
faction that might have ignited the powder, if you please.’

Mills affected a solemn countenance. ‘The Spanish, Sir Robert. They are the ones who stand to gain most from unrest in London. Even now they are building up the war fleet that God and the weather saved us from last year. Philip and his Romish toad-eater in the Vatican are the ones that would happily wreak bloodshed upon our Protestant refugee friends here in London …’

‘John, the intelligence from Spain, if you will.’

Shakespeare smiled grimly. Cecil would not be moved on this. Marlowe was dead and that was it. He unfurled the paper on the table. ‘This is from Anthony Standen, sent as he travelled back from Spain through France. He writes, “The fleets in Cadiz and Lisbon are fitted for a surprise attack given fair weather and an opportunity. They plan to have Brest soon. They will not wallow as in ’88.”’ Shakespeare did not mention the intended recipient of the message, the Earl of Essex – Cecil’s great rival. The message had been intercepted from Essex’s messenger by Cecil’s searchers at Dover.

‘Given an opportunity,’ Cecil echoed. ‘That is just what we must not give them. There are threats enough.’

Indeed, Cecil had rehearsed the perils recently for the House of Commons. There were, he declared in a speech of eloquence and drama, dangers on all fronts.

Shakespeare had heard the speech – and the plea for tax revenues – and had been impressed. The way Cecil spoke, he made it sound as if Spain was closing a net around England. His words, calm and precise, instilled in every member of the House both fury and fear, so that none should doubt the need to dig deep into their own coffers. He itemised the threats from west, east, north and south.

In the west, Sir John Norris’s expeditionary force to Brittany was hard-pressed against the Spanish army of General Don Juan d’Aguila. Money, men and supplies were needed if Norris was to prevent the enemy taking the deep-water port of Brest on the western tip of that nose of land. Brest was a harbour so large it could safely have concealed the whole armada of 1588. If it should fall, Cecil proclaimed ominously, the Channel would be exposed to a new Spanish fleet, complete with invasion barges. Striking from Brittany, the whole of southern England would be at Spain’s mercy. Such an armada would start with fresh supplies and could be resupplied with victuals and ammunition as it drove eastwards towards Kent and London. In two years of campaigning in Brittany, Norris’s situation had become increasingly parlous. His poor band of troops was heavily depleted by disease, desertions, the wounding defeat at Craon and a devastating ambush at Ambrières. Now there was hard and bloody fighting at Laval. Norris needed help, and that cost money.

In the east, the Catholic king of Poland, Sigismund, had done a deal with Spain to disrupt English trade. If this was carried through, there was a real risk that some vessels of the Navy Royal would have to be diverted from their crucial role of protecting the western approaches and the narrow seas.

In the north there was subversive action among the Scots: the Catholic noblemen Erroll and Angus had corresponded secretly with the Escorial Palace with the aim of bringing Spanish troops to Scotland against James VI, and from there to march on England.

In the south, the Spanish fleet harried England’s merchant ships in the Mediterranean; in France, the Catholic League promised towns and ports to Spain. Worse, the Protestant king, Henri IV, had announced he would receive instruction in the Catholic faith. It seemed he would convert to Catholicism to unite his country – but what would that mean for England? Elizabeth was grievously put out.

Cecil’s words had been concise and they had hit home, for he had had his way with a huge triple subsidy to raise a hoped-for three hundred thousand pounds for the Treasury.

Shakespeare recalled one other thing Cecil said that day: ‘Her Majesty, to her great renown, made this little land to be a sanctuary for all the persecuted saints of God.’

It was true. England had been a sanctuary for many thousands who had lost their homes and families to the Spanish onslaught on the mainland. Many Englishmen were unhappy, however; one member of parliament, Walter Ralegh, had gone so far as to protest that ‘the nature of the Dutchman is to fly to no man but for his profit’. So what sort of a sanctuary did it seem now, with such hostile words bandied about and with gunpowder exploding outside church doors?

This unrest at home was the last thing England needed as the net drew tighter from outside.

‘And so,’ Cecil concluded, rising once more from his chair at the end of the table in his quiet room, ‘we will find these gunpowder men without delay, and we must show them no mercy. The Queen is clear on that, and I echo her sentiments. John, this is your task. Nothing else. No Marlowe, no Poley – it is the powdermen I want. If you need manpower or funds, they are yours. Frank, you will summon every intelligencer in London and find out what they know. Report everything to Mr Shakespeare, however insignificant it might seem. Good day, gentlemen.’

As Shakespeare and Mills stood from their chairs, Cecil walked with businesslike little steps towards the door. Then he stopped and turned to Shakespeare. ‘But tread lightly, John. You can offend Coroner Danby all you want, but do not walk roughshod over
English
sensibilities in this matter. We must protect our foreign friends for they have brought great honour to our realm, yet our charity to them must not hinder or injure ourselves.’

Chapter 4

A
FTER A SUPPER
of pike fried in butter, the juices soaked up with fresh bread, Shakespeare and his wife sat at the table drinking Gascon wine and picking at a piece of hard cheese.

‘I think I am getting old, Catherine.’

‘You are thirty-four, John. You are not old, you are angry.’

He poured them both more wine from the pitcher and he drank it quickly. It was true enough; he
was
angry. But he wasn’t sure why. He had been angry before the meeting with Cecil, even before he saw Topcliffe at the inquest.

‘Be wary with your loyalty, John.’

Shakespeare looked at his wife.

‘I mean a man can be
too
loyal. A man can offer loyalty to a captain-general and receive no loyalty in return. Many have died for their sovereign. How many sovereigns have died for their subjects?’

Shakespeare laughed and shook his head. ‘Your tongue, mistress. I thank the Lord these walls do not have ears …’

Catherine rose from the table. ‘Wait, I have something to make you yet more discomfited.’ She went through to the hall while he sat with his wine.

The Shakespeares lived in a great wood-frame house by the river Thames in Dowgate. They had turned the house into a school for the poor boys of London, but it was still closed as a result of the pestilence that had taken hold last summer. The city’s mort-bills for the year of 1592 recorded that more than ten thousand souls had been claimed by the plague; this year the city fathers feared it would be as bad or worse. Shakespeare took another sip of wine. Perhaps it was just this decline of England that was getting to him: the rising prices, the unrest, the endless war with Spain, the worry that the school would never reopen, his fears for the future of their daughter, Mary, and for their adopted children, Andrew and Grace.

Catherine returned with a tattered broadsheet for her husband. As she leant over him to place it on the table, he reached out and clasped her breast in his hand. She laughed lightly, let her long dark hair fall about her face and moved her slender body towards him to close her mouth on his.

‘Stirring again, Mr Shakespeare?’ she said as their mouths parted and her own hand came to rest in his lap. ‘Time for bed, I think.’

He tried to smile at her, but it was difficult to shut out the darkness that seemed to envelop him. Her blue eyes held his brown eyes for a moment, then she kissed him quickly once more before pulling away from his clasping hand. ‘Read that, then bed.’

Shakespeare turned to the paper. It bore the title
The London Informer
and comprised one sheet, written in poor verse. He went cold as he read it. ‘Where did you get this, Catherine?’ he asked at last.

‘Close by the Dutch market, John. I was visiting Berthe. There were two sellers. I thought their proximity to the market deliberate.’

‘This is bad. Cecil will not be happy.’

The broadsheet was a noxious attack on the Dutch and German refugees in London. It accused them of working secretly for Spain, of taking English trade and English work, of seeking to invade and occupy the country by stealth. Worse, it spoke in gloating terms of the explosion outside the Dutch church and said there would be more such attacks – ‘and next time the real dogs will die’. It was signed
Tamburlaine’s Apostle
.

‘This is Glebe’s work,’ Shakespeare muttered. ‘Have I told you of Walstan Glebe? He is a most villainous purveyor of filth. I thought we had broken up his
London Informer
press – we should have broken him instead.’

‘I recall you speaking of him.’

‘He has a brand on his forehead – an
L
for
Liar
. I had hoped he was dead by now.’ He sighed. ‘But then again, it gives me a start. He knows something. I’ll find him and bring him in.’

Shakespeare had been thinking hard about how to tackle the investigation. The first thing he had done was call his assistant Boltfoot Cooper to the library on the first floor.

As usual, Cooper had looked out of place as he shuffled into the fine room, dragging his deformed left foot. He seemed to be growing shorter and more knotted as he approached forty.

‘Master?’

‘I have a mission for you, Boltfoot. I want you to go to the powdermills.’

Boltfoot was silent. He and Jane had a child, a boy of eight months. He did not like leaving them.

‘I know what you are thinking, Boltfoot. And you are right. This will take you from your family. You will need several days, perhaps a week or more. It is vital work. You know of the powder explosion at the Dutch church? Your task is to discover the source of the powder. It was almost certainly bought or stolen from a mill. Question the mill-keepers and workers. They will not admit selling powder illegally and will be reluctant to admit their safeguarding is so lax that a thief could gain access to it. Start with Rotherhithe. If you do not discover inconsistencies there, head for Bromley-by-Bow and the others. You will not be alone. The Royal Armoury is arranging assistance; a powder expert named William Sarjent. I am told he is a good man. He will meet you at Rotherhithe. I have full details here.’ He handed over the paper Bedwell had passed to him. ‘Ask them this, too: have cargoes gone missing en route by road or river? Has any man been dismissed or charged for dishonesty? Demand assistance on pain of arrest.’

Boltfoot grunted. ‘What of the Royal Armoury itself, master? There is gunpowder aplenty there.’

‘I am assured from the highest level that it is not the source. If all else fails I will go there. But in the meantime I have other inquiries to make. Set forth at dawn – and go armed.’

In bed, Catherine was tender. She enticed him in with soft words and practised movements of her belly and thighs, but tonight Shakespeare was a different animal to her, frenzied and ungiving, hard and dispassionate.

They made love twice. Her yielding warmth soothed him and her fondling words and whispered kisses drew much of the anger out of him. Yet there was still tension there, and she sensed it.

He lay back, sated, on the downy cushions and gazed into the black night. Their breathing subsided.

‘I keep thinking of Poley,’ he said. ‘I know him too well. Marlowe’s death smells like six-day fish.’

‘Tell me of him, John.’

‘No. You need sleep.’

They lay there a minute. Neither of them would sleep soon.

‘Death and deceit follow him like a pair of hungry dogs,’ Shakespeare said quietly. ‘Walsingham used him to incriminate the Babington plotters in their conspiracy to murder the Queen and free Mary of Scots. But whose side was he really on? I never knew. I don’t think Mr Secretary was certain either. Even when Poley was imprisoned in the Tower, it is said he was employed to kill a bishop with poisoned cheese. But who was the paymaster?’

Catherine curled up against him, her dark hair across his chest. Shakespeare stroked her head.

‘Is he Catholic or Protestant, or neither?’ he went on, as much to himself as to her. ‘He was poor but now he lives in splendour, though he has no honest trade. I think he has won gold from all sides. What is his connection to Marlowe – a shared interest in intelligencing or the common bond of coining?’

‘Coining, John?’

‘Marlowe had already been implicated in forging coin in the Low Countries; is Poley in the same line? Is that what this is about? Was the widow Bull’s room a den of counterfeiters? Was the death nothing but a falling-out among thieves? A brabble and brawl about the proceeds of some crime? Or something yet more sinister …’

He knew Catherine was happy to hear him out. She would employ her wit and learning to make some sense of all he said. These were the times when they were at their closest, when they worked as confederates to solve a puzzle.

Yet not this night. A sudden noise shattered their peace. It came from the street outside their chamber. A splintering of wood, then shouting and hammering.

Shakespeare was up from the bed in a second and throwing open the shutters to look out of the window down on to the road. There were men there with pitch torches, storming through the broken front door of his neighbour’s house.

Catherine was up, too, at his side. ‘What is it, John?’

‘Pursuivants.’

Quickly, he threw on his doublet over his bare chest and pulled on breeches. ‘Stay here, Catherine.’

Barefoot, he ran down the oaken stairs, through the hall, into the courtyard and out into Dowgate. Two armed men with torches were now standing guard outside the neighbouring house. The building was older than the Shakespeares’ home and almost as large. It was a stone-built city home for merchants and dated back a hundred years or so. Most recently, it had come into the possession of a wool merchant from Antwerp. They seemed good people who doffed their hats in the street and said good day in strongly accented English, and yet he did not know their names nor anything about them, save that they seemed wealthy and respectable.

There was shouting from within the house. Shakespeare marched up to the front door and saw that it had been stove in by a battering log, for it was lying flat in the hallway.

‘What is this? What has happened here?’ he demanded of the guards as he tried to peer inside.

‘Hunting for rats,’ one of the men said, dourly. He held a drawn sword. ‘What’s it to you?’

Shakespeare noted the Queen’s escutcheon emblazoned on the man’s jerkin. ‘I am an officer to Sir Robert Cecil and these people are my neighbours, that is what it is to me. Now let me pass.’ He stepped forward. As he did so, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a figure a little way down the street, sheltering in the shadow cast by the wall of the house.

The two men moved across Shakespeare’s path to bar his way. He elbowed them aside and pushed on through the front door. They laughed, but did not try too hard to stop him. Inside, the hall was ablaze with the flickering light of pitch torches and candles. Richard Topcliffe was sitting in the centre of the room on a coffer of polished elm, one leg swinging, his pipe stuck in his mouth, belching out smoke.

To one side of the room, Shakespeare saw the family who lived here. Father, mother and six children aged from about five to fifteen. They were all in their nightclothes and stood rigidly to attention, frightened witless.

‘Well, well, Mr Shakespeare. What a pleasure to see you here,’ Topcliffe growled like an undomesticated cat. He had a sheaf of papers in his hand. ‘Come to help me flush out vermin, have you?’

On the other side of the room stood a line of serving men and women, half a dozen in all. Two were in livery, the others in nightclothes like their master’s family.

‘What are you talking about, Topcliffe?’

‘This is Mr Sluyterman, according to the Return of Strangers here.’ Topcliffe ran his finger down a list of names. ‘Mr Jan Sluyterman. Says he has a wife, Gertrude, which I take to be that ugly oyster-wench at his side, and six children – Cornelius, another Jan, Pieter, Willem, Marthe and Jacob. Says, too, that he has six servants, three of them English and three Dutch.’ Topcliffe turned to the master of the house. ‘Is that all correct, Mr Sluyterman?’

Topcliffe had two heavily armed pursuivants at his side. These agents of the state, with powers of search and arrest, brandished swords and wheel-lock pistols. From other rooms came the sound of stamping boots and smashing panels. Obviously, there was a cohort of other men spread around the house, searching for someone – or something.

‘
Ja
– yes, sir. It is correct. But—’

‘Shut your filthy Dutch mouth, Mr Sluyterman. I will tell you when I wish you to speak.’

‘But I thought you asked—’

‘I don’t like your Dutch voice, I don’t like your Dutch whore of a wife and I don’t like you, Sluyterman, so stow you before I force my blackthorn down your miserable gullet. Are you Calvinists? Her Majesty the Queen does not like Calvinists and nor do I.’

Shakespeare could tell from Sluyterman’s eyes that he was concealing something. The Dutchman looked at Topcliffe with a steady, nervous gaze as if afraid that averting his eyes would confirm his guilt. He was a well-fed man in his forties. He looked as though he had never done anything more physical than lift a quill, write in a ledger and count coin. His wife was attractive in a homely, plump way, with a white lawn coif about her hair. Her children, all standing like statues with their arms at their sides, wore white linen nightcaps and long linen gowns.

‘You question the servants, Shakespeare. You see if they’re English or Dutch.’

‘Do your own dirty work, Topcliffe. These are human beings, not vermin.’

‘As you wish.’ Topcliffe jumped from the coffer with a nimbleness that belied his sixty years. Clenching his pipe in his teeth, he approached the line of servants, swinging his silver-tipped blackthorn. One by one, he prodded them in the belly and demanded, ‘Name, position, place of birth?’ One by one, in quivering voices, they told him their names, outlined their duties and told him where they came from. It seemed they all knew Topcliffe by repute, for they looked at him as a rabbit might view a fox that had it cornered. All but one, Shakespeare noted. One of the English servants, a man of about thirty in nightclothes, seemed not so afraid. He and two others spoke clear English devoid of any foreign accent. The other three spoke enough English, but were obviously from the Low Countries.

‘I will tell you what I like best, Shakespeare. I like to see the fear in their eyes, close up. When a man dare not look away from my eyes, though he cannot abide what he sees there, for it is his own pain and death reflected.’

‘And what do you see in the looking-glass?’

Topcliffe hesitated, as if pondering the question. Against one wall of the room was a tall glass, darkly mottled by age. He walked to it and smashed it with the heavy, cudgel head of his blackthorn. The glass splintered into countless shards. ‘Now then,’ he said, standing back from the glass and addressing the whole hall. ‘That all seems in order. Except that I have counted one servant missing.’ His humour darkened considerably and he hammered his blackthorn against the floor. ‘We have information that there is a Dutch serving girl here who was hidden from the Return. You know the law, Mr Sluyterman – for every stranger employed, you must employ one English servant. I tell you this, if you fail to tell me where she is hiding, you will
all
be considered accessories to treason, secretly harbouring an agent of a foreign power – and you will suffer the might of the law. Your children will be taken to Bridewell and broken like horses on the treadmill. You and your wife will be detained until such time as you are flung out of the country or worse. Do you have enough English to understand what that all means?’