The Queen's Man (15 page)

At the door, she plucked a candlestick from the top of an old oak barrel, then lifted the door latch and took Boltfoot out to the courtyard. He allowed her to help him up to the chamber as though he were an old man. He could smell her sweat and feel the warmth of her breast as she gripped his arm. She opened the door to his room. For one brief moment he wondered whether she would follow him in. Instead, she handed him the candle.

‘I bid you good night, Mr Cooper.’

He grunted a word of thanks, and she was gone.

A
low, intermittent gust of air whistled and soughed through the panes and beneath the doors, but John Shakespeare slept like a sheepdog when its work is done. He woke to the slant of sun across his eyelids. He turned his head away from the light, burying his face in the pillow. For a few moments he did not move, wishing only more of this luxuriant sleep. But then he stiffened. If the sun was this high, he had overslept. What time of day was it, in the name of God?

He opened his eyes and pushed himself up on the pillows. He blinked away the sleep, taking deep breaths to wake himself. And then his eyes caught the horror that hung before him.

At first he thought he must still be dreaming. He opened his eyes wider, then recoiled at the obscenity that he beheld. A woman was hanging by her neck, suspended from the rafters, on the far side of the room.

She twisted slowly in the chilly draught. She was dressed in a long red dress of velvet and gold, like a queen.

He leapt up and stared at the figure, frozen. His indecision lasted but a moment. His sword and dagger were on the floor beside the bed. He drew the sword, grabbed the small stool where he had thrown his garments and climbed on it. Grasping the figure around the waist, he reached up, slashing at the hemp rope with his honed blade. Two strokes, three, and it was severed. The hanging woman fell into his arms. He had braced himself to take her weight, but there was none. She was light as straw.

Relieved, he laid her upon the bed. There was no substance here, no flesh or blood; this was nothing but an effigy. And then his feeling of relief gave way to rage.

The face was made of linen. From close up he could see that the dead eyes, the mouth, the nose, were but paint. The hair was a wig, like those worn by ladies of fashion at the royal court. It was only the shock of seeing the image straight from sleep that had allowed him to be fooled.

He tore at the face, ripping the linen asunder. Rags fell out. He threw the foul object to the floor, then pulled on his clothes, picked up his weapons and strode from the room, sword in his right hand, dagger in his left. He was ready to draw blood.

In the hall, the porter’s wife, Mrs Harkness, was sweeping the wooden boards with a well-used broom. She stopped and smiled. ‘Good morning, master, I trust you have slept well?’

‘Where is Topcliffe? Where is your husband?’

‘Why, Mr Topcliffe was up with the birds and has ridden from here. That was three hours since. He will be twenty miles distant by now, God willing.’

‘Did he put that
thing
in my room?’

‘Why, sir, I do not know what thing you mean.’

‘The effigy, woman! The filthy puppet hanging from the rafter. Was it supposed to be the Queen of Scots – was that it? Fetch your husband. You will both pay a damnable price for your temerity.’

After a minute, Harkness waddled in with his wife. He was grinning. ‘The good Lord bless us, Mr Shakespeare, I was assured by Mr Topcliffe that you had a most uncommon sense of humour and that you would be greatly amused by our little jest. We did believe that any man would laugh until his breeches ran like a river to see the murdering Scotch witch hanging!’

‘Where did that effigy come from? It was too accomplished – you did not make it last night.’

‘Indeed, we did not. We had it packed away in the attics from the old days when last Mary was here. Is it not a fine likeness? It caused her many tears – and afforded us much merriment.’

S
HAKESPEARE WAS MOUNTED
and riding within a half-hour. He followed the road almost directly south, through woods and farmland. The day was dry and bright, but the sun could do nothing to shake away the anger that maddened him. What sort of man was Topcliffe? And what was Sir Francis Walsingham’s purpose in making them work together?

You will doubtless find Mr Topcliffe to be strong meat, but he has the Queen’s trust, and mine. You do not need to like him
. . .

Those had been Mr Secretary’s words. Well, Shakespeare had indeed found him strong meat.
Rancid
meat. But why did he have the trust of the Principal Secretary and the Queen? What service could such a man offer? And what did they know of his lewd, fantastical bragging? Other men might die on the gibbet for speaking thus of their sovereign lady.

He would give his opinion forcibly when next he was alone with Walsingham. In the meantime, he would have to entrust his opinion of Tutbury to a letter sent by courier from Stratford, for he had no faith in Harkness nor anyone else in the nearby town.

In different circumstances, his inclination now might have been to return to Sheffield to resume the hunt for Buchan Ord, or to repair to Oatlands to take further advice from Mr Secretary. But Walsingham’s orders had been quite clear: after Tutbury, he was to go to Warwickshire. And had not the ostler at the Cutler’s Rest suggested that this might have been the direction Leloup was headed?

He was chasing smoke.

By late afternoon, he had reached Snitterfield where his grandfather, Richard Shakespeare, had tilled the soil. And then he knew he was almost home, a mere four miles or so along the Stratford way before he would see his mother and father, his brothers and sister again.

He eased the horse down to a slow, restful walk and began to soak in the familiar sights of his youth. The avenue of elms shading the byway to the east, the hedges, the dappled woods, the wide open meadows, filled with bees, late summer butterflies and every songbird under heaven. This place was Eden. He found himself mouthing a prayer, his anger of the morning ebbing away and being replaced by a longing for these familiar fields and paths.

In the distance, he could just make out the tip of the wooden spire of Holy Trinity, the parish church where his father had had him baptised. Ahead of him, he spotted a young man striding along the road, and with joy he recognised the gait. He was walking in the same direction as Shakespeare, but a hundred yards ahead of him. Shakespeare began to smile. He would know that familiar, confident walk anywhere. He urged his horse on and trotted up behind his brother, then leant over and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘And where are you going in such haste, Master Shakespeare?’

Will turned at the touch. If there had been anxiety etched on his brow, it vanished in an instant, replaced by a warm smile of delight.

‘John!’

Shakespeare dismounted and embraced his brother. He stood back from him and studied him. ‘Will, you look every inch a man.’

‘I
feel
it,’ he said ruefully.

Will was eighteen now, his whole life stretching out before him. What would he do with that mighty mind? Perhaps Walsingham could find Will a place within one of the great estates of government? He had the brain for it, and Mr Secretary always had one eye open for men of intellect. One thing was certain: Stratford, for all its strategic and commercial importance in the Midlands, would not hold Will for long, any more than it had held Shakespeare himself.

‘I do not mean to imply that you look worn down by cares. You look a man in the
best
sense. Strong, well-formed – and with more in the way of beard than last I saw you.’

‘And you look dusty.’ Will threw his brother a wry expression. ‘I have just been to call on Uncle Henry. I have been earning a few pence tutoring his sons.’

‘And has he paid you?’

‘He promises he will pay me at the end of the month.’

‘And promises not written are, as we know, made of air. Still, at least you have his ill tempers to keep you amused while you await your pennies.’

Will did not argue with his brother’s assessment of their father’s younger brother. ‘But whence have
you
come, John? If you have travelled through Snitterfield, then you have not ridden from London or the south.’

‘The north.’ Shakespeare did not wish to explain further for the present.

‘Did you not write to say you were coming?’

‘No. I am on Queen’s business and my movements are uncertain. But more of that later. Come, let us walk together. The nag has had enough of my weight this day.’

A
little way to their left, beyond the osier beds, the mild green waters of the Avon flowed slowly towards Stratford. Ahead of them, the way was filled with a cloud of dust and they saw four horsemen approaching at speed. No traveller would drive his mount so hard. Alarmed, Shakespeare stopped, moved to the side of the road, and watched them.

Suddenly, as they were almost upon the two brothers, one of the riders wheeled his horse sharply to the left. Shakespeare sensed the sword in the man’s hand before he even saw the glint of steel. He gripped his brother’s arm to pull him aside.

Too late. The sword was already thrust forward. With a flick of the rider’s wrist, Will’s velvet hat was impaled by the sword-point and lifted from his head. A little lower and the blade would have pierced his eye through to his brain.

The swordsman held his prize aloft and shouted, ‘Pig!’ With another snap of the hand, the hat flew up, billowing, its feather catching the breeze like the wing of a bird.

A roar of laughter and cheers rang from the throats of his companions. They did not stop, nor even slow down, but rode on without slackening their pace. Will shook his head but said nothing, merely strode back the way he had come and collected his hat where it had landed, thirty yards along the lane.

Shakespeare watched the departing horsemen in bemusement and more than a little disquiet, for he rather imagined he had recognised one of the four men. ‘What in God’s name was that, Will? Who were they?’

‘That was Badger Rench. Did you not recognise him?’ Will beat the dust from his hat, and then examined it. He put his finger through a hole where the sword had pierced the velvet.

‘Rench? You mean Rafe Rench’s boy, from the farm out Shottery way?’ With his brute strength and lack of wit, Shakespeare had always thought him ideally suited for hefting sacks of barleycorn and nothing more. ‘All I recall of him was that he was skilled at tormenting frogs and wrestling.’

‘Well, now he rides with Sir Thomas Lucy’s men and believes himself a very prince of the county. He does not like me.’

‘Why not?’

‘He has his reasons. I try to steer clear of all Sir Thomas’s men since my unfortunate brush with his gamekeeper last year.’

Shakespeare laughed. ‘Ah yes, the deer that you did not poach from his parkland. I could imagine that still rankles with Sir Thomas. He is not one to forget a grudge, I fear.’

‘I do not share your amusement, brother. He would have had me hanged if he could. It is my good fortune that the jury liked him even less than they liked me. Thomas Lucy is become worse. He takes an exceeding hard line with anyone he suspects of being Catholic or even vaguely doubtful about the new Church. He believes the county of Warwick to be infested with conspirators, saving the greater part of his bile for the Ardens. In his mind, anyone with Arden blood is tainted and so he has sworn vengeance on our family.’

A hatred shared by the Earl of Leicester
. Shakespeare thought back to the conversation he had had at Oatlands. ‘Well, at the very least his man Rench owes you a hat.’

The truth was, Shakespeare was not really thinking about his brother’s fine velvet cap. Nor was he thinking of the brutish Badger Rench, a brock by nature as well as by name. He was thinking about another of the four horsemen. They had passed at such speed and amid such dust that he was not at all certain of what he had seen. And yet he had indeed recognised one of the men. It was the slightness of the figure, the smoothness of the narrow chin, the brightness of the attire. It was a man he had met at the palace of Oatlands. A man who was some sort of assistant or servant to the Earl of Leicester, a man with foul words for the Ardens and the Shakespeares. A man who wore a multicoloured doublet and a row of red stones in his ear. A man named Ruby Hungate.

B
oltfoot loitered around the stableyard of the Cutler’s Rest like a hog awaiting its swill. He could think of no way to make himself inconspicuous. Surely, Kat would be going somewhere, anywhere. And then he would do his best to follow her, unseen.

‘You looking for something, Mr Cooper?’ one of the grooms asked after Boltfoot had been standing around, helplessly, for the best part of an hour.

‘No, nothing. Passing the time of day.’

‘Well, it’s a fine enough day.’

‘Miss Whetstone, does she have a swain?’ The words came out without thought, blurted like a blabbering child.

‘Now why would you be asking something like that? Fancy she’d look at a cripple like you, do you? Like your chances there, eh? Fair pair of paps on her, would you be thinking? Soft rounded belly – don’t suppose a mongrel like you gets much of that.’

Boltfoot ignored the insult. The ostler was ugly enough himself. ‘Curiosity, that’s all. Fine-looking woman like that – how be it she don’t have no husband yet?’

‘Why don’t you ask her yourself? Make her an offer. Shilling should do it. That’s what she usually charges.’

Boltfoot frowned at the ostler. ‘That’s no way to talk about your master’s daughter.’

The groom laughed. ‘What would Kat Whetstone want with a swain? The whole world loves her – why would she need one man? Don’t need a husband to feed her when she’s got the Cutler’s Rest, do she?’

‘What of a foreign man, a Scotch fellow?’

The groom stiffened visibly at the suggestion. ‘You’re awful inquisitive for a man who’s a stranger himself. I think Goodman Whetstone might like to hear about your questions.’