The Queen's Man (16 page)

‘Wait. I’m just looking for the Scotchman, that’s all. Heard he had been sniffing around Kat Whetstone. My master wishes to talk with him.’

The groom, who was only a shade bigger than Boltfoot, grabbed him by the collar of his jerkin.

Boltfoot wrenched himself free and drew his cutlass in one easy move. ‘Touch me again and I’ll cut you.’ He held the edge of the blade close to the man’s throat, then withdrew it and replaced it in his scabbard. From the corner of his eye, he saw a figure standing at the back door to the inn. He turned and met the gaze of Geoffrey Whetstone, resting his enormous bulk against the jamb, his arms folded casually on the platform of his great stomach.

He tilted his head towards Boltfoot. ‘I do not like to see naked blades on my property, Mr Cooper.’ His voice was quiet but audible. ‘Unless they be for the slicing of roasted beef. Come with me.’ He beckoned to Boltfoot to follow him inside. ‘Now tell me, Mr Cooper, what is this about?’ They were in the landlord’s private apartments, a room with two leaded windows that allowed sunlight to stream across the lime-washed wood. Goodman Whetstone sat on a stool by the hearth, lounging back against the wall.

Boltfoot was in too deep now to dissemble. Better to have the truth out and see what he could learn.

‘My master works for the office of the Principal Secretary. He is concerned about the disappearance of a man named Buchan Ord, a courtier from the retinue of the Queen of Scots. And then I was told that your daughter had been his sweetheart. I did not know whether to believe it.’

‘Who told you this?’

‘I cannot give you his name. But tell me this, did he speak true? Was Ord your daughter’s swain or intended?’

‘Best ask her yourself. Better than skulking around, prying like a man with something dirty to hide. I’ll fetch her to you, Mr Cooper. Then you may ask away at will. Though I cannot promise that she will vouchsafe you any answers.’

A
S THEY ENTERED
Stratford, Shakespeare began to spot old friends from his childhood. The draper George Whateley was first, riding his roan mare at the corner of Guild Street and Bridgefoot. He was about to ride on past when he spotted Shakespeare and reined in, then leant down and shook hands with a firm grip. ‘Well met, John. Folks around here said we’d seen the last of you.’

Shakespeare returned the greeting and smiled warmly at his old Henley Street neighbour. His damask doublet, puffed up like the chest of a pheasant cock, told the tale of his increasing wealth. Shakespeare knew from his mother’s letters how well he was doing. ‘He’ll have bought up the whole town by next year’s Lammastide,’ she had said in her last missive.

Others followed. Tom Godwin, cheerful Obadiah Baker, poor Kate, recently widowed of locksmith Richard Bellamy, the handsome young Hamnet Sadler. Faces welled up from his past in a welcome stream: ploughwright, yeoman, mercer, miller, goodwife, bailiff, vintner, gravedigger. He knew most of them by name, and they knew him. This was the place he had been born and raised, a town of two thousand souls, some rich, many poor and others doing well enough, like the Shakespeares.

The market was closing down for the day. Livestock was being herded away for grazing or slaughter. Shakespeare breathed in the familiar air and felt a surge of remembering. Every town had its own smell, though its constituent parts were the same: dung, ale, piss, sweat and woodsmoke. At the corner of the High Street, he spotted John Somerville, son-in-law to his cousin Edward Arden. Shakespeare hailed him, but Somerville affected not to recognise him or note the greeting, and scurried away, rat-like.

‘Always was a peculiar one, that Somerville.’

‘Grows odder by the day, John. Speaks out against the Queen and Leicester where any man might hear him. I have even heard him say he would kill the witch – as he calls her – if he could. What is worse he has found himself a pistol. A man must have pity on poor Margaret Arden for marrying him.’

‘He says those things openly?’ Shakespeare shook his head in dismay. If Mr Somerville said such things in his vicinity, he would be arraigned for treason before he knew it. Perhaps there had been some truth in Leicester’s description of this region as a
Judas nest
. Somerville might warrant further investigation.

Along Henley Street, the smell of home grew ever more powerful; even in the street at the front of the broad house, the stench of his father’s tanning in the back yard was noxious. But it was a necessary evil. Without the tanning of skins into fine leather, how was the old man to pursue his craft of glover and whittawer? A man had to earn his living; and the greater the stink, the greater the profit. This was the background odour of his youth, a smell he had known from birth.

Will shifted the saddlebags off the back of the horse for his brother.

‘Why did you say you had come here, John? What is this Queen’s business of which you speak? Am I allowed to know?’

Shakespeare spoke quietly. ‘Unlikely as it may seem, I am seeking a one-armed Frenchman.’

‘Then I shall see if I can find you one. There must be dozens to choose from in Stratford.’

Shakespeare smiled and spent a few moments gazing up at the house where he had been born and raised. It was a broad-fronted, comfortable home of wattle and daub with exposed oak timbers, windows of glass, two chimney stacks and the thatch roof replaced by tiles; a house that most men would envy.

‘You go in, John, I’ll stable the nag.’

Shakespeare frowned at his brother. ‘Is there aught wrong, Will? Something you haven’t told me?’

‘Nothing. No. I have been thinking much of the future. Your arrival has made me reflect all the more on the path I should take. That is all.’

‘Well, let us talk of that over some good Stratford beer.’

He pushed open the door and stepped inside the welcoming hall that stood at the centre of the building and was its heart. A maid was tending to the fire in the hearth. She turned around, scrambled to her feet and bowed her head hurriedly and nervously.

‘Good day, Margery.’

‘Oh, Mr Shakespeare, sir!’

The maid was young. She had been with the Shakespeares less than three years, since she was twelve years of age.

‘Is my mother at home?’

‘She is at the back, in the kitchen, sir. Shall I go to her for you?’

‘No. I will go myself.’

M
ary Shakespeare, born Mary Arden, was supervising the baking of rabbit pies, little Edmund clutching at the hem of her skirt with one hand while the thumb of his other hand was wedged in his mouth. Mary’s surprise at seeing her eldest son did not last more than a few moments, before she flung her arms around him. He could feel her sobbing with joy, and stroked her hair.

‘Mother, have I been gone that long?’ Edmund started to wail, so Shakespeare picked him up and he wailed all the more. ‘And you, little man, I see you have learnt to walk.’

‘Oh, John, the house is not the same without you. So much has happened in the past few months.’

‘Then you will tell me all about it, Mother. I shall be here a few days, I believe.’ He inclined his head in greeting to the new kitchen maid.

‘This is Margery’s younger sister, Amy.’

‘Good day to you, Amy.’

The kitchen maid put down the skillet she was holding, then clasped her hands together in front of her linen apron, bowed her head like a hen pecking. She looked even more ill at ease than Margery.

Suddenly, Mary Shakespeare bustled. ‘What am I thinking of, John? You must be hungry. I am becoming a foolish old woman. All these children . . .’

‘Mother, the day you become foolish will be the day the sun turns blue and the stars fall to earth. Now, do not be anxious on my part. I am as hungry as a horse, but I will save it – and take supper with the family. However, I will not trouble you for a bed, for I must stay at the inn. I am charged with certain tasks on this visit that would be best administered away from here.’

‘As you wish, John. We can always find space for you – though they all grow apace.’

There were five surviving siblings. William, of course, Gilbert, almost sixteen years of age and apprenticed to their father, thirteen-year-old Joan, eight-year-old Richard and, most recent of all, Edmund, two years of age and the baby of the family.

‘Where is Father?’

‘In the workshop.’

‘And all is well with you both?’

‘Between us? As loving as the day we wed. But—’

‘Has trade still not improved?’

She shook her head. ‘Nor is it likely to. But avoid the subject if you will, for it casts him into a pit of melancholy.’ She lowered her voice in case the cook should hear. ‘We have but Margery and Amy here to serve us now, along with two apprentices, one of whom is Gilbert.’

‘But men and women will always need good gloves and fine white leather. What has brought the old man to this pass?’

‘He has over-reached himself, buying property without the wherewithal to pay for it. Look around you: we now own all this house. But then he bought other properties in town with mortgages, which he could not pay.’ She sighed heavily, then mouthed four words. No sound, but Shakespeare understood them well enough. ‘
My inheritance is gone
.’

His mother’s inheritance had been bequeathed by her father, Robert Arden of Wilmcote. It had always been the foundation stone that underpinned this household, this family. It was the bond that showed all was well and that the Shakespeares could be trusted by all shops and tradesmen within ten miles of town. How had the old man managed to lose that?

‘The money?’

She nodded.

‘And the land at Wilmcote?’

‘Everything.’

Shakespeare put down Edmund, who was by now mollified, then hugged his mother again. ‘All will be well, Mother.’

She managed to smile, and then laughed. ‘If only that was all, John . . .’

‘There is something else?’

‘Your brother, of course. Will. Oh! You don’t know, do you? Well, he will have to tell you himself. He is presently at Uncle Henry’s.’

‘I met him on the road as he walked back. He told me of the trouble with Sir Thomas Lucy, if that is what you mean.’

‘Oh, that. No, it is the other thing.’ She turned back to her pies. ‘He will tell you soon enough, I am sure.’

S
hakespeare found his father coming into the hall from the little workshop, wiping his hands on a rag. They embraced as warmly as he had embraced his mother. It was only since he had been away, first at Gray’s Inn and then in the service of Walsingham, that Shakespeare had truly begun to understand what a remarkable partnership his parents made. Their bond was as firm as the roots of an oak in good earth. If he had lost her money, then it had been done with the best of intentions, attempting to improve their fortunes. She might mention her fears to
son
John, but she would never make complaint to
husband
John. Their love and common purpose would endure, come what may.

‘What brings you home, John? Yearning for Mother’s pies?’

‘That and the stink of your tanyard, Father.’

His father laughed and clapped him on the back. ‘Come, let us take a draught of beer. My work is finished for the day and I have a thirst.’

‘That is a fine notion.’

‘You will discover that there has been a rich harvest and all the town is merry.’ He raised a weary eyebrow. ‘Though some of us will reap
more
than we desired. Have you heard the young fool’s news yet?’

‘You mean Will? What is it? Mother alluded to something, but would say no more. Don’t tell me he has brought a girl with child—’

‘What do you think? Here he comes. Ask him yourself.’

The door opened and Will stepped inside.

‘John was just asking me if you had brought a girl with child, Will. What think you to that?’

Will looked at his father as though he might kill him, then turned around and strode from the house.

‘W
ell, is it true?’

The two brothers stood on the corner of Henley Street, close to the White Lion, beneath the jettied overhangs of the houses.

‘Yes, it’s true.’

‘Who is she? Do I know her?’

‘You know her well enough, brother. It’s Anne – Anne Hathaway of Shottery.’

For a moment, Shakespeare thought his brother must be jesting. ‘No, Will, tell me true.’

‘I am telling you true. Why should you not believe me?’

‘But Will, she’s—’

‘Eight years my senior? More your age than mine? Indeed she is. But what of it? She is healthy; she has lost none of her beauty. And whatever you think of it, she
is
with child. We are to be wed.’

‘Well, this is unexpected news.’

‘But it is so, and I will not listen to any word but celebration. It is a new life, not a death, though to hear Father’s strictures and Mother’s sobs, you might think it so.’

‘How did it happen?’

Will sighed as though he had been answering these questions every day of his life and was mighty tired of them. ‘In the usual manner, John. How else?’

‘Be careful your wit does not cut you. I meant you and Anne – how did you fall for each other? When?’

‘The May Day revels. Too much cider. A dance around the pole, a kiss, a tryst . . . a tale as old as love itself.’

Shakespeare shrugged in resignation. ‘Well, it has happened.’

‘John, is that all you have to say? “
It has happened.
” Do you shrug it away like spilt milk? Can you find nothing
good
in this? Do you not wish me well?’

Shakespeare forced a smile, then took Will in a hug. ‘Forgive me, brother. I am surprised, that is all. I had no idea that you and she . . . but that is by the by. Please accept my heartfelt congratulations. Both of you. You are a lucky man – and she is fortunate, too. That is my honest opinion.’

‘Thank you,’ Will said, a little too stiffly. ‘And you will be pleased to know that there is no regret here. In truth, I had to
win
her. Badger Rench fancied himself in with a hope.’

‘I cannot imagine Anne would have looked on Badger with anything but scorn. However, he will not take well to being bested.’