The Queen's Man (7 page)

‘Good, then you will be my escort, Sergeant. Within and without the castle walls. I wish to hear everything you know about the Scots Queen and those who attend upon her. I wish, too, to know everything you have heard from the goodwives and gossips and in the taverns hereabouts. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘A room has been set aside for me by the hall. Have the steward send me a courier within the half-hour. Not just anyone – your fastest, most trustworthy rider.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You will come to me at one o’clock.’

The sergeant snapped his heels together and bowed obediently.

‘What is the watchword this day?’

Wren’s mouth opened, then closed. A look of desperate bewilderment crossed his brow. ‘I – I am not permitted to say, master.’

‘Would you cross me?’

‘No, sir. I would happily tell you, but I cannot.’

‘You speak well, for had you revealed the word I would have had you dismissed on the spot. Now go about your business.’

The guard clicked his heels again and saluted. Shakespeare touched Boltfoot’s arm and they walked back towards the hall.

‘I have work for you, Boltfoot.’

‘Yes, master.’

‘You will go from here and examine the castle walls from the outside. And when darkness falls, you will break in . . .’

S
HAKESPEARE DESPATCHED THE
courier with his letter to Walsingham at Oatlands. It told of Leloup’s visit and subsequent disappearance, that was all. He would reveal his doubts about the Earl of Shrewsbury to Walsingham in person; such opinions were not to be consigned to paper.

He wondered for a moment whether Shrewsbury might intercept the letter, for he would guess it was not flattering to him. But Shrewsbury would know, too, that the information the letter contained could not be held back for long. Walsingham would learn of Leloup’s visit to Mary eventually. One way or another.

After the courier had gone, Shakespeare walked out into the bailey and ascended a flight of stone steps to the battlements. He was stopped at every turn by guards. Was this a special display for his benefit, or were they always so thorough?

From the ramparts, he looked out over Sheffield. It was a fair-sized market town, renowned for making steel cutlery. He gazed all around for ten minutes, trying to work out the lie of the land. Below him was one of the rivers that formed a moat most of the way around the castle. Not far off, he saw the Cutler’s Rest, and thought briefly of Miss Whetstone. He would take a chamber there rather than here in this grim castle.

He turned away and looked to the north. Across the ditch, the castle keep where Mary lodged was raised high on its motte. Shakespeare studied the ancient earthwork and fortress for a few minutes, then made his way slowly back to the great hall. He had clearly missed the start of the midday repast, for the place was already as raucous as a lawyers’ dinner at Gray’s Inn. The table was packed with senior officers and administrators, eating, talking and laughing with abandon. At the table’s head, the earl was chewing at the wing bone of a fowl. At his left side sat a comely woman. Shrewsbury hammered the haft of his knife on the table. ‘Mr Shakeshaft, you will sit here beside me,’ he boomed across the hall. All eyes turned to Shakespeare. ‘Have you met Mistress Britten?’

Shakespeare bowed, not bothering to correct his name. So this was the earl’s pastry cook, Elinor Britten. Walsingham had told him of her. She smiled at him and pushed forward her large bosom in welcome and the image of an appetising apple pie came to mind. No wonder the countess, Bess, had absented herself from the marriage bed. She was at Hardwick Hall with her young grand-daughter Arbella Stuart, and was said to be in a towering rage that her husband had taken this wench as his mistress.

‘Good day to you, Mr Shake
speare
,’ Elinor Britten said, laughing. ‘You see,
I
know your name even if my lord does not. He is most forgetful these days. With that and the gout and the prattling, one could imagine him a feeble old man soon. We shall have to feed him potage with a babe’s spoon.’

‘Enough of that, Mistress Britten! How can a man be old when he has a warm woman in his bed to keep him up? Do I not rise and crow when duty calls?’

Elinor graced his lordship with a tolerant smile, then turned back to their guest. ‘Please be seated, Mr Shakespeare.’ She swept her plump pink hand in the direction of the bird in the centre of the table. ‘Have you tried ptarmigan? It is really quite delicious. One of Mary’s men had a dozen sent down in cages from his estates in Scotland for us. I think it has the flavour of swan. It is a fine royal roasting bird.’

Shakespeare was astonished at the manner in which the earl’s bed companion flaunted their relationship. He was just about to reply when the room fell silent. All eyes swivelled to the doorway and Shakespeare turned to see what they were looking at.

A dark shadow of a man stood there, the light of the sun behind him. All Shakespeare could make out was the whiteness of his hair, like a demonic halo, and the heavy stick that he held in his right hand.

‘Ah, Mr Topcliffe,’ the earl bellowed. ‘How went the chase?’

‘Too simple, my lord, too simple. No sport at all.’

‘And poor eating.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Step forward, sir, and say well met to our guest. His name is Mr Shake
speare.
There, I have it, Mistress Britten.’

Richard Topcliffe strode forward, tapping his blackthorn stick at every third step, and Shakespeare now saw him clearly. From his skin and strength, he looked fifty or so, yet his hoary white hair was that of a man many years older. He was not tall, but he emanated a brutish power. He was grinning through yellow-brown teeth which, rather oddly, matched the colour of his marigold silk doublet. Shakespeare wondered exactly what manner of work he did for Walsingham.

‘Mr Topcliffe,’ the earl continued when the white-haired man came to a halt. ‘I am pleased to introduce you to Mr Shakespeare who has letters of introduction from Mr Secretary.’

Topcliffe stood square like a mastiff at bay. ‘If you are Walsingham’s man, then you are indeed well-met, Mr Shakespeare.’ His voice was a dark and unpleasant syrup. ‘Any friend of Mr Secretary is an enemy of the Antichrist, and so you must be my friend, too.’

Shakespeare was surprised. Was this truly one of Mr Secretary’s men? ‘It is my honour to meet you, Mr Topcliffe.’ He proffered his hand, but it was not taken. Instead Topcliffe slapped his blackthorn into the palm of his own left hand. It had a heavy silver grip and the dark wood tapered to a narrow tip which was also wrought in beaten silver. There was something of the cudgel about it.

‘Good, then let us eat, for the hunt has made me as hungry as a hog.’

‘What was the game, sir? Stag? Boar?’

‘No, no, the finest chase of them all. Topcliffizare! Priest-hunting – and I smoked me out a fine one, a boy-priest, hiding in a coffer among women’s undergarments. Christ’s fellow cowering in a coffer and shaking as though he had the ague! Did he think I would not look there? Well, soon we shall have him in his traitor’s coffin – with worms not petticoats for company.’

Topcliffe roared with laughter at his own jest, and some of those present joined him politely. They had all ceased their own conversations to attend the words of this man, as though he held some power over them. He pushed his way forward on to the bench into the place that Shakespeare was about to take, with Shrewsbury at his left hand. He then elbowed the neighbour at his right sideways to allow a little space for Shakespeare. ‘Come sit by me and tell me news of the court.’

Shakespeare hesitated. Opposite him, Elinor Britten smiled and gestured towards the tiny space between Topcliffe and the diner on his right. ‘Push and squeeze, Mr Shakespeare. We have no courtly daintiness here. Push and squeeze. Take us as you will, sir.’

A
s he ate a leg of ptarmigan, which was every bit as good as Elinor Britten had promised, Shakespeare began to notice a stink. It came not from the food, but from the man at his side with the white hair. At first he could not identify the smell. It was partially sweat, partially the rancid dirt of a man who wore fine clothes but neither washed nor perfumed himself. Smoky, too, as though he had been too near a bonfire. But there was something else, something unholy. And then he realised what it was. It was the stench he knew from Bladder Street in the city of London, as you approached the shambles; the smell that greets the beast at the slaughterhouse on its final journey and drives it into a cold panic with fear. The smell of spilt blood.

Shakespeare gagged and could not swallow his meat. Surreptitiously, he put a hand to his mouth, but his right-hand neighbour, a young squire, noticed his discomfort and handed him a tankard of ale. Shakespeare drew down a deep draught and caught his breath.

‘A bone in your throat, Shakespeare?’ Topcliffe demanded.

No, your stink in my nose
. He breathed deeply, regaining his composure. ‘Something of that ilk,’ he said.

‘Take care. It is most discourteous to die while men are at their meat.’

‘I have never died at the table yet.’ He managed a smile. ‘You mentioned a priest, Mr Topcliffe. What priest is that?’

The white-haired man looked at him for a moment as though he were not sure he wished to be asked such questions. ‘Why are you here?’

‘As his lordship said, I have been sent by Mr Secretary.’

‘You have papers?’

Shakespeare dug into his doublet and pulled out the sealed paper addressed to Topcliffe.

Topcliffe read it carefully, and then stared into Shakespeare’s eyes. ‘Well, then, I can tell you that the priest was a sodomising traitor and he will suffer a traitor’s death. He says his name is Cuthbert Edenshaw and that is all he will say. But I know him to be a priest ordained at Rheims and sent back here by the devil’s turds that inhabit that sink of wickedness. I shall have him racked in the Tower, and then we shall have the truth from him. And names. We shall have the name of every traitor he has met.’

Shakespeare did not try to disguise his distaste. ‘A man will say anything when tortured.’

‘Indeed he will. And when I go to the places he tells me and find those I have been seeking, I will know whether he has spoken true or not. If not, then he will face worse. Now, Shakespeare, you still have not told me why you are here. The paper merely says I am to work with you.’

‘He is after the Frenchie I mentioned to you, Dick,’ the earl said. ‘It turns out he was not a doctor of medicine.’

‘Is this so, Shakespeare?’

‘Did you meet him, Mr Topcliffe?’

‘He left before I arrived. Who is he?’

‘This is not the place to talk about it. Let us eat, then meet in private.’ Shakespeare forced another smile, then turned away and made conversation with the young squire to his right.

‘N
ever do that to me again, Shakespeare.’

‘What is that, Topcliffe?’

‘Turn your back on me.’

‘You are making something of nothing. Let us get to business.’

They were in the office that had been set aside for Shakespeare by the earl. Shakespeare sat at a table. Topcliffe paced angrily.

For a man of mature years, Topcliffe seemed charged with a remarkable energy and fervour. But there was something worrying close to the surface, and it was not simply his odious gloating at the taking of a priest and the prospect of having him tortured and executed. For the moment, Shakespeare decided he would simply have to pay no heed to his doubts. If Walsingham said he was to be trusted, then so be it.

‘The Frenchman’s true name is Leloup, not Seguin. What Shrewsbury told you was wrong; he
is
a doctor of medicine. But more than that he is the Duke of Guise’s man. He should never have been allowed within a hundred miles of Mary, and Shrewsbury knows it.’

‘Beware your tongue, Shakespeare, lest someone cut it from you. I will not have you speaking ill of the earl to Mr Secretary.’ Topcliffe’s threat was alarming, coming from one who was supposed to be a colleague, but Shakespeare declined to rise to the bait.

‘There is no need to. His poor judgement speaks for itself.’

He went on to explain all he knew of Leloup and raised the possibility of moving Mary Stuart somewhere more enclosed and secure. ‘Mr Secretary wishes us to form a common verdict on the matter and go from here to Tutbury. But his foremost wish is that we capture the Frenchman.’

‘Then let us hope for fine hunting. I will be the hunter; you will be my houndswain.’

‘We will go as equals, Mr Topcliffe,’ Shakespeare said firmly. ‘The problem is that there is no reason to think Leloup is still in Sheffield, or even in Yorkshire. By now, he could be approaching Dover, his mission completed.’

‘I say he is still here, conspiring with the northern lords and other lewd popish insects. This county is a very ant-heap of them. Maybe my petticoat priest will have something to say on the matter.’

‘Then let us go our separate ways. You can seek out Leloup as you think fit; I will examine this castle for holes and look for Leloup in my own way. Let us meet again in twenty-four hours and discuss our progress. Then, depending on that, we can consider riding south to Tutbury together.’

Topcliffe pointed his blackthorn stick at Shakespeare. ‘Very well, but first I will show you this castle.’

‘There is no need. I am going with the sergeant of guards.’

Topcliffe snorted with scorn. ‘The sergeant of guards is sly. Wren will only show you what he wants you to see. You will be better dealt with in my company. I know every inch of this castle – I have been here many times.’

Perhaps it was a good idea, Shakespeare thought. He and Topcliffe had got off to a bad start. If he had to work with this strange man, it would probably be a good idea to get to know him. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Mr Topcliffe.’

‘We shall make a fine team. Let us go to it.’

B
oltfoot stopped at the bank of the Sheaf river and gazed across it up at the huge stone walls of the castle. If he took one of the small rowing boats he could cross the stream here, but the wall was sheer and too high to scale. Perhaps another man, a soldier trained in climbing fortress walls, might be able to do it, but with his club-foot, he could not.