The Queen's Man (8 page)

‘What you looking at, friend?’

Boltfoot turned at the voice. A man in a torn smock had come up behind him. He held the bridle of a bullock harnessed to a long, heavy wagon.

‘I’m looking at the wall,’ said Boltfoot. ‘Folks that built those walls knew what they were about.’

‘Aye, that they did,’ said the carter. ‘Strong enough to keep the Scots fartleberry locked away where she do belong. You new to these parts, friend?’

‘I travel with my master. He has business in the castle. Told me to bide my time out here.’

‘What’s his business?’

‘His business is his own and I am not at liberty to divulge it.’

The carter laughed. ‘You want to be careful folks don’t take you for a spy. This town is riddled with spies of every shade. More spies in Sheffield than you’ll find weevils in a hundredweight of grain. Looking too closely at castle walls could cost a man his liberty and his head hereabouts.’

Boltfoot weighed the man up. ‘Spies? What they spying on?’

The carter shrugged. ‘Each other mostly, I reckon. They can spy on each other all they want for all I care. The innkeepers are happy, too, because they bring London gold to Sheffield town.’

‘So how would you get in the castle?’

‘That’s easy. Just drive in with provender. Carts like mine go in and out all day and sometimes at night, too. They got a hundred or more horses in the stables. Those beasts need a lot of feed day by day. Then there’s the guards and the fartleberry’s own crew to be provided for . . .’ The man tailed off and looked at Boltfoot more closely. ‘Now enough of your questions or I’ll begin to think you
are
a spy . . .’

Boltfoot grunted. ‘Who’d have a cripple like me as a spy?’

‘True enough, friend, true enough. Now with your leave, I’ll be on my way.’ The carter tugged on the bridle and the bullock lumbered on after him, leaving Boltfoot staring thoughtfully in their wake.

S
hakespeare reckoned the castle walls enclosed four or five acres of land. Many of the buildings within its confines were lodging chambers of varying degrees, the rest storehouses, kitchens, workshops, arsenal and stables. He would need to ask Shrewsbury for a chart, because the many narrow ginnels and dead-ends did not seem planned. The buildings must have been altered and added to on numerous occasions by different owners in the past three hundred years.

‘A man could get lost in here, Mr Topcliffe,’ Shakespeare said as they rounded yet another corner in what had seemed a blind alley.

‘Indeed, he could. It’s no place to keep the heifer. I’d put her in Newgate, and then take her to Paddington Green for despatching.’

‘On what charge?’

‘Plotting the overthrow of our own Royal Majesty, whose favour and love I do value above pearls of the orient.’

‘Plotting the Queen’s overthrow? Do you know of some conspiracy then?’

‘There is always a conspiracy when one or more popish beast is gathered together. I tell you this: the matter of the Frenchie will not be without blood.’

‘So you do think Mary should be moved from here?’

‘Don’t
you
, Shakespeare?’

‘Yes, I do. But from your fears that I might impugn the earl’s reputation, I had thought you might be happy with the present arrangements.’

‘My friend George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, has done his duty. His health and wealth are brought low from keeping this foul woman in his home. No man has done the realm greater service. He deserves a rest, for he will not live long elsewise. I tell you, Shakespeare, he has aged twenty years in these past ten. It is only the love and favours of Mistress Britten that save his sanity, for his marriage to Bess, who is also my good friend, is now a bitter wreck. And so, yes, I wish the Scots heifer away from here, but in doing so, I do not want George slandered.’

‘Then I think we are almost agreed, Mr Topcliffe.’

By now they were close to Mary Stuart’s apartments. As they approached, a youth emerged from the entranceway. He was slender and handsome and finely attired. Topcliffe gripped Shakespeare’s arm a shade too tightly and nodded in the man’s direction. ‘See that one?’

‘What of him?’

‘That’s one of her pages, or that’s what she says. None of them are what they seem. She keeps nuns disguised as seamstresses and priests in the guise of footmen. I know not what they all do, but this I tell you: they are all lower than vermin.’

The young man, no more than sixteen years of age, strode past the guards, waved to them with familiar carelessness, and carried on at a brisk walk. His red hair caught the breeze.

‘Is that Buchan Ord?’

‘I do not know his name. If I did I would spit on it. All I know is that he is the scion of a noble Scotch family of Calvinist persuasion. If they could see him now clutching at the heifer’s skirts, they would stab their own throats from shame.’

The youth wore a suit of fine red velvet which matched his long red hair. There was something feminine about his face and the neat, smooth way he walked, like a cat. He was coming towards them and slowed down because the path was narrow. Shakespeare stopped to let him pass. Topcliffe did, too. The young man smiled and bowed his head in an exaggerated gesture of thanks.

He was a yard past them when Topcliffe swung his blackthorn stick, heavy end first, at the young man’s head. He landed a crunching blow and the man crumpled and fell sideways on to the unforgiving flagstone pathway. Shakespeare was certain he heard a crack of bone as the velvet-clad shoulder slammed into stone, then his upper temple smacked down like the tip of a whip.

‘God’s faith, what have you done?’

But Topcliffe wasn’t listening. He stood astride the fallen figure, lifted up his stick once more and smashed it into the back of the injured Scotsman’s head. The man’s back arched but he did not scream. Topcliffe threw down the stick, then knelt over him, got his neck in a stranglehold in the crook of his right arm and began to pummel the side of his head with his left fist.

‘Stop, Topcliffe, stop!’ Shakespeare was on him now, pulling at his arms, trying to drag him away. With a mighty wrench, he pulled him off, and they both sprawled backwards, away from the injured man, who now lay still, face down, blood seeping from his head in a little rivulet, across the grey stones.

Two guards from outside Mary’s apartments were walking towards them. They seemed to be in no hurry.

Topcliffe was panting like a dog, his lips foam-flecked.

‘God’s tears, Topcliffe, what have you done?’

Topcliffe spat on the ground in front of Shakespeare. ‘Done for a rat. Isn’t that what you do? Would you have me cosset the Queen’s foes like babes at the teat?’

With languid indifference, the two guards examined the fallen man. He moved and groaned as he tried to sit up.

‘He’s still alive, Mr Topcliffe.’

‘I’ll leave him to you lads then. Throw him from the castle walls into the river. Let him swim back to Scotland. That’s the way to dispose of rodents.’

‘No,’ Shakespeare said. ‘I’ll see to him.’

‘Do as you will, Shakespeare. I believe I know
you
now.’ Topcliffe dusted down his doublet and hose, picked up his blackthorn stick and walked away in the company of the guards, all of them laughing.

T
he young Scot had an aching, bloody head and his upper arm appeared to be broken, but he seemed likely to survive.

‘Come with me, we will get you help,’ said Shakespeare. ‘The earl must know of a physician who can put a splint on that arm and bandage your head.’ He moved to help the young man to his feet.

The Scotsman shied away, the pain in his eyes replaced by a look of contempt. ‘I’ll not be tended to by an Englishman. The Queen’s physician will see to me.’

‘As you wish.’

‘Aye, I do wish.’ He winced, then tilted his chin in the direction of the departing Topcliffe. ‘Your man’s the devil made flesh, do you know that? Do you not note the stink of brimstone about him? He’s Satan himself. And that makes
you
his familiar. Whoever you are, I want nothing to do with you and would not accept water from you even though I were dying.’

Shakespeare stayed him. ‘Wait, did I not pull him off you?’

‘I have nothing more to say.’ The Scots youth shrugged off the hand, gasped with pain from the movement of his damaged shoulder, and hobbled away, back towards Mary’s quarters. The English guards grinned scornfully at him as he passed.

S
HAKESPEARE LOOKED INTO
his goblet of brandy, swirled the dark liquid, then inhaled its powerful fumes. This place was making him despondent. There was something horribly unwholesome about these two communities – captors and captives – living so close together but so far apart.

After the brutal incident with Topcliffe and the young Scotsman, he had sought out the sergeant of guards and demanded to know what would be done.

‘The young man’s name is Mr McKyle. I have heard all about it. Has he complained?’

‘Not to me, but I witnessed an appalling, unprovoked assault.’

‘Then you are free to lay a complaint, Mr Shakespeare, if you so wish. But the way I heard, it was McKyle that provoked Mr Topcliffe.’

There was no point in complaining to the sergeant of guards, Shakespeare realised; the only hope of redress would be with the earl himself. In the meantime, he resumed his examination of the castle and its inhabitants. He was particularly anxious to find Buchan Ord, the man who was said to have accompanied François Leloup when he met Mary, but no one knew where he was.

Shakespeare tried to gain access to Mary’s apartments, but was barred by the English guards. Now he was in the room that passed as his office, awaiting another meeting with the earl. Through the window, he saw that night was closing in. There was a knock at the door and a bluecoat appeared.

‘His lordship will see you now, Mr Shakespeare.’

He downed the brandy and enjoyed its warm descent through his gullet, then followed the servant through to a comfortable withdrawing room where he found Shrewsbury and Topcliffe standing before the hearth, warmed by a log fire.

‘Mr Shakespeare, you wished to talk with me.’

Shakespeare bowed to the earl and ignored Topcliffe. ‘I need to see the Scotsman named Buchan Ord. No one seems to know where he is.’

‘That is because he is no longer here.’

The surprise and irritation were evident on Shakespeare’s face. ‘Where then has he gone?’

The earl shrugged helplessly. ‘I know not. After our midday repast, I was summoned to the presence of the Scots Queen . . .’

‘The Scots
heifer
. . .’ Topcliffe put in.

‘The Scots
Queen
asked to see me.’

‘And so you crawled to her like a dog.’

Shrewsbury looked at Topcliffe and shook his head, as though he had heard it all before. ‘We may not like it, Dick, but she is a Queen and must be treated as such. She may, indeed, be
our
Queen one day. More than that, she is a lonely woman of thirty-nine years and fears herself abandoned and forgotten.’

‘Do you know what the world says about you and the heifer, George?’

‘Yes, Dick, for you have told it me before. Many times.’

‘It behoves me to say it again, however, lest you be in any doubt or forget it. They say you are a slave to her, that she is a lewd Romish worm, with succubus talons and teeth between her legs, and that you obediently grovel beneath her skirts and scrape at her rough-scabbed vileness with your tongue. That everything you do is at her will. That she has borne you two bastards. That is what the court says. That is what men say.’

Shrewsbury sighed. ‘Then tell them the truth, Dick, for you know me as well as any man.’

‘I should tell them you have gone soft, that you are a jelly of a man. And I would do so, but for the love I bear you.’

‘Tell them I am maligned and wretched, that I am caught in a triangular snare of women. A wife who despises me, a guest who uses weeping to rule me and a sovereign who allows me no respite from my over-long years of service. I believe myself the most woebegone subject in this realm.’

Shakespeare grew impatient. ‘What did Mary want of you, my lord?’

The earl shrugged his angular shoulders dismissively. ‘The usual. She wished to scold me.’

‘About what?’

‘She demanded to know what had become of Mr Ord, her new favourite courtier. She accused me of sending him away.’

‘Why would she think you had done such a thing?’

‘Because I have done so with other members of her retinue in the past, usually on orders from the Privy Council, but sometimes because I have had my own doubts about them. Each time I have done it, there has been yet more sobbing and wailing and tear-stained letters of protest to Lord Burghley and Her Majesty.’

‘But in this case, you did not send Mr Ord away.’

‘No, I did not. Nor did I grant him licence to leave, which he should have sought under the terms by which Mary is allowed certain retainers. When he returns, I shall be minded to have him dismissed anyway. He will not be missed. One less stomach for me to fill with food.’

‘And this was the first you had heard he was gone?’

‘Indeed.’

‘Have none of her entourage any idea where he has gone? What of her secretary, Claude Nau? What does he say on the matter?’

‘Monsieur Nau is in London. As for her other secretary, that old fool Gilbert Curle, and the others of her senior aides, they are not saying. The Master of her Household seemed rather pleased that he was no longer there. I think he saw Ord as a maker of trouble, a young man with too much time on his hands and too much prick in his hose for such close-confined society.’

‘Why was such a young man put in charge of a visitor to Mary? Why was he trusted?’

Shrewsbury sighed heavily. ‘I cannot organise
her
entourage and my own, Mr Shakespeare. This is a matter for them. And Mr Shakespeare, I feel I might also mention some other disturbing news. Some maps of the castle and surrounding area have also gone missing.’

Shakespeare was aghast. ‘God’s blood, have they been stolen?’

‘Well, they are not small items. They would be difficult to mislay.’