Traitor (10 page)

Shakespeare watched them walk away. It occurred to him that there were many who would happily break that glass. His instinct was to take Dee now and ride with him to Kent, but his reason told him he must stay a little longer. The last, dying warning of Father Lamb seemed to toll like a funeral knell for Derby.

T
HE EARL’S YOUNGER
brother, William Stanley, came out of Cole’s office as Shakespeare was about to bang at the door to gain admittance. Shakespeare bowed to him, but he simply nodded curtly and hurried on.

As he walked away, William Stanley cut a commanding figure. Unlike his older brother, he was a man of bearing with gracious parts, tall and slender with short-cropped dark hair and a hot aspect that would serve well on the field of battle. Shakespeare wondered why he had not acknowledged him. They knew each other well enough. Stanley had travelled extensively in Italy, France and Spain during the mid-eighties and had brought much valuable information to Sir Francis Walsingham’s attention. Well, Shakespeare would need to speak to him in due course. Cecil had suggested there was bad blood between the brothers.

Shakespeare watched him a moment, then turned away and entered Cole’s office.

‘I would like to resume our conversation, Mr Cole. And I will need the assistance of yet another of your men.’

If Cole was put out by being barged in on, he was too much the lawyer to show it. ‘As you wish, Mr Shakespeare.’

‘The earl has made something of a recovery, it seems.’

‘The household is overjoyed. I do not mind telling you, sir, that we had feared for his very life.’

‘And I see his brother is here.’

‘He came from the Island of Man at Easter.’

‘I had not known the brothers to be on speaking terms.’

‘It is not my place to comment on such matters, Mr Shakespeare,’ Cole said, a little stiffly. ‘But I can tell you in honesty that I have detected no ill-will these past days.’

Shakespeare said nothing, but looked around. There were shelves of ledgers and correspondence; the whole workings of this complex and costly household were contained within this small room.

‘What did Stanley want with you just now?’

‘He asked me to arrange his baggage and retinue. He wishes to leave imminently. He is returning to Man.’ Cole smiled, regaining his composure. ‘Was there anything in particular that you wished to talk of, Mr Shakespeare?’

‘Yes. In the first instance, I want one of your servants or riders to take me to where Dr Dee is engaged on his dig. While I am there, I would like you to draw up a list of all who work here and all your guests, both recently departed from the house and those still here. I would know who else is closeted in this great house – and why.’

‘Naturally, I would require the earl’s permission to disclose such information.’

‘I am sure that the earl would do nothing to hamper the inquiries of an officer of Sir Robert Cecil.’

Cole inclined his head. ‘Indeed, sir, I am sure he would not. I will make all haste with your requirements.’

‘What guests are here apart from Dee and myself?’

‘Well, there is Sir William, whom you have just seen. And Lady Eliska from the Bohemian lands, whom I have already mentioned. That is all. It is strangely quiet, sir.’

‘Where is this lady?’

‘She is out on some private business today. I believe she will return in the evening.’

‘I would hear what you know of Mr Dowty.’

‘Michael Dowty? He is our Clerk of the Kitchen.’

‘He says he is the earl’s taster.’

‘That is true.’

‘How long has he been at Lathom?’

‘He arrived a little over a year ago.’

‘That does not seem a great length of service for a man given a position of such trust.’

‘He came with the most impeccable letters of reference, Mr Shakespeare – from the household of Sir Thomas Heneage, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. There can be none better, I think.’

Ah, Heneage again. It seemed he took his duties as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster most seriously. Shakespeare smiled wryly to himself. If Sir Thomas Heneage trusted Dowty, why should any man not?

The muzzle of a petronel appeared from a thicket. It was thrust into the stomach of Shakespeare’s escort and would have blown him away had the trigger been pulled. Oxx, who held the heavy pistol, emerged from the bush, his face uncompromising. He turned to Shakespeare, nodded in recognition and removed the weapon from the man’s belly.

They had ridden out immediately after leaving Cole’s office. Now Shakespeare nodded to Oxx.

‘I presume we are close to Dr Dee’s dig?’

The guard signalled with his head. ‘A little further, beyond the spinney. There are three men with him. We searched them thoroughly, though we know them.’

Behind the clump of woodland, at the edge of a low-lying
meadow, Shakespeare found Dr Dee and his three assistants beside a mound of new-dug peat and a deep hole in the ground. There was no sign of Godwit. Shakespeare assumed he was as well concealed as Oxx had been; that, at least, was something.

Dr Dee was sitting on a three-legged stool, wearing his long gown and an exotic, embroidered gold and red cap with a gold-thread tassel. Two of his assistants, working men with their shirt-sleeves rolled to the tops of their weathered and muscled arms, were up to their chests in the hole. The third was standing a little further off, drinking from a beaker of ale and idly flicking a thin, catapult-shaped stick. He looked a different cut from the diggers, for he wore a buttercup silk doublet, its ties unfastened, and green hose.

Shakespeare took in the scene and dismounted. He dismissed his escort and turned to the man he was commissioned to protect.

‘Dr Dee—’ he began sharply.

‘Mr Shakespeare. I trust you found my missive.’

‘I did, and I was mighty displeased.’

‘Oh, Mr Shakespeare, I am quite safe in the hands of Mr Oxx and Mr Godwit.’

‘I have no reason to doubt them, but you must discuss your plans with me
before
you venture outside the house. Or even your chamber.’

Dee stood up from the stool. His long sleeves fell below his hands so that they were not visible unless he flicked back the cuffs.

‘Mr Shakespeare, I have travelled to the farthest reaches of the world – through the Allemain lands to Bohemia and to Poland, along mountain tracks plagued by bandits and wolves. Do you think me less safe here in England’s green bosom?’

Shakespeare was irritated. ‘It is not so much
your
safety, Dr Dee, that concerns me as the safety of your knowledge. If an assassin’s ball strikes you dead, then your secret remains secure. But all the while you live, I must protect the knowledge inside your head, whether you like it or not. Do not cross me in this, or I will restrict you further – and I will have the backing of Cecil and the Council.’

Dee, unperturbed, continued to press his case. ‘But am I safer inside Lathom House than here in the open air? Is his lordship, the Earl of Derby, safer in the confines of his home?’

‘You have said enough, Dr Dee. You know my feelings on this – and you will obey me. Who are these men with you?’

Dee smiled. ‘My diggers are honest, hard-toiling peasants as you can surely tell from their callused hands and their skill with pick and shovel.’ He swept his arm in the direction of the third man. ‘My friend over there is Mr Ickman, my scryer.’

Ickman
. Shakespeare felt a stab of alarm. The Ickman family had proved useful to Walsingham in the old days before the Armada fright, but Mr Secretary had never really trusted them. Was this man of that clan?

Shakespeare called over to him.

‘Mr Ickman?’

The man approached and bowed with excessive display. ‘Mr Shakespeare … Bartholomew Ickman at your service, sir.’

Shakespeare studied him more closely. Above the costly yellow doublet, he had a face of smooth, burnished skin, so unblemished that it might have been a maiden’s, or an adder’s. It was if he had never grown a beard, nor even shaved. His voice was soft and strangely ethereal.

‘Do I know you, Mr Ickman?’

‘I think not, but I certainly know of
you
, Mr Shakespeare, for I performed certain duties in the service of Mr Secretary,
your chief man that was. You may know my uncle Richard, or brothers William and Ambrose.’

Shakespeare held his gaze steady. He certainly knew Richard Ickman, and a more villainous creature he had seldom met. He was a broad, rough bully of a man, who had made a great deal of money from his crooked dealings. He looked nothing like this sylph-like fellow.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Assisting my good friend and patron, Dr Dee, as always.’

Shakespeare gave him a severe look. ‘That is no answer. Why are you here at Lathom in Lancashire? And you, Dr Dee, why did you not mention his presence to me?’

‘Bartholomew is my medium, my pathway to the great world of spirits beyond. Few have such a gift. I had once thought Mr Kelley – but that is another story. We are here, together, to find a hoard of Roman gold, of which we have sure information. This chart, on ancient parchment …’

Dee opened a wooden box that lay on the ground at his feet and produced the map that Shakespeare recognised as the one he had seen on the doctor’s table the previous evening.

‘… it is very fragile because of its great age, but it tells of a Roman governor of Deva Victrix – the city we now know as Chester. He had a country villa where Lathom House is now situated. The parchment implies that he buried the gold coin for safe keeping at a time of great unrest towards the end of the fourth century, intending to return for it one day. There is no reason to believe he ever had the opportunity to come back, so it should still be here.’

‘And what is your role in this, Mr Ickman?’

Ickman held out the Y-shaped stick, one twig in each palm. ‘This is my
virgula divina
, Mr Shakespeare. It may seem as naught but a stick to you, but to those with the power of divination, it is the guide to untold riches.’ He turned his hands to
lay open his soft palms. ‘It is all in the sensitive touch of the hands. In this, I am merely the good doctor’s tool in his quest for electric bodies. Are you sensitive, Mr Shakespeare? Would you care to hold my stick and see what you find?’

Shakespeare glared at him. ‘Be careful, Mr Ickman. I am not a man to be toyed with.’ He glanced again at Dee. ‘You have not answered the second part of my question. Why did you not tell me of this man’s presence here? How can I protect you if you keep secrets?’

‘I had not thought it relevant. Mr Ickman is an old friend—’

‘Is he roomed at Lathom House?’

‘No.’ Ickman spoke for himself. ‘I have lodgings in Ormskirk.’

Shakespeare strode over to the new-dug hole and looked in at the diggers, thick with peaty earth and sweat. ‘How much gold have you found thus far, Dr Dee?’

Ickman arrived at his shoulder. ‘None as yet,’ he said, twiddling his divining rod too close to Shakespeare’s face. ‘But given time, we will. I am certain we will.’

Shakespeare gripped the man’s slender wrist.

‘Be careful not to answer for others, Mr Ickman, lest I take you for someone other than you are. You may find I treat you with less gentleness than you believe you deserve.’

Shakespeare found his brother at the base of an oak tree, eyes closed as if asleep. Will was wearing a fantastical green costume with fringes of many colours and gossamer decorations, like a sprite. At his side lay a cheap crown of gilded tin.

‘Will?’

‘Brother …’ Will opened his eyes.

‘Did I wake you?’

‘A daydream. This place is full of strange magic. I feed off such dreams.’

‘Strange indeed. Stranger yet is the sickness, then sudden recovery, of my lord Strange, the Earl of Derby.’

‘Yes. And now he is insisting we proceed with our performance this evening. Half of me fears he will die during the first act, yet the other half is greatly relieved. I do not wish to stay in these parts a moment longer than necessary for the discharge of my duties to the good earl.’

‘You call him the
good
earl, Will? I confess I have always liked him well enough, but there are those who speak of him as having so haughty a stomach, and so great a will, that he believes himself fit for a crown. They say, too, that his arrogance will one day be his overthrow. When I saw him last night, I rather thought that day had come.’

‘I will not listen to such talk. He has been a fine patron of players over the years. He gave me this life, you know. His troupe accepted me when no one knew my name. He is there for us still, even at this troubled time.’

Shakespeare prodded his brother with a foot and laughed. ‘Never mind Derby’s ambitions. You look as if
you
would be king.’

Will rose to his feet and bowed. ‘Oberon, king of the faeries,’ he announced with a flourish, then paused before sighing wearily. ‘And my lady, the Countess Alice, will be my queen, proud Titania. What would the Master of the Revels say about a lady playing on stage?’

‘Mr Tilney is not here, so fear not.’

‘But usurping the role of a queen, a faerie queen? How would that news fare at court?’

‘Not well, so say nothing.’

‘Come, let us find cider, John. I have a thirst.’

Shakespeare followed his brother into a tent where a boy served them a powerful draught of apple cider from a flagon. They went outside once more and settled by a tree with a fine
view of the magnificent old palace. It seemed a good time to talk.

‘John, you are in a dark humour. You still grieve deeply.’

He shook his head. ‘It is not just that. I have many worries. No, more than that –
fears
. Fears that I find hard to share.’

‘This place would make anyone feverish.’

‘I have as great a desire as you to be away from this place. I must take Dr Dee to Kent. But that is not my only concern. I also fear what lies behind this illness of the earl. And I worry about my boy, Andrew.’

‘I will not ask why you must remove Dr Dee, and I can understand your concerns about Derby. As for Andrew, yes, I can see how he might give you sleepless nights. A lad of strong will.’