‘And my lord of Derby?’
Cecil hesitated again, then stood and looked out the window. At last he turned back.
‘Yes, it is true. I wish to know the state of things there. Do what you would do wherever you find yourself: keep a watchful eye. I fear, like a stag at bay, he lies isolated in his northern fastness. Since the events of last September, I know he feels endangered and cut adrift. He fights with his brother and is in conflict with the Duchy of Lancaster. As for those who would have made him king, the Jesuits, I believe he has received a death threat from them. Many of the more militant Catholics feel betrayed by him and desire revenge.’
‘That does not surprise me.’
Shakespeare knew enough of the perilous situation Derby had faced seven months earlier in the early autumn of ’93. A man named Richard Hesketh had approached the earl with a treasonable letter from the Catholic exiles in Prague, entreating him to be their anointed chief in England, their king-in-waiting. Derby had turned Hesketh over to the authorities, and the wretched man had been butchered on the scaffold for treason. But had the earl simply sacrificed Hesketh to save his own skin? Was he, as many still suspected, a crypto-Catholic with designs on the crown of England?
Cecil lifted the flask from the table and poured wine for them both. His mood seemed to lighten.
‘Come, John, tell me a little of your family. How do they fare? I was glad to help your boy Andrew go up to Oxford. These have been hard months for you all since-’
Shakespeare’s hand went up. ‘I am sorry, Sir Robert, I cannot talk about it. Forgive me.’ The death of Catherine was as raw today as ever. Sometimes he feared the pain would never ease.
‘I understand,’ Cecil said softly. ‘But sup with me, John. Take a little wine and sustenance. You have a long ride ahead.’
Chapter 4
The road north-west took Shakespeare through Oxford. He considered stopping to visit his adopted son, Andrew Woode. He could spend a few hours with him and bring him news of their family from London. He worried for Andrew constantly, for the boy’s Catholic passions seemed to run deep, and England was a dangerous place for anyone with such a powerful attachment to the sacraments of Rome.
Shakespeare shook the reins. He would lose the rest of the day if he stopped now — a day that he could not afford. Reluctantly, he rode on, resolving instead to stop the night here on his return journey with Dr Dee.
For the next forty hours, save a five-hour sleep at an inn, he drove northwards relentlessly, urging on post-horse after post-horse, exchanging them for fresh animals as soon as they flagged.
Two hundred miles later, John Shakespeare was deep into Lancashire. It had been a rough slog, leaving him saddle-sore, angry and exhausted. He had made good progress, but the thought that he had not taken the opportunity to visit Andrew nagged at him all the way. What worried him most — something he barely dared admit to himself — was that Andrew might leave the country.
Too many Catholic youths fled England for the seminaries of Rheims and Rome and Valladolid; some of them sought freedom of worship, some trained to return to England as priests. Under the law of the land, it was treason for a Catholic priest to enter England secretly, and the punishment was death, martyrdom.
Andrew’s college, St John’s, was reckoned hard Protestant now, but nothing was ever that simple. There were still disturbances in the college, still Fellows whose hearts lay with the old ways. Shakespeare had a deep sense of foreboding.
As he rode on, he thought about the rest of his family. With Andrew gone, their large house in Dowgate, on the banks of the Thames in the city of London, seemed empty. It had been a school for the poor boys of London, dedicated to Andrew’s mother, Margaret Woode, but it had been closed by two years of plague and showed little sign of reopening. It was a pleasantly appointed property in a fine setting, but Shakespeare found its echoing spaces unsettling and oppressive. He turned corners expecting to see Catherine, his wife, but she was not there.
These thoughts crowded in as he came down Parbold Hill from the sensuous folds of southern Lancashire towards the flatlands that led to the sea. He was within the last few miles of the market town of Ormskirk and of Lathom House.
From the hill, the land stretched out before him. Then he came once more into woods where the road narrowed and became more rutted.
Suddenly a gunshot rent the air. Shakespeare reined in the tough, flea-bitten post-horse. They were on a beaten track through a wood of oak and ash. Light played through the fresh spring leaves. He waited a moment, then walked the horse on, more cautiously. It was probably a huntsman with a fowling piece, but it paid to be wary along these outlaw-infested paths. Every lane of England seemed inhabited by criminal bands of vagabonds in these straitened times.
Turning a corner, he pulled his mount to a halt again. Revulsion welled up within him. There were three men at the side of the road, one of them with a hempen noose about his neck, his arms bound behind his back. The other two men were dressed in heavy cassock coats of the type worn by soldiers. They were powerful-looking and heavily armed. The smaller of the two had a smoking petronel pistol dangling from his hand and was picking up a dead rabbit. Neither man seemed concerned at the arrival of Shakespeare. They eyed him coldly, then continued about their business. One of them, the taller, a plough-horse of a man at six and a half feet with a muscled frame and a gaunt face that seemed to tell of battles fought and survived, held the loose end of the long hemp rope. Casually, he tossed it over a thick, ungiving branch of oak, perhaps ten feet off the ground. The other one slung his spent petronel pistol across his back, then tied the dead rabbit to the stirrup of his horse.
He looked up the road and saw Shakespeare, but ignored him and joined the bigger man. Together, they began pulling on the rope, hoisting the condemned man off the ground, his legs kicking frantically at the air. The executioners seemed unconcerned, bored even, as though this was their daily work.
‘What is this?’ Shakespeare demanded, urging his horse forward close to the hanging tree.
‘Deserter. What’s it to you?’ the plough-horse man said.
The two hangmen nonchalantly knotted the loose end of the rope around a lower branch, to secure it. The man with the petronel wore the Queen’s escutcheon on his tawny cassock and seemed to be in charge. There was a pitiless quality to his eyes. Half his face was badly disfigured, as though his cheek had been shot away. The remainder of his face had black spots, like parchment on which ink has been flicked. Shakespeare guessed it had been peppered with fragments of shot.
The rope creaked as the knot was pulled tight. Shakespeare moved his horse closer, drew his sword and slashed at the hempen cord, just above the condemned man’s head. The steel blade, new-honed and as sharp as a scythe at harvest-time, sliced through the fibres with one strike.
The man fell helplessly to the hard, dusty earth, cracked his knees, crumpled and tipped face-forward with a juddering crunch to the nose and forehead. Shakespeare jumped from his horse and, pulling out his poniard, cut the noose away from the man’s neck. He lay there, still, then sucked in a short, desperate measure of air. He gasped again, the breath rattling in his throat.
Four hands dragged Shakespeare away and flung him, sprawling, into a hedge. The leader, his pocked, callous face lacking any emotion — not even wrath — strode over and put his boot in the middle of Shakespeare’s chest. He took a wheel-lock pistol from his belt and aimed it at the bridge of Shakespeare’s nose, dead between the eyes.
‘I could kill you here and now, you maggot’s arse.’
Shakespeare grabbed at the booted foot and tried in vain to lift it and twist it so he could roll away and get up.
‘You are wondering who I am. Well, my name’s Pinkney. Does that mean anything to you?’
Pinkney removed his foot and Shakespeare rose to his feet, dusting himself down, then looked at the man. The name meant nothing.
‘Provost Marshal Pinkney, under orders to press men for the wars in Brit
tany and hang deserters and outlaws. You have interfered with lawful business here. I should shoot you dead as I just shot that rabbit.’ He nodded towards the wretched, skinny carcass hanging from the stirrup.
The half-hanged man was now on his knees, face down in the dirt with his hands still tight bound behind him, coughing and rasping as blood dripped from his mouth. He was struggling to say something.
‘Rope him again, Cordwright,’ Pinkney ordered his assistant. ‘He hasn’t done dancing his jig.’
‘No, wait!’ Shakespeare held up his hand. ‘I am John Shakespeare, an officer of Sir Robert Cecil. I want to hear what the man has to say for himself.’ He stepped forward and placed himself between the condemned man and the provost. Kneeling at the man’s side, he cradled his battered head. ‘Who are you?’
The man could not speak, but he looked like no common soldier or deserter. Shakespeare would have taken him for a clerk or scribe; the skin of his face and hands was soft and pallid.
‘Who is this man, Mr Pinkney?’ Shakespeare said, trying to lift the hanged man from the ground. ‘Get me drink to wet his lips so that we may listen to him.’
‘I say he is a deserter, so that is what he is. Martial law, Mr Shakespeare, martial law. These are hard times and I am authorised to work in the interests of England. Captain-General Norreys needs all the men he can get for the Royal Army, even vermin like this. And as this man won’t go to the wars, though he has cost the Queen sixteen shillings for coat and conduct, and three shillings for a pikestaff, I say he is a deserter and will hang for it. Look at his good broadcloth venetians, his kersey nether-stocks and his new shoes! In faith, this is good English justice, Mr Shakespeare, and I will not be balked by you, Cecil or any man save Sir John Norreys himself.’
‘Justice? This may be military law, but there is no martial law in place here. What trial has this man had?’
‘Summary justice, as decreed by martial law. He is a masterless man, pressed for service. He took the coat and our food — and then he disappeared from camp. We found him hiding in this wood. He has no defence.’
Shakespeare snorted. ‘You are collecting men a long way north for an expedition to Brittany. I have never heard of a levy so far from the ports of embarkation. Why, it is two weeks’ march and more to Portsmouth or Poole.’
‘Needs must, Mr Shakespeare. These are perilous times and I will take masterless men wherever I find them.’
‘Well, I say he will not hang until he has been examined further.’
Provost Pinkney laughed. ‘You have no jurisdiction here.’ He turned to his man. ‘Hang him, then relieve him of his boots and coat.’
Provost Pinkney stood in front of Shakespeare, one hand on the hilt of his sword, the other gripping the butt of his pistol, while his powerful foot soldier set about fashioning a new noose from the severed rope.
Shakespeare glared into Pinkney’s grey, unblinking eyes and saw no hope of reprieve. Pinkney was a couple of inches shorter than him. The lower portion of his shot-ravaged face was covered in bristles. He had red, longbow lips and a chin that pushed forward aggressively from the canopy of his thick barley-harvest of hair.
The hangman wrenched the condemned man’s head back and pulled it into the noose, dragging the rope choking-tight around his already damaged neck. Then he yanked the victim to his feet, roughly, by the bindings at his back. Guilty or innocent, the man was about to die and, at the point of a gun, there was nothing John Shakespeare, an officer of the most senior government officer in England, could do to stop it. This was martial law, summary justice, wolf law. No justice at all.
The thunder of an approaching wagon jolted the hangman to a halt in his grisly business. Shod hoofs on a hard, uneven road and the rattle of metal-rimmed wheels grew louder.
In a swirl of dust, a black carriage appeared from the woods. It was a curious lightweight coach with a golden cupola atop each corner, driven hard by a coachman with a black cape and a long lash.
The soldiers and Shakespeare stood and stared at this apparition. The carriage, which was pulled by just one heavy black horse, was going fast and seemed about to sweep past them eastwards, in a clatter of wheels and hoofs. But the passenger inside banged at the coach’s wooden casing, and the coachman reined in the horse in a fury of stamping and whinnying.
The horse was dripping with white-flecked sweat, its great barrel chest heaving with exertion. The coachman jumped down from his roost and opened the small door, bowing low to its occupant as he did so.
Without hesitating, Shakespeare brushed away the provost marshal’s pistol and moved towards the carriage. The coachman tried to restrain him, but Shakespeare held his ground and peered in. A woman sat there, still, silent and veiled. So small and dark was she, seated in the corner, that at first he thought she was in widow’s weeds. But as his eyes became accustomed to the gloomy interior, he saw that her clothes were, in truth, an exquisitely tailored black travelling costume and not at all in the English mode.
She seemed to be staring at Shakespeare as one might gaze at an alien creature imported from the southern seas. A tiny monkey with a long tail sat on her shoulder. It began chattering with little yellow teeth. Shakespeare bowed.
‘My lady …’ he began.
‘Is there to be an execution here?’ she said in a throaty, heavily accented voice. ‘A hanging?’
Shakespeare could not quite place her accent, but it was unlikely there would be many foreign aristocrats in Lancashire. Was this the Bohemian woman whom Heneage had asked him to seek out?
‘My name is John Shakespeare, my lady. I am an officer of Sir Robert Cecil.’
The word Cecil had an immediate impact.
‘Cecil?’ the woman said, pulling aside her black veil with delicate gloved fingers, to reveal a fair, unlined complexion. She was young, perhaps in her mid-twenties. Her expression revealed nothing except her interest. ‘The son of Lord Burghley?’
‘Indeed, my lady. May I inquire who you are?’
‘You may, of course, Mr Shakespeare, but I may not wish to tell you.’
There was a sudden scuffling from behind Shakespeare.
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ the provost said. ‘Get on with the hanging, Cordwright. If the lady wants to watch, that’s her business. She can have a front-row seat.’
Pinkney’s executioner threw the rope over the branch again and began to pull it taut.
‘Stop!’ Shakespeare bellowed.
The woman in the carriage leant forward and peered out. ‘Pray, tell me, Mr Shakespeare, what is going on here?’
‘I am trying to stop a murder, my lady,’ Shakespeare growled. ‘But I am outgunned.’
The woman laughed lightly. ‘Well, I enjoy a hanging as much as the next lady, but if you say you are Cecil’s man, then I believe I shall assist you in this matter.’
She nodded to her coachman who strode forward and, without ado, pulled the condemned man up by the scruff of his coat, removed the noose from his neck and, throwing him across his shoulder, carried him over to the carriage, where he laid him down on the ground, in full view of the passenger. The would-be hangmen looked on, astonished.
John Shakespeare took his water-flask from a hook on his saddle, his eyes all the while remaining on Provost Pinkney. Stepping forward, then kneeling, he held the clay flask to the lips of the half-hanged man. He sucked at the water thirstily, then coughed and spluttered.
‘Who are you?’ Shakespeare asked.
‘Lamb …’ The voice was weak. ‘Matthew Lamb. You cannot save me …’
‘Yes, I can.’ He turned back to the woman in the coach. ‘My lady, I entreat you, help me take this prisoner to Ormskirk. If there is evidence of wrongdoing, he will face a court of law.’
The woman smiled at Shakespeare, then said a few words to her coachman in her own language. He bowed.
Shakespeare held the flask once more to Lamb’s lips. He drank, but coughed up blood. Shakespeare wiped his sleeve across the man’s mouth. ‘Take small
sips,’ he said.
‘There is no time,’ the man said, barely audible between hacking, painful coughs. ‘You must save Strange, sir. I beg you, save Strange.’
‘Strange? What are you saying, Mr Lamb?’
Lamb’s eyes opened wide, for he saw what was coming. Provost Pinkney had stepped forward with his pistol and the muzzle was now aiming full at his body. Pinkney pulled the trigger.
Chapter 5
The ball from Pinkney’s gun drove deep into Lamb’s body. The crack of the shot jinked the carriage-horse sideways, shaking the coach from side to side.
The coachman leapt on Pinkney and put a wheel-lock of his own to the side of his head. Pinkney shrugged him off and looked dispassionately at his handiwork. He bowed in an exaggerated, scornful manner in the direction of the coach.
‘My apologies for the disturbance, my lady. I trust your horse did not injure itself. If it needs attention, you may send the reckoning to Captain-General Norreys or to the Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire.’
Shakespeare stood up. His doublet, hands and face were spotted with the dead man’s gore. ‘You are a murderer, Pinkney.’
‘A pustule on your prick, Shakespeare. If you have anything to say on this matter, I would refer you to the Lord Lieutenant, for I have no other master in this county.’
Shakespeare pulled back his fist, but the other soldier, Cordwright, restrained him.
‘Please come here, Mr Shakespeare,’ the woman called from the carriage.
Shakespeare lowered his fist. He shook off Cordwright’s restraining hands, turned and strode angrily to the lady in the carriage, wiping blood from his face on to his sleeve.
‘I do not know what any of this is about,’ she said, ‘nor do I wish to. But I am exceedingly put out if, as you say, the poor man has been killed without benefit of judge or jury.’
‘This cannot end here. I would ask you to help me lift the dead man’s body so that I may remove it to a nearby town, where he can be properly identified and examined. The least he deserves is a coroner’s inquest.’
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