‘Did you hear nothing of the trial or your husband’s confession?’
Isabel Hesketh put her hands over her ears and closed her eyes and shook her head with great agitation.
Eliska rose and touched Shakespeare’s sleeve with the tips of her fingers. ‘I think she has said enough for the present.’
‘No. I want to get this over with. Mistress Hesketh, are you a Roman Catholic?’
‘No, I am not.’
‘But Mr Hesketh was?’
‘One day he was, one day he wasn’t. I told you, Mr Shakespeare, he was a fool. If he was with a crowd of Catholics, I believe he would be a Catholic; if he was with a throng of murderers, he would be shouting murder. That’s how he was always getting into the mire. But when he was at home with his family, he was the kindest husband and father a family could ever have — and that’s the only way we ever saw him.’
‘Did you hear from your husband again? Did he write to you after he left?’
‘There was one letter before he was captured.’
‘Do you have it? I would like to see it.’
‘It was taken from me, along with other correspondence, but I can recall what it said. He wrote it from Brereton Hall in Cheshire on the second of October, when he was with the earl but before he was arrested. It was brought to me by Trumpeter Baylie. Mr Hesketh wrote that he could not come home as quick as he had hoped because the Earl of Derby had taken a great liking to him and wished him to go with him to court. He also asked me to provide lodging for Trumpeter Baylie until next he came.’
Shakespeare’s jaw tightened. He knew what had happened next. Hesketh had, indeed, accompanied the earl to court — but soon found that his ‘great liking’ was nothing of the sort, but a trick to get him to accompany him south where he could show Hesketh’s treasonable document to the Queen and have him arrested. Instead of being feted as the boon companion of a premier earl, the Lancashire cloth merchant had been taken to a dungeon, and the grim proceedings were set in motion that would end at the scaffold.
Eliska sat down beside Isabel Hesketh and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. ‘And that was the last you heard?’
Mistress Hesketh breathed deeply before she was able to continue. ‘No. There was another letter, sent from St Albans the night before he died. He commended his soul to God and wished his love upon the family. And he said we would be provided for well by a noble gentleman.’
Shakespeare leant forward, alert. ‘And have you been provided for?’ He gazed around the dismal surroundings, which spoke of impending poverty.
‘No, sir, we are still waiting for alms from the noble gentleman. Mr Hesketh was certain gold would come to us, but we have not seen it yet. You are not the one bringing it to us, are you?’ She suddenly looked hopeful.
‘I fear not, mistress. Tell me, who is the noble gentleman? Did your husband name him?’
Her face fell as quickly as it had lit up. ‘I cannot say, sir.’
‘Cannot — or will not?’
‘I do not know his name and the letter said I must never inquire, or it would bring yet greater trouble on me and the children.’
Shakespeare and Eliska looked at each other. A noble gentleman had promised to pay for the family’s upkeep. It was blood money — money to be paid in exchange for a confession that would silence Hesketh for ever. Yet it had not been paid, and for a very good reason. To pay such a debt would in itself be seen as an admission of guilt.
‘Mistress Hesketh,’ Shakespeare persisted, ‘this is important information. I must tell you that the Earl of Derby is mighty sick and likely to die. There are those who believe he has been poisoned in revenge for your husband’s execution. You must not withhold any evidence that might have a bearing on that.’
She was wringing her hands and shaking her head wildly. ‘No, I will say nothing further.’
Eliska reached out to comfort her again, but Hesketh’s widow pushed her away.
‘Is it the Earl of Derby?’ Shakespeare demanded, his tone no longer coaxing, but urgent and stern. ‘Did he promise to pay you to buy remission of his sins?’
The woman appeared bewildered. She shrank from them.
‘Or do you, perhaps, know of any plot against the earl? Have you or your husband’s family sworn vengeance for the earl’s betrayal?’
Suddenly she lunged for the knife that she had used on the capon. She held it at arm’s length in front of her, pointing first at Shakespeare’s throat, then Eliska’s. ‘Get out. I know nothing of any poison. Get out of my home!’
Eliska stepped towards the woman, smiling. ‘Mistress Hesketh, there is really no need for this. We will go if you wish. But you must understand that we are here to seek the truth, and to help you if we can.’ She took out a purse from beneath her riding safegard. ‘Here, there is a little gold for you.’
Isabel Hesketh’s knife wavered, then with her left hand she snatched the gold and the knife fell from her grasp. She clutched the purse of gold to her bosom, then broke down and fell to her knees, gasping for air as great, choking sobs came from her throat. Eliska knelt beside her, saying soothing words.
‘I beg you,’ Shakespeare said, ‘tell us what you know.’
Eliska looked up at him and shook her head softly. ‘She says she does not know the name, John.’
Shakespeare studied the woman. She was untying the strings of the purse, pouring its contents into the palm of her hand. Counting the money. She was a simple soul, brought to the edge of the abyss by great, cataclysmic events. There was no more to be gained from her.
He nodded to Eliska. It was time to go.
Chapter 20
They had reserved a chamber at the Sheared Fleece, the post-house where they had taken their midday repast. With evening upon them, they reined in there once more, handing their mounts into the care of ostlers for feeding and stabling for the night.
It was a large but modest inn. Riders with horses and clothes of such quality as those belonging to Shakespeare and Eliska were rare. The innkeeper had seemed overwhelmed by their presence earlier in the day. Now, when they asked to be shown to their rooms, he bowed so low in their honour that his nose might have scraped the sawdust floor.
‘It is a fine chamber, your worships, a very fine chamber.’
‘We will need two-’ Shakespeare began.
‘One will be enough. Show it to us,’ Eliska said.
The landlord bowed again and stepped with short little strides to the room, turning every two paces to smile ingratiatingly at his especial visitors and make sure they really were still with him. He opened the door to the room and wrung his hands. It was large, with a goodly sized curtained bed, and smelt of lavender.
‘Why, this will suit us perfectly, landlord,’ Eliska said. ‘Have supper and your finest wines sent to us. And bring fruits and nuts for my little friend.’
‘There are no fruits, save one or two old apples, well past their best.’
‘She’ll eat those. And a few raisins if you have them. Perhaps a small songbird’s egg …’
‘As you wish, my lady.’
The innkeeper backed out of the room. Shakespeare looked at Eliska questioningly. She shrugged her slender shoulders and smiled. With much ado, she took her monkey to the coffer and perched the little creature there, tethered by a three-foot leash, linked to her bejewelled collar. The monkey sat quietly and watched them.
‘We should have questioned her further. With time we would have prevailed.’
‘No,’ Eliska said. ‘I do not believe we would. She was terrified. I doubt whether the threat of rack or manacles would have torn the name from her lips.’
He was silent a moment, then nodded. ‘Perhaps you are right.’
‘Now, no more games, Mr Shakespeare. You spurned me once, I spurned you once. I think that is quite enough, don’t you?’
They spent the evening drinking ordinary wine, eating hearty food and exploring each other’s bodies with energy and joy. Her skin, softened over the y
ears by lotions and bathing, was sensuous and responsive to his touch. She was well versed in the arts of desire. She understood how to arouse a man and hold him there, just long enough, before she released them both in a frenzy of bliss. In the moments when they were spent, between couplings, they laughed at the incongruity of their shared lust, here on the bleak edge of the dark moors, among shepherds and common huntsmen, and clerks and couriers trundling endlessly between Lancaster and the southerly towns. And lust it was, thought Shakespeare, sheer pleasure. No love. No questions or answers. No explanations or promises.
She bit his nipple and he pushed her down hard on the creaking bed and entered her again. The whole inn might hear them. Neither of them cared. They drank more wine, spilt it on their bodies and lapped it off.
Then they slept.
She woke him once but he feigned sleep. It was still dark outside. This time she was gentle and he let her go about her business. The only sign that he was awake was the growing intensity of his breathing. She climbed on to him, legs straddled across his hard belly, slipping his yard into her and working with exquisite slowness until he could bear the pretence of sleep no longer and turned her over and brought her to her climax. He kissed her mouth, then her cheek and discovered she was weeping. Salt, silent tears. He kissed them away, then turned on his side and drifted once more into oblivion.
He awoke to a screeching sound and a harsh chattering of teeth. There was light. It must be dawn. Then he realised it was the light of a lantern or candle. The screeching was the monkey. It was sudden, then it stopped. Shakespeare’s shoulder was touching Eliska’s breast. She was silent, but he could tell that she, too, was awake.
Someone else was in the room.
He tensed his body against hers to let her know that he, too, was awake. Where were his weapons? Their accoutrements were scattered across the chamber, flung off in the heat of passion.
The intruder was not moving, evidently alarmed by the monkey’s noise. The seconds stretched into a minute, then the prowler moved. Shakespeare heard a rustling sound. Whoever was in the room was rifling through their clothes. This was a thief, a common thief. An assassin would have done for them with blade or bullet by now.
Shakespeare kept his eyelids barely open so he could see enough, but might be thought asleep by the intruder. The lantern light was moving. The figure was coming closer. He could hear the breathing.
A face was peering down at him, studying him to make sure he was asleep. Shakespeare was conscious of his nakedness and the lack of bedding. There had been warmth enough in the hours gone past, and their sheets and covers were left in a tangle at the foot of the bed.
His hand shot up, as swift and silent as an arrow, punching at the throat. He felt his fist meet flesh and heard a grunt. The figure fell back. His fist had connected, but it had not hit home hard. Shakespeare twisted and rolled from the bed, on to his feet, crouching. He hit out again, lower this time, and made contact once more, a hefty blow to the belly. The intruder stumbled backwards, the lantern falling, clattering to the floor, extinguishing the light.
Shakespeare pressed forward, thrusting his fist at what he took to be a face, but missed. He lunged again and this time his body smacked the trespasser back against the coffer. The monkey screeched and chattered. The figure groaned and was still.
Eliska was up. She pulled back the shutters to let in what little light there was. Shakespeare scrabbled around the floor by the bed and found his sword. There was a knock at the door, a light tap.
‘Who is it?’
‘The innkeeper, master.’
‘Open the door, slowly.’
The door opened. The landlord was standing there in a long nightgown and nightcap, holding a candlestick, which threw a yellow light into the room.
‘What is it, master? What is happening here?’
‘An intruder.’
Shakespeare nodded towards the prone figure on the floor by the coffer. It was a thin, short, beardless man in a dark green fustian jerkin and hose. Hardly even a man, a youth. Maybe eighteen years old. Clear-skinned and slight of frame.
Eliska knelt down beside him and put her hand to his throat. Suddenly, the youth’s hand shot up and grasped hers, then he was on his feet, crouching, stumbling towards the doorway. He ducked under the innkeeper’s arm, knocking his candle to the floor, and was gone.
Shakespeare, still naked, pushed past the innkeeper into the darkness. He could see nothing. He heard the sound of footfalls below him in the taproom. Clutching at what he took to be the banister, Shakespeare stepped tentatively forward. Quickly, he ran downstairs. A door was open. He ran out. By the gloomy, pre-dawn light he could see the young man throwing himself up into the saddle of a horse. Shakespeare ran across the yard and lunged just as the rider kicked his mount in the ribs. Shakespeare’s hand caught the intruder’s foot, but it slipped from his grasp. He cursed and stood a moment, scarcely conscious of his bare body in the open air, watching the direction where the horse had gone. But he had already lost him in the gloom.
Turning on his heel, he returned to the chamber. The innkeeper was still there. He had lit candles.
‘Who was that youth, innkeeper?’
The innkeeper shifted from foot to foot. ‘I don’t know. Didn’t get a good look at him.’
‘You seem uncertain.’
‘I’m certain. Never seen him. It’s not the type of thing you expect in the middle of the night in these parts.’
‘At first light, you will fetch the constable and try to find out who he is.’
‘Look at this,’ Eliska said.
Shakespeare saw a glint. She was picking up a long-bladed knife from the floor. Perhaps the young man had not been a mere burglar after all. Maybe he had wanted more in this room than a few shillings for food. In the candlelight he had seen the youth’s fingers as he grasped Eliska’s wrist. They were blackened.
Suddenly Shakespeare realised that he and Eliska were standing naked. No wonder the innkeeper looked so ill at ease.
‘Prepare some breakfast food for us, innkeeper. We will be gone as soon as the constable has been. Do you understand?’
The innkeeper nodded and backed away.
Boltfoot felt like an impostor. The sickness, such as it was, amounted to nothing more than a streaming nose, a raw throat that made good food taste like ship’s galley slurry, and a slight fever. Jane, however, would not allow him up from his couch of straw in the hayloft of the barn. With the help of her mother, she tended to the needs of both Boltfoot and Ivory, bringing them beef and herb broths and ointments.
Judith refused to come along to help with Ivory. ‘I never want to see him again, let alone nurse the maggoty bastard.’
‘Judith Cawston, I will not have such unholy language in this house,’ her mother said.
Ivory had woken on the ride from the ditch to the barn, strapped over the back of the Cawston family nag. His head and upper body were mottled by dark bruises. He could not recall much about the attack, but he complained constantly about his aches and the loss of his New World tobacco pipe. Now, in this hayloft, fussed over by women and watched over by Boltfoot, who kept his caliver loaded, he was inconsolable.
‘I’ll do for them, Mr Cooper.’
‘You’ll keep your head down and stay alive.’
‘I’m going back there,’ Ivory growled. ‘They’ve got property of mine and I want it.’
‘You’ve got the perspective glass, Mr Ivory, that’s all I care about.’
‘The devil can take the glass, I want my pipe. I bought that from a savage at St Augustine on the Florida coast. It’s been halfway round the world with me, and I won’t be robbed of it. One of them sheep’s bollocks took it from me.’
‘Well, perhaps you shouldn’t have tried cheating them at cards.’
Ivory grumbled but said no more. Boltfoot watched him closely, certain he would try to give him the slip again.
Things could not continue like this.
‘We cannot stay
here now. It is too dangerous,’ Boltfoot told Jane. ‘That mob at the Black Moth will be wanting to give us both a beating. And who knows who they might tell about us. Word gets about.’
‘So where will you go, husband?’
Boltfoot looked at her and said nothing. That was the problem.
Five miles away, a little south of the village where the Cawstons lived, a man in black doublet and hose reined in his bay palfrey at a crossroads. In his belt he had a wheel-lock pistol, damascened in silver and mother-of-pearl. His hand cupped the hilt of his sword. His journey had been long. He knew he must be close to his destination.
A milkmaid was walking his way, heavy pails slung from a yoke about her shoulders. He hailed her and asked her the way to the Cawston house. Smiling at the stranger, she pointed the way. He put his hand in his purse, took out a farthing and tossed the coin to her. She caught it, surprised by the man’s generosity, for she had expected nothing. He shook the reins of the bay and kicked on.
Chapter 21
The constable, who had three teeth visible — one loose brown peg on top, two below — studiously ignored Eliska and demanded to hear Shakespeare’s story in full. In particular, he wished to know exactly who they were and insisted on repeating the questions four times. Each time he spoke, his teeth whistled.
‘For the last time, I am an officer of Sir Robert Cecil,’ Shakespeare said sharply.
‘No, never heard of him. Is he from the Duchy?’
Shakespeare shook his head slowly, like a teacher exasperated by a child of slow wit.
‘He is on the Privy Council. Apart from Lord Burghley, his father, he is the Queen’s senior minister. He carries out the duties of Principal Secretary. Does news of such great matters not reach this far north?’
‘Why should it? If he’s not from the Duchy, he is of no importance and has no power in Lancashire. I’m not satisfied with your answers, Mr Shakespeare. Mr Hesketh will wish to know of this night’s doings, I am sure.’
‘Thomas Hesketh?’
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