But what if he was close to the other Thomas, the one who followed like a slavering pup in the trail of the killing dog Topcliffe? What if Topcliffe and Thomas Fitzherbert, pursuivant, had begged or bribed James Fitzherbert, tutor, to assist in bringing ruin upon Andrew Woode and despair upon the house of Shakespeare? No man had a better chance to daub paint across a painting of the Queen and across the gown and hands of a scholar in his care. And if he was innocent, why was he no longer at the college?
Shakespeare observed Andrew. The boy was taciturn. He had hoped to see Ursula again, but Frank Mills had sent word that she had disappeared from the house at Chevening, stealing a horse into the bargain. They would clearly never see her again. But there was more than that to Andrew’s dark mood. Shakespeare could see that he was finding it difficult to adjust to life away from the army, and he was unhappy that the affair at Oxford had not been resolved.
‘You will not be hanged, Andrew,’ he had told the boy after his meeting with Cecil. Now he repeated the pledge.
‘Are you certain? Did Cecil say as much?’
‘He does not wish you hanged and I will not allow it. Besides, I have a powerful suspicion who was behind it.’
How, though, would he prove it?
Even though fires were lit, the house was cold and unwelcoming. Chill air whipped off the Thames, through the gaps between the panes and under the doors. The family ate enough, said prayers and were in their beds by nine of the clock. Much remained unresolved, especially Andrew’s future. Shakespeare wished him to return to Oxford, but he could tell that the boy had other ideas. Perhaps he was right: the confined world of the scholar might be too suffocating for him now.
In bed, by the light of a single candle, Shakespeare unfolded a letter. It had been handed to him by Cecil before their parting that morning. It was from Eliska.
‘She asked me to give this to you if anything happened to her.’
Shakespeare had hesitated before accepting it.
‘Take it, John,’ Cecil insisted, pushing it towards him.
Now he looked at the letter and thought of the last time he had seen her alive and of the burial at sea they had given her. He wished very much to close his heart to her, to think of her no more. But here was the letter.
His hands hesitated, then opened it. He did not wish to read her confession to murder: that was too much to ask of a man. His reason dissolved like sugar in wine when he tried to make sense of her actions.
As he started to read, the candlelight guttered in the draught and seemed to shift the words, as though they had life.
‘John, if you are reading this letter, it means you have survived and I have died. My sadness is past. We met at a place and time where our joy could only ever be fleeting. I knew you could never be mine, not truly, for your love resided elsewhere and I was set on a course that could not be altered and which, I knew, you would never countenance, not in its entirety.
‘By the time you receive this, I will have explained to you about my father and his treatment by the Church corrupt. He was the finest man that ever lived and he was my life. You came closer to him than any man I have ever known. Just as I now know you were prepared to sacrifice your career and reputation in your quest for your boy, so I vowed to do all in my feeble power to further the cause my father fought for, for so many years. I think you probably now know what it involved. I will not attempt to justify all I have done, not here. Nor will I ask forgiveness, for I believe I have done no wrong. You will disagree with this, but perhaps one day you will find it in your heart to understand.
‘And so I bid you farewell. I would ask you to pray for me, and I will give thanks to God that you have lived through our great adventure. Fight for the right, John, with no quarter given. Yours, in love, Eliska.’
He had not known the depth of her passions. She had concealed them well. Except for once, one night in Lancashire when, unbeknownst to her, he had noted her tears. Now at last he began to understand why she wept.
What was less easy to understand was why she had invited death on the battlements of Fort El Leon. Why had she continued to wave her pathetic yellow flag, long after the need for it had passed? And then he began to realise: it was the same thing that had driven her all this time since her father’s killing; it was what made her come to Lathom House and then to Brittany, into the very maw of death. Just one word: defiance.
Shakespeare read the letter one last time, then held it to the candleflame and watched as it flared up and fluttered down in black ashes to the floor of his chamber.
He sniffed the air. He had slept only fitfully and was half awake. The room was utterly dark and there was a smell of burning. He did not move from the warmth of his bedclothes. All he wanted was to sleep. The smell must be the ashes of Eliska’s letter.
Except that it wasn’t. The burning stench was too strong, and there was smoke. He leapt up in his nightshirt. There was a fire. Somewhere in the house, there was fire. He threw open the window shutters and looked out. Flames licked from the window below. Black smoke belched out in the street. The house was ablaze.
‘Fire! Fire! Fire!’
He shouted the word again and again. There was no other word in the English language more likely to drag the sleeping into instant wakefulness. Opening the chamber door wide, he shouted again and again, willing his voice to be heard in every room in the house and beyond.
The darkness was absolute. Feeling his way by memory, he stumbled towards the chamber occupied by Grace and Mary. Quickly, he opened their shutters for a little moonlight, then pulled them roughly awake and from their beds. If only he had a lantern, something to light the way out of this building.
Mary began to cry. Grace rubbed her eyes sleepily and fought to return to her bed, but Shakespeare tugged at her arms.
‘Grace, we must leave the house. It is on fire.’
He lifted Mary over his shoulder and gripped Grace’s hand firmly in his and made for the door from their room.
Andrew called out from the gallery, but Shakespeare could not see him.
‘Get Jane and Boltfoot and the baby.’
‘They’re here. Not Boltfoot, but Jane and little John.’
Andrew coughed and spluttered as he spoke. At Shakespeare’s side, Mary began to wail. The smoke was getting to them all. Shakespeare tore scraps from Grace’s linen nightgown and gave squares to the children to hold against their faces.
‘Don’t wait,’ Shakespeare ordered into the black darkness. ‘Find your way down and try to make your way to the back of the house. If all else fails, break a window and throw yourselves into the river. Where’s Boltfoot?’
‘He wasn’t there when I awoke,’ Jane said, fear thickening her voice. ‘He must have gone downstairs.’
‘Stay close together. Open no doors. The whole of the front is on fire.’
Suddenly there was light. Flames burst through an open door into the hall below, casting hell-like patterns across the walls.
‘Run. You can see your way!’
With the fire broken through, they had light but little time. Together, they all made their way down the main staircase, shielding themselves from the leaping flames with their arms. In the hall, Shakespeare handed Mary and Grace over to Andrew.
‘Go, take them to safety.’
‘Boltfoot,’ Jane pleaded.
‘I’ll find him. Get yourself and the baby out of the house.’
He watched as they ran across the hall, chased by the flames. They made it into the kitchens and Andrew slammed the door shut behind them. Good, thought Shakespeare, anything to give them more time. Now, where was Boltfoot?
He heard a muffled groan. No words, just a deep-throated animal sound, faint and distant. It seemed to be coming from somewhere at the side of the house. Clutching a piece of nightshirt to his face and keeping low, Shakespeare ran towards the sound. The flames were rushing up the walls to the ceiling. This house was wood-framed. The seasoned oak burnt and roared as readily as logs in a hearth. Wi
thin a very little time they would be engulfed.
‘Boltfoot, where are you? Boltfoot! Boltfoot!’
He heard another sound, from the schoolroom. Shakespeare pushed through the open door. There were flames at the back of the room, curling up around the window. A body lay on the floor: Boltfoot, bound and gagged.
Shakespeare dragged Boltfoot by the arms, crouching low against the choking black smoke that billowed across the room and out into the hall. It was now thick with an acrid cloud. He knew they had to stay below the smoke or, within moments, they would be overcome and die. There was no time to unbind him and he had no blade to cut the cords that held him tight.
He slung his assistant over his shoulder like a sack of beets and thanked God he was a squat, lean man with little in the way of weight to drag them down. Now which way? He was lost, disoriented. He had a sudden horror: they were going to die here, suffocated in their own home.
Scrabbling around, he pulled Boltfoot off his back and dragged him by his shoulders. A face loomed out of the darkness: Andrew. Sweat dripped in soot-black rivulets from his forehead and streaked his cheeks. He was crawling towards them, a damp cloth about his mouth and nostrils. He handed wet rags to Shakespeare, who clamped one about his own face, one on Boltfoot.
‘Come, Father,’ Andrew said. ‘Follow me.’
For hours they fought the blaze, bringing pail after pail of water to douse the flames. Men, women and children from a mile around left their beds to watch the flames light up the night sky or to help. Jane stayed with the children at the house of a neighbour, while Shakespeare, Andrew and Boltfoot joined the local watch and scores of other men ferrying water from the river. It was hot, brutal work that left skin scorched, faces striped with soot and sweat, and hair singed.
At last, soon after dawn, the worst of the fire was out. But what was left was no more than half a house, the remainder just a black carcass of smoking timbers. They had lost important belongings, but they had protected neighbouring properties. For Shakespeare the worst loss was the few jewels and small trinkets of his late wife, Catherine; for Andrew, it was the destruction of a painting of his long-dead mother.
The firefighters quenched their thirst with tankards of ale, while Shakespeare and Boltfoot picked through the half of the house that was saved. Even the part of it that stood was damaged by water and smoke, and would need extensive repairs before it would be habitable again. They found their weapons and some coin, but little else of use.
At last, Shakespeare had a moment to speak with Boltfoot.
‘Now tell me. What happened? Who was it?’
‘I heard a noise downstairs and went to investigate. I spotted instantly that the front door was open, broken. Then they were on to me from the shadows. Three of them, master. They knew exactly what they were doing, binding and gagging me in moments, without a word spoken. I did not stand a chance. All I could do was watch them as they went from room to room, setting the fire, laying trails of powder and kindling all along the walls, beneath the drapes and hangings.’
‘Did you recognise them?’
‘No, they were masked in cowls.’
Shakespeare gritted his teeth and swept a hand through his soot-thick hair. He knew exactly who had done this, even if he had not been here in person: Bartholomew Ickman. Joshua Peace had been right to fear him.
And not only Ickman, but Topcliffe, too. His malign presence cast a dank, heavy cloud across this whole affair. London was a great distance from Oxford, but the foul Topcliffe was a monster with a long reach. He should have seen it …
You will burn for your temerity, he had said.
Shakespeare’s hand went to his hip, seeking a steel haft. He was still in his tattered nightgown, but he had fastened his seared sword belt about his waist. His hand gripped the hilt with unreasoning ferocity. He uttered a rare profanity. He wished very much to kill a man this day. Or, better, two men.
Will had two rooms above a cobbler’s shop in Shoreditch.
‘They are not much, John, but you are welcome here as long as you wish. I shall stay at an inn.’
John Shakespeare looked around the rooms. Papers and books and broken quills were everywhere. Inkstains dotted the floors. The rooms were both of a size, about eighteen feet by twelve. There was enough space for the seven of them; many families lived like this all their lives. But it would be a great imposition on his brother.
‘This is where you work.’
Will glanced at his guests: Jane, Boltfoot and the children stood awkwardly at the wall closest to the doorway. All wore clothes borrowed from neighbours. They must have looked a motley group, riding through the streets of London on the horses from their stables. He smiled at them.
‘Your need is the greater. Besides, John, you have done much for me.’
Shakespeare shook his head. ‘One day and night, Will, that is all we require. On the morrow, we will find other lodgings, more suitable to small children.’ He turned to Boltfoot and Andrew. ‘Are you armed? Then let us ride.’
Skirting the city along well-used, rain-sodden tracks, the ride to Westminster was no more than four miles, but took them an hour and a half. The dark, baleful stone of Richard Topcliffe’s house rose in the shadow of St Margaret’s church. It was a house that John Shakespeare knew all too well. A house that stank of sweat and blood. A house where torture was licensed. A house with its own chamber of iron and fire, and a rack that was its owner’s pride. A house that stained England.
Shakespeare hammered at the heavy oak door with the haft of his poniard. Boltfoot stood to his left, caliver loaded and ready. Andrew stood to his right, hand gripped on the hilt of his sheathed sword.
The door opened. A young heavy-set man stood there, his straggle-hair slicked with grease. He looked at the three visitors with unconcealed loathing. Shakespeare knew him well: Nicholas Jones, apprentice in cruelty to Topcliffe.
‘Where is your master, Jones?’
‘You won’t find him here.’
He made as if to close the door, but Shakespeare was ahead of him. His hand grasped at the young man’s throat, pushing him back into the hallway. Jones stumbled backwards under the onslaught and fell to the floor. Shakespeare, Boltfoot and Andrew looked down at him. The muzzle of Boltfoot’s caliver was trained on his face.
‘Where is he, Jones?’
Jones spat and Boltfoot pushed the muzzle down harder so that the cold steel flattened his nose. Jones wrenched his head sideways.
‘Shall I blast his head away, Mr Shakespeare?’
‘All in good time, Boltfoot.’
‘Court of Chancery,’ Jones spluttered. ‘He’s at the Court of Chancery!’
Shakespeare brushed Boltfoot’s caliver aside and dragged Jones to his feet. He held him against the wall by the lapels of his leather jerkin.
‘What is this? What is Topcliffe doing at Chancery? It is a civil court; there are no poor creatures to persecute there.’
‘He has brought a suit for non-payment of contract.’
‘Tell me more!’
‘There is no more.’
‘Finish him, Boltfoot.’
‘Please, wait.’ Jones could see the rage of death in these men’s eyes. He had never before believed Shakespeare capable of cold-blooded killing: he did now. ‘He is suing Tom Fitzherbert.’
Shakespeare could not disguise his astonishment. How could this square with his theory that Tom Fitzherbert and Topcliffe had conspired with James Fitzherbert falsely to accuse Andrew? Why, if they were co-conspirators, would Topcliffe be suing him in Chancery?
‘What is the debt?’
‘Five thousand pounds. Fitzherbert promised Mr Topcliffe five thousand pounds.’
‘For what?’
Jones hesitated. Shakespeare slammed his head into wall, hard.
Jones cried out in pain, then cringed away. ‘Hell’s turds, Mr Shakespeare, I’ll tell you. It is no secret for it will be heard in court. Tom Fitzherbert pledged to pay Mr Topcliffe five thousand pounds to bri
ng his Papist father to his death so that he might inherit his lands and properties. Old John Fitzherbert has died in the Tower — and yet Tom Fitzherbert will not pay. Mr Topcliffe wants his money. He wants his five thousand. That is what this is about. Go to court yourself and you shall see.’
Shakespeare stared with astonishment into Jones’s eyes and saw fear, not dissimulation. Could it be true? Could an Englishman sue a man for non-payment of a contract to kill?
Suddenly, he flung the wretched Jones down the hall, turned on his heel and marched a hundred yards in the direction of Westminster Hall, with Andrew and Boltfoot close behind.
Chapter 50
Shakespeare strode into the ancient hall, past the Common Pleas. The Court of Chancery was at the upper end, at the left-hand side. This was where Lord Keeper Sir John Puckering presided, with Master of the Rolls Sir Thomas Egerton at his side. It briefly flickered through Shakespeare’s mind to wonder about some link between this court and Egerton’s recent role as commissioner inquiring into the death of Lord Derby in Lancashire. At times, he felt, a man could be strangled in the myriad interconnecting twines that linked the great men of England. He shook his head as though to sweep aside the entangled briars; such things might be a matter for another day. This day he wanted but one thing: to find Richard Topcliffe.
A hand touched his sleeve. He turned sharply, as though bitten, and stared into the familiar face of Clarkson, Sir Robert Cecil’s most trusted retainer. Shakespeare was about to pull away but Clarkson’s grip tightened.
‘I must speak with you, Mr Shakespeare.’
‘I have no time for talk, Mr Clarkson.’
‘Sir Robert Cecil wishes to see you. He is close by, at Whitehall Palace.’
‘How did you find me here?’
Clarkson smiled. He was, as always, formally attired in black doublet and hose.
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