‘I no longer like this place,’ Will continued. ‘It seems a very century since the Christmas of ’91, when Strange’s Men presented six plays before the Queen. Men no longer speak kindly of his lordship. I know not whether he is bewitched or poisoned, but in truth I am sure Lathom is cursed. There is nothing here for me.’
Shakespeare went to Dr Dee’s chamber. Oxx and Godwit were outside, awake.
‘Is he within?’
‘Yes, master,’ Oxx said. ‘There has been no sound for half an hour. I believe he sleeps.’
‘Do not let him go questing for treasure in the morning. He is to stay in the house.’
The guards nodded. Shakespeare left them and went down to the great hall. He guessed the time to be close to midnight. He had stayed with his brother too long and had drunk too much wine. They had talked of women and children and their family. It had been a warm interlude, but he would pay for it: he would feel the ache of the spirit in the morning.
Above him, leading off the gallery, he saw the entrance to the earl’s apartments. All was quiet for the moment. Shakespeare imagined them there: the three physicians wringing their hands; the countess still in her faerie queen rags, soothing his brow. Perhaps Mistress Knott still in her corner, chanting and moaning and invoking spirits against the darkness that ate at the earl’s body. Shakespeare’s stomach clenched at the thought of the earl’s agony. The Earl of Derby, the man who might have been king, was dying, he was sure of it. And there was nothing anyone could do.
He slipped through into the smaller hall. At the side, as Lady Eliska had described, was a wide stairwell. He climbed the stone steps and came to an oak door, half expecting to find the coachman Solko there, standing guard with his pistol, but no one was about. He knocked softly, then lifted the latch and walked in. She was waiting for him. Naked. The air was filled with the exotic scent of oil of spikenard.
He stared at her. She was lying on her bed, on a bank of pillows, reading a book by candlelight. Her body was exquisite. Well-formed breasts, smooth belly, a fair V of soft, golden hair. Slowly, she looked up from her book. Their eyes met.
‘Put on a gown, madame,’ Shakespeare said.
Outside, the rain tapped against the leaded window, which was far from watertight. Rivulets streamed in and ran down the inside of the wall, as they must have done for many years past, for they had carved brown, mouldy streaks.
Eliska put down her book and slid her legs from the bed to the floor. She stood up and faced him.
‘Do you not like what you see, Mr Shakespeare?’
‘I am a man. You are a beautiful woman. Now don a gown or wrap yourself in a blanket. I wish to see your passports from Burghley, and there are other matters to discuss.’
She shrugged her slender shoulders and picked up a loose linen gown. Unhurriedly, she slipped her arms into the sleeves and fastened it at the front. The full curve of her breasts was still plain to see.
‘Who sent you here, madame – and why?’
She frowned. ‘I came to visit the earl. I am engaged on a grand tour. It is what I have been doing since my father died. The earl and countess were gracious enough to invite me to stay.’
‘But why? Who are you? You said you could assist me. How? And why does Heneage write to you?’ He found himself both stirred and angered by her.
She laughed. ‘As I told you, I am the daughter of a noble merchant, who lived and traded in Prague, one young woman among many at court. With my beloved father dead, I travel the world with my coach, my Solko and my little monkey, finding entertainment where I may. I have more gold than I could ever need. I do not wish estates and castles in Bohemia; I want the whole world. As for Sir Thomas, he sends me his love and tells me to be kind to you.’
‘And he speaks well of you, my lady.’
But I will make up my own mind on that.
Shakespeare stepped away from her and paced to the window so that his back was towards her.
‘Do I disturb you, Mr Shakespeare?’ she said.
Her voice was sweet and warm. It seemed to chase away the coldness of the rainswept night. The demon Succubus must have such a voice.
He had had enough and turned sharply. ‘Do not take me for an imbecile. There is more to you than this. You speak English as though you have been here for many years, you say you are a friend of Dr Dee … You have links to Prague.’
All roads pointed to that exotic and distant city.
‘And what do you suppose all that might signify?’
‘Dee was in Prague, as was Richard Hesketh. Someone there sent him to England to discover whether my lord, the earl, would seize the throne of England for the Roman Church. Did you know Hesketh?’
She was thoughtful, as if attempting to recall a long-distant event.
‘It is possible I met him,’ she said at last. ‘There were many English malcontents exiled in the city. I came across them from time to time. If I met him, he made no impression on me. No, I do not recall him.’
‘You understand why I ask this, do you not? Has the news of what passed here reached you during your travels?’
‘Yes, I have heard of the fate of Mr Hesketh. Hanged but cut down while he yet lived; his privies sliced from him with a butcher’s filleting knife and held before his gaping eyes; his bowels plucked from his belly and tossed into the cauldron; his beating heart torn from his breast and thrown after his entrails; finally death – and then his body hacked in pieces and parboiled to be shown to the people as a warning. You English have a curious talent for punishment. The Spanish Inquisition with its burnings might learn from you.’
‘You disapprove?’
She sighed. ‘I neither approve nor disapprove. All who live must die. You will not find a swooning faintheart in this breast.’
He was silent a moment. Of what stuff was this woman made? He voiced his suspicions.
‘Some might wonder whether you were not sent here by Roman Catholics in Prague to wreak vengeance on the Earl of Derby for causing Mr Hesketh’s arrest and execution.’
She tied her gown tighter. ‘Lord Burghley trusts me.’
She walked to a coffer at the side of the room and took out a pouch of fine kidskin. Opening it, she drew out papers and handed them to Shakespeare.
He read them slowly: they were passports for Eliska and her coachman; the hand and seal were undoubtedly those of Lord Burghley, the Lord Treasurer. Shakespeare handed the papers back to her and she replaced them in the pouch.
‘Come with me, Mr Shakespeare. There is something I would show you, something I discovered by chance. Come – it’s close by.’
Suddenly her monkey started chattering, high up, on the canopy of the four-poster bed. It leapt down and Shakespeare saw that it was tethered to the bedhead by a long chain attached to its jewelled collar. It lunged towards him, but the chain held it back. The monkey turned, squatted – and a jet of acrid piss shot across the floor.
Eliska ignored her pet, picked up the lighted candle and led Shakespeare to the door. The stairwell was lit by the flames of wall sconces. She looked about her, down and up, and saw that no one was there, then silently climbed the stairs. Shakespeare followed her.
On the floor above, a door opened into a library. Books were everywhere: on the floor, on a table, on shelves, stacked against the walls. Glancing at them, he noted that many were in Italian; more were in German and English and Latin. Eliska’s candle threw shadows and light across the walls and ceilings.
‘There is another door. Watch me.’
She let go his hand, approached a panelled wall at the side of the chimney breast, prised her fingers into an indentation and the panelling slid open.
She stepped through the little doorway. Once more, Shakespeare followed her.
The new room was slightly smaller than the library, perhaps eighteen feet by twelve. He saw instantly what it was: a chapel, with an ornate altar. A sculpted Madonna and child looked down from the wall above the altar. The altar itself was laid with a cloth of
gold and silver threads, and furnished with a cross and the mass things – a chalice and paten, both wrought from fine gold. The faint whiff of incense hung in the still air and mingled with the candle smoke.
So it was certain. Cardinal William Allen and the Popish exiles in Prague and Rome had been right about where the Earl of Derby’s true loyalties lay. He was no Protestant.
Eliska stepped further into the room and indicated something on the floor, to the left. A thin mattress lay there, furled up, with two blankets beside it. From a hook hung the cassock and surplice of a priest. A book lay on the floor. Shakespeare picked it up and looked at the pages. It was a beautiful Bible, in Latin, with illuminated lettering.
‘I suspect that this is where our poor friend on the road dwelt, Mr Shakespeare.’
Shakespeare nodded grimly. Most likely. This was the hiding place of a seminary priest or Jesuit, and Father Lamb was the obvious candidate. This had been his home. He had been chaplain to this household, bringing the sacraments to the earl and others in this house who clung to the old faith. But that did not explain Eliska’s part in it.
‘And how, my lady, would you find a hidden room by chance in a house you do not know?’
‘Soon after I arrived here I took a wrong way coming to my room and ended up in the library. Idly looking at the earl’s collection of books, I discovered the door.’
‘By chance you slid back the one false panel in a room full of panelling?’
‘I thought it most unusual, too, Mr Shakespeare.’
He did not believe a word of it. He would watch her closely, whatever the feelings of Burghley and Heneage.
‘Tell me what is your religion, madame?’
‘Is it compulsory to have a faith in your country? In Bohemia, people are free to worship – or not – as they please. Rudolf is an enlightened king.’
‘Very well. I will not press you on that. But you bring this chapel to my attention, knowing that I am an officer of Sir Robert Cecil, and certainly knowing that the earl’s faith is a matter of conjecture and great controversy in this country.’
‘It was precisely because you are an officer of the Cecils that I showed you this room. I wish only to do right by your sovereign and the Cecils, as I am sure Sir Thomas has told you. I am a guest in your country and a friend.’
As she stood there in her light gown in this holy candlelit place, Shakespeare almost reached out his hand to draw her to him. It was so long since he had had a woman. Instead, he turned aside and prepared to leave.
‘Say nothing of this chapel to anyone.’
‘As you wish, Mr Shakespeare.’
Chapter 13
SLEEP DID NOT come easily to Shakespeare that night. The mattress that had soothed him to sleep before now seemed too narrow. His shoulders hurt from the hardness of the boards beneath the thin palliasse and a draught seeping under the door blew against his exposed neck. In the early hours he woke amid fitful dreams and thought of Catherine. He felt a sudden rage at her for dying. He felt angry, too, at her stubborn clinging to the Church of Rome; she had been so like his own father in that. What, in truth, did any of it matter? For the man or woman communing alone with God, the difference between one Christian faith and the next was nothing but trappings.
He thought of the earl’s secret chapel and of the letter he had found in Father Lamb’s doublet. It did not take the devious nature of a Walsingham or a Cecil to wonder whether the ‘great enterprise’ Lamb mentioned referred to the Catholic attempts to persuade the Earl of Derby to lead a rebellion against the crown of England. The hapless Richard Hesketh had tried to persuade the earl once. Who was to say it had not been attempted again, by Lamb?
Andrew Woode woke at dawn to the sound of church bells. After all the running and the late prayers, he had slept deeply and without dreams. Groggily, he slid from beneath the blanket. Around him there was the bustle of the other scholars and their tutor rising from the beds. He reached for his black scholar’s gown and recoiled. It was daubed red, as though washed in blood. He looked at his hand. That, too, was red. He tried to rub it off, but it was dry.
Paint. He had red paint all over his right hand. Confused, he looked up. All the other scholars and Mr Fitzherbert were staring at him.
In the morning Shakespeare spoke with Dee while the old doctor lay in bed.
‘I do not want you digging for treasure today.’
Dee stiffened. ‘I must, Mr Shakespeare.’
‘I am not requesting this. I am ordering you not to go.’
‘This is intolerable! I am in sore needs of funds, as I am sure you know. There is a possibility of a living to be had at the collegiate church in Manchester, but I would rather find other means to get wealth. I have no love for these cold northern climes.’
Shakespeare sighed. It would not do to antagonise the old man. Cecil had insisted he be persuaded rather than forced to cooperate.
‘Show me the map. Where did you get it?’
Dee rose from his bed eagerly and fetched the fragile parchment from his table.
‘It was in a chest, buried beneath the rubble of a ruined abbey. It was brought to me by a bookseller at St Paul’s who knows of my interest and my success in deciphering such papers. I have great expertise in the quest for buried metal.’ He went to a large box, opened the lid and took out a book. ‘This is Agricola’s De Re Metallica.’ He held up the volume for Shakespeare to examine. ‘It tells of earths and ores and how to discover them. In the past, I have discovered rare red soils that will produce gold, I am certain. With Ickman’s powers of divination, we cannot fail in our present quest. This land is ripe with lost and forgotten treasure, ready for harvesting from the soil.’
Shakespeare was unable to hide his disdain.
‘You are a coney, Dr Dee. The perfect gull for every trickster that ever lived. The booksellers of Paul’s must wring their hands with glee at your approach. And why, in God’s name, would you trust Bartholomew Ickman?’
If Dee was shocked to be so addressed, he did not show it. ‘How do we know what is in any man’s heart? For all I know, you could be an agent of Spain sent here to snatch me away. I have been called a coney and more, Mr Shakespeare. But could a fool have devised the perspective glass? If I am a fool, what does that make the rest of humanity?’
Shakespeare glared at him. He was about to say something harsh about Edward Kelley and angels and the exchanging of wives, but then thought better of it and laughed.
‘You are right, Dr Dee. Accept my apologies. But take care. Resume your questing, but go nowhere without Oxx and Godwit. Do not stray from your purpose – and do not be led away by Ickman. You may have great knowledge, but I know the ways of men better than you, and I tell you, he is not to be trusted. If I left a sound horse in his care I would expect to find it three-legged on my return.’
Cole came into the dining hall as Shakespeare ate bread and eggs and drank milk. The steward bowed.
‘His lordship wishes to speak with you, sir.’
‘The earl is well again?’
Cole grimaced. ‘He gets weaker by the hour. He knows he is dying.’
‘I will go to him straightway.’
‘There is something else I think you should know, Mr Shakespeare.’
Shakespeare was already up from the table and on his way to the great hall stairway. He stopped. ‘Yes?’
‘The Gentleman of the Horse has disappeared – and he has taken the earl’s best stallion.’
Shakespeare hesitated. ‘Mr Weld? I went to him yesterday, but he was not to be found.’
‘Yes. I know you had wished to speak with him. The grooms told me he rode out sometime in the night. I looked in his room. His possessions were gone.’
‘Call in the constable and the sheriff and raise a hue and cry. I want him apprehended.’
Cole shifted uneasily. ‘There is more to it, sir. Some people say he was a Jesuit lay brother – and that he poisoned the earl in revenge for the death of Richard Hesketh, then fled. My
own belief is that he has gone to offer his services to the Earl of Essex, as have several other retainers of Lord Derby.’
Shakespeare looked closely at Cole, but saw only the nervous caution of a retainer trying his best to hold things together when everything was falling apart. The man was bathed in sweat and his starched ruff had flopped with the damp about his neck.
‘You had better tell me more,’ Shakespeare said.
‘There was a Jesuit priest in these parts. It was said Mr Weld spent much time with him.’
‘Father Lamb?’
Cole’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘You know he is dead, Mr Cole?’
Cole nodded. His voice became reverentially low. ‘Yes, I heard. The carters from Ormskirk brought the news.’
‘You were, I think, familiar with Father Lamb. He lived here, did he not?’
Cole said nothing.
‘And yet you did not consider that worthy of my attention?’
Still Cole remained silent.
Shakespeare suddenly became angry.
‘Mr Cole, if you think you will keep yourself out of trouble by sealing your lips, I must tell you that you are mistaken. If I find that you have been involved in anything unlawful, I shall see that you are brought to court. You know what that means. However, help me sort out what has been going on in this midden of a house, and I will do what I can to assist you and save your skin. And what is this other matter, of servants deserting this house and going to the Earl of Essex?’
Cole winced as though he had been hit across the face. ‘I fear it is disloyal of me to say this, but I know there has been a great falling-out between his lordship and Essex. I think my lord of Derby blames Essex for speaking against him to the Queen, and that is why he did not get the chamberlaincy of Chester. In these past four months other servants have gone from here to Essex House, where they have found employment. His lordship believes Essex is luring them away out of some spite.’
‘And the matter of Father Lamb?’
‘He did spend some time here. I am no Papist and I understood the danger in harbouring such a man. Not just the earl was in peril, but everyone in this house.’
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