‘I have already given you my gratitude. Now let us all go our ways in peace. Ride on. I am sure you have a hotpot and a game of cards awaiting at the post-house.’
‘There is an insinuation in your tone. We have made you a generous offer. I would consider it an affront to be refused. We are two men, you are one. Do you consider it wise to insult and cross us?’
Shakespeare sighed heavily. His hand now cupped his sword-hilt. It was a small movement of his fingers, yet the eyes of the man followed it, then fluttered up and their eyes locked. Shakespeare shook his head, almost imperceptibly. ‘It is your decision, good friend – your life,’ he said quietly. ‘Preserve it. Ride on, and enjoy it, for death is the shadow that hangs over us all.’
The man was about to say something else. His own hand hovered near his dagger. He was weighing the odds. Two against one was powerfully persuasive – and yet that one was an unknown quantity and did not lack confidence.
Of a sudden, the man grabbed up the reins, wheeled the horse and kicked the barrel of its chest.
‘Come. Let us leave this place.’
The other man glared briefly at Shakespeare, but said nothing. In a stamping of hoofs, they spurred on their mounts and galloped away, throwing up a cloud of dust.
Shakespeare rode on at a sedate walk. A quart of beer, a trencher of roast beef and a fine down mattress would serve him well this night. And in the morning? He would ride to the village of Haseley Talmage, if it existed.
Chapter 32
THE SOFT FOLDS of green around the enormous chalk horse carved into the top of the downs was dotted with Staffy’s camp of vagabonds. Andrew and Ursula had a little fire going, using dead wood collected in a nearby spinney. They were in the white horse’s eye. Staffy was just below them, beside the hindleg, beating his staff noisily against a wooden handcart to call the band to gather around him.
Staffy nodded to Ursula. ‘Do a head count, Ursula Dancer. See how many we got.’ He turned to the crowd and his voice rose. ‘We’re here because we didn’t have the arms to fight the men who were coming at us,’ he boomed. ‘We’re here so we can live – and fight – another day.’
‘We ran like craven dogs.’
There was silence.
Staffy pointed his staff at Reaphook. ‘Another word from you, Mr Reaphook, and I shall stop your mouth for good.’ He paused. ‘I shall deal with you in a while.’ He glared a moment, then turned back to the crowd. ‘You all know why we had to disperse. There was nothing craven in what we did. We made our escape because we would have been blown to dust if we had stayed. I want to hear no more of it. We have to think where we’re to go now. We can’t stay here. So, do we go back to the Dogghole – or do we move on? And if we move on, which path do we take?’
‘We can’t go back to the Dogghole, Mr Upright Man,’ Reaphook called out, with heavy, sarcastic emphasis on the word Upright. ‘It’s not there!’
Staffy had had enough. ‘Begone!’
Reaphook would not be stopped. ‘It’s not there, Mr Upright Man, because the villagers burnt it down while you turned and ran! Our drinking hole went up in smoke and flames! And what have you done about it? Have you burnt down their drinking hole in revenge? Or will you leave that to a man?’
Staffy began striding towards his challenger. It would have to end, here and now. Reaphook stepped backwards. He was strong and agile but he was only two-thirds the size of Staffy and no one here was going to intercede on his behalf. Spindle, the only one who had not backed away from his side, looked uneasy.
‘Brave enough now, Mr Upright Man?’ Reaphook spat.
Staffy growled and swung his heavy rod, but he hit only air. Reaphook ducked down, then turned. Staffy swung again, the bone-crushing staff cutting the air in a great arc. Reaphook skipped back on his heels, then turned and ran. He ran downhill, away from the camp. Staffy began to go after him, but realised it would do his authority no good to be seen to give chase, yet fail to catch the man. Instead, he stopped and let Reaphook run. From the brow of the hill, he watched him stumble and tumble, then drag himself back to his feet and stop a few hundred yards away, a distant insect, skulking.
Staffy turned back to the band of vagabonds, who were murmuring uneasily, yet went silent at his scowl. ‘I think we know which one’s the runner now!’
Uncertain, the crowd muttered approval. Some clapped and cheered. But it was less than conclusive. Staffy’s authority had been challenged – and he had failed to finish off his challenger.
‘Anyone want to go with Mr Reaphook, go now. And if you do go, don’t never show your face in this band again lest you wish me to wrap my staff around your head.’
No one moved.
‘That’s that then.’
Spindle stepped forward. ‘I’m off. You’re finished, Staffy.’ He turned and sauntered away down the hill towards Reaphook.
‘Any more?’ His gaze swept the assembled vagabonds. Men and women shook their heads when they met his eyes.
‘This isn’t over,’ Ursula said quietly to Andrew. ‘I know of at least five others will go tonight. They think Staffy’s lost his power. He should have done for Reaphook. Should have done it long ago. This can only end one way. One of them – Staffy or Reaphook – has to die. And I pray for our sake, you and me pigging both, Andrew Woode, that it’s Reaphook as goes down. Because if Staffy dies, we’re done for.’
John Shakespeare overslept. He felt more tired than he had expected. He had eaten well at the post-house, which was as good a place as the signpost had promised. He had also caught sight of the two men from the road, drinking in the taproom. Their eyes had met, but they looked away. Shakespeare had bolted his door during the night.
In the morning, he took his time over bacon and fried eggs, then rode for Haseley Talmage.
He had not seen the two men watching him at the stables as he mounted up, but he saw them now, on the byway to the village. He was not surprised. They had clearly singled him out as a fair prize and wanted his purse. Well, let them try to take it.
He rode up to them and stopped. ‘I had thought that you might have had some common sense. But you won’t learn, will you?’
‘Hand it over.’
‘My purse? I do not believe I will. Take it from me.’ Shakespeare unsheathed his sword and held it across his lap.
‘Fine swordsman, are you, Mr Shakespeare?’
‘Good enough. Try me.’
‘No.’ He pulled a pistol from his belt. ‘You try this.’
Shakespeare had already seen the weapon. Even as the pistol came up, his own sword flashed like a viper’s tooth and sliced the man’s forefinger – trigger finger – from his hand. The pistol spun into the air and seemed to hang suspended before falling and clattering down to the hard, dusty path beneath his horse’s hoofs. Blood spat from the man’s hand where the severed finger hung, limp, by a mere tendon and strip of skin. Shakespeare’s gaze turned to the other man.
‘And you? Do you want my purse? Will you take it from me?’
A look of terror crossed the second man’s face. He kicked his spurs into his horse and rode away. The man who had lost his finger clutched his hand to his body. Shakespeare threw him a kerchief.
‘Tie this around it.’
The would-be robber looked up astonished and did as he was bidden, stemming the bloodflow as best he could. Then he grabbed the horse’s reins to ride away.
Shakespeare already had the man’s reins. ‘No. You’re going nowhere until you have answered a question or two. How did you know who I was?’
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘It was the talk, that’s all. Everyone in the villages has been talking about the wealthy stranger and his lost boy. You were as easy to spot as a swan among ducks.’
‘Wealthy?’
The man looked with meaning upon his fine city clothes, his gold and brown embroidered doublet. Yes, thought Shakespeare, it must have been quite obvious that he was not a local man.
&n
bsp; ‘Who sent you to do this? Who gave you the pistol?’
‘No one. I swear it. I am sorry. If you will let me go, I give you my word I will change my ways.’
‘If I had time, I would take you into Oxford and have you arraigned for highway robbery. You would be hanged. Instead, I will ask you one question: you have heard much talk about me. What do men say about the boy I seek?’
‘Nothing. I have heard nothing.’
Shakespeare raised his sword to eye level and squinted along its shining length to the point, which was at the man’s throat.
‘In God’s name, I swear it!’
Shakespeare’s sword, blood lining its sharp edge and point, remained absolutely still as he considered. After a few moments, he lowered the sword.
‘Very well. Give me your powder and shot. A sword is clearly not enough on these dishonest roads.’
The man handed over his bag of bullets and his powderhorn, fishing awkwardly about his person and saddle with his uninjured hand. It was shaking with terror and etched with the blood from his other hand.
‘Now go. If I were you I would get that tended to by a good surgeon. Say you cut it with your timbersaw …’
As the man rode away as fast as his nag would take him to join his fellow on the rim of a nearby mound, Shakespeare dismounted nonchalantly and picked up the pistol. It was a plain thing, not well made, but it might be useful. He thrust it into his pack-saddle with the balls and powder, and rode on.
During the night, six men slipped away from the vagabond camp to join Reaphook and Spindle. Though no one was sorry to find them gone in the morning, an air of despondency hung over the band. All felt uneasy. This was not over. Reaphook was planning something.
Staffy had the eye of an enraged and cornered bull. All were too afraid to talk to him. Early in the morning, he wandered off alone with his ashwood staff, striding across the downs. No one knew where he was heading or when he would be back.
Andrew and Ursula shared bread and cheese in silence. Finally, she stood up. ‘Let’s go, Andrew Woode.’
‘Where?’
‘Sharking.’
‘I’m not going stealing.’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘As you will. I’ll see you when I return. If you’re a good lad, I might even bring you some food – or that jerkin and hose you need.’
‘I don’t want anything. If you gave me something, I’d know you had stolen it. Is it any surprise that the villagers and townsfolk want to whip you and kill you? You all deserve to be beaten and pilloried the way you carry on.’
Ursula gave him a strange look. ‘I thought I had been pigging good to you, Andrew Woode. Took you in, squared it with Staffy, gave you food and ale. What more do you want?’
‘Honesty.’
‘Well, pig off back to Oxford and tell the justice you’re wanted for a felony. That would be honest and you can be honestly hanged! You’re on your own, Andrew Woode. Is that honest enough for you?’ She kicked him viciously, then marched off without looking back.
He stayed at the camp all day. He should have simply walked away, headed for the road to Stratford or London, where, God willing, he would be given safe haven. But he was infected by the same inertia that afflicted so many in the band. They were all waiting for some decision from their Upright Man, for none of them could make a decision on their own. This band was all they had, their only comfort in a world that considered them vermin, lower than rats.
Ursula returned in the afternoon. She barely glanced at Andrew but went off and joined a family group. Then, in the early evening, Staffy came back, his face clouded and brooding. He said nothing and sat apart, drinking ale and chewing on a hunk of black bread.
In the evening, Staffy sauntered over to Andrew with a beaker of ale and half a loaf of black bread.
‘Here, have this. Keep your strength, because you’ll likely need it.’
Andrew jumped to his feet at the Upright Man’s approach. He took the proffered food and drink and thanked him profusely.
‘Sit down, sit down.’
Andrew descended to the grass. Staffy squatted beside him.
‘Where’s Ursula Dancer?’
‘With a family over there.’ He nodded in the direction where he had last seen her. ‘She is not talking to me. I fear I offended her.’
‘Then you’re a fool. I knew no good would come of you being here. I’d have thrown you out straightway, were it not for Ursula speaking up for you. You can stay tonight, but you’ll leave at first light. You have no place in this band.’
Andrew nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘Do you so? Do you understand? I do not believe you do understand what our life is, nor how dangerous. You sit on this greensward in summer and think yourself a rogue and a free man, but you wait until the barren midwinter sets in, when there is no food nor shelter, when a man may lose his fingers and toes to the cold, and babes freeze to death in their swaddling tatters. Then you’ll know why we huddle together. Then you will know what it is to be an Englishman spurned by his own countrymen.’
‘I did not choose this life, sir. It was forced upon me by circumstances. I have been wrongly accused. I thank you for the hospitality you have given me and I will trouble you no more after this day.’
Staffy looked at him. His angry eyes seemed to mellow. ‘Very well. So be it.’ He supped at his own ale and made no attempt to move away from Andrew’s side. ‘You’re not like us,’ he said at last. ‘Are you high born?’
‘My father was a merchant. He is dead. So is my mother. I live with my adoptive father. I am not of the nobility, but neither am I lowly born … I have never gone hungry.’
‘No. I can see that. Something in you calls to mind Ursula’s mother. You have a little of her wit, though she was more than you will ever be.’
Andrew wanted to know more. He sat quietly and drank the ale and gnawed at the bread.
‘I loved her, you know. Only woman I ever loved, that’s why I look after her girl, Ursula.’
‘But you are not her father?’
‘No. Her belly was already beginning to swell when I met her. Her family had thrown her out for getting with child, unwed as she was. They were yeoman farmers in the shire of Cambridge. Harsh Puritans. She had no choice but to take to the road. She had no money nor home nor family. Her sin? To lie with a man – the son of a neighbour, I do believe, though he wanted no more to do with her – and bring life into the world. What family would throw away a daughter and a grandchild for that? But their loss was my gain. For a few months she was mine. She danced, her skirts swaying with her hips, so that no man could watch her and not be beguiled. In the firelight by night, she danced, and in the glow of the sun across a wildflower meadow by day. There was magic in her movement that summer. Then the fall of the leaf came and her belly swelled too great to dance. She died with the birth of her child; one life ends, another begins. The priests say it is the natural way of things, yet it did not seem so to me. I could not forget her, nor forgive her leaving me so.’
‘Does Ursula know her history?’
Staffy ignored the question and carried on. ‘Even now, the pain eats at me like a toothed worm in my entrails. And the sight of you with your well-born tones and your bright face brings it back. I cannot bear to set eyes on you no more.’
Andrew looked at the giant of a man and was astonished to see tears streaking his cheeks. He turned away, ashamed that his gaze intruded in such a terrible way on another man’s grief.
Staffy sat there a while, saying nothing. It occurred to Andrew that he had never encountered such a lonely, solitary man. He might have the strength and commanding presence of a lion, yet he was close to no one.
At last, as the camp fires dimmed and died all around, Staffy rose to his feet without a word and walked away into the night, back to his own palliasse. Andrew curled up on the ground and imagined Ursula dancing in a green meadow, her skirts swirling and swaying as once her mother’s had done.
The woman wa
s cowled and veiled, swathed in gowns from her head to the toe of her delicate shoe. It was dusk. She descended from her exotic carriage in a side street, looked about her, then walked a quarter-mile along the darkening alleyways.
The guard outside the French embassy stood to attention, his halberd sloping over his shoulder. The woman approached him, held back her cowl so that only he could see her face and spoke a few words. He seemed to recognise her and bowed low, bidding her enter with a flourish of his rich-liveried arm.
Inside the opulent hall, the assistant secretary was waiting for her and ushered her towards the tranquillity of the garden.
‘We will not be overheard here, my lady. I take it you were not followed.’
‘Do you not trust me, monsieur?’
He bowed again, as though mortified at the very suggestion. ‘A thousand apologies. I had not meant to doubt you but there are those here who do not share our loyalties. And we are watched day and night.’
‘Which is why I come with my face covered.’ Eliska drew aside her cowl and veil and smiled. ‘Let us talk, quietly.’
‘Indeed, my lady.’ His voice became little more than a whisper. ‘Mr Weld told me to expect you. He said you had advised him to leave Lancashire.’
‘The climate was a little warm. I judged it unsafe. But there are other ways …’
The assistant secretary was a good-looking young man, with dark, oiled hair and smiling eyes. ‘He said as much. We can leave the matter of the instrument in his capable hands, I think. But there is the other prize to discuss. The question of you and Cecil’s man. Are you still certain that this can be achieved?’
Eliska reached out and clasped the assistant secretary’s smooth, warm hands in her own. ‘More certain than ever. Fear not, I bring the news our friends in the Escorial have been anticipating.’
‘Then you have made progress?’
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