Prince - John Shakespeare 03 -

by Rory Clements

  Sluyterman nodded, then smiled at the girl reassuringly. He spoke to her in Dutch and she screwed up her eyes and said a few words in a loud voice. The Dutchman turned back to Shakespeare. ‘I told Susanna that we must ask her a few questions, but I fear it will be very difficult. The gunpowder blast has deafened her.’

  ‘Can she hear anything?’

  ‘A little. Let us try. What do you wish to know?’

  ‘What she saw before the gunpowder blast.’

  Sluyterman said a few more words in Dutch, his voice even louder and deliberately precise. She looked at him as though trying to read the words from his lips. She nodded and spoke back to him.

  ‘She says she saw two men behind the cheese stall. She says she was watching them, for they had a most curious aspect. They had a small wagon or cart, which they parked. It had casks in it. They then did something at the back of the cart, before walking away, laughing.’

  ‘Can she describe these two men?’

  ‘She says they looked like working men, with caps close-fitted about their heads and brows. She was surprised, though, by their attire, for she thought the taller of the two had the aspect of a gentleman.’ The Dutch merchant questioned the girl again, then turned back to Shakespeare. ‘The other one was shorter with strange amber eyes that seemed to stare right through her. It was his unusual look that caught her attention and made her take note of the men. Both seemed good-humoured, she said. She watched them walk away as Mistress Shakespeare waited to buy some cheese. And then she recalls nothing.’

  ‘You said she thought the taller man a gentleman. How was he attired?’

  ‘She does not recall, except that they wore workmen’s clothes. She only remembers their faces and their caps.’

  ‘Very well. If she recalls anything else, please get word to me. And rest assured, I have the word of Sir Robert Cecil that she may return to your household when she is well – and remain there. I must away, Mr Sluyterman.’

  The shutters were closed at Gaynes Park Hall as Shakespeare trotted up to the house on his grey mare. No guards came out to search him or take away his weapons. He dismounted and rapped his knuckles on the front door.

  The retainer who had first opened the door to him two days earlier eventually answered him, a look of mild surprise on his face. The man was no longer dressed in Essex’s tangerine livery, nor did he look nervous as he had done before. ‘Mr Shakespeare?’

  ‘Has everyone departed?’

  ‘Indeed, sir. They left for Essex House in London before noon. I believe Mr Richard Baines took them on the express orders of my lord of Essex. It is my understanding that Don Antonio is to be received at court. Gaynes Park is now closed, sir.’

  Shakespeare cursed silently. How was he to bring Perez to Cecil now? It would be easier for a fingerless man to prise an oyster from its shell than to extract the Spaniard from Essex House under the earl’s gaze.

  The church of St Boltoph stood less than fifty yards outside the city wall near Aldgate. Boltfoot tethered his horse by a water trough, then walked into the church’s bleak confines, stripped of all semblance of joy and beauty by the Protestant destroyers. The church was new-built since the old one fell away into ruin, but only the stones themselves seemed to have any pride and bearing.

  A young woman sat in prayer on a plain three-legged stool. He watched her for a while. As she stood to go, he approached her. She averted her gaze and scurried away as if he was a poisonous snake.

  Boltfoot walked outside. An old man knelt near a gravestone, cutting the grass and tares with a sickle.

  ‘Good day. I am looking for Mr Curl,’ Boltfoot said.

  The man looked up at him briefly, then returned to his work.

  ‘I would pay for information.’

  The old man looked up again. ‘My wife is buried here.’

  ‘I am sorry.’ Boltfoot turned disconsolately and walked away. Across the road he saw the sign of a hostelry. The Empty Vessel. He went in and ordered himself a blackjack of ale, then tried to talk with the landlord. ‘Do you know anything about the church?’

  ‘What is there to know? It is a church.’ He nodded his head to another drinker and set about drawing more ale from a keg.

  ‘Fine kegs you have here,’ Boltfoot said.

  ‘Aye, fine kegs, but the beer and ale inside them is better. Kegs never quenched a man’s thirst nor took away his pain.’

  ‘Kegs certainly cause a man’s thirst. The making of them, leastwise. I know it – for I am a cooper by trade.’

  ‘Are you now?’ the landlord said, suddenly interested. ‘Looking for work, are you? There’s always work for a journeyman cooper.’

  Boltfoot supped deep of the ale. It was good and refreshing. ‘Not work at present, but something else. A place where Englishmen may live among their own kind without the din of strange voices and tongues.’

  The landlord looked at him long and hard.

  ‘Would you know of such a place, innkeeper? Of such folk that think like me?’

  ‘That depends how you think. Are you saying you do not like strangers?’

  ‘Do you?’

  The landlord reached over the bar, removed Boltfoot’s half-emptied leather jug and replaced it with the two pennies he had paid. ‘Take your money and get out, journeyman cooper. There are too many of your ilk in these parts and I will have none of you on these premises, with or without your threats.’

  ‘How have I offended you?’

  ‘You have offended me because I have a keen sense of smell. You are a dog turd on my shoe. It might please you to know that my goodwife hails from France and you insult her and me with your dirty talk. I won’t have it. Begone, master cooper.’

  Bolfoot shuffled out. He wished very much to tell the landlord that he was sorry, that he had never intended to insult him or his goodwife, for those were not his opinions, that he was merely searching for one who did think like that. But he could not say these things and had to leave feeling like a criminal.

  He stood outside the Empty Vessel wondering about his next move. The inn door opened and a man appeared, wiping his dirty sleeve across his mouth. He grinned at Boltfoot. ‘Master taverner keeps fine ale and good wine but makes poor company.’

  Boltfoot frowned and said nothing.

  ‘I think you might be wanting something altogether stronger, master cooper. I did hear you say you were a cooper, did I not?’

  ‘I am not looking for work.’

  ‘But you are looking for friends, if I am right. English friends.’

  ‘Aye, that’s true enough. And who are you?’

  ‘I am someone who may be able to help you in your quest. Why not walk with me a while.’

  ‘I wanted to meet Mr Curl. Holy Trinity Curl.’

  ‘Too hot for him around here these days, master cooper.’

  Boltfoot looked at the man. He was a grubby weasel of a fellow, who wore a tight-fitting leather cap around his head, though this could not conceal the fact that his ears were both missing. What felony had he committed to warrant such punishment? His face had a single, circular scar that cut across his forehead just above his eyebrows and just below the rim of the cap, and which curved down both cheeks and disappeared into his beard, near his chin, where, Boltfoot imagined, the ends probably met. Someone must have carved that, for it was not a wound gotten in battle nor by order of the courts. Some enemy did that, slowly and with purpose; a former confederate in crime, perhaps – or someone who wanted repayment of loaned moneys.

  ‘First, what is your name?’ he demanded, not budging.

  ‘Call me … king – Mr King. For we are all kings in the hereafter, are we not?’

  ‘Very well, Mr King. I will follow you.’

  Boltfoot left his horse and set off on foot, eastwards along Aldgate street and out into a dark, narrow maze of the poorest housing. These were shabby wood-frame tenements, often six storeys high and so close packed that they blotted out the daylight and seemed to thicken and pollute the very air i
tself. In every street and alleyway there seemed to be at least one, sometimes two, properties burnt to the ground. Here was a squalor that the wealthy never saw.

  ‘See that pile of dung over there at the corner of the street? That’s where they toss the babes no one wants,’ King said. ‘They are of no more value than the contents of a midden. God bless the Queen’s Majesty …’

  Small, mud-crusted, barefoot children played with sticks and stones in the manure-strewn streets. They looked ill fed and wore tatters. Draggle-tailed women held out hands for alms, though all hope had gone from their eyes. This constantly stirring cauldron, where the meanest of God’s creation teemed and thirsted, stood in cruel contrast to the wealth of the nearby merchant city. Boltfoot, limping and weather-worn, and his ragged companion did not stand out. Only the rare nature of Boltfoot’s weapons – his ornate wheel-lock caliver and cutlass – might set him apart from the common horde in such a place and attract a curious glance.

  They came to a door so low that even Boltfoot would have to stoop to enter. He hesitated. Was he about to be robbed or killed? His hand fingered the hilt of his dagger.

  ‘Afraid, master cooper?’

  ‘I know nothing about you.’

  ‘You are well armed. You can afford to trust me. Look at these dark houses. Floor built upon floor like anthills. Five families crowded into each floor. The landlord’s men come with clubs and bats to take their wages and bread in rent. Or a tallow candle is dropped and the whole place goes up in flames. This is the way English men and women live and die, while the Dutch strangers wrap their wives in New World furs, fuck their English maidservants and drink Gascon wines. You know this to be true, master cooper, for that is why you came to St Botolph.’

  Boltfoot nodded. ‘Aye, I wished to see Mr Curl. I had heard his name.’

  ‘Then you have heard well. Enter now. Keep your blades and wheel-lock, though you will not need them as yet.’

  The man who called himself King ducked through the doorway and Boltfoot followed him. It was surprisingly clean and well lit after the stink and gloom of the street outside. A series of tallow candles lined the walls and a small window added yet more light.

  A thin man in a leather apron was standing at a workbench. He looked up and caught Boltfoot’s eye, then threw an inquiring glance in the direction of King.

  ‘I have a new friend.’ King took his cap from his head and scratched his hair as though it were a breeding ground for lice. ‘He is what you want, I am sure of it.’

  ‘Indeed. Well, that is for me to decide.’

  Boltfoot noted that Mr King was nervous and ill at ease in the presence of the thin man, who was working on an arqeubus. It was a rusted weapon that looked so old it might have seen service among the pikes and longbows at Flodden Field.

  ‘He is a journeyman cooper, Mr Warboys. You offered me a groat for every man of skill who would support us.’ King picked his pock-marked nose and wiped his finger over his grubby jerkin.

  ‘And if he is one such, you shall have your groat,’ Warboys said evenly. Suddenly he struck out at King and caught him on the cheek with the blade of his chisel. ‘But for all I know, he may be a spy sent by the Cecils, and now you have told him my name …’

  King clutched at his bleeding face and winced. ‘I am sorry, master. I did not think even the Cecils had come so low as to employ cripples—’

  ‘But he’s good enough for me, is that it? Begone, before I chisel your head from your mangy body.’ He put down his tool and stepped forward, pushing King towards the doorway. ‘Go, Sir Dog, back to your kennel. If this is a friend, you shall have a groat. If not, I shall have your nose and tail.’ He kicked his breeches and sent him sprawling out into the street, leaving a splattering of his blood on the ground. The thin man, Warboys, turned to Boltfoot. ‘You are well armed, cooper. Are you an assassin or do you chase moles and rats for a living?’

  Boltfoot got a clearer look at Warboys. His brow was partly covered by a fringe of black hair, raggedly cut like a poorly finished curtain. His eyes were too wide and too high. His nose was long and dominated the thin face unnaturally. His mouth had a permanent scowl. From a lifetime of being despised because of his club foot, Boltfoot was reluctant to turn against a man for being repulsive to look on, yet he felt there was some malevolence in Warboys’s ugliness. His instinct was to turn away and leave, but instead he smiled and spoke equably. ‘Neither. I am a ship’s cooper and fighting man, now laid up in a land I do not recognise as England. I fought to save my country from invasion by Spain and now see it invaded by others who are no better.’

  ‘So you wish to do something about it? Well, you have come to the right place, cooper. If you are what you seem …’

  ‘I had heard of a man named Curl. He sounded like such a one as a man might follow.’

  Warboys gave Boltfoot a yet harder look. ‘Now where, precisely, would you have heard that name, might I ask?’

  ‘In the dockyards.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘Men in the taverns. They spoke it quietly to my ear, for they knew my feelings. They said I might find Mr Curl at St Botolph, preaching. Are you Holy Trinity Curl?’

  The man laughed. ‘No, not me. You may call me Warboys, as that blockhead has already given my name – Mr Warboys. But you shall meet HT. I will take you to him. Before then, master cooper, I would ask you to show me your skills. Help me get this old hagbut sound. The stock is rotted and decayed. If you’re a cooper, I am sure you could fashion me a new one. We might need it soon. Very soon. When we are done I shall drink a tankard or two of ale with you. And then I shall set you to work making barrels, for we have a great need of barrels – a great need.’

  Chapter 19

  ON THE RIDE back to London, Shakespeare stopped his grey mare at a crossroads and seriously wondered about taking another turning. Just ride away from all this. Find a small town somewhere with a grammar school where he could teach; send for Mary, Grace and Andrew. Live quietly and anonymously in a place where none would know them or wish them harm. No Topcliffe, no powdermen, no Cecil.

  He supped from his flask and looked at the different directions. All roads ran through fields bordered by hedging. Who was to say one route was better than another? Another traveller, a man of fifty or so with grey hair, a neat beard and no hat, approached and reined in at his side.

  ‘Are you lost, sir?’ the man said.

  Shakespeare looked at him. Something in his manner of speaking and his firm yet kindly face told him that he was clergy of some ilk, though he was dressed in the unremarkable dark woollen doublet of a clerk or scribe. ‘In a manner of speaking,’ he replied.

  ‘Then the peace of God be with you. He will show you the way.’

  ‘Will he?’

  ‘I am sure of it. I would ride with you a while and talk, but I can see that you wish to be alone.’

  ‘Thank you, Father.’ Shakespeare said the words without thinking. Some instinct had told him this was a priest, a Popish priest. Yet if he was such a one, Shakespeare should arrest him, for in law Popish priests who had come to England from the seminaries of France and Rome were guilty of treason.

  The man smiled at him strangely, then kicked on. Shakespeare let him go, unhindered, and watched him as he rode into the distance, becoming a speck and vanishing into the afternoon haze. At last he kicked on, too, in the same direction. He would not turn away from this path; there was unfinished business in London town.

  Sir Robert Cecil had a visitor when Shakespeare arrived. Ana Cabral, complete with eye patch – this time over her right eye, not her left – was with him, sitting at the long table, sipping fine wine, dressed most decorously.

  ‘Not a moment too soon, John,’ Cecil said brightly, as he was ushered in. ‘I understand you have had a wasted journey to Gaynes Park.’

  Shakespeare bowed. ‘Sir Robert.’ He nodded to the Spanish woman in acknowledgement of her presence. Doña Ana …’

  ‘We have a deal, John. Clarkson is fetch
ing the first sum. Eight hundred pounds in gold, for the information supplied to you by Doña Ana and the old nurse. I know you agreed a lesser sum, but I have increased it as a gesture of goodwill. There will be a further sum of three thousand pounds in the event that she can discover the whereabouts of the said prince and bring the information to us.’

  A thought struck Shakespeare: Perez had known all along what Ana Cabral was about – the furtive meeting with the old nurse at dead of night. It was his way of not losing face by being seen to accept a far lower offer. And Perez was political enough to understand that Cecil would pay a great deal more to discover the greater part of the knowledge – where to find their quarry.

  ‘I am pleased to hear it, Sir Robert.’

  ‘In the meantime I shall go to Greenwich to prepare the way for Don Antonio to be received at court. But it will have to be done quietly. The illusion must be kept that he is a guest of the Earl of Essex and not of England. This is no time to poke our enemies in the eye.’

  Cecil’s retainer, Clarkson, arrived at the doorway with a pouch of gold on a silver platter. Eight hundred pounds – more than a skilled artisan would earn in a lifetime. He bowed low, then presented it before Sir Robert.

  ‘Well, Doña Ana, this is your reward,’ Cecil said, pushing the leather bag across the table to the Spanish courtesan. ‘Would you like an escort to take you back to Essex House?’

  Cabral, smiling and confident, looked towards Shakespeare. ‘I think I need one, do I not, Mr Shakespeare? A weak woman alone with a bag of gold. You have cutpurses aplenty in this city, I am told.’

  ‘I am certain you can look after yourself, but in this case, I would agree it would be wise to have guards accompany you.’

  ‘Handsome young guards who can dance the volta, I hope …’

  Cecil ignored her. ‘That is settled. If you would go with Mr Clarkson, he will arrange an escort of six guards for you.’

  Cecil and Shakespeare made much of their farewells and expressions of gratitude to Ana, then the old retainer led her from the room, clutching her weighty purse of gold as though it were welded to her small hands. Cecil’s light-hearted mask dropped and his manner stiffened.