Shakespeare offered no greeting. ‘I am going with Beth Evans to find Glebe. Before I go, I wish to talk with you. It is important for you to realise, mistress, quite how precarious is your position, given your refusal to tell me the whereabouts of Glebe. I must tell you that I have already shown the greatest forbearance towards this house. I could have had pursuivants here to tear the place apart and wrench the information from your mouth by force, and the Privy Council would have thanked me for it. I say that to you now not as a threat but as a warning; nothing must come between me and Glebe. The stakes are raised in this game.’
Lucy lowered her eyes. ‘I understand.’
‘Do you?’
‘I do, sir. I will not hinder you in any way. I know about the incident in the Dutch Market …’
Shakespeare cut her short. ‘You will not talk of that. I have some questions regarding your person. Answer me straight, do not dissemble and do not ask me why I wish to know these things.’
‘Very well.’
‘Which country are you from?’
If she was puzzled by the nature of the question, she did not show it. ‘Africa. My father was an Ethiop, but my brothers and I were taken slave by Mussalman corsairs. They sold me to a great lord of France. I do not know what became of my two brothers.’
‘Who was this French lord?’
‘The son of Jean de la Fin, Seigneur de Beauvoir-la-Nocle, whom you know as Henri of France’s ambassador to the court of Elizabeth.’
‘His son is the Vidame de Chartres. Are you saying you were his slave?’
‘That is so. Did you not know this?’
‘Mistress Lucy, just answer my questions. What were you to him as a slave? A housemaid, a concubine – what?’
‘You may ask him that yourself, Mr Shakespeare, for is he not now here in England?’
Shakespeare ignored the question. ‘How did you come to England?’
Lucy’s eyes shone in the candlelight. ‘Yet more corsairs! This time under the English flag. One of Captain Hawkins’s fine ships-of-war took me while I was en route to Harfleur. I think the sailors were beguiled by my beauty and brought me to England and freedom rather than sell me on to the Spanish planters in the Indies. So now I am a free Englishwoman and happy to be of service to this proud nation.’
Shakespeare looked at her with a dubious, inquiring eye.
‘You do not have slavery here, I believe. I am told that three hundred years of serfdom left a bitter taste and that you do not allow it.’
‘But you are not English, and you must know that the Queen believes there are too many men and women of your hue here. She has ordered that Moors and Ethiops be cast out. Do you know anywhere – any friends – with whom you might stay awhile? For your safety.’
Lucy stood to her full height and tilted up her chin. ‘I understand what you are saying, sir, but take a look at my face. Do you think it possible to hide such a face anywhere in this land?’ She pursed her generous lips, almost in a kiss. She looked to Beth Evans, then back at Shakespeare. ‘I think I know enough men of power to protect me.’
‘Do you, mistress? Are you not afraid?’
Lucy turned again to Beth. ‘What do you say, Beth?’
‘I’d take you over a tiger any day, Luce.’
As he rode southwards and eastwards towards Aldersgate, thoughts of Catherine intruded. Dark, unholy visions. He saw her bloody remains all dressed in a green velvet gown. He saw her black hair adorning a white-boned, smiling skull, from which stared two piercing blue eyes.
She had not been a saint, and nor had he. Their marriage, more than five years long, had been difficult. She had been stubborn, unyielding in her Papism. At times, in truth, he had resented her for wrecking his career with Walsingham. He might have been a minister of the Crown by now. Many another man would have beaten her for her intransigence, her disobedience and her sullen moods.
He felt Beth Evans’s arms around his waist. Sweet, easy Beth. She had laughed the summer long when they were both sixteen in the year ’75. She laughed without spite at his seriousness; laughed lewdly when they saw a bull with an enormous prick mount a cow in a field; laughed mockingly when he panicked that he would not get her home before dark in the long, light evenings; laughed with incredulity at his refusal to drink too much strong cider; laughed tenderly at his clumsy moves towards kissing her.
But Catherine, so very different, was the one he loved. In the good times, of which there were many, they soared together. When they talked over a platter of meat and when they drank wine together, they were the best of argumentative friends. It was a love like no other, but it was not one he would have chosen for peace of mind; it had hit him with the force of a flood tide or tempest and had carried him along with it. Like a ship at sea, all he could do was run with the storm. This love had immersed him in its raging passions and thrown him in its wild wind, had done with him what it willed. It was untamed, raw and delirious in its uncontrollable beauty. That was Catherine Shakespeare. He could never have loved Beth like that.
At the city gate, a large draywagon had lost a wheel and collapsed, spilling its load of seasoned building timbers. Even those on foot struggled to get through the blocked thoroughfare. Dozens of carts and wains were backed up for almost a mile to the north along broad Aldersgate Steet, and to the other side, too, deep into the narrow alleyways of the city. Shakespeare was having none of it. He rode on past the crowds and horses, pushing any protesters aside with his cry of ‘Queen’s business, make way!’ At the gate, he and Beth dismounted and they walked the horse across the great oak logs, roundly cursed by the workmen who were trying to hoist them away.
‘Down here,’ Beth said when they were clear at last. ‘This alley on the left.’
They tethered the horse outside a modest and anonymous wood-frame house, the middle of a terrace of three, with jettied floors jutting out exaggeratedly into the dark little street.
Quickly, he loaded and primed both wheel-lock pistols and looped a binding cord around his chest. ‘Wait here,’ he said to Beth. ‘If I’m not out in ten minutes, fetch the constable.’
She watched him go. Just before they left, Lucy had told her that John’s wife was dead, killed by the explosion of gunpowder in the Dutch market. She had gone cold with shock. ‘Be careful with your friend,’ Lucy had said. ‘He will want vengeance. Do not get in his way.’
Walstan Glebe pulled the last copy of his new broadsheet from the press and held it up, waving it to help dry the ink. In his mouth he had a pipe of tobacco, which he sucked on like a babe at the teat.
He couldn’t keep up with the news. The London Informer was selling like saffron cakes on a sunny day at Bartholomew Fair. First the death of Marlowe, followed almost immediately by the explosion outside the Dutch church. Then this scarce believable story of the secret child of the Scots devil, Mary (even if he didn’t quite believe it, the story was one everyone wanted to read). He could hardly acquire enough paper to print the copies he could sell, and the type sorts were wearing so thin that many words were becoming illegible. The press itself had seen better days and seemed unlikely to last the month out. But such problems could soon be put behind him if gold kept filling his coffers the way it did. Soon he would have enough to buy a permanent press, with a new set of type, and secure regular premises. This was the future; London could never get too much news.
The door opened and he turned towards it expecting his girl, Bella, back with the ale and pie he had sent her to fetch. Instead, he saw the tall figure of John Shakespeare, with two wheel-locks pointing straight at him.
Walstan Glebe stood there, as if glued to the floor, a damp sheet of paper in his hand. Shakespeare could see the words across the top of the broadsheet: Five are blasted to horrible death at Dutch market. Then the next line: Her Majesty outraged at strangers’ powder plot.
‘Mr Shakespeare—’
‘Still lying, Glebe?’
As if suddenly realising what he was holding, Glebe turned the broa
dsheet and looked at the headlines. He removed the pipe from his mouth. ‘This is all true, Mr Shakespeare. I swear it. And my press is licensed.’
Shakespeare gazed past him towards the rickety press, upright against the wall. Nearby was a box of type sorts and piles of broadsheets ready for distribution. How did Glebe continually manage to evade the law and find gold enough to replace the presses which the Stationers’ Company made it their business to destroy?
‘Licensed? If that press is licensed, then I’m the Pope. You’ve never had a licence in your miserable life, Glebe.’ Bitterly, he thought back to the words he had seen printed in Glebe’s rag after the church blast. ‘Did enough dogs die for your liking this time?’
‘Mr Shakespeare, please, I was devastated to hear of your sad loss.’
‘Get down flat on the ground, with your hands behind your back. One wrong move and I will discharge both pistols at you.’
‘How did you find me?’
Shakespeare said nothing, but moved closer with the pistols.
‘Some putrid mangy-arsed whore, I’ll wager.’
‘Down!’
Glebe let go the sheet of paper and it fluttered to the floor. Slowly, he dropped to his knees, his eyes all the while fixed on Shakespeare’s guns.
Shakespeare stuck one of the wheel-locks in his belt and shook the coiled cord from his shoulder. The door creaked. He half turned. A dark-haired girl stood open-mouthed in the doorway with a blackjack of ale and a gold-crusted pie.
It was all the distraction Glebe needed. There was unlikely to be a second chance. He flung himself forward at Shakespeare’s legs, knocking him off-balance.
Shakespeare stumbled backwards but maintained his footing. Glebe was faster and launched himself past the girl and through the doorway. The jug fell from her hands, spewing ale across the sawdust-strewn floor. She stood there, mouth agape, pie in hand, as Shakespeare lunged forward after the slippery Glebe, pushing her aside and falling headlong into the street. Glebe was three or four yards ahead of him, running … and then sprawling. Beth Evans had extended her leg and tripped him, sending him hurtling to the ground.
Shakespeare was on his back in an instant, a wheel-lock to his head. He handed the other wheel-lock to Beth, then took the length of cord from his shoulder and tied Glebe’s hands tight behind his back.
The thick thatch of hair atop Glebe’s head was grey now, but he still wore it in a long fringe to cover the L for Liar branded on to his forehead by the courts for fraudulently selling odes written by other poets as if they were his own work. Shakespeare wrenched back his hair and leant down to speak in his ear. ‘We’ll remove your nose this time, Glebe. Try growing your hair to cover that little hole.’
Glebe grunted with the pain of his fall and the wrenching of his head in Shakespeare’s powerful fist.
‘Get up. I am taking you to the Tower and I promise you will tell me everything I wish to know.’
At last Glebe found his voice. ‘You cannot do this. My press is licensed. I have powerful patrons.’
‘Well, we’ll find out. In Little Ease …’
Chapter 21
IN THE CELL known as Little Ease, a man could neither lay his body down fully, nor stand erect. The floor was four foot by four foot and it was no more than four foot in height, like a dice, so that a man of normal height had no room to move, nor rest. He could crouch like a cat or he could kneel or sit against the wall, but he could not stretch his aching limbs or ease the pain in his cruelly bent back by arching it. The very thought of the wretched hole was enough to strike terror and panic into the stoutest heart. The breath came short, the gasping wails of despair rose within the back of the throat. It was a place of madness, a place that would have you pleading for a quick death. After a few days in Little Ease, a man with the strongest of spirits would be fit for nothing but a Bedlam cell or the scaffold.
In his time, Walstan Glebe had suffered the sting of the branding iron and the smell of his own roasting flesh. He had been shackled to the stinking floor of Newgate with scarce enough food to live. He had been whipped for the public’s entertainment at Bridewell and had been threatened with the noose on several occasions. Yet none of those memories matched his fear of Little Ease.
‘Mr Shakespeare, I beg you, not that,’ he whimpered. ‘I have done nothing to warrant such punishment.’
It was not long since Shakespeare had dragged Christopher Morley through the streets towards the Counter prison in Wood Street on a leash linked to his stirrup. It had not been the safest method of taking in a felon, for who could tell when a confederate might dash forward with a razor to slash the cord and free the prisoner. He could take no such chances with Glebe. Instead, he strapped him over the back of his grey mare, his wrists and ankles tied tight by a length of rope stretched under the animal’s belly.
Shakespeare turned to Beth Evans. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Take care in returning to the …’ He stopped, not sure what to say.
Beth laughed as she used to. ‘Don’t worry about my sensitivities, John. I know what I am – and I am not ashamed.’
‘No, of course not.’
Suddenly her smile dissolved. ‘I can only imagine your grief. I am desperately sorry for what has happened. I know you loved her.’
He nodded stiffly and turned away, then shook the reins.
The horse walked with the swaggering gait of the fine mare she was. Her powerful hind quarters swayed with every step along the difficult city roads, sometimes cobbled, sometimes mere dirt and potholes. Each step jolted Glebe, crushing his lungs and turning his belly to mush.
‘Stop a while for pity’s sake. You will shake me to death or make me shit my breeches. I need drink!’
‘Do you think anyone cares about your thirst or even your life, Glebe? Do you think Her Majesty is amused by your pernicious little story about the succession and your involvement in the gunpowder conspiracy? Death awaits you.’
‘None of it was me! I beg you to listen.’
Glebe was having trouble talking. The taut straps and jogging of the beast continually winded him and loosened his bowels.
Shakespeare stopped the horse. ‘So who was it?’
Glebe said nothing for a few moments. Shakespeare shook the rein and the mare walked on.
‘Stop. Stop!’
Shakespeare halted again. He looked at the miserable bundle across the back of his horse. Glebe was dressed in good clothes. A well-made brown doublet and breeches, a cambric falling band around his neck. But he was a villainous, untrustworthy creature who scratched a living out of other men’s misfortunes. He had crossed Shakespeare’s path before and he had not liked him then. He could not bring himself even to read what the worm had written about the blast that killed Catherine. He knew it would dredge up her Papist past and his own failings.
‘I will give you a name.’
Shakespeare said nothing.
‘Mr Shakespeare, you must let me down from here. I beg you, not the Tower. Not Little Ease. I will tell you everything you wish to know. God’s death, I could kill that whore-bitch Beth Evans.’ He began coughing uncontrollably.
Shakespeare looked at him in silence.
‘Give me at least a chance,’ Glebe said when the coughing fit subsided.
‘Why?’
‘Because I can give you what you want.’
‘You will give me what I want in Little Ease, and I will trust your answers more when you are there.’
‘I pledge it, by all that is holy. I swear on my life and my mother’s soul.’
‘Holy? I have heard such words from you before, Glebe. They were as ash and aloes in your mouth.’
They were near Leadenhall, a few minutes’ walk from the Tower. Around them, the world passed in a noisy clattering of hooves, creaking of wagons and calling of wares. No one paid them heed. Another felon taken in to face justice – who should care about that?
‘Very well. His name is Laveroke. Luke Laveroke.’
‘The name means not
hing. I have not heard of him. Tell me more.’
‘Do you pledge to free me? I have already told you enough to cost my life.’
‘Free you? You still fancy yourself the jester, I see.’
‘Anywhere but the Tower and I will talk.’
Shakespeare hesitated a few moments, then slapped the mare into a slow walk once more. He leant over to Glebe and whispered in his ear. ‘Very well. I have just the hole for you. But if for one moment I do not feel you are cooperating – if I feel you are holding anything back from me – think on this: it will be but a short hurdle ride to Little Ease …’
Boltfoot did not fear for his own life, yet he was aware enough to know that he was in a perilous place. Every so often another man, or a pair of men, came into the workshop to converse with Warboys. Their voices and language were guarded and Boltfoot found it difficult to follow what they said. They spoke of deliveries, trainbands and, most confusingly of all, a sieve. But they spoke in low voices and their conversations seemed deliberately to be couched in terms that made their meaning indecipherable. Boltfoot affected to pay them no heed and carried on with his work, chiselling and planing with precision. Warboys, meanwhile, drank pint after pint of strong ale.
On several occasions, men came from other parts of the house and simply nodded in acknowledgement on their way through, or stood awhile, watching, before retreating into the depths of the tenement.
At last Boltfoot was finished and stood back from the workbench. Warboys put down his jar of strong ale and held up the old arquebus in the slanting light from the window. His hands were surprisingly steady, given the amount he had drunk. ‘A fair piece of work that, Mr Cooper. A serviceable stock you have crafted there. We do, indeed, need a man like you.’
‘Good. That is what I desire. I will help in any wise I can.’
‘ Any wise, Mr Cooper? Do you have no reservations?’
Prince - John Shakespeare 03 - Page 17