Shakespeare sensed the change in her; a sudden whisper of unease. He looked around sharply. There was no one there but a couple of grooms sharing a pipe of sotweed.
‘Here is your coffin, Mr Cooper,’ Warboys said, running a hand along the smooth wood. ‘Do you approve of its fine lines? I crafted it myself, for that is how I earn my daily bread when not doing my duty with the Free English Trainband.’
Boltfoot had no idea where he was. They had mentioned Canvey, but that meant nothing to him. He had been brought here, blindfold and gagged with rags, his arms bound behind his back with thin strips of rawhide. Tossed like a dead deer on the back of a horse-drawn wagon, his journey had been long and painful along potholed tracks. After a while, he had been transferred to some sort of boat and brought across a stretch of water, a journey which seemed to take some hours, then landed and dragged up to this higher ground. The blindfold and gag had been removed and he saw now that he was in a small thicket of stunted trees, surrounded by tangles of brambles and bracken-bushes. He could hear seabirds. Beyond the spinney, he could make out an endless bleak landscape of tufted grass, dried mud and dark, still pools of water. A few more low trees hugged the skyline. The coffin of good elm lay before him, close to a half-dug hole in the earth. There were four men. Warboys and three others garbed in black, with cowls, who were busy digging into the earth with spades.
‘And there,’ Warboys continued, pointing to the hole they were making, ‘will be your grave.’
There were no beaten tracks here, no way for a man to discover where he was. Why, he wondered incongruously, would they provide a coffin for his body? Why even bother digging a grave, rather than simply throwing his carcass into a creek or leaving it for the birds and wild animals to gnaw on?
Warboys put his mouth close to Boltfoot’s ear. ‘I wish to know what Cecil and your master know. These Scottish sorcerers wish to make merry, and we must keep them happy. Sadly for you, Mr Cooper, you are their entertainment. And as they go about their business, I am assured they will discover the secrets of your soul.’
Boltfoot noted that Warboys’s speech was slurred from drink, but he was not listening to the words. With the blindfold off, he was becoming accustomed to the drear, cloudy light, and was trying to take in all he might about this place and these men, his captors.
Warboys took a swig from his flagon and gasped with pleasure. He put the flagon to Boltfoot’s lips. ‘Drink, Mr Cooper, for it is the last liquid you will have.’ Boltfoot gulped at the raw brandy. It did nothing to quench his thirst. Warboys patted his shoulder, as though taking leave of an old crewmate at the end of a voyage. ‘I must bid you farewell, Mr Cooper, for there is much to be done. But our Scottish friends will weave their spells and summon the truth from your lips. As you lie in your coffin ask yourself this: how do you determine whether a man tells the truth? If I were to pull out your fingernails and ask you a question, you would straightway say whatever I wanted you to say. But would it be the truth? This way, we will have the truth. This way you will tell us exactly what you and your masters know of us, even though you know you will die for saying it. You will beg for sweet death to take you.’
As Warboys strode off, Boltfoot gazed without emotion at the three men in black. They had finished their hole and were busy starting a fire of twigs and dried dead-wood. They said nothing to him. He was bound and they were armed with skenes and firearms. He could see that they had his own caliver and cutlass, too.
With the fire under way, two of the black-robed men strode across. Boltfoot watched, powerless and motionless, as they dragged the coffin into the hole in the ground. It was a shallow hole, and the top of the coffin was no more than twelve inches below the surface. He did not try to struggle against his bonds, for it would merely use up valuable energy; he must stay as still as stone. Without ado, they lifted him up and dropped him with a bone-jarring thud into the coffin, then hammered down the lid with iron nails. Boltfoot was on his back, his face close to the lid. His arms, tied behind him, were pressed agonisingly into the small of his back. The weight of his body drove his wrists hard into the ungiving elm.
There was a grey speck of daylight, a breathing hole, otherwise darkness. A tube of metal was suddenly pushed down into the breathing space, then he could hear the sound of earth being thrown on to the casket above him. After a few minutes, there was silence. He was alone and buried. He could not move. All he could do was struggle for breath through the tube. Or scream. And he had no intention of screaming.
Two members of the royal guard beat a drum roll, then the herald in his royal tabard trumpeted a fanfare and called order. Standing beside him, the Master of the Revels, Edmund Tilney, grey and stooped, rose to his full height on his rostrum in the royal stand. ‘The horses are at the start!’
The Queen, still fanning herself, for the day was warm and close, sat between Essex and old Thomas Heneage, her ever-faithful friend. She paid no heed to Tilney and continued to talk confidentially to those near her.
Shakespeare watched them from a distance of some thirty yards. If Essex saw him, it did not register on his face.
‘If the Barb filly wins the Golden Spur,’ Ana Cabral whispered into Shakespeare’s ear, ‘it will not matter a half-penny apple what little Cecil says. The Queen has a private wager with Essex and if her hobby loses to Conquistadora she has vowed to admit Don Antonio to the presence-chamber. If her Great Henry wins, then she will boot Antonio across the narrow sea to France. I believe she is torn, for I am told she enjoys the company of charming, indiscreet men – and that is Don Antonio. I am told, too, that she calls him traitor and would have none of him – and yet she is intrigued by him and delights to hear tales of all his doings.’
‘We shall soon find out.’
The Queen was so close now it occurred to Shakespeare that Ana could stride towards her from the crowd and shoot her through the throat or heart with a wheel-lock pistol before any guards had a chance to stop her. How many conspiracies and attempts had there been on her life in the thirty-five years she had reigned? He had lost count, and yet still she presented herself to her people as though she had not a care for her safety. Shakespeare could not help but admire her courage. Nor could he help wondering about the motives of Ana Cabral. He turned to look at her and saw her gazing at the Queen.
‘She looks very vulnerable, do you not think, Doña Ana?’
‘Hmm?’ Ana appeared lost in a dream.
‘The Queen. She is in her sixtieth year. I have not seen her in many months. She seems smaller, more frail.’
‘If you say so, sir.’
‘What do you wish from us, Doña Ana? What is your purpose in coming to England?’
She smiled and frowned at the same time. ‘Why, pleasure, sir, of course. I am a daughter of Spain. I want music and strong limbs, rich wines and little deaths. What else would I wish? I fear I do not understand the question, though, for you know that I am here merely as consort to Don Antonio.’
He thought back to the room at Gaynes Park where she lay with Perez’s insolent secretary. Their eyes had met when he opened the door. She had seemed unconcerned by his prying gaze, had even seemed to enjoy his looking upon her coupling; likewise, she had seemed unconcerned that her lover Perez took peasants for bedmates and spent much of his days in an opium haze.
‘Are you an assassin, Doña Ana? Would you kill our Queen?’ Shakespeare suddenly realised he had spoken his thoughts out aloud.
She looked at him, puzzled, then laughed. ‘What a strange, forward man you are, Mr Shakespeare. I am a pleasure seeker, nothing more. If Don Antonio’s interests lie elsewhere, I will seek gratification where I may.’ She smiled at him, reached out and squeezed his hand.
He recoiled from her touch, as if bitten by an adder.
Chapter 27
IT WAS WRONG to have the warm hand of a living woman touch him. Shakespeare looked at his hand as though it were on fire.
Ana looked at him with questioning in her eye, then looked away, back
at the track.
The horses had started at a strong pace. There were six in the race. They had two miles to go, two laps of a prepared circuit. The vidame, dazzling in purple silks, was easily distinguishable from this distance. The Barb’s black coat shone as she settled in the middle of the small pack. The rider of the hobby, Great Henry, was the Queen’s finest jockey from her stables at Eltham. He was small and light, yet exceedingly strong, with such power in his forearms that in a driving finish few ever bettered him. He took Great Henry straight to the front and galloped on by a couple of lengths; it was the only way the horse knew to run; go to the front and stay there. At six years of age, he had never been beaten, and had won the Golden Spur twice before. Most of the crowd’s money was on him. They knew him and loved him and he had been trained with this, the premier race of the year, in mind. He had already beaten the other four English horses, which meant the Barb should be the only threat to his dominance. How could an unknown three-year-old filly from France, even one so well bred and conformed as Conquistadora, have Great Henry’s measure?
The horses were into the home straight. Great Henry was a length to the good, galloping with power and resolve, hugging the inside track. The vidame, purple silks billowing, had not moved a muscle nor raised his whip on Conquistadora. The other four horses were trailing in their wake. Now, they came within a furlong of the finishing post. Great Henry was thundering home like a champion. But then, with a sudden kick of the vidame’s spurs in the barrel of the black Barb, Conquistadora surged forward and was past the Queen’s hobby in three strides. The crowd’s roar died and a gasp went up in its place. The vidame’s young filly had beaten the Queen’s champion.
Shakespeare did not see it. Had he looked, he would have seen Essex bowing deeply to his sovereign and kissing her hand with fervour while she affected to sulk. But Shakespeare had already turned to walk away, nodding coldly to Ana as he went. This was all vanity. No concern of his. There was no more for him here. He strode off, down towards the river.
The day was bright, but he was lost in a fog. He thought of all he had to do. Get Antonio Perez or Ana Cabral or both of them to Cecil. Find the prince of Scots, if he was there to be found. Find the powderman. Somewhere there was a clockmaker who had colluded in terror and murder. Find the clockmaker.
The water-stairs were crowded with tilt-boat oarsmen touting for business. They had brought hundreds of Londoners here to Greenwich and were waiting for fares back again at the end of the races. Shakespeare stepped into the first boat in line and settled back beneath the awning, unaware that the man who had followed him all the way here was about to step into the boat immediately behind his.
The magnificent southern facade of Essex House, with its high square turret and tall windows, dominated the Thames just before the river curved in a graceful arc upstream towards Westminster. Shakespeare paid the watermen and stepped ashore on the Earl of Essex’s private landing stage. He glanced up at the turret. Inside the room at the top lay the hub of the earl’s own intelligence network.
Shakespeare was immediately confronted by two halberdiers barring his way with long axe-pick staffs.
‘I am John Shakespeare, an officer of Sir Robert Cecil. I am here to see Don Antonio Perez.’
Beyond the pleasant riverbank stood an eight-foot high wall. The water-stairs led directly to a narrow, arched gateway that gave on to the earl’s beautifully tended gardens. The gateway was the only way in.
‘I do believe you are not to be allowed admittance, master,’ one of the guards said. ‘I will look at the list of proscribed names, but it is my recollection that you are at the top.’
‘This is nothing to do with my lord of Essex. This is a Privy Council matter involving Sir Robert Cecil and Don Antonio and there must be no delay. If you do not let me pass, you may expect the full force of Her Majesty’s law to descend upon you.’
The guards looked at one another doubtfully. The one who had spoken before lowered his halberd. ‘Wait here, Mr Shakespeare. I shall seek advice.’ A minute later he returned with Edward Wilton, the chief of guards from Gaynes Park Hall. Wilton eyed Shakespeare with distaste.
‘Keep turning up where you are not wanted, don’t you, Mr Shakespeare.’
‘This is Council business, Wilton. I must confer with Don Antonio. Bring him to me here if you will not admit me to the house.’
‘You can write him a letter. I will deliver it for you personally. An ardent letter writer, the Spaniard. I am sure he will like to have one from you.’
‘Bring me quill, ink and paper.’
‘Come with me …’
Wilton walked Shakespeare through the gardens towards the guard room, which was at the side of the house. A dozen or so guards were lounging around, playing cards. They rose to attention at the sight of Wilton, but paid Shakespeare no heed.
‘Here you are, Mr Shakespeare,’ Wilton said pushing a paper and quill to him across a table. ‘Write away.’
Shakespeare wrote a simple note: Sir Robert Cecil would see you with utmost urgency at Greenwich Palace this evening at six of the clock. It will be to your great advantage to be there. He considered adding that a failure to attend would be viewed with utmost disfavour, but decided against it. He folded the paper and handed it to Wilton.
‘I will await a reply.’
‘Not in here you won’t.’
‘I will be by the river. Do not fail me, Mr Wilton. You are not above the law of the land.’
As he strode back through the garden with Wilton two steps behind him, clutching the letter, Shakespeare caught sight of a familiar figure, the Earl of Essex’s beautiful sister Penelope Rich. She saw him at the same time and walked towards him. She had a posy of new-cut flowers in one hand and a small pair of garden scissors in the other.
‘Good day, Mr Shakespeare.’
He bowed. ‘Lady Rich.’
‘I heard—’
He met her black eyes. ‘Please, my lady.’
‘Indeed. I am sorry. Truly sorry, whatever our differences.’
He said nothing.
‘Yet I am surprised to find you here. I had not thought that you would dare come to Essex House again.’
‘I must speak with Don Antonio.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. I understand. My charming little Spaniard is much in demand suddenly.’
‘Would you bring him to me?’
‘I am not certain my brother would like that, Mr Shakespeare. He does not have a good opinion of you.’
‘I have come here openly, on a matter of great import to the realm.’
She looked at him a moment. He recalled a time when he had looked into those dark eyes and wondered whether she might lead him to betray Catherine. He felt none of the stirring now that he had felt then.
She was dressed in a summer gown of light worsted, with an exquisite mulberry bodice and sleeves of yellow gold – a colour which perfectly complemented her abundant fair curls. Even cutting flowers, at home in the garden, she looked a match for any woman in the land. At last she nodded to him and smiled. ‘I will speak with him. Wait here. Mr Wilton, have a footman bring refreshment to Mr Shakespeare.’
Wilton was clearly put out. As Penelope departed indoors, he handed the letter back to Shakespeare. ‘Won’t be needing this. What refreshment would you like? Spirit of monkshood? Henbane beer?’
‘I would not wish to deprive you, Mr Wilton. Common ale will suffice.’
Shakespeare sat in the sun on a garden bench. Within a few minutes, Penelope Rich reappeared. ‘He will be with you presently, Mr Shakespeare. I think it best that you meet here in the garden.’
‘As you wish, my lady.’
She smiled. ‘Though the circumstances are full of sorrow, it has been a pleasure to meet you again.’ She extended her hand.
Shakespeare took her elegant fingers and bowed to kiss them, then watched as she disappeared into the house. He sat and drank the ale that had been brought to him. It was half an hour before Perez finally appear
ed at the doorway. He stood for a moment on the steps leading down to the garden, blinking like a creature that has been deprived of light suddenly emerging from its hole. He looked small and much reduced. In his tremulous hands, he clutched his gold box, close to his chest. Once again, Shakespeare found it difficult to think that this feeble, insignificant thing had been the most powerful man in the world. He rose from the bench and walked towards the Spaniard.
‘Don Antonio, thank you for coming to me,’ he said slipping more easily into the Spanish tongue than he had at Gaynes Park.
‘Did Prégent’s little Barb filly win her race?’
‘I fear I do not know,’ he said truthfully.
‘No matter. I shall discover soon enough. So, am I correct in thinking Sir Robert has the gold ready for me?’
‘Indeed. I am sure Doña Ana has explained the details to you. But Sir Robert is eager to meet you in person. He will recommend to the Queen that you be received by her in the presence-chamber, without delay.’
‘That is good. Good. But to think I am come to this, begging for a few ducats of gold when once I controlled the treasure fleets from Peru.’
‘I believe it is more than a few ducats, Don Antonio.’
‘But I need riches, Mr Shakespeare. I am not a well man. I ail.’
Shakespeare could not pretend to be either concerned or amused. ‘Can I take you now, perhaps, to Greenwich Palace?’ His voice was brittle. ‘Sir Robert will be there this evening. It is but a short journey by tiltboat.’
‘I am not well enough for such a voyage. Can Sir Robert not come to me?’
‘No you must go to him. He has promised you the gold. He will keep his word.’
Perez hesitated. At last he sighed. ‘You are a man of honour, Mr Shakespeare. If Sir Robert has agreed to pay me the gold, then I must believe he will pay. I shall reveal my secret to you now, and you will bring me my reward. Come.’ He lowered himself on to a bench at the top of the steps and patted the space beside him with his soft white hand. ‘Let us sit here in the glorious sun and I shall tell you a tale of such intrigue that your astounded heart will beat like the sails of a windmill.’
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