Prince - John Shakespeare 03 -

by Rory Clements

  The two men who had been talking looked around. Shakespeare ducked lower in the tufty grass, so that his face would not be visible. The larger of the two clapped the other man on his back and they both began striding up the plank to the ship.

  Shakespeare rose to his feet. He held out the first pistol at arm’s length, aimed it at the big man’s back, and fired. The recoil of the weapon knocked him backwards. Through the billowing powder smoke he saw that the two men had stopped at the head of the gangway and were looking back in his direction, unharmed.

  The bull-chested one cupped his hands to his mouth. ‘You’re a little late.’ Then he laughed and kicked the boarding plank away from the vessel. He took a dagger from his belt and strode around the bulwarks, slashing at the mooring ropes, cutting the vessel adrift.

  Shakespeare was reloading the wheel-lock, keeping his hands as steady as he could as he poured in the powder. From the corner of his eye, he saw that there was much activity aboard the vessel. A bundle was hanging in nets from the bowsprit and one of the men in black was clambering, like a monkey, along this spar at the front of the ship. The one he assumed was Quincesmith had a long-barrelled musket. He had climbed a companion ladder to the poop deck and now rested the muzzle of the weapon on the bulwark. He lit the match, blew on it so that it glowed, then fired.

  The ball spat past Shakespeare and slapped into the mud a foot to his side.

  Shakespeare dived to his left. He was an open target and his pistols were impotent against such a long-range weapon.

  The ship was drifting out into mid-stream. Six of the figures in black were climbing the rigging, unfurling sails.

  ‘I know not who you are,’ the man with the musket called. ‘But if you want the man Cooper, you will be pleased to learn that he hangs from the bowsprit. Our Scots friends couldn’t find a cat, but they are satisfied that he will do as well in the casting of spells.’ He bellowed a laugh that made his barrel chest quake.

  Shakespeare’s eyes drifted back to the bows. The black-gowned man was sawing at the rope that held the bundle. As Shakespeare watched, the bundle twisted from the severed netting, then fell like a stone into the dark waters of the creek.

  For a moment it sank, then bobbed back to the surface, drifting beside the vessel on the side nearest the shore. Shakespeare tried to make sense of what had just happened. Was that really Boltfoot wrapped up like a dead mariner in a canvas shroud and tossed overboard? Was he alive or dead?

  The ship’s sails were catching the wind and she was gathering a little speed. Shakespeare hesitated no more than a few seconds. He divested himself of his weapons and doublet and dived into the mud-churned water.

  William Sarjent had taken the whipstaff, the lever that swung the tiller, and was steering a course away from the creek. He felt a rush of irritation that this man had somehow got so close to them. He seemed to be alone, though. Better to finish him now, before setting sail. They could not afford to miss this tide, so it had to be a well-aimed musket-ball.

  At the side of the vessel, Jeremiah Quincesmith reloaded the matchlock and fired downwards at the swimming man. The weapon was accurate enough when fired horizontally with the support of a stand, but firing downwards from a moving vessel was near to hopeless. The balls slapped silently into the grey water, one after the other as Quincesmith loaded and reloaded. He cursed the Scots for their maddening superstition. Why hadn’t they merely put a dagger up beneath the cooper’s ribcage?

  Shakespeare swam with all his strength. He was a strong swimmer, but he was encumbered by his clothing and held back by the tidal current that swept in and kept him from the bundle he had to reach.

  ‘Boltfoot!’ he roared above the waves, and choked on a mouthful of salt water for his pains.

  He redoubled his stroke power. But the distance did not seem to shrink. On and on he drove himself, his muscles cramping, his lungs in agony. Suddenly he was there. He grasped hold of the canvas-wrapped weight. From his belt he took his dagger and slashed and slashed at the ropes and canvas that bound the limp parcel.

  Desperately paddling his legs beneath the surface, he clawed at the bundle, ripping, shredding, hacking with no plan other than to free whatever was inside it.

  Piece by piece, the canvas and ropes came away. And there was Boltfoot Cooper, motionless in his arms. Shakespeare slapped his face for a response but there was nothing, just cold blue flesh. Regardless, he lay back and stretched Boltfoot’s limp body atop his, clasping him beneath the armpits and kicking out with his feet to draw him, inch by inch, to shore and away from the musket-fire.

  Chapter 35

  SHAKESPEARE FELL BACK into the mud, his feet in the water. He panted for breath. Boltfoot lay beside him, still as death. He had been far lighter to carry here through the waves than Shakespeare would have imagined. It was no effort at all, but now all his energy was expended.

  Had he really lost Catherine and Boltfoot within the space of a week? The two people, apart from his children, that he loved best in the world. He could not let it happen. With a force born of rage, he struggled to his knees, then turned Boltfoot on his side.

  ‘You are going to live, Mr Cooper,’ he said. ‘I order you to live.’

  He pulled back his right hand, full swing, and slammed it into Boltfoot’s back as if he were a midwife determined that an uncrying newborn should utter its first wail and take its first breath. The back arched at the blow and a terrible scream broke forth from somewhere inside. Boltfoot spewed out water, then retched and howled again.

  ‘Boltfoot!’

  Shakespeare tried to turn Boltfoot over, but he fought against it, spluttering, gasping for breath, coughing up water.

  ‘Help me, Boltfoot,’ Shakespeare ordered, once again trying to turn him over.

  Boltfoot let out a yell of pain, the noise of a dying animal, the scream he had refused to emit even when he lay long hours in the coffin and when he was passed across the fire. Now it came from him, as if from the ravines of hell.

  Shakespeare stopped trying to move Boltfoot and he flopped forward, taking in great aching breaths.

  ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘Blood of Christ, Mr Shakespeare! My back …’

  Shakespeare examined Boltfoot’s back and saw the tatters and flaming crust of red blisters. He looked out across the creek. The bark was just disappearing around the low headland, its sails unfurled and billowing with the breeze that came up the Thames from the North Sea. He tried to gauge whether it would head up the river towards the bridge or down to the open sea, but could not tell from here.

  ‘Boltfoot, I see your terrible injuries, but we have little time. Are you able to walk?’

  Boltfoot turned on to his front, on all fours. Slowly, he rose to his knees. Shakespeare got up and stood before him. He reached out and took his hands, lifting him to his feet. ‘What has happened to your back? What did they do?’

  ‘Those madpike Scotch witches roasted me like a suckling pig. Nine times they held me over the fire.’ Boltfoot winced as he spoke.

  ‘I say again, can you walk, or shall I leave you here and go for assistance?’

  ‘I’m coming, master. I wish to drown those black-clad drabs as they tried to do for me.’

  Shakespeare was about to turn away, inland, when the fishing boat hove into view, drifting in on the tide.

  ‘I think assistance has arrived, Boltfoot.’

  ‘Did you see the bark, master fisher?’

  ‘Indeed, sir. Driving upriver with the tide, and with the wind for the moment. But it will soon change against her and she will have to tack, even though the tide’s swell will give her a ride. She did look a mighty cumbersome vessel, lumbering low in the water.’

  ‘She carries a heavy burden of death. Can we catch her?’

  ‘Given time, aye. But then what will you do? I don’t believe a broadside from your pistols will cause them much consternation.’

  ‘We’ll fetch Gulden, then head for Gravesend.’

  Shake
speare settled back beside the fisher. Boltfoot sat with his back over the low bulwark, his burns soothed by the wind. Shakespeare had inspected the scorching and realised there was nothing he could do but get him to an apothecary. ‘You smell like roast pork, Boltfoot, but I fear you will survive.’

  Boltfoot tried to smile, glad of Master Shakespeare’s disrespectful jesting. The last thing he wanted was sympathy.

  Gulden lay, bound, in the bottom of the hull, soaking in fish-stinking bilge-water. Shakespeare had tossed him there, saying he would serve as ballast.

  In the distance, as they rounded the cape of Blythe Sands, they could make out the sails of a bark, three miles distant. Was that the Sieve?

  The harbour-master at Gravesend was a straight-backed former mariner named Winch. He looked at the fishing smack and its occupants with undisguised scorn.

  ‘Look what the tide brought in today, Mr Adam,’ he said to the man at his side on the dock. ‘Never have I seen such miserable flotsam.’

  ‘I’d throw them back, Mr Finch.’ James Adam was about forty. He was a man of middling height, with the weathered forehead of a mariner, though the cut of his clothes suggested he was a ship’s officer rather than an ordinary seaman.

  ‘We need help,’ Shakespeare said, stepping unsteadily from the boat. ‘This is Queen’s business.’

  ‘And I’m the King of France,’ Winch said.

  ‘A plague of toads, I know that dismal face,’ Adam said suddenly. ‘I’d recognise that face and that excuse for a foot anywhere. Why, it’s Boltfoot Cooper!’

  ‘Mr Adam,’ Boltfoot said grimly.

  ‘Aye, Cooper, I’m your master. Finest ship’s master you ever served under. How in England’s name have you landed here? Are you shipwrecked?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I will explain,’ Shakespeare said, taking Adam’s arm and holding it unnecessarily tight, ‘if you will be silent a minute or two …’

  Chapter 36

  LUKE LAVEROKE’S HIRED horse clattered into the cobbled stable-yard behind the Waggoner’s Arms, a post inn a little way south of Derby. He had beaten the horse mercilessly. Its sides were blood-streaked from his sharp-wheeled spurs and it was flecked with sweat. Quickly he dismounted and handed the reins to the ostler.

  ‘Have a fresh horse saddled for me in three hours,’ he ordered, affecting a French accent.

  The ostler looked at the post-horse in dismay. ‘You’ll have no horse from here if you treat him like that, master.’

  Laveroke tossed him a gold sovereign. ‘Three hours.’ He strode through into the inn’s taproom and demanded a room with food: roast capon with pickled cabbage and Levant raisins. ‘And half a flagon of good Gascon wine, unsweetened.’

  The chamber was on the first floor with a four-poster bed. He removed his dusty boots and lay back on the sheets, his doublet loosened. He would eat quickly, rest without sleeping, then resume his journey. Riding post, he believed he could make Edinburgh in three days. When the Sieve blew, he would be well away from London. No man would outride him to Scotland. The King of Scots would have no knowledge of events in England; his guard would be down and he would be content to meet an envoy – an old friend – from France.

  Their meeting would be in the presence-chamber, alone, for he would say he had possession of a secret missive from Henri of Navarre. Laveroke had met James twice before, under another, French name, and he had charmed the monarch with much flattery, extravagant gifts of gold and tales of the French court’s debauchery. The King would welcome him again, but this time Laveroke’s long-bladed dagger would be in his sleeve. It would slide down into his right hand, then sink into James’s soft, unsuspecting belly and drive upwards into his heart. All the while, Laveroke’s left hand would be at the King’s weakling mouth, stifling his cries, holding him close and silent until death. Speed was all. Unhurried speed. Kill, then walk away. Nod to the guards, smile at the courtiers, touch them lightly on the shoulder and bow extravagantly to their ladies, walk without haste, but depart. Then ride eastward like the furies, for North Berwick where the kin of Agnes Sampson and Gellie Duncan would smuggle him aboard a collier-ship to safety.

  A girl of seventeen or so arrived with his food and wine. He watched her closely as she lay the tray down upon a table near the window. She looked like any one of the peasant girls he had supplied for Don Antonio. They were all the same to him, all available at the right price, all disposable. He smiled at her and held up a shilling coin for her to take.

  Her blue eyes opened wide. A shilling was a week’s wages in this part of England. ‘Thank you, sir.’ She took the coin in her small hand.

  ‘My pleasure, mam’selle.’

  She giggled at the strange tone of his words and the healthy sheen of his handsome face and hair.

  ‘Will you pour me a cup of wine?’

  She bowed again and did so, then brought the cup to him where he lay, reclining on the pillows beneath the bed’s canopy.

  ‘And a cup for you, mam’selle.’

  She reddened. ‘I shouldn’t, sir.’

  ‘But you will – for me, yes.’ His hand touched her pale arm and she did not move away.

  A shy smile crossed her lips. ‘If you wish.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘But there is only one cup, sir.’

  ‘Then you will have to drink from mine. Here.’ He held it to her rich lips as if she were a communicant. ‘Do you like it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Sit with me here.’ His arm circled her slender waist and brought her down so that she sat on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Where are you from, sir? You have a most curious voice.’

  ‘You do not like it?’

  ‘No, no, sir, I like it very much.’

  ‘Today I think I am a sultan from Turkey, and I should like you in my seraglio.’ He held up another coin, a small gold one. ‘This for a kiss, mam’selle.’

  ‘You do not need to pay me, sir.’ She leaned over and kissed him, quickly, on his bristled cheek.

  ‘Take the money, please, for I am a wealthy man and you are a beautiful girl.’ Oh, you want the money, he thought, you just do not like the connotation. But you will take the money. I will make it easy for you. ‘It is worth a sovereign just to gaze upon your face. From the Russias to Peru, from the Moluccas to Africa, I swear I never set eyes on such beauty.’

  No one had ever called the girl beautiful before. In truth, she had only once seen her face in a looking-glass and had wondered whether she might be fair. Her skin was clear and her eyes were bright. Many men passed this way and sojourned here on their ride north or south, yet she had never met one such as this. She accepted the compliment and, glowing inside from his words, she accepted the coin too.

  Rabbie Bruce ate his supper alone in a booth of the Waggoner’s Arms taproom. The young capon was excellent, with crispy, blackened skin and juice running from the flesh. He had seen Laveroke enter the hostelry and had smiled to himself. This was going to be easier than he had expected. He would not have to make the long journey to Edinburgh after all. He carved a slice of breast flesh with his dagger. It was a good knife, crafted from hard steel and bone. He had killed with it before and it would serve its purpose again.

  In the back room of The Pelican, sometimes known as the Devil’s Tavern, close by Wapping, to the east of the Tower, Holy Trinity Curl rattled a pair of wheel-lock pistols in the air. ‘Will you die like dogs or fight like men?’ he bellowed.

  ‘We’ll fight!’ the powerfully armed men roared back. There were thirty-eight of them in the room, too few to fill it. There should have been seventy or more, fifty at the very least. Warboys had even suggested there could be more than a hundred.

  ‘Where are the others?’ Curl had whispered to his lieutenant, Oliver Kettle, a few minutes earlier.

  ‘Slipped away, scared, the mangy-arsed maggots.’

  ‘And Warboys? Why is he not here? He’s not scared. Never, not Warboys.’

  ‘Tom sa
ys Warboys is sick with the flux. But I reckon he’s cup-shot in a gutter somewhere. He’s always been one for the strong ale and aqua coelestis when things got rough. Maybe he’ll turn up.’

  ‘Well, the devil’s puke on them all. We’ll stand and fight, Mr Kettle.’

  ‘Aye, that we will.’

  ‘The poor will join us for they have nothing to lose, the prentices will fight with us for they hate the strangers, and the merchants will do nothing to stop us for they want their trade back. Our only foes are the Cecils and their council of traitors. Who could fear Little Crookback or Old Whitebeard? Wait until the Sieve blows, then we will strike. Then the people will join our apostle band and tear down the walls of the palaces. It will be as if Bedlam had opened wide its doors. Do the men all know their separate duties?’

  ‘They do. Eight to the Dutch church with me, with honed blades and sharp axes; twenty on the street with you to march on the bridge and gather men as you go; those remaining – the ones who should have been under Mr Warboys’s command – will cross the river with Mr Foal instead, there to meet Mr Sarjent, Mr Quincesmith and the Scots contingent when they disembark. Together, they will march on Greenwich. All will stand firm. There is not a craven spirit in this room.’

  Curl had his doubts. He surveyed the men ranged before him; they were hard enough now, but how would they be when the firing began? He banged the butts of his wheel-locks on the table, repeatedly, like a drumroll. The men roared back their approval, and Curl’s misgivings began to evaporate into the smoke-filled room.

  ‘Will you cut their Dutch throats, in their temple praying?’ he bellowed.

  ‘Aye,’ the men called back, ‘we will cut their throats.’