The Heretics

by Rory Clements

  Without a word, she nodded and stepped into the tent.

  As the women came closer, Roag pulled off his own golden mask and strode towards them, smiling broadly and extending his arms in welcome.

  ‘Ah, the charming Mr Roag,’ the Countess of Kent said as he bowed low before her and kissed her hand.

  ‘Lady Susan, it is my pleasure to welcome you to our humble pavilion. And you, my Lady Trevail, Lady Cumberland and Mistress Lanier.’ He kissed all their hands in turn. ‘Might I offer you some refreshment? We have nothing but good English ale, I am afraid, but it is enough to quench a thirst.’

  ‘I think we shall forgo the ale. We are here only to ensure that you are arrived as promised and that the masque is prepared for this evening’s festivities, Mr Roag, nothing more. Is Mr Sloth not here? I had expected to see him, for he has done much work in preparing the entertainment.’

  Roag affected a sigh. ‘Poor Mr Sloth. He is indisposed with a summer sweat. And you are correct, Lady Trevail, we could not have done without him. However, all is now in place. I believe we are to perform when the hour strikes eight or thereabouts – sometime between the jesters and the banquet. I pledge that we shall produce a spectacle of great passion and vigour, one to be remembered for many a day.’

  Lady Susan clapped her hands. ‘Good. Play your heart out, sir, for if you do well, the Queen will wish to see you again . . . and again. And your star will surely ascend in the firmament.’

  In her hand, she had a rolled document, which she handed to Roag.

  ‘Here is your pass. You will be asked to produce it at the gatehouse. It has been signed by the Earl of Essex and countersigned by Lord Chamberlain Hunsdon. You are expected.’

  Roag took the pass and bowed. ‘Thank you, my lady. You have no idea what an honour this will be for me.’

  Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, a woman with a remarkable eye for detail and a dedication to the sciences, pointed to the sword at Roag’s waist. ‘I fear you will not be able to bring that into the palace, Mr Roag. No armaments of any kind within the presence of Her Majesty. It will not get past the outer wall.’

  Roag laughed and drew his wooden sword from its scabbard. ‘It is nothing but wood, my lady, and fragile, too. A child’s plaything or toy. You would be hard-pressed to harm a mouse with it.’ He waved it about, as though engaging in a mock sword-fight.

  ‘And who else have you here, Mr Roag?’ Emilia swept her arm around the gathering of players, all standing awkwardly about, still in their golden masks. ‘Are there any players we might recognise?’

  ‘You will see them when they take their bows, mistress. I pledge that the audience will gasp with amazement.’

  The Countess of Cumberland looked upon the players, who certainly seemed a fine little group of men. ‘I am sure you will all do very well, Mr Roag. It is always a pleasure to see you. I trust you have had time enough to prepare yourselves, for I know you have been absent from London some little time.’

  ‘A death in the family, in the North, my lady. I had much to settle in the matter of probate.’

  ‘Come, ladies,’ Lucia Trevail said, ‘let us leave poor Mr Roag to his labours. I do believe Her Majesty will soon have finished with Council business and will require us to join her for her morning volta and cards.’

  Regis Roag watched them walk away and smiled with relief. God was with him, there could be no doubt. This was his destiny, this day. Would they have recognised Beatrice in man’s attire, with the mask about her face? Probably not, but there was no point in taking chances before it became necessary.

  In his hand he held the toy wooden sword. Slowly, he withdrew the true sword housed within. A thin, flat blade of finely crafted Toledo steel. This was no toy; this was an instrument perfectly devised and honed for one specific task: the killing of a Queen and her entire court.

  John Shakespeare woke at six o’clock in the evening to find himself in a strange bed, in darkness. He lay still for a few moments, his eyes open, trying to make sense of his surroundings.

  ‘Mr Shakespeare?’

  He turned towards the voice and let out a low, involuntary scream of pain.

  ‘Do not try to move, sir, you have suffered grievous injury to your body. Every movement will cause you great anguish.’

  A face had appeared before his eyes. At first it was too close for him to focus on, then it moved back. It was a face he recognised. But in the name of God, what was Dr Simon Forman doing here – and where were they, anyway? This was not his own bedchamber, nor the one he had been assigned in the house of Sir Robert Cecil.

  ‘Dr Forman, what is this? Where am I?’

  ‘You are in a farmhouse. You were tormented almost to death by a woman who has been identified to me as Mistress Sorrow Gray and by a man, now dead, named Mr Ovid Sloth.’

  ‘Boltfoot? Where is Boltfoot?’

  ‘Close by. He brought me here to tend you. But I must insist that you lie quiet and still. You have lost a quart or more of blood. If you rest, you will regain your health; if not, then there is still danger. Here, let me give you some sips of water, sir.’

  ‘Get Boltfoot.’ In his mind he shouted the words, but in truth they were as faint as the illicit whisperings of a Cistercian. ‘I must speak with him – alone.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Shakespeare’s whole body was alive with pain. His torso and legs were bandaged as tightly as a corpse in its winding sheet. The slightest movement made him grimace. Even the simple act of breathing was agony.

  Boltfoot came in and stood by the door. Forman stayed outside.

  ‘Come closer, Boltfoot. I cannot move easily to see you.’

  He limped over to the bed. ‘I thank God you are alive, master.’

  ‘Not God alone, I think.’

  ‘Dr Forman has played his part, as has the goodwife whose farmhouse you are in. She has nursed you and fed us.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Dr Forman, myself and Mr Hooft.’

  ‘Hooft is here? Why?’

  ‘He discovered where they had taken you. You must talk to him when you have your strength back, but, in short, he says he came to London to find you, for he had hopes you might lead him to Sorrow Gray. I confess I am not certain of his story, but it is fortunate he followed you, for you were close to death when we found you.’

  The events came back in a rush. The weird melding of exorcism and torture. But perhaps exorcism and torture were one and the same thing, both born of religious insanity. Beatrice had been there and Ovid Sloth, and then Boltfoot, wonderful Boltfoot with the astonishing tenderness of his callused hands.

  ‘What of Sloth and the woman?’

  Boltfoot ground his teeth and shut the door before returning to Shakespeare’s bed.

  ‘I confess I am not certain, master,’ he said quietly. ‘They were both bound and locked in the barn. But at first light when I went to them, Sloth was dead, his throat stuck through, and the woman was gone.’

  ‘How? How did that happen?’

  Boltfoot glanced back at the door. ‘Mr Hooft was with them. I fear he might have freed her. It is all I can think. But he denies it, says he would never kill.’

  Shakespeare was struggling to rise from the pillow, but fell back, breathing heavily.

  ‘There was another matter, master. As commanded by you, I went in search of Mr Sloth. I found him at the Rose playhouse, with Mr Henslowe. He was buying or hiring costumes and certain props. It seems it was a long-standing agreement between the two men.’

  ‘Why did you not take him then and there?’

  ‘My caliver misfired and I was overpowered while Sloth made his escape. There was a young woman with him, pushing a handcart. Now that I have seen her, I believe it was Beatrice Eastley.’

  ‘Have you no idea why they wanted these things?’

  ‘Mr Henslowe said it was the practice of great men to put on plays for their friends, that is all. Whatever Sloth’s part in all this, I think Henslowe an honest broker and innocent
of crime.’

  Shakespeare struggled to make sense of this new information. Sloth could not be staging a play; he had made himself a renegade. So why would he wish costumes and props?

  The answer broke upon him like thunder from a darkening sky. Anthony Friday had been writing a play, though no one knew whom it was for. Of course, it was clear now: he was writing it for Sloth. This had always been about the Theatre and about players. Most of all, Roag. Regis Roag, the man who believed himself the son of a king and who had played Richard of Gloucester, a man who killed to be king. This was about a play – and it was suddenly clear whom the intended audience must be.

  The words of his brother Will slid like an ice blade into his spine. This golden ray, this English goddess, this nonsuch of our hearts . . . The words he ascribed to Anthony Friday’s play, the paean to Her Majesty. It was the word nonsuch that dealt the blow. The Palace of Nonsuch. That was the place. It would happen there. The Queen must be there by now.

  ‘What is the date, Boltfoot?’

  His man frowned and tried counting on his fingers. ‘I believe it to be the twenty-third, master. August the twenty-third.’

  The twenty-third. The number in the Wisbech letter. He had believed it referred to the landing of the Spanish galleys in Mount’s Bay. That had been July the twenty-third. But that was not the vital date at all. This was the day. This was the day they would stage their play before the Queen.

  But what bloody surprises were they preparing to unleash? The thought was too dreadful to think on; he had to act, whatever the pain.

  ‘Boltfoot, get me out of this bed!’

  Chapter 42

  THE CAPTAIN OF the guards put up his hand. Two halberdiers crossed their weapons, barring the way to the six players and their handcart. ‘Hold fast. Who are you?’

  Roag stopped and smiled. ‘We are the Ladies’ Players, Captain. We are to perform our humble entertainment before Her Royal Majesty.’

  The guard had the hard look of a soldier who would not blink as he cleaved a skull in two. He ran the forefinger of his right hand down a list. ‘I have you. Where is your pass?’

  Roag handed over the paper. The captain studied it carefully, then looked up and stared hard into Roag’s eyes. ‘Have I seen you before? You look familiar.’

  ‘I played with Lord Strange’s Men before the Queen some time ago. It is possible you saw me then.’

  The captain grunted. ‘What’s on the cart?’

  ‘Our costumes and props.’

  ‘I see you wear a sword at your belt. Take it off and leave it here.’

  ‘It is a wooden sword, a prop for the play.’

  ‘No weapons. Order of the Council.’

  Roag laughed. ‘But it is not a weapon.’

  The captain held out a hand. ‘Show me.’

  Roag drew his wooden sword and handed it over. The captain tested it and weighed it in his hands. It was light, for it was made of soft wood, and there was no hidden blade within, unlike all the others. The guard ran a finger down the thick, blunt blade, then handed it back.

  ‘Are there other toy weapons?’

  ‘Just what you see. A wooden sword for each of us. And there is also a white staff of office, the symbol of the Lord Treasurer, if you consider that to be a weapon. We need it because we are to represent the great men of the Queen’s court, to pay tribute to her. Could you imagine Ralegh without his sword or Burghley without his white staff?’

  The captain nodded to two of his men. ‘Search the cart.’

  ‘I beseech you to take care. Those costumes and masks are hired; they cost more gold than I could earn in a lifetime.’

  The guards sifted through the costumes and masks but found nothing suspicious.

  ‘Now search the players. Every inch of them.’

  Roag looked at Beatrice. She wore doublet and hose and a velvet hat, but it seemed to him that she was shaking. She was the weak link in the chain. She was slim and her hips were narrow enough to pass for an effeminate youth, but a cursory examination would quickly detect her true sex. And even if, by some chance, they did not discover her secret, she was at the edge of her undoing. It would not take much to push her over.

  ‘Captain, is this necessary? We have much preparation to do to set our scene.’

  The guard stared at Roag again. Suddenly he nodded, then turned to a guard within the gatehouse. ‘Take them through, Corporal.’

  Roag breathed out and bowed his head to the guard in gratitude. He was nearly there now; he could almost taste the fear and the blood. He would likely die this day, but they would know who he was. For yet I am not look’d on in the world. Oh, they would look on him. Never again would they deny his parentage, never shun him as though he were a scraping on their golden shoes.

  He followed the corporal into the outer courtyard. Striding purposefully ahead of them, he caught sight of a small knot of courtiers, among them Essex. His former employer was looking in the other direction, but nonetheless Roag hurried by, head down, gaze averted.

  There was a delightful intimacy about the inner courtyard of Nonsuch Palace, which made it perfect for the performing of entertainments on a warm summer’s evening such as this.

  A mighty noise of talking, laughter and music already filled the balmy air. The sun was low, and there were long shadows, but pitch torches and lanterns added lustre to the space. Scores of courtiers stood or sat or milled about, conversing and arguing. At the far end of the courtyard, beneath the windows of the Queen’s Privy Chamber, a bank of seats had been erected for Her Majesty and her private party, protected from the weather by a large canopy of gold and green stripes. Directly opposite it, ranged behind the central fountain, was a low stage where a company of tumblers flipped their lithe and graceful bodies through the air.

  The Queen was already in her place, seated on sumptuous cushions, idly sipping at a silver goblet of hippocras, watching the gymnasts and listening to some scandalous tittle-tattle that Henry, Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, dripped into her ear. Suddenly she laughed and struck him with the edge of her fan.

  Essex sat on her right, his face imperiously sullen as he talked with Southampton. Cecil and his father, Lord Burghley, were seated near by, as were Heneage, Egerton and Puckering. Most of England’s senior nobles and holders of the offices of state were here for the occasion. The entertainment did not interest them a great deal; their real purpose this evening was to jostle for favour and preferment while doing their rivals down.

  From the window of their appointed tiring room, Roag looked out and noted the positions of these men who held England in their fists. Each of his players had his task; each knew whom he was to kill first. At the sign – the utterance of the word Nonsuch – he would lunge forward and strike Essex to the ground; Paget would kill Sir Robert Cecil, and Ratbane would see to frail Burghley. The Irishmen, Seamus and Hugh Fitzgerald, had orders to slaughter Southampton and Egerton, then turn on Puckering and Heneage. They would do the court in one by one, as many as God allowed.

  And Beatrice? She would stab the Queen through the heart.

  He spotted Richard Topcliffe, the white-haired torturer, crossing the courtyard, towards his Queen. Two guards appeared and shook their heads, turning him back. So Topcliffe was out of gaol; Roag laughed. He might be free, but it did not seem as though he was back in favour. It occurred to him, however, that Topcliffe could be dangerous. Despite his years, he was strong and deadly. Given the chance, he would delight in playing the man of action here. Well, Roag would not give him the chance. After Essex, he would attack the white dog.

  In the second tier of seats, he saw his patrons, the four ladies. What would he have done without such useful, hapless fools? They had been his passport to this occasion; he doubted they would enjoy the evening.

  John Shakespeare blacked out and slid from his horse two miles short of Nonsuch, crunching down on his shoulder. The pain shook him back to groggy consciousness. He rose to his hands and knees and tried to gather his thought
s.

  Boltfoot dismounted instantly and knelt at his side. ‘Master, you cannot go on.’

  ‘I must.’

  ‘I will go alone.’ Boltfoot turned to Hooft, who had also reined in. ‘Mr Hooft, stay here with Mr Shakespeare. If you can summon help, do so, but do not let him try to follow. I will return for you both when I can.’

  Shakespeare nodded. ‘You are right, I slow you down. Go, Boltfoot. Ride!’

  Boltfoot remounted his horse and kicked on into a canter. The going was easy from here, lush countryside and parkland. He should be at Nonsuch within ten minutes, God willing.

  They were ready. Every man primed: ready to kill and die. They were in their court costumes, each man attired as an English hero of Elizabeth’s long reign. The words were well learnt; they would declaim in turn, and act out the great events of the past thirty-seven years, until the audience was lulled and unprepared, and the guards dozing. Roag was Burghley in his red velvet gown, his black, ermine-lined cape, his black velvet hat and his white staff of office. His deadly white staff .

  The likeness of Drake was there, Essex and Hatton, too, Leicester and Sidney. And all with masks of gold and swords of finest Toledo steel hidden in their wooden toys. With hearts of iron, they walked from the tiring-house, through a series of passageways to the back of the stage. They waited until, at a signal from the Master of Revels, they strode out and took their bow. This was the beginning; they would say their lines of poetry, act out their parts, until the fell moment came that they would descend upon their enemies like wolves. Surprise would win them the day. In battle, surprise was everything.

  Leading his companions, Regis Roag took his bow, then looked up, ready to embark on his great enterprise. But instead of an appreciative audience, agog with anticipation, he was faced with two solid lines of soldiers, separating them from their quarry. Two lines of men armed with swords, hagbuts and crossbows.