Nicholas Jones, the apprentice, sniggered.
Topcliffe’s arm lashed out and caught Jones full in the face. The boy reeled backwards, blood gushing from his nose. “Stow you, Nick.” Jones wiped his filthy sleeve across his face to staunch the blood. He seemed to shrink into his shoulders, like a whipped dog.
“I have all the evidence I need, Topcliffe,” said Shakespeare. “Only you could have printed those tracts found at Hog Lane, because you were the one in possession of the press.”
“That isn’t evidence! Who will listen to a dead monk?”
“Ptolomeus is very much alive.”
Topcliffe laughed and clapped an arm around the shoulder of Jones. “Is he, now? What do you say, Nick?”
Jones managed to snigger again, though he snorted a spray of blood in the process. He drew a finger slowly across his throat, then flicked it up theatrically toward the ear. “Squealed like a little piglet. I would never have thought a Popish devil would have so much blood in him, Master Topcliffe.” He dabbed at his nose with his sleeve again and wiped away more blood.
Shakespeare felt a stab of overwhelming guilt. He should not have left the old monk to such a fate. But how could he have known that Topcliffe would return to finish him off, and in the circumstances, what could he have done? The only comfort was that Ptolomeus had clearly been longing for death; the sadness was the cruel manner of its arrival. “Trust me, I have enough evidence of your crimes without Ptolomeus. And I will take it to one who will listen: Howard of Effingham.”
The smile froze on Topcliffe’s mouth. He raised a hand and made an indecisive chopping motion with it, as if he was about to make a point but had suddenly become lost as to what that point should be. Shakespeare saw that he had hit home; that Topcliffe could see instantly that such a course of action would make things not just difficult for him, but impossible. The Queen might feign ignorance of the horrors he did in her name, but she would not ignore her cousin Charles Howard, particularly not in relation to the death of Lady Blanche.
“I see you are lost for words, Topcliffe. Who now has the other at his mercy, pray?”
“I could kill you this very moment.”
“You could try, but I doubt that you would succeed. Mr. Cooper is quite handy with cutlass and caliver, as you must know.”
Topcliffe stood frozen, disdain writ all across his face. When he spoke, his voice dripped scorn. “Your problem, Shakespeare, is that you are young. You do not have the stench of burning Protestant flesh in your nostrils. You weren’t there in the fifties when Bloody Mary and her Spanish droop were burning good Englishmen and women in the name of the Antichrist. All these Papists know is brutality. It is all they respect, so if they poke out your eye you must poke out both theirs, and their mother’s and child’s.”
“So what you do is better, is it, Topcliffe?”
“It is God’s will, Shakespeare. That is all. God and Her Majesty. All right, enough. What do you want? Why are you here?”
What Shakespeare wanted and what Mr. Secretary would allow him were two very different things. He wanted Topcliffe taken off the streets, hanged preferably or, at the very least, locked away where he could never again harm anyone. But he had to settle for another trade. The words stuck in his craw to say, but he took a deep breath and laid out his terms. “You will return what is mine, taken from me most foully by your witch familiar Davis; you will never venture to my house again, nor will you molest or interfere with Mistress Catherine Marvell, nor the children in her care, nor my maidservant; you will release Master Thomas Woode this day; and you will tell me where you have brought the four vagabonds from Hog Lane so that they may be given their freedom. In return for these boons, I will not reveal to her family your murderous cruelty toward Lady Blanche Howard. I have, however, left a deposition with a certain lawyer, who will take it immediately to Lord Howard of Effingham should any accident befall me. Do you understand all this?”
“Curse you, Shakespeare, you Rome-squealing little clerk! It seems you have me strapped over a cask.”
“It seems that way, does it not?”
Suddenly Topcliffe barked a laugh. “What think you, Nick?” he said to his apprentice. “Do you think I can be frighted so easy?” Then he turned back to Shakespeare. “And what would you want with the four Irish clapperdudgeon vagabonds anyway? Perchance you fancy playing girl-boys with one of them? Now you have acquired a taste for Papism and bitchery-”
“They are Crown witnesses and you have cloyed them away illegally.”
Topcliffe shook his head. “Nothing illegal about it. I got the mittimus from Mr. Justice Young, magistrate of London. They languish in one of London’s most stinking holes. If you can find them, you can have them. As for the traitor Woode, there isn’t much left of him to hand over, so I think I’ll just hold on to him a little longer. As I recall, the warrant from Mr. Justice Young does allow me yet seven days before I need to bring him to court.”
“Then you leave me no option. I will go straightway to Deptford to consult with the Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Howard of Effingham.”
“Do that, Shakespeare! You have no evidence against me, not a shred, and you will find yourself in front of the magistrate for lewdness and sorcery before ever I face a court. I will piss on you while you swing.”
The door slammed shut. Shakespeare stood in the street shaking. Above him the majesty of Westminster Abbey soared. There seemed to be hope in the air, yet on the cobbled stones there was none. A killer would walk free to stalk London, taking and torturing at will while he, Shakespeare, faced an uncertain future.
Boltfoot Cooper slung his caliver back over his shoulder. “It is time to meet fire with fire, master.”
His words knocked Shakespeare from his dark trance. “What is that, Boltfoot?”
“I will hunt down the vagabonds. If need be, I will visit every one of London’s fourteen gaols and break down the gates to find them. And you must find the Davis witch and her whore.”
“Thank you, Boltfoot. It is good that one of us thinks clearly this day.”
As they moved away in the bright spring sunshine, Shakespeare noticed a young woman, fair of face and light-haired, walking toward Topcliffe’s door. She was carrying a bundle that he thought to be a baby.
Shakespeare hired a tiltboat from Westminster stairs downstream to St. Mary Overy stairs, then walked a half mile to the street where he had been lured by Mother Davis and Isabella Clermont. He was aware he was being followed by Topclife’s apprentice, Jones, and another man, more powerfully built. Shakespeare knew he had little time; Topcliffe would get the magistrate Young to issue an arrest warrant in very short order. Languishing in Newgate, Shakespeare would be helpless to do anything for Catherine or Thomas Woode.
The house in which he had encountered Mother Davis and her whore stood dark and empty, its windows shuttered and its doors locked. A poster was pasted on the bolted doorway announcing that the building was available to let. As Shakespeare looked up at the blank windows, Jones and his companion jeered at him. “Looking for a wench, Shakespeare? How about a juicy blackamoor? Or you can have my sister for half a crown. She’ll spur you on.”
A warehouseman passed, pushing along a small handcart, top-heavy with bulging jute sacks. Shakespeare stopped him.
“Whose building is this?” He handed him a penny.
The man, grateful to put down the handles of the cart, looked over at Jones and the other man. “They friends of yours?”
“Anything but.”
“Good. I’ve seen that sniveling little one round here before and I don’t like the looks of him. This fine building belonged to a Spanish gentleman, sir. Imported wines from Portugal and beyond. I sometimes helped him when a ship came in. But he was discovered helping Romish priests, sir, and was flung out of the country, back where he belongs.”
“And now?”
“And now it does stand empty, sir, awaiting another occupant.”
“Does it ever get used?”
“Who has the keys?”
“That would be the new owner, sir. One Richard Topcliffe of Westminster, a famous priest-hunter, who has made himself exceeding rich, people say, by drawing the innards from young papists.” The young warehouseman laughed.
It was another dead end. Topcliffe had given Davis the key to the building to set her trap for Shakespeare. He had just one more hope. Walking quickly westward along the bank of the Thames, still followed, he made his way to the Clink prison, a long two-story stone building one street back from the river and close to the London residence of the Bishop of Winchester.
Street traders with baskets of pies, cakes, bread, and roasted fowls were busy selling lunch to the prisoners who clustered on the other side of the iron-barred windows, stretching out their hands through the narrow gaps with coins to pay for the food. There was a lot of shouting and bargaining. Shakespeare banged on the heavy door. The turnkey, a small man with cadaverous cheeks and a tongue that continually licked his lips like a serpent, looked at him suspiciously. Shakespeare demanded to see Starling Day and Parsimony Field on Queen’s business.
The turnkey leered at him. “They are here, young gentleman, but it’ll cost you two shillings to consort with them. Those harlots can charge what they likes, but I want my two shillings first.”
“Did you not hear me, gaoler? I said I am on Queen’s business.”
“And if you will just pay me two shillings, you can join them in lust and it will be worth every last groat to you.” Angrily, Shakespeare handed over two shillings. Jones was right behind him in the street and he wanted to get away from him. The other pursuer had gone, probably to take word to Topcliffe and Young. “You do realize, gaoler, that you could very well lose your license for demanding money and turning this gaol into a bawdy house? I am like to report you to the Liberty of Clink for your dealings.”
“As you please, sir. And do you think they will do anything that might come between them and their own garnish?” He looked over Shakespeare’s shoulder at Jones. “Will you be bringing your young friend, too? Give me another shilling and he can have admittance as well.”
Shakespeare handed the gaoler two shillings more. “This is to not give him admittance, turnkey. Keep him locked out at all costs.”
“As you wish, master. As you wish.” The gaoler grasped Shakespeare by the arm of his doublet and yanked him in, pulling the four-inch thick, fortified door closed just as Jones thrust his lower right leg into the gap. The boy yelled with pain as the heavy wood cracked on the side of his knee.
Shakespeare found Starling and Parsimony living like merchants’ wives in the best cells in the Clink, two large rooms, next to each other, with feather beds and a goodly supply of wine and food.
“Ah, Mr. Shakespeare, sir,” Starling called. “What is your pleasure this fine day? You will see we are well settled in here, happy as two bees in honey.”
Shakespeare looked about her cell with some amazement. She had set it up as well as any room to be found in a luxurious trugging house or inn. There were wax candles burning all about and fine linen on the bed. Starling herself looked well fed and rosy cheeked. “I can see you are well provided for here, Mistress Day, but I have come to set you free. On one condition: that you tell me the whereabouts of a whore called Isabella Clermont and her procuress, one Mother Davis.”
“Sorry, ducks, never heard of them. Try Parsey. She knows all the game girls.”
Parsimony’s door was shut. She was just finishing off with a customer. Two minutes later the door opened and a red-faced, well-fed man emerged. He wore expensive courtier’s clothes, which he was busy adjusting. He briefly caught Shakespeare’s eye and hastily looked away. Parsimony held the door open. “Come in, Mr. Shakespeare, come in. This is a fine vaulting house you sent us to. A wondrous place full of gentlemen of fine birth.”
The room was every bit as well appointed as Starling’s. “I have come to offer you a deal that will lead to your freedom, Mistress Field.”
She laughed. “I am well set up already, sir. And I have forgiven you for sending us here. I suppose we met in difficult circumstances, Mr. Shakespeare. It was a sad day that the lovely Harry Slide was done for. God rest his soul. Harry Slide knew how to make a girl happy. Attended to our pleasures as well as his own, which is uncommon in a man of any breeding. He was a good friend.”
Starling noted Shakespeare’s impatience. “He’s looking for a couple of Winchester geese, Parsey, and he’s in a hurry.”
“I need to find Mother Davis and Isabella Clermont. Do you know of them?”
Parsimony turned pale. “Know of them? I know of Mother Witch, Mr. Shakespeare. Don’t go near her. That woman consorts with demons and Satan himself. She is succubus and incubus and every worm with sharpened teeth and poisoned talons in hell.”
“You have had dealings with her?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve had dealings. She snatched two of our best girls when I was with Gilbert Cogg. Took them in broad daylight and shacked them up with her own lice-crawling punks. That’s not right. By the time we found out where they were, they both had the pox, their paps had shrunk from lack of food, they had rat bites on their legs and arms. Looked as appetizing to a man as a baggage of foul-smelling bones. Those girls were worthless to us, sir. Worthless.”
“I need to find her.”
“And what do I get in return?”
“Your freedom… and vengeance on Davis?”
“And the lease back on our house of entertainment?”
“If at all possible. I can’t give you any money.”
“Just vouch for us, Mr. Shakespeare.”
Shakespeare felt uneasy. But what option did he have? “All right,” he agreed. “If you lead me to her, I’ll do what I can.”
Parsimony smiled. She had nice white teeth. “That witch is like smoke,” she told him. “But I will give you a place to try, sir…”
Chapter 46
There was a locked door at the back of the gaol into a yard, then more doors through outhouses. The gaoler unlocked them and showed Shakespeare the way into a long, muddy garden, where a pair of pigs were rutting energetically.
At the end of the garden was an eight-foot-high wall. The gaoler thrust an apple-tree ladder into Shakespeare’s arms.
Shakespeare scaled the wall easily. There was no sign of Jones. He began loping through the streets away from the Clink, eastward. He was heading for London Bridge to get north of the river. As he ran onto the bridge, he felt the deathly gaze of the traitors’ heads bearing down on him from their pikes atop the gatehouse. The heads were boiled in brine so that they might last many months as a warning to others.
Parsimony had mentioned a house in Billiter Lane, not far from his own home in Seething Lane. It was not the sort of place you would expect to find a sorceress and her whores, for it was the heart of the City, an expensive street where traders and their fur-clad wives resided. But perhaps that was the attraction of the area for Mother Davis; she could affect the ways of the wealthy there and gain anonymity.
Past Fen Church, he trotted along the broad sweep of Blanch Appleton. His heart pounded; his lungs dragged harshly at the air. To his left he noticed the huge works that were being carried out on Ironmongers’ Hall. Enormous cranes of oak and elm with dangling ropes and pulleys towered over the skeletal structure.
He turned into Billiter Lane and stopped in his tracks. Ahead of him, like a wall of steel and black leather, stood twenty pursuivants, swords drawn, wheel-locks armed and pointed along the street toward him.
For a moment he stood frozen, scarcely comprehending what he saw. He turned to run the other way, but his face met the fist of the chief pursuivant Newall full on. Shakespeare’s legs buckled and he fell into the muddy ditch in the center of the street. Then his temple was hit by another blow, delivered by a silver-topped blackthorn, and darkness fell.
He awoke into gloom. His skull hu
rt in a way it had never hurt before. A heavy, insistent throbbing that made death seem preferable to life. He tried to move and realized his feet were fettered in cramp-rings, fixed solidly into the ground. He was in a cell, lit by a tallow candle in a black iron wall sconce. He looked up and saw Nicholas Jones, Topcliffe’s apprentice, smirking at him. “Thought you could get away from Jonesy, did you?” The boy had a pipe in his mouth and belched fumes as he taunted him. “We’ve got some laughs and merriment in store for you, John Shakespeare, I’ll tell you that for nothing. You wait there and I’ll just go and tell Mr. Topcliffe that you’ve come around. No strolling off now…” He took the pipe from his mouth and tapped the burning sotweed and ashes over Shakespeare’s head.
Shakespeare longed to shake his head to rid himself of the hot embers, but he did not have the strength. His vision came in drifts like snow in the wind.
He collapsed once more into nothingness.
When he woke again, shakespeare knew he was in a dream. Above him were the warm oak beams of his bedroom ceiling. Sunshine flooded in through the window across the bed in which he lay. He turned his head and winced with pain. At his side, on a three-legged stool, sat Jane, his maidservant.
“Master Shakespeare?”
“Jane? Is that really you?”
“You are awake at last.”
He closed his eyes. A feeling of immense fatigue enveloped him. Had he dreamed the time in the cell watched by Jones? Some wicked nightmare? An incursion by demons?
“How long have I been here, Jane?”
“Three days and three nights, master. Thank the Lord you are with us. We feared you might never wake. The blow to your head…”
“How did I get here?”
Jane reached out and held his hand. “You were brought here on a cart by Mr. Secretary Walsingham’s men. Don’t talk now. Let me bring you some light food and drink.”
As he came more awake, he became aware of his body: various regions throbbed with a dull ache-his arm where it had been cut by Herrick’s blade, his beaten face, his temple. “Walsingham’s men brought me here? I believed I was in a cell, held by Richard Topcliffe.”
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