Revenger

by Rory Clements

  “Let’s ride,” McGunn said.

  Fragrant summer flowers and herbs-lavender, rosemary, bay, and a hundred other species-grew in profusion in the city’s many gardens, yet they did little to counter the overpowering stench of the dung-and-slop-strewn roads as Shakespeare and his companions trotted their horses slowly along Thames Street, then up to the city wall. Rats scurried brazenly, picking at the discarded bones from kitchens. Kites circled overhead or perched on walls, feeding at will from the bodies of slaughtered cats. “Makes you long for the fresh air of the countryside, does it not, Mr. Shakespeare?” McGunn said. “They say the plague will come hard this year.”

  Shakespeare nodded. He had already wondered whether they should not close the school while summer lasted and head for Warwickshire to escape the pestilence. It would be good to visit his family. It might also be good for the health of his marriage.

  At Ludgate a team of dog-catchers was rounding up strays to slit their throats, a sure sign that the city aldermen were worried about the possibility of the sickness blowing up into a general plague. It was a terrifying thought.

  All along the way, beggars and rag-clad doxies stretched out thin, bony hands and stumps, hoping in vain for coins from those driving the heavy midday traffic of farm wagons and timber carts. It was a dismal sight, a sign of what England was coming to as crops failed and the demands of the war chest ate into treasury funds. As they approached Essex House, Shakespeare saw a group of a dozen or so vagabonds surrounding the open gateway. McGunn stopped by them and handed out alms liberally, for which many of them thanked him by name and doffed their caps. “They may only be beggars, but they are our beggars,” McGunn said by way of explanation to Shakespeare, and then roared with laughter and kicked on through the gates.

  Essex House stood on a large plot of land between the Thames and the Strand. Its gardens swept down to the riverbank, where there was a high wall with a gated opening to some water-steps, a landing stage for boats and barges.

  Shakespeare and his companions dismounted in the forecourt under the watchful eye of a troop of halberdiers, their axe-pike lances held stock-still at their sides. The house was a hive of bees, so energetic were the comings and goings. An ostler quickly came forth and took their horses. “This is the Essex hovel, Mr. Shakespeare, how do you think it?” McGunn asked, standing back to admire the enormous stone-built house.

  Shakespeare looked up at its towering frontage.

  “Forty-two chambers, one hundred and sixty servants and retainers, but day-by-day you will find twice that number and more entering and leaving. Kitchens large enough to cook a feast fit for a monarch and a banqueting house great enough to entertain one. All built by his mother’s late husband, the Earl of Leicester.” McGunn strode toward the steps to the main doorway, his bull neck seeming to lead the way with the rest of him following. A halberdier stood either side of the doorway, shoulders back and unmoving. They clearly knew McGunn well, for he was not required to ask leave to pass. “Let us go in. You will be meeting my lord of Essex in the Picture Gallery.”

  Essex stood in the middle of the high-ceilinged, intricately plastered gallery. To his right, casting him in a half-shade that accentuated his fine features, were four south-facing windows that stretched almost the full depth of the walls. The room was bathed in brilliant light by the high midday sun, and the windows were opened at every available casement to allow in what breeze was to be had.

  The Earl looked magnificent. He stood tall in a rich costume of white silk and mother-of-pearl, his curled hair combed back from his wide forehead, his full-length red beard tumbling over his ruff. He had a slight upward tilt to his chin, his gaze fixed on a small volume that he held at arm’s length in his left hand as if he were a man of letters, not war. Lest anyone forget his military reputation, however, his right hand nonchalantly cupped the hilt of his ceremonial sword.

  All around him the room was hung with portraits: Essex in armor with wheel-lock, sword, and poniard; his beautiful mother, Lettice Knollys, in a baudekin gown of bejeweled glory; Essex’s sisters, Dorothy and Penelope, reckoned by many to be the match of their mother in beauty… and in wildness of spirit; his father, the late Walter Devereux, first Earl of Essex, who died a mysterious death in Ireland, some said of poisoning; Lettice’s new husband, Sir Christopher Blount, a handsome man with what John Shakespeare took to be an untrustworthy eye; and dominating them all, Essex’s late stepfather, Leicester, the man who first won Queen Elizabeth’s heart but betrayed her by marrying Lettice (and, some said, was guilty of poisoning her husband, Walter, in order to do so).

  It occurred to Shakespeare that this was the most formidable family of the age, a clan to match the Tudors themselves in power and majesty. Leicester, in particular, seemed to survey the scene from his portrait with supreme contempt.

  A few yards in front of Essex stood a painter at his easel, paint-loaded brush in hand. Essex’s eyes rose languidly from his book and drifted to Shakespeare and McGunn. He nodded to the painter, who wiped his brush on a rag and put it down on a coffer beside him, where he had his pigments and oils and other tools of his craft, then stood to one side.

  Essex closed his book and stepped forward, his posture slumping slightly as he did so, making him now appear to have the ungainly stoop so often associated with extremely tall men.

  McGunn, whose man Slyguff had remained outside the door, ambled forward, grinning. “My lord…”

  Essex smiled back and clasped him like an old friend. “You are well met, Mr. McGunn.”

  McGunn turned toward Shakespeare, then swept his arm to introduce the guest. “And this is Mr. Shakespeare, whom you asked me to find.”

  Shakespeare bowed to him in deference. “It is an honor to meet you, my lord.”

  “Mr. Shakespeare,” Essex said, his eyes lighting up. “What a pleasure to meet you. And the honor, may I say, is mine. Let me shake you by the hand.”

  The grip almost crushed Shakespeare’s knuckles.

  “So, Mr. Shakespeare, this is the hand that brought down Philip of Spain’s hired assassin and saved Drake. You are welcome in my home.”

  Shakespeare bowed. “You do me too much honor, my lord.”

  “Come, sit with me. Take some wine. It has been cooled in ice. Your face betrays your surprise, Mr. Shakespeare. Have you not heard? We have an ice cave here; it is a conceit of antiquity that I heard of from a correspondent in Italy. In the cold of winter, you collect ice and store it in the depths of the cellar, protected with straw and horsehair. Then in summer, even in a furnace summer such as this, it remains in its solid state to cool your wines and salads. It is an excellent device for keeping the freshness of fish, I am told.” Essex snapped his fingers and a servant stepped forward to take his order. “Now, Mr. Shakespeare,” he said. “You must wish to know why I have asked you to come here.”

  Shakespeare inclined his head, but said nothing.

  “And in due course I shall reveal all to you. But first let me ask about your circumstances. I believe you have a grammar school for poor boys?”

  Shakespeare explained about the Margaret Woode School. Essex was clearly bored. At last he shook his head slowly. “This is all very well, Mr. Shakespeare,” he said. “But do you not miss the excitement of your former life?”

  Shakespeare sometimes wondered this himself, but he would not admit as much here. “It was of its time, my lord, and I am glad to have served; but now my life has taken a different turn.”

  “But your career as an intelligencer ended in an unfortunate manner. I believe you fell foul of the late, much-lamented Mr. Secretary Walsingham over the question of your wife’s Catholicism. That is certainly the tale bruited about.”

  Shakespeare stiffened. “It is all a long time ago, my lord.”

  “Yes, Mr. Shakespeare, I do understand that quite well. But, I say again: is school-mastering enough?”

  “It is, my lord.”

  McGunn and the painter listened in silence. Essex turned to them
now. “What say you, Mr. McGunn? And you, Mr. Segar? Can a tiger so lose his stripes that he become a household cat?”

  Both men laughed. “Quite impossible,” McGunn said. “What man could turn from the art of war, even a war of secrets, to the world of dusty books? Impossible, I say.” The painter signaled his agreement with a slight bow of the head.

  The bluecoat arrived with four glasses of sweet and light Canary wine. As Shakespeare sipped he noted that the drink was indeed cold, a refreshing and remarkable indulgence on such a hot day.

  “Now, then,” Essex said. “To the matter in hand. The reason I have asked you here. Does the word ‘Roanoke’ mean anything to you, Mr. Shakespeare?”

  Roanoke. Who had not heard of Roanoke? The mere word conjured up an image in Shakespeare’s mind of a far-distant, exotic shore, of strange plants, venomous creatures, and yet more dangerous men. Roanoke: the lost colony. One of the most mysterious tales of the age.

  Shakespeare let a second draft of the cool drink slip down his throat. “Roanoke. Why, yes, my lord. I have heard the tale, and a curious one it is.”

  Essex gestured Shakespeare to come and sit with him on a wooden settle beside the window. “Before we proceed, let me tell you the story as I know it.

  “I am sure that much has been said about Roanoke in the taverns and ordinaries of London, and most of it probably embellished for the sort of gulls who buy the penny broadsheets. Few people know the plain facts, so I shall rehearse them for you. Roanoke is a small island off the Virginia coast of the New World, reckoned to be some five hundred sea miles north and east of the Spanish colony of St. Augustine. Sheltered by sandbanks, it had been thought so well favored that it would do well as the site for England’s first colony in the New World. It seemed to offer natural protection from the Spanish, who would dearly love to see it done away with, and to offer a base for English privateers.”

  “That is much as I had heard it, my lord.”

  “Five years ago, the first permanent English colony was founded there: about one hundred and ten men, women, and children-and two babies, I believe-left to fend for themselves, hopefully to prosper and grow. But even before the ships had set sail, leaving them there, it was clear things were not running smoothly. There were disagreements with the savages. And there were shortages of supplies. Because of this, the governor of the colony, John White, came back to England with the ships. His mission was to assemble supply vessels to return the following year, 1588. But, as the world knows, he was unable to do so.”

  “Because of the Armada.”

  “Quite so. It wasn’t until three years after the colonists were left that an expedition was mounted to help those one hundred and ten souls. But when the ships arrived, they found no trace of them or their belongings.”

  Shakespeare ran his finger around the cool rim of the elegant wine glass and looked closely at Essex. How could this story possibly involve him? “Was there not some clue as to their disappearance, my lord? Some mark on a tree indicating that they might have gone to live with the savages? Or is that a tavern tale?”

  “No, you are correct about that, Mr. Shakespeare. There were three letters carved on a tree -CRO. And on a fence there was carved the word Croatoan. That is the name of a tribe of savages living at that time on an island to the south of Roanoke. It is said they had been helpful to the colonists in the past, but that they were losing patience with the white man’s demand for food. Would the colonists have gone there under such circumstances? Perhaps they were starving and did so, and perhaps they are all alive and well and living happy, productive lives in harmony with their hosts. That is certainly the most comforting explanation. For my own part, I do not believe it. Had they made an orderly departure, they would have had time to leave a more comprehensive message for those who came to find them. So there we have it, Mr. Shakespeare. There is, of course, much more to it than I have told you, but before we move on I wish to be sure you have a clear understanding.”

  “I believe I do, my lord. But I confess that I am less certain how it affects me.”

  “Which is what we are now coming to.” Essex rose from the elm-wood settle, took Shakespeare by the elbow, and stood with him gazing out of the high window. Shakespeare was a tall man, six foot by anyone’s reckoning, yet Essex overtopped him by a good three inches. For a few moments they looked out at the Thames together. It teemed with the traffic of barges and tilt-boats, blanched sails dazzling in the midday sun, oars clipping splashes from the surface that burst in iridescent plumes. On the opposite shore, among verdant pastureland, stood the palace of Lambeth, residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Not far off, they could hear the cries and sounds of the City. “What would you think, Mr. Shakespeare,” Essex said, “if I told you that somewhere out there, walking the streets of London, is one of the lost colonists?”

  Shakespeare was not sure he had heard the question aright. “What are you asking me, my lord? Forgive me, but I fear I do not understand what you wish of me.”

  Essex let out a loud snort of laughter and then turned back to McGunn and Segar. “You see, it is madness. No one will believe this.” And then he said slowly, directly to Shakespeare, “What I am saying is that we have evidence that one of the so-called lost colonists is alive and well and is now here in London, thousands of miles from Roanoke. Now, how do you explain that?”

  Shakespeare had no idea what he was supposed to say. The question seemed moon-mad. “Well, I really don’t know. But if he is here, then I imagine others are, too, and that they have been brought here. Somehow they must have sailed here.”

  “It is not a he, Mr. Shakespeare. It is she. And we have her name. She is Eleanor Dare-and she is a woman of great interest on two counts. Firstly, she was born Eleanor White and is the daughter of John White, the colony’s leader who came back to England to secure supply vessels. And secondly, she is the mother of the first-ever English baby born in the New World, a girl aptly christened Virginia. As to the suggestion that all the colonists have come back, I hardly think that is feasible. I cannot believe a hundred or more people have somehow slipped into England unnoticed. One, yes, perchance two, but a hundred, no.”

  “Perhaps Eleanor Dare returned with her father five years ago when he came for the supply vessels.”

  “Impossible. The other colonists would not have let her or her child leave. She was their hostage, if you like. She it was that made certain their governor-her father-would move heaven and earth to secure supply ships and return. No, if it is indeed Eleanor Dare who has been sighted here in London, then she has somehow found her way across the ocean alone. Mr. Segar, please, your tale if you will…”

  The artist rose from his bench. He was a man of middling height and breadth with a tight mouth and lips like a woman’s, half-hidden behind a wide mustache that closely resembled a cat’s whiskers. He wore a long painter’s smock from neck to heel to protect his valuable court attire from paint splashes. He took a deep breath. “I have little to add to the story as told by my lord of Essex, save to say that the tale emanates from a maid in my own household, Agnes Hardy, who swears to me, hand on Bible, that she saw Eleanor Dare in London no more than a week since…”

  “People can make mistakes,” Shakespeare suggested.

  “Of course. And that is what we must find out,” Essex said. “Now, Mr. Segar, tell Mr. Shakespeare where your housemaid saw this woman.”

  “She was outside the theatre in Southwark, dressed as a strumpet touting for business. It was certainly in the area where the whores gather. Agnes told me she was so taken aback to see Eleanor, knowing her of old and knowing her to be lost in the New World, that for a moment she merely stood there open-mouthed in astonishment. By the time she had gathered her wits to approach her, the woman had joined arms with a man and they had gone, vanished into the theatre crowd. That was the last she saw of her.”

  “What time of day was this?” Shakespeare asked.

  “Mid-afternoon, I believe. You would do best to ask her s
uch details yourself.”

  It was the sort of question Shakespeare would have asked in his days as an intelligencer, to determine how much daylight there was and how clearly this Agnes Hardy might have seen this woman she took to be Eleanor Dare. But what had any of this to do with him now? McGunn read his thoughts.

  “So, Mr. Shakespeare, why have we brought you here? That’s what you want to know.”

  “Well, of course any man would be curious about this strange tale-but it really has nothing to do with me.”

  Essex clapped his hands. “But you are just the man for the job, Mr. Shakespeare. The perfect intelligencer, a man used to digging in the most putrid of middens to find bright red rubies of betrayal. Everything I know of you suggests to me that you are the man to find this woman.”

  Shakespeare set his face very determinedly. “Oh, no…”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Shakespeare. A thousand times yes. And you will be paid well for your troubles. I am sure that a handsome sum of gold would help your school, would it not?”

  Indeed, who did not need gold in these straitened times? “But why, my lord of Essex, are you so concerned about the supposed sighting of this woman, especially when she is most unlikely to be the person identified?”

  Essex looked at Shakespeare as if he had lost his wit. He sighed with great exaggeration and turned to McGunn. “You talk to him, Mr. McGunn. Answer all Mr. Shakespeare’s questions. Knock sense into him. I have other matters to attend to. Come, Mr. Segar.”

  Without another word, he strode with proud yet ungainly gait toward the entrance door, Segar following in his wake. And then they were gone.

  Chapter 4

  I T SEEMED TO SHAKESPEARE THAT HE HAD BEEN ASSAILED by a whirlwind. He looked at McGunn and saw something unpleasant in his eyes.

  “Well, there we have it, Shakespeare,” McGunn said with weary resignation. “God has spoken and so we mere mortals must obey.”