Revenger

by Rory Clements

  Shakespeare wanted to follow her, but it was pointless. This storm, if it was to pass, would not be calmed by harsh words. He still felt angry. He had been right all along. A trap had been set for Southwell, and Catherine had almost walked into it. But who was behind it? A suspicion was clawing at the back of his mind, scratching like a terrier’s paws at the earth. The name McGunn would not go away.

  He looked at the squat figure of his man, Boltfoot Cooper, as if he might find some solution to his problems there. But Boltfoot had his own concerns: Jane, his wife, was heavy with child, and they had already lost their firstborn at birth.

  Boltfoot did not smile. His rugged face was weather-beaten into permanent lines and creases, set hard like the furrows on oak bark, the reward of many years at sea.

  “I am going for some air, Boltfoot. Remember, spend time with Jane. One disconsolate wife in a household is more than enough.”

  Outside, he walked by the river. A light breeze brought some relief from the sun, now high in a cloudless sky. He looked east toward the bridge and watched the cormorants fishing.

  A man appeared at his elbow. “At least the waterbirds keep cool, do they not, sir?”

  Shakespeare turned toward the voice. It came from a man of advanced years, perhaps fifty, with a generous face beneath a thinning pate of white hair. Shakespeare knew him, but could not place him. He wore a poor shirt and breeches beneath a farmworker’s felt hat. Shakespeare smiled at him. “Forgive me, I do not recall your name.”

  “Clarkson, Mr. Shakespeare. I was Lord Burghley’s man for many years.”

  “Yes, of course. I am sorry, Clarkson. Are you pensioned now?”

  “Not exactly, sir. Let me speak plain, though quietly, if I may. This meeting is not an accident. I am here to talk with you, privately.”

  Shakespeare frowned. “You wish to talk with me? Why not come to my house?”

  “The same reason that I am not in my livery, sir. I must not be seen with you. This is a matter of some delicacy and it is not possible to know who might be watching.”

  “You had better tell me more.”

  “Indeed, sir. Perhaps if I were to walk off eastward and you were to turn back alone up Dowgate, taking care to see if anyone dogs your footsteps, then we could meet again out of the public glare. Might we say the church of St. John in Walbrook in five or ten minutes’ time, sir? It will be cool in there and we can talk without being observed or overheard.”

  “Clarkson, you have me intrigued. I will see you there.”

  Shakespeare liked Clarkson and believed him trustworthy. As he walked slowly along Dowgate north toward Walbrook, he looked about him to see if he was followed. The streets were thronged with noisy crowds and clogged with wagons and carts that could scarce move for the poor parking of other wagons and the scaffolding on houses in the narrow lane. It would be difficult to discern the prying eyes of a stranger among this sweating mass of humanity.

  St. John’s in Walbrook was empty when he entered. But as Clarkson had predicted, it was pleasantly cool, a sanctuary on this baking-hot day. The church was sparsely furnished, with only a few three-legged stools to sit on and a table where once a great Catholic altar had stood. All the finery of Rome had been torn out and burned; the rood-screen and the confession boxes, the bones of saints and painted paneling, all long gone in a great bonfire. The stained glass had been smashed years ago by Protestants and not replaced.

  Shakespeare sat on one of the stools and waited. When he had been there a minute or two and no one else had come in, he heard a noise, like a whispered call, from a small chapel to the side and went to investigate. There was a door to the vestry. He went in and found Clarkson there.

  “I am sorry for the secrecy, sir,” he said. “But as you will discover, it is entirely necessary. I hope that neither of us has been pursued here.”

  “I am afraid I have no way of knowing, Clarkson. Now, pray, tell me what this is about.”

  Clarkson looked grave. “I am now in the employ of Lord Burghley’s son, Mr. Shakespeare. I am sure you know of him: Sir Robert Cecil, a Privy Councillor and already taking on much of the workload of the late Sir Francis Walsingham. Some say he is already Principal Secretary in all but name.”

  Cecil? Of course Shakespeare knew of him. He was probably the most influential of the younger men in Elizabeth’s government, even if he lacked the raw physical power and dash of courtiers such as Essex and Ralegh. “And what has that to do with me, Clarkson?”

  “He wishes to see you, sir. On a matter of great import to the realm, I believe, though I am not in a position to tell you what it is.”

  “And when and where am I to see him?”

  “He is at Theobalds, sir, his country home in the county of Hertford. He asks that you come straightway to him and he apologizes for the inconvenience to you.”

  Shakespeare shook his head. First Essex, now Cecil. But he had no choice. When such men summoned you, you obeyed the call. “May I return to the school first, to reorganize my lessons?”

  Clarkson shook his head. “I fear that would be too hazardous. Just follow me now. I have horses waiting.”

  I N A REMOTE HOUSE on that bleak and lawless tongue of swampland known as the Isle of Dogs-though it was no island, being surrounded on just three of its sides by the Thames-a frightened man sat, stripped to the waist, on a high-backed wooden chair. His wrists were strapped to the chair arms and he clenched his hands in fists. His upper arms and shoulders were bound tight to the back struts. He was a strong, muscular man but he could not move. He shivered uncontrollably, though the day was sweltering. Sweat poured from his thinning black-gray hair and forehead into his eyes, and piss trickled down from his breeches to a puddle on the floor.

  Slyguff stood in front of him, holding a pair of tanner’s shears-powerful iron clippers that cut through leather with ease. The man on the chair shrank into himself, terror in his wide brown eyes. He was about thirty, with the honed body of a mariner. Slyguff prized apart the clenched fingers of the man’s left hand. With practiced art, he pushed the blades of the shears over the soft, sinewy web of flesh between the thumb and forefinger. With his one working eye, he looked into the man’s eyes for some sign of cooperation, then snipped.

  The blades sliced through the flesh, splitting the two digits yet further apart. The man screamed. He would not be heard, for no honest beings came near this desolate place on the marshes, save wading birds and the feral dogs that roamed here free. Blood shot out from the man’s cut hand onto Slyguff’s apron and face. He wiped it with the sleeve of his shirt, then moved the shears to the next arc of webbing between the forefinger and the middle finger.

  “Mr. Slyguff, please, I beg you in God’s name. I do not know where Bramer is. I have not seen him these five years.”

  Snip. A deep groan of pain and terror. It was an unnatural noise, a roar of despair. Slyguff pulled back the clippers and looked into the man’s eyes again. Still he did not see what he wanted. He moved the shears back to the bloody morass of gore that was the man’s left hand, on to the next arc of webbing, the flesh between the third and fourth finger. The cry of seabirds and the distant barking of dogs and the man’s fevered breathing were all he could hear as he carried on with his morning’s work.

  In the corner of the room, a man looked on impassively, his hand on the hilt of his glittering sword of finely honed Spanish steel.

  Chapter 7

  S HAKESPEARE AND CLARKSON MANAGED THE fifteen-mile ride in under three hours. The going was hot through the clogged north London streets, but then a little cooler once out in the open countryside, where they could break into a light canter and enjoy the breeze in their faces. The heat had been oppressive over the past few days and weeks, and the fields and woods they passed were dry and crops were already failing.

  A short distance north of Waltham Cross, they turned their mounts left along a well-worn road, then slowed to a trot along the last two hundred yards through a formal avenue of elm and ash, ranged
alternately along a raised path, up to the main archway of Theobalds.

  The house was magnificent, thought by many to be the finest palace in all England. Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s most trusted minister throughout her long reign, had started building it twenty-eight years earlier, within the first year of his son Robert’s life. Since then he had spent many years and much silver improving and expanding it into a pile fit to entertain his beloved sovereign.

  After grooms took their horses away to be watered and fed, Clarkson led the way into the first of the two great courtyards around which the house was constructed. The whole palace was set within pleasure gardens so extensive and exquisite that one could walk for miles without tiring of the scene.

  Sir Robert Cecil was in the Privy Garden to the north of the house, where the heat was less intense and the plants had been watered. Shakespeare was struck at once by how small and neat and still Cecil was; an extraordinary contrast to Essex, the bustling giant of a man he had met a day earlier. He stood, almost statue-like, on the beautifully sheltered lawn, its borders bursting with flowers. The garden was enclosed on three sides by hedges of yew that towered over a man’s head, and on the fourth side by the redbrick and expansively windowed façade of Theobalds itself, a wall richly decorated with trees of fig and apricot and other exotic fruits.

  Clarkson bowed low. “Sir Robert, may I introduce Mr. John Shakespeare.”

  Cecil smiled quickly, his small mouth immediately reverting to its serious stillness. His face was thin and doleful, his head small like the rest of his body. He had a short beard and mustache, dark and severely trimmed. He was, thought Shakespeare, a man made in miniature, like one of Master Hilliard’s delicate little paintings.

  “Good-day, Mr. Shakespeare. Thank you for coming so far,” Cecil said. His clothes were dark, even on a day like this, and his left hand was gauntleted and held square and a foot or so away from his body. On it was perched a peregrine falcon with a hood of soft leather to cover its eyes.

  Shakespeare bowed. “It is an honor, Sir Robert.”

  “That will be all, Clarkson. Send a footman with wine. Now, Mr. Shakespeare, will you walk with me?”

  As Clarkson bowed again and made his way back to the house, Cecil turned and it was only then that Shakespeare noticed the hunch of his shoulder. People often spoke of him as Robin Crookback, and rarely in flattering terms. Shakespeare knew from gossip that he was reckoned by his enemies to be as quiet and venomous as a serpent. His allies, however, saw him as a straight-dealing, hard-working administrator who would not harm you as long as you were never foolish enough to cross him. Certainly, he had the trust of the Queen, just as his father, now ailing with gout, had enjoyed her confidence throughout her years of power.

  “Let us take the Mulberry Walk. To my mind, they are the finest of God’s trees. I love the sunshine but even I need some shade in this heat. And the fruit is ripe and sweet.”

  From the Privy Garden, they proceeded along a lovely avenue of mulberries, hemmed in on each side by a high wall of mellow red brick. Occasionally, Cecil plucked a rich, dark berry, alternately handing one to Shakespeare, then popping another into his own mouth. “This day I sentenced a man to die, Mr. Shakespeare. Sir John Perrot, of whom I am sure you have heard. I would have saved him, but alas, I was unable.”

  Perrot. Of course. Reputed to be the bastard son of Henry VIII, making him Elizabeth’s half-brother. He was cursed with a tongue so loose that in any other man, he would have met the headsman’s axe many years since. He had the roughness and enormous frame of his royal father, but none of his great political power or cunning. It seemed his luck had run out.

  “I am afraid he insulted his royal sister one time too many. He called her ‘a base, bastard, pissing kitchen woman.’ ” Cecil smiled grimly. “No one can say words like that about their sovereign lady and hope to survive long.”

  “Is that why you have called me here, Sir Robert?”

  “No, no, Mr. Shakespeare, by no means. I merely mention it in passing to explain my humor, in case I seem at all melancholic to you. It was not a duty that gave me pleasure.”

  “Of course.”

  With a gossamer touch of his pale, slender fingers, Cecil stroked the wing feathers of his falcon. “I believe you do not hawk, Mr. Shakespeare. It is a shame, for it is the finest of sports. To watch a peregrine in flight, then see it fall in its stoop on some unsuspecting rabbit or mouse, is a wonder of the world.”

  Shakespeare found himself involuntarily raising an inquiring eyebrow. Was he the rabbit and Cecil the falcon? He was certainly surprised that Cecil should have any knowledge about his liking for hawking or otherwise. If he knew such a detail, then what else might he know?

  “But you must be impatient to know why I have asked you here. Let me say that I know much about you. I know you have a wife, a child, and a fine school to look to. And nothing, in my estimation, should stand in the way of family and education. My father always brought me up to believe more in the encouragement of children than punishment, and it seems as though you are of a mind with us. I should like to help you. But in the meantime bear with me and hear me out. Come, sit with me beneath this tree.”

  They sat together on a wooden bench at the end of the Mulberry Walk, close to the Great Pond, where waterfowl of all kinds cooled themselves and foraged. Being seated brought the two men eye to eye for the first time, for Shakespeare was nine or ten inches taller than his host when they stood.

  “Another thing I know about you, Mr. Shakespeare, is that you went to Essex House yesterday and did meet there my lord the Earl of Essex.”

  “Indeed, Sir Robert.”

  “He had a task for you, a most curious mission to seek out one Eleanor Dare, one of the lost colonists of Roanoke. And you declined his offer because you have a school to run and also, I suspect, for other reasons more political than educational.”

  “You have an eye to men’s souls, Sir Robert.”

  “No, no, Mr. Shakespeare. There is no sorcery here. Merely careful thinking. I would feel exactly as you do, that there is little to be gained from such a mission and much to be lost. In helping one powerful man, you may cross another. But that brings me to the point of why you are here. I wish you to accept my lord of Essex’s commission.”

  So that was what all this was about. Where the strong-armed threats of Charlie McGunn had failed to persuade Shakespeare, Essex used his powerful ally on the Privy Council to intercede and order Shakespeare to do as he was bidden.

  “Please, Mr. Shakespeare, wait until I have spoken further before you pass judgment. Let me say at once that I have little interest in Roanoke or the fate of the so-called lost colonists, other than, I suppose, a mild curiosity. Nor is it my intention to twist your arm on behalf of my lord of Essex; he can do that quite well enough on his own. No, Mr. Shakespeare, I have a different task for you altogether, but in order to do it, you must say yes to the Earl, accept his gold, and do his bidding. Only then will you be able to help me and, much more important, our sovereign lady the Queen.”

  A footman arrived with a flagon of wine and poured two glasses. Shakespeare was glad of the refreshment; his head was befuddled by the heat and the extraordinary request from Cecil. Was he asking him to spy on Essex?

  “Mr. Shakespeare, it is my nature to think the best of people where I may and speak no ill of any man or woman. But in these difficult circumstances, I will speak plainly to you because I think I know you to be trustworthy. The things I am about to tell you are state secrets. You will repeat them to no one. Not even to your wife.”

  Shakespeare was not at all sure that he wished to hear any state secrets, but he merely nodded. Cecil was not going to be stopped now.

  “Mr. Shakespeare, I fear there is a plot against the Queen…” Cecil spoke the words slowly and clearly so that they should not be misunderstood. He paused to gaze a few moments at Shakespeare, as if awaiting some sort of reaction. When none was forthcoming, he continued, “… with the aim of proclai
ming Essex as King of England in her place.”

  T HE CLATTER OF HOOVES through the dusty streets was a common sound-but the progress of the great lady through the thoroughfares of London drew all eyes and stopped all commerce. She sat alone, majestic, in a new coach of gold, resplendent with a beplumed canopy. Few had ever seen its like, and all stood in wonder and awe, convinced it must be carrying the Queen herself. It was drawn by four white stallions, all proudly harnessed with feathers and shields, their forelegs trotting high and in time.

  Ahead of the carriage, on black horses, rode two outriders in white silk livery. With swords drawn and held vertical in front of them, they cleared the streets of laggardly carters and draymen.

  Eastward along Lombard Street they made their stately journey, past the church of St. Dionis and into Fen Church Street. Finally, the outriders turned right into Fylpot Lane. The chief coachman, realizing the carriage would never fit into such a narrow street, crowded as it was with untended wagons between corbeled houses, tugged at the long reins and pulled the four white steeds to a stamping, noisy halt.

  The man beside the coachman got down from his perch and opened the carriage door, bowing low with a sweep of his cape. He was a strong-muscled man of African features, with black skin that matched his employer’s eyes. “I fear we can go no further to Dr. Forman’s house, my lady,” he said.

  She raised the tip of her beautiful nose and smiled distantly, as she had been taught always to smile at those of lower rank. “Well, I shall have to walk, then, Henry. If it is not too far.”

  With the assistance of her servant, who held his head high and proud, she stepped down from her carriage and looked about her. They were in the beating heart of London, the merchants’ quarter whence all wealth emanated, yet to her it all seemed small and dirty and constrained, so used was she to the palaces of the aristocracy, especially her own great homes of Wanstead, Essex House, Leighs, and Chartley in Staffordshire.