Revenger

by Rory Clements

  Shakespeare frowned. “Is it truly her? How did she get here?”

  “I brought her. It was not safe in London. McGunn wants her dead. I had a shooting match with him, master, and we did ride away in great haste.” Boltfoot proceeded to fill in the details: the shooting of the groom, Perkin Sidesman; the intention to do for Eleanor; the killing of Davy Kerk. “McGunn did for him like an English trooper might, Mr. Shakespeare. Hewed him and punched him with a short sword. And he meant to string up the woman.”

  Hew and punch. Those words again. Shakespeare shuddered. “Where is she now?”

  “Out walking with Mistress Shakespeare and her mother, master.”

  Shakespeare’s blood was running cold in his veins. “Boltfoot, how long have you been here in Masham?”

  “Over a day and a half, master. It was a long journey, could have taken a week over it, but we made good speed-got here in time for the birth, thank the Lord.” His weather-beaten face crinkled into a smile of affection.

  So it had not been Boltfoot who had asked the bar-wench for directions earlier this day. “Boltfoot,” Shakespeare said, his tone grim, “McGunn is here. Where did you say Catherine and the women have gone?”

  Boltfoot was already putting away his pipe and rising to his feet as Shakespeare spoke. “Sidesman must have told him.”

  C HARLIE MCGUNN walked his bay gelding to the livery stable behind the square. The horse was lame. The ostler shook his head and told McGunn the stables were full.

  “Don’t worry. He’s yours. Look after him well, for he’s a fine horse and will repay you well if you can mend him. Here, there’s half a crown to help you along.”

  The young ostler took the coin and unsaddled the horse. It was not every day a man brought money and a free gelding.

  “Thank you, master.”

  McGunn patted the horse farewell. “But I’ll be needing another one, a fresh horse, your fleetest and strongest. I will pay you four sovereigns in gold.”

  “Indeed, I have just the fellow. A black stallion, fast but gentle. Very sound.”

  “Good. Saddle him up for me and I’ll collect him within the hour. Just do what you’re told and you’ll be a richer man by the time I leave.”

  McGunn smiled at the lad, who had clearly never been offered so much money in his life and would be wondering who this brutish-looking man might be. A man with a foreign voice and an assortment of deadly armaments adorning his body: two decorated pistols thrust into his belt, a jewel-hilted Spanish sword-given him by King Philip of Spain-daggers, rope slung around his shoulder. The boy reminded McGunn of Joe. He handed him another half crown. “Find a girl and spend that on her-and I vouch she’ll let you have your way with her out in the fields where the clover grows. Good luck to you, lad.”

  He had taken his time riding here. There had been no hurry, never had been. Twelve years now, but it could go on another twelve years and twelve beyond that. As he walked away from the stables, he ran his fingers down the strong hempen rope. Strong enough to take a woman’s dead weight. He knew the limping cooper had brought the Roanoke woman here. He would take her out into a barn or some woods to string her up. Blood. There had to be more blood. The world would have to drown in blood to assuage his thirst.

  The only hurdle was the crippled cooper. Shakespeare was dead, snuffed out by Slyguff, along with the little rope job he was doing down there at Sudeley, a wedding gift for Essex- his man Essex. The way things were going, he, Charlie McGunn, would soon have this whole pissing country in his purse. He laughed to himself; he didn’t even want the stinking place.

  The church bells rang six of the clock. It would be darkening soon. Just time to gather the others to refresh themselves with some food. The old farmhouse on the Jervaulx road was already watched. Tonight they would make their move.

  Chapter 41

  S HAKESPEARE STOOD AT THE BACK DOOR TO THE farmhouse, looking out across the lush fields. He understood why Boltfoot had thought to bring the woman here, yet he was angry that he had brought McGunn after them and endangered their families.

  In the distance, he could see the three women walking his way, carrying baskets laden with berries. In the center was Catherine. He shivered at the sight of her, the most beautiful woman ever made by God. He watched her walking slowly through the long damp grass as in a dream.

  On her right was the woman he took to be her mother. Smaller, her hair graying, but unmistakably her mother, Mary, for whom their own child was named.

  And the fair, pretty woman on the left, was that really Eleanor Dare, one of the lost settlers of Roanoke? What strange story would this woman have to tell?

  At the back of the house there was a vegetable garden with a chicken run, a pig shed, three beehives, and a little area of lawn. Beyond it, to the left of an orchard, heavy with red apples, there was a low stone wall with a gate, a little over fifty yards from the house. As the three women came through the gate, Catherine saw him for the first time.

  Her pace quickened. She moved away from the other women, walking toward him. He had thought of this moment so often during the long saddle-sore hours, wondering how she would receive him.

  She took his hands in hers and smiled. For a few moments, they looked into each other’s eyes. At last she spoke, laughter in her beautiful voice. “I can’t get away from you, can I, Mr. Shakespeare? You follow me to the ends of the earth.”

  He tried to laugh, too. “I thought to do some business here, Mistress Shakespeare. As a wool factor, perchance, if I can find a sheep or two.”

  “There are none in these parts, sir.”

  “More than enough shepherds, though-and most of them being fleeced in the inns and ordinaries.”

  “Will you bleat nonsense all day long, sir, or will you kiss your wife?”

  He kissed her. Though they were observed, he kissed her lips and her mouth long and deep. He closed his eyes and wished fervently that the world and everyone in it would simply vanish for an hour or two, so that he might raise her skirts, here and now in this commonplace yard, and enter her.

  He pulled back from her and gazed upon her face. It was wet with salt tears. Were they hers or his? It did not matter. What mattered now was that they were in grave danger, all of them. McGunn was here-and it was not likely he would be alone.

  “It is good to see you, John. We have missed you greatly.”

  “We have been absent from each other too long. But I bring grim tidings.” He turned toward the women accompanying her. “Mistress Dare”-he bowed-“you and Mr. Boltfoot Cooper have been followed. I have information that the man who would kill you is in the town.”

  Eleanor Dare’s face was drained of color and expression. Her eyes darted, as though looking for the bolt or arrow or ball that would cut her down. “Then I have to get away,” was all she said.

  “I agree.” He turned now to Catherine’s mother. “Mistress Marvell”-he bowed again-“can you think of any place where we might safely go? The killer knows of this house.”

  C ATHERINE’S PARENTS would not leave their home, but everyone else in the house had to go. They traveled in separate directions in the late evening light. The three children went with Jane and the baby to the home of the constable, a friend of long standing, who had two strong lads. Jane would ask the constable to go to the town elders to see what could be done to raise an armed force to take on McGunn and his men. It occurred to Shakespeare, though, that a small, remote town like Masham would be unlikely to have anyone who could deal with a heavily armed mercenary such as McGunn.

  The others-Shakespeare, Boltfoot, Catherine, and Eleanor Dare-saddled up and rode along the Jervaulx road. The roads were full of livestock, farmworkers, and horsemen, some bound for the sheep fair, others heading home.

  Shakespeare had not wanted his wife to ride with them. “The children need you,” he had said, but she refused.

  “How will you know where you are going without me?”

  He had shrugged his shoulders. She was, of course, righ
t.

  Along the way, he told Boltfoot of Jack Butler’s fate.

  “The hew and punch,” said Boltfoot, shaking his head. “I have seen it done before by trained men in battle.”

  “But McGunn is not an English man-at-arms.”

  Boltfoot rode on in silence for a few hundred yards before speaking. “I have also heard of it used as a method of dispatch under other circumstances: summary execution of captive enemies not worth ransoming. It is bloody, but effective and quick.”

  By the time they neared their destination, three or four miles distant, scarcely a soul was on the road. The last of the gray daylight was turning to black.

  Catherine slowed to a halt and her husband reined in sharply. The skeletal remains of the old abbey stood gaunt against the darkening northern sky. The rain was coming again and the wind was blowing up. God, but this was a bleak place. At their coming, a band of vagabonds scuttled away into the night like a family of squat rats. Shakespeare paid them no heed.

  Catherine indicated somewhere in the dark fields and woods beyond the ruins of the abbey. “Just yonder, on the edge of the river. The shepherd’s cottage. It has been used by our cousins for many years. No one will disturb us there and he will never find us. We can make other plans on the morrow.”

  Shakespeare kicked on slowly. They were away from the road now and it was almost impossible to see their way, for though they had pitch torches, it would be too dangerous to light them. All they could do was walk their horses as cautiously as possible in the moonlight, which gave a thin glow to the clouds; any sudden inclines or potholes could cause them to stumble. The scattered abbey stones, those that had not been stolen away after the dissolution, were the greatest hazard.

  Catherine rode up beside her husband, picking her way between the ruins. “It is all vanity and power, my husband, here in these stones.”

  Shakespeare breathed deeply but said nothing.

  “This place was dedicated to the Virgin, the mother of God’s only begotten son, but it was destroyed by a devil masquerading as a man, a devil who thought nothing of relieving his own wives of their heads and who tore down God’s houses as if they were children’s castles of mud.”

  “I understand your feelings, Catherine. And I am truly sorry for all that came between us these past days.”

  “I know, John. I am sorry, too.”

  The house was pitch-dark. Catherine dismounted first and walked to the door. It was unlocked and she pushed it open, hesitating a moment before stepping inside. She had spent happy summers here in her childhood. She and her cousins had played in these fields and in the ruins of the abbey, splashing in the river, climbing the perilous walls, and hiding in old hearths among the weeds and undergrowth that ran riot through the ancient stones where once Cistercian monks had spent their lives in worship and work.

  Boltfoot was close behind her, lighting one of the pitch torches they had brought with them. He looked around. It was cold, damp, and empty, a two-room house with bare stone walls and no hiding places. Each room had a single window, but neither of them had glass, so they were exposed to the wind and rain; all the building provided was a roof over their heads.

  They had loaded their pack-saddles with meats, cheese, bread, ale, water, and blankets. Soon they had a fire going in one of the rooms and ate their fill in silence, wondering where they might seek a more permanent shelter on the morrow. Outside, the wind hammered against the door. The torch and candles inside guttered in the draft and threw strange shadows across the walls.

  Shakespeare stood up. “We are sitting here like targets. Boltfoot.”

  Boltfoot nodded his head and growled. He knew what to do. He rose, unslung his caliver, took the dry powder horn from beneath his hide jerkin, and handed it and the firearm to Shakespeare. Then he thrust his cutlass into his belt and stepped out into the squally darkness.

  The rain and wind blew in at the opening of the door, extinguishing the candles. The torch stayed alight.

  At last Shakespeare turned to Eleanor Dare. “This is a most curious way to meet, mistress,” he said. “I must confess that when my lord of Essex asked me to find you, I had never thought that this day would come.”

  “Thank you for helping me.”

  “I confess, too, that I was not happy when I discovered you were here, for it seemed you had brought evil with you. Men are dying because of this curious quest to find you.”

  Catherine put an arm around the woman. “Do not be hard, John. Eleanor has told me a little of what she knows. There is a story within her that burns her like a fever. Perhaps she will tell it, while we sit and wait for morning…”

  “As you wish. Tell it as best you may and I will listen.”

  Chapter 42

  H ER VOICE WAS QUIET, SCARCE MORE THAN A WHISPER. “We were on this shore,” she said. “Watching the boats depart, waving God speed.”

  That had been her last sight of her father. “Tears streamed down my cheeks. Ananias, my husband, was at my side. I held Virginia tight to my breast, where she was suckling. I pointed at my father as he grew ever more distant. ‘There is your grandfather,’ I whispered to her. ‘He will return to us soon.’ ”

  It had been a forlorn hope, for the darkness of war hung over England and no English ships would reach Roanoke again until three years later. And so they had to make the best of their new homeland. She described the island in disparaging terms, with loathing, even. Yes, she said, it was sheltered and wooded, but it had little in the way of food for foraging or hunting and they had arrived too late for planting.

  Worse than that, though, was the feeling that it was somehow haunted, that eyes watched them wherever they went, that they were not welcome and never would be. And their fear was not mere imagination, for most of the native Indian tribes in the area had come to loathe the settlers from across the sea. There had been clashes. A local chieftain had been killed. The danger of reprisals was always present-and the Indians could no longer be relied on to help when the colonists were short of food.

  “Our home was a small wood-built cottage with wattle-and-daub panels,” Eleanor said. “The first colonists had put it up and it was serviceable, though it was ill-equipped for the winters, when the wind rattled through the gaping holes and thatch. We were outside the main fort, but nearby in case of attack. We all wished, though, that the houses had been within the palisade, for we would have slept more soundly.”

  That late summer and autumn of 1587, after the ships had gone, the settlers began to realize that it was going to be bad. If the men went fishing or deer hunting, they had to go in numbers, with arms, for fear that the savages would pick them off. Just going to the midden, away from the palisade, filled them with terrors.

  One of the assistant governors, George Howe, had been murdered even before John White left with the ships. Eleanor reeled off the names of others who soon fell victim. “Thomas Stevens was the next, filled with arrows and his eyes taken. Then Agnes Wood and Jane Jones vanished together one day while foraging for nuts. They were never found, neither dead nor alive.”

  Eleanor Dare paused, her eyes closed as if remembering something, a face of a long-dead friend, perhaps. Catherine Shakespeare reached out and took her hand. “What had made you go there, Mistress Dare?”

  Eleanor sighed. Outside the stone cottage, the wind gusted and the rain beat down. “I never did want to be on that heathen shore, but Ananias was full of zeal. ‘We’ll be able to worship free, Ellie,’ he would say, ‘as God intended for us. We will never be free in England.’ Ralegh had promised us five hundred acres of virgin land. My father and the others-Harriot, Hakluyt, Sir Walter, and the corporation-they said it was a land of untold riches. The men believed every word, but not me. My mother, God rest her soul, did always call me Doubting Ellie, for my suspicions; whenever others cheered, I always held my counsel.”

  She spoke then of the long journey there, when she was already with child, and how she had become increasingly wary. The voyage had been full of sic
kness. Two and a half months long, from early May through the summer, “in weather so hot the ship’s bilges threw up a stink, like the bowels of hell.” The mariners did not like them and gave them the worst of the food-salt pork with maggots, biscuit that had turned blue-gray with mold. But Eleanor, at least, found some kindness. Perhaps it was her prettiness or the fact that her belly was swelling with each passing day, but one of the crewmen had looked out for her, bringing her the best of the meats and butter, cheese and ale. He made certain that she was as comfortable as could be, despite the sour looks of Ananias, who did not like the attentions the man paid his wife. “I am sorry if Ananias was unhappy, but in truth I doubt I would have seen my baby to term without that man’s help.”

  Eleanor shivered and folded her arms about her chest. She paused, summoning up the memories so long suppressed. The first winter had been terrible, she said. They had been told it would be warm and mild all year round, being so far south, but that was not how it was. Winter there was more bitter than any they had encountered in England. The wind cut in from the sea like a knife forged from ice and steel.

  Ananias, her husband, was killed on Christmas morning. He had gone out from the palisade alone to check on the traps and bring in some firewood. When he did not return by noon, some of the men went out after him, but all knew there was no hope. They found him stretched out on the ground, tied by his ankles and wrists to four stakes. A fifth stake had been driven through his belly and he had been left there to die. He must have screamed in pain, but they did not hear him. Or if they did, they took it for the howling of the wind. The men went out to avenge him, but that brought no comfort.

  The rift was so deep then that none of the tribes would trade with them, not even those that had held back from open hostility. When the settlers approached their villages, the Indians fled for the woods.

  “Thomas Topan was next to die, then Mark Bennett. Horribly murdered and mutilated, both of them. There was sickness, too, and by spring a half dozen were gone with the bloody flux, including Margery Harvey’s baby, who had been born soon after my Virginia. Our only hope then was that my father would return with supplies. But the summer came and went and there was no sign of him.”