The Spy of Venice

by Benet Brandreth

  John Shakespeare continued to speak over William’s attempt to protest.

  ‘You think Sir Thomas will trouble himself that the evidence of malefaction does not sit in his hand? He will reach out and grab what he needs and damn all those caught in his grasp.’

  ‘You overplay this, Father,’ said William.

  ‘It is not I that has overplayed my hand, William. And with what stakes. That is the worst of it.’ The anger in his voice faded and he placed his head in his hands. ‘Selfish child. You brought the enmity of powerful men upon our family for some sordid tumble with a lovestruck girl.’

  William saw that his father was crying. He looked away. He could not remember when he had seen that last.

  ‘I had such high hopes,’ John said. ‘Yet you take your God-given talents and squander them on petty revenges.’

  ‘Father.’

  ‘Did you not think of your wife? Of her shame if the town comes to hear how you treat your vows? Of your mother’s anger at your weakness of will? Of what follows for the girl?’

  William was silent. He had not thought of these things. He had thought only of the cleverness of his vengeance and his excitement at the chase.

  ‘Sir Thomas is bound to seize on this,’ John Shakespeare said.

  ‘Why? Why should he do so?’ asked William.

  ‘God’s sake, William,’ his father answered. ‘Enough with your endless whys. What does it matter why? It is enough to know he will.’

  ‘If we knew his reasons we might work on them.’

  ‘Enough.’

  ‘Think, Father.’

  ‘Get out,’ John demanded.

  ‘Sir, please.’

  ‘Get out,’ repeated his father. ‘Think? I can think of only one remedy. You must leave Stratford.’

  ‘No,’ said William.

  ‘You will have to,’ his father said. ‘To stay here will only bring the malice of Hunt upon you and your family.’

  ‘How can I?’

  ‘How can you not?’ said John Shakespeare. ‘Didn’t you think of this? You who always seem to have everything so well planned. Go. Get out.’

  But it was not William that left the shop. His father stirred himself and, in his distraction forgetting his gloves, exited, the door closing on a muttered wish: ‘I must go and see what may be done.’

  Rich gifts wax poor

  All that day William waited for retribution to fall upon him. When evening came and the sword had not yet fallen, he breathed again.

  The thoughts that haunted him that long day were not of Hunt’s revenge or that of his master, Sir Thomas Lucy. He dwelt upon the prospect of duty and where it would lead him.

  William’s foot had scarcely crossed the threshold when his wife spoke.

  ‘I feared your idleness this week, between revels with the players when they’re here and recovery from those revels when they are gone,’ said Anne, ‘but I see virtuous explanation for our empty bed. You have been busy.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ William cast about to see if his mother or father were in the kitchen too. He could not see them. Instead his wife stood there smiling at him.

  William shook his head as if to clear it. Anne could not be smiling at his adventures of the night before. Sure, she could not know of them yet for one thing. He hoped she never would. He and Anne understood each other well enough but it would not do to flaunt that understanding in the other’s face.

  Seeing his bewilderment his wife let out an exasperated sigh. ‘The venison, fool,’ she said.

  Confusion turned to coldness.

  ‘What venison?’ William asked.

  ‘Why, the whole beast that hangs in the cellar,’ his wife replied. ‘A fair piece of meat. We’ll dine well on that for a while yet.’

  William shot from the room and down to the cellar. There the deer hung, substantial. It was fine and very fresh. He stamped slowly up the stairs and back to his wife.

  ‘I’ll not ask how you came by it,’ Anne said. ‘Was it to be a surprise? If it hadn’t been for our daughter playing the little fool and trying to hide in the cellar I’d never have found it for a week.’

  William stood, tapping his fingernails against his teeth while his wife spoke.

  ‘I did not kill it,’ he said.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t your father, now, was it,’ said Anne laughing.

  ‘No.’

  Seeing his pale face Anne went quiet. William’s mind raced. So, this was how it would be done. How Hunt’s men had sneaked it into the cellar was a display of skill frightening in itself. A whole deer; no minor play at poaching this. Hunt would see him whipped for it without question, or worse. Caught with the bloody evidence curing in his own cellar. It showed at once both more imagination on Hunt’s part and less. He had thought the blow would fall more obliquely. He had counted on it. This was swifter action than his plans contemplated.

  ‘Anne, I must go.’

  ‘What? Wait . . .’

  ‘This deer is not a gift,’ said William. ‘Well, a Greek gift, maybe.’

  ‘For God’s sake, William, leave your riddles alone for once,’ Anne said. ‘Tell me what is going on.’

  ‘I have offended.’ William was moving through the house. He found his children asleep in the bedroom and kissed each one gently, so as not to wake them.

  ‘William, what is going on?’ Anne hissed in his ear as he rummaged through the trunk at the end of the bed to find a shirt and clean hose.

  ‘Too long to explain, Wife.’

  He turned and took her by the arm back into the kitchen.

  ‘You’re right.’ He hugged her waist. ‘As always. I am becoming a wastrel.’

  ‘Oh Lord, William. What is this fancy now?’ said Anne.

  ‘I am going to London,’ William replied.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I have done a foolish thing.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first occasion.’

  ‘True, Anne, true. This time my foolishness threatens consequences for those I care for.’

  ‘What is it, Will?’

  ‘My father and mother will see that you and the children are looked after,’ he said, ‘till I can write from London and send money.’

  He kissed her brow.

  ‘I am sorry for my faults,’ he said.

  ‘From London?’ said Anne, struggling to keep pace. ‘How long will you be gone?’

  William did not answer. He had disappeared once more into the cellar. He emerged, staggering under the weight of the deer. He quietly praised his daughter Susanna for an unruly child. She had something of his spirit in her. She’d scarce sit still for a moment, nor would she be ruled by the wisdom of her elders. Yet, had she not played where she should not, he would never have found time to act before Hunt’s vengeance fell.

  ‘London, Will?’ Anne demanded.

  ‘London, yes. I must hurry.’

  William twisted to steer the burden across his shoulders past the frame of the door. Outside his home of twenty years he turned again, reached out and pulled the door gently closed behind him. His hand stayed on the door for a moment before he turned once more and set off.

  Anne was still standing in the kitchen open-mouthed when William’s father pushed through the front door a few moments after his son had departed out the back.

  ‘Anne, where is William?’ said John Shakespeare, ‘I have news.’

  ‘Gone out,’ Anne answered.

  ‘I think you’ll be pleased with my news also.’ John bustled about removing his coat. ‘I have obtained for William a job, as a teacher, in Lancashire. The pay is good and the family well connected. It is best, I think, that he be absent from Stratford for a while. I will not dwell on the circumstances of his leaving.’

  He took up Anne’s hand and stared at it as he spoke. ‘It will be no hardship for him, nor I think for you and the children that he be gone. I know that you suspect, as I do, that he chafes at the ties that bind him to our little town. It has made him un
ruly. We shall have some peace with him gone a little while, and he will return to us a steadier man. Did he say when he would be back?’

  John looked up. Anne saw his face was wet with tears.

  ‘Oh John, John,’ she said. ‘Don’t fret. Please. An absence will only remind him of the comfort of home.’

  He reached out and patted her hand. ‘You are a good woman.’

  Anne smiled at her father-in-law and thought of the quiet days to come.

  ‘Poor deer,’ quoth he, ‘thou makest a testament’

  William dropped the deer in fright at the sound of his name. His mother stepped out of the darkness into the small yard at the rear of the house.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  William did not think of lying. ‘London.’

  ‘Oh, William,’ Mary said. ‘The sight of you, that should fill me with joy . . . Now your father tells me . . .’ Her voice was cold iron. ‘What have you done? Thoughtless, thoughtless even as you use your cunning to weave your plots, thoughtless.’

  ‘Mother –’ William said.

  ‘So you have wrought matters that you must go to London.’

  ‘Wrought –’ William began.

  ‘Peace, oh, peace.’ She shook her head at him. ‘To London? Where will your wife go? Or that headstrong Hunt girl? They stay, to face the slights and edged stares of the town.’

  ‘I didn’t think –’

  ‘No. No,’ his mother said, ‘you did not. Think now.’

  ‘I shall make all good,’ William promised. ‘I wouldn’t harm Anne, or the babes, or the girl. Not for all the world.’

  ‘How?’ demanded Mary. ‘How will you make all good? The time to think of this was earlier. Now, I fear, is too late for such repentance.’

  William stood in shame, his mind empty of all but the sadness in his mother’s face.

  ‘William,’ Mary stroked his cheek, ‘your father has often lamented to me that you might have made something of yourself in the glove trade if you were not distracted.’

  She pulled him close.

  ‘I lament that you might be something more, much more, in this world. You have a talent. Spend it wisely. The world does not remember those that might have made something of themselves. Only those that did. Go to London. You are not happy here; it doesn’t take one of your wit to see that. I pray that you will find good fortune there and return to us.’

  She pinched him.

  ‘But be kind, William. Do not spend all your thought on proving yourself clever if that cleverness cuts. A sharp tongue has two edges. Be careful too, William. Choose your friends in London with a care. Trust your own judgment first and do not give yourself over to care of the judgment of others. A mother speaks; a mother knows. And do not borrow money. That has been your father’s undoing. Nor lend it neither should you get any.’

  She drew a great breath and clasped him close.

  ‘Go, go,’ she said. ‘Leave the deer here. Your father will deal with it.’

  William held his mother’s hands. For once he grasped for words but could not find any. He stooped and picked up the deer again.

  ‘I shall write from London,’ he said, then turned to face his mother squarely. ‘And I shall take the deer. I need it if I am to make good the harm I have done. You will see, it is not too late.’

  He was rewarded with a sad smile.

  William walked through the darkness.

  It had come to him as his mother spoke. The deer was an opportunity. Stratford looked for proof of William’s malefaction. Here it was. Yet in proof of this crime it disproved the rumour of another, the shame of which would not fall on William alone. Let my poaching stand confessed by this deer’s body, he thought. Let its death disguise another smaller, sweeter death to which no sin should be attached but that men must preach against what they fain would do.

  His mother’s hurt was before his eyes, her words in his ears still. He had erred in thinking only of his own pleasures and revenges. Let him take the burden of that error on himself. He would spare his wife and Alice Hunt the vicious talk of idle tongues by confession of another sin. He reached his destination and bent down.

  William lifted himself from where he had deposited his burden. Through the trees ahead the growing light of a new day revealed Charlecote, the manor-house of Sir Thomas Lucy, hard by. The scene of William’s recent adventures. Figures began to emerge from within as the day’s work began. He waited till he was seen and known. Then, as if caught where he wished he were not, he ran. Leaving the deer behind.

  The path of his travel now successfully aligned with his duty. He went to London with a light heart.

  Interlude

  Rome, March 1585, the Villa Montalto

  I would think thee a most princely hypocrite

  ‘He’s ill. Like to be dead soon. When he is gone I shall be Pope.’

  The Cardinal Montalto sat at the head of a long table. It was made of white marble with legs of porphyry stone, the top of each carved to resemble the head of a lion. Its heavy ornamentation was of a piece with the oppressive decoration of the chamber.

  The Cardinal himself was gorgeous in his robes, with a tidy white beard combed into two columns and eyes like little black stones glittering above his drooping nose. The little man seemed to disappear within the cushions and carvings of his throne.

  At the other end of the long table from the Cardinal sat a tall man dressed in costly raiment, all of black. Giovanni Prospero, Count of Genoa.

  ‘Your Grace speaks with such confidence,’ said Prospero, ‘a vision from God, perhaps?’

  ‘Better. Discussions with my brother cardinals.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And watch your mouth, Giovanni,’ the Cardinal said. ‘It does not become you to mock visions of the Holy Spirit.’

  ‘Your Grace reproves me to my betterment,’ Prospero said.

  The Cardinal Montalto ignored the comment. The count was a great provoker and it did not do to notice his little cuts lest he try to worry at them.

  ‘I chafe, Giovanni,’ he said.

  ‘It is unseasonably hot, Your Grace, and your robes of office are perhaps a little heavy for the weather.’

  Despite the heat and his dark clothing Prospero did not seem discomforted or even to sweat. A thin scar pulled one eyebrow into a permanent arch of mocking inquiry. As he spoke he used a small knife to peel and slice a fig.

  ‘You’re in one of your moods, I see,’ the Cardinal sighed. ‘How trying. It is not my body that chafes, Giovanni. It is my mind. It rubs against the walls of this villa in which I find myself confined. Soon I shall be free and then I shall act.’

  ‘The old Pope need only die for this to be so?’ asked Prospero.

  ‘Indeed,’ said the Cardinal.

  ‘I shall pray for it,’ said the Count.

  The Cardinal slapped his hand on the table. ‘Enough.’

  Prospero paused with a sliver of fig lifted halfway to his thin lips and then popped it in his mouth. The Cardinal’s face had grown red to match his robes.

  ‘I have not called you here, my son,’ said Cardinal Montalto, ‘to have you blaspheme before me. Ugo –’ He paused at his use of the name the Pope had been given at birth. ‘His Holiness, Pope Gregory,’ he corrected himself, lips puckering as they forced the unwelcome title out, ‘and I have had our differences, but one does not pray for the death of the Holy Father.’

  The Count of Genoa inclined his head in acknowledgement.

  ‘At least, not out loud,’ the Cardinal continued.

  He pushed himself from his seat and walked to the long wall on one side of the room on which was painted the martyrdom of St Sebastian. The Cardinal gazed up at it.

  ‘You have been of service to me in the past, my son, and will be again when I am Pope,’ he said.

  The Cardinal looked at Prospero.

  ‘The Papacy of Gregory was devoted to the stick of correction. The excommunication of Elizabeth of England, the destruction of th
e Huguenots, from his passion for correction not even the calendar was safe but it must be beaten into shape. That is all very well but all stick and no stroking is a poor way to train a horse.’

  ‘Or a whore,’ suggested Prospero.

  The Cardinal’s mouth wrinkled with distaste at the dark man’s interruption. ‘I bow to your experience in such matters.’

  He paused to look back at the painting. ‘When I am Pope I shall rebuild Rome, starting with this villa. The glory of God will be visible to all. The heretics will not so much fear to defy us, as Gregory would have it, as long to be with us in that glory I offer them.’

  ‘Your Grace is wise,’ said Prospero, ‘although, as I recall it, Your Grace has not shied from wielding the stick. Were you not inquisitor in Venice? Did the Signoria of that state not ask that you be recalled because of your harshness?’

  ‘Nonsense. Politics, all politics.’

  Prospero relished the sight of the Cardinal’s colour rising again. The Cardinal was so easily provoked to anger. A weakness that Prospero had noted early. Only cattle and fools allow themselves to be goaded.

  ‘However,’ the Cardinal continued, ‘your mention of Venice is to the point. I have a task for you. Two tasks.’

  He returned to his seat and settled himself within it. At the other end of the table Prospero sat up.

  ‘Venice,’ the Cardinal said. ‘You and I, Giovanni, we have both had experience of that troublesome republic. It sits like a leech on St Peter’s crown sucking blood from our better endeavours. Rich enough to resist both the rod of Gregory and the glory I intend to offer. That cherished independence is not something that I can permit to continue untouched when I am Pope. There is too much at stake if we are to crush the Turk and return the Church to its proper state.’

  Prospero smiled to himself. The Cardinal’s sneering nose had wrinkled with ambitions that Prospero considered as foolish as a child’s fancies. Crush the Turk? With what arms? The princes of Christendom were too busy fighting each other to trouble the Ottomans. Not that Prospero cared; turbulent times suited him both in temperament and opportunity.