‘Something to do with the Marlowe killing and inquest?’
It was well after midnight and his blood was still pumping hard. ‘Yes. But what? At the inquest Topcliffe seemed to suggest he was in agreement with me — that Marlowe had been murdered and that the jury had reached the wrong verdict.’
‘Did he not also make it plain that he thought Marlowe was right to abuse and intimidate the refugees? If so, then that accords with what happened this night. It was said Marlowe did not like refugees. Now Topcliffe has shown himself of similar mind. And so he uses the Return of Strangers and information from a hateful servant to seek out one he thought he could harass. It is his way, John. It has always been his way. Catholics, foreigners, gypsies, all are vermin in Topcliffe’s twisted mind.’
‘True.’ Shakespeare’s deep, hooded eyes shone in the warm light of the single candle on the table between them. ‘But there is something else here. He knew this was my neighbour. This was for my benefit. He targeted Sluyterman because he spotted on the Return that he lived next door to us. But why, Catherine? What game is Topcliffe playing with me?’
In the morning, shortly after dawn, Shakespeare slapped the flank of Boltfoot’s horse and bade him farewell. He watched for a few moments as his assistant rode off at a trot towards the bridge on the first part of the journey to the powdermills. A little later, Shakespeare went back indoors and joined Catherine and the children for a breakfast of bread, eggs, cheese and ale, all served by Jane Cooper. The Dutch girl, Susanna, stayed in Mary’s room and Jane took her some food and drink. Shakespeare had ordered that she be kept out of sight. The servant Oliver Kettle would be waiting for her return to the Sluyterman household; if she came back, he would hasten to Westminster to inform Topcliffe again. Nor would it surprise Shakespeare if Topcliffe had another watcher in Dowgate keeping an eye on both their houses.
At eight of the clock, Shakespeare eased himself into the saddle of his grey mare in the mews stables and headed north and west through the narrow, hurried streets of the city.
He found Nicholas Henbird in a fine house on St Nicholas Shambles, not more than fifty yards from the enormous ancient priory of Christ’s Church.
Henbird’s house stood a little way beyond Stinking Lane. It was one of a number of fair wood-frames built around a pleasant central court with a well. A clerk opened the door and Shakespeare was soon shown through to Henbird’s splendid solar, now filled with the morning sun. The cool, bright aspect lightened Shakespeare’s spirits. He gazed upon Henbird’s girth with wonder and smiled. He had changed a lot since winning the coveted post of Royal Purveyor of Poultry, a good reward for his secret work on behalf of Walsingham over many years. Shakespeare shook his old colleague by the hand. He guessed Henbird must be about fifty. He certainly looked it. He had gained the portly belly and rosy round face that so often came with the fine living of ermine-clad merchants. Yet Shakespeare was not deceived. Those kindly pink cheeks and convivial manner lied; the well-fed body housed a cold heart and dagger-sharp mind.
‘Nick, I had not thought to see you so prosperous.’
Henbird’s face broke into a satisfied beam, like a churchman at the thought of a Sunday sirloin and a quart of beer. ‘The court cannot get enough poultry, John. Swan, geese, chickens, duck. My clerks do it all and the money comes in faster than I can spend it on buxom whores, fine foods and sweet wines. Look at this wondrous belly!’ He patted his middle with pleasure. ‘Has not Mr Secretary done me well? My clerks buy from the shires and arrange the sales and the neck-wringing. All I have to do is pluck the money. Why, the clerks even count my silver for me. Are you acquainted with turkey-cock? I shall arrange one to be killed and roasted for your supper tonight. A succulent white-fleshed bird — I hope you will agree it flavoursome.’
‘Thank you, Nick. But I have come for something else.’
‘You do not surprise me. I would have wagered a month of my warrant on it. So, John, let us talk of secrets. I have heard whispered gossip that you are engaged in that dark and bloody world once more. For little Robert Cecil, I do believe.’
Shakespeare took a seat at Henbird’s intricately carved table. ‘I do indeed work for Sir Robert, a man who has the best interests of his sovereign and his country at heart. Unlike some at court,’ he added wryly.
Henbird laughed and his belly shook like a subtlety of milk jelly. ‘Yes, there are those whose own interests do not always coincide with those of Her Most Royal Majesty.’ He rubbed his ear. ‘Did I not hear in the past year that you had fallen foul of my lord of Essex? A most grievous falling out, I am told.’
Shakespeare said nothing. It seemed that Henbird’s ears were as close to the ground as ever, and his hearing as acute. The memory of the conflict with Essex was not one Shakespeare relished, but nor could he regret discovering the sly and treacherous heart of the Queen’s favourite. One day, he and Cecil would doubtless need such information. In the meantime, he would never be a welcome guest at Essex House again. Nor would he wish to be. He had chosen the path of peace, tied to Cecil’s star; let those who wished war join the Essex camp.
‘Come now, John. Do not deny it.’
‘I am not here for such talk, Nick. But I am glad that you have not lost your talent for discovering men’s secrets, for I would make use of it.’
Henbird clapped his hands and a livery-clad serving man hurried in and bowed low. ‘What will you have, John, honest English ale or good Burgundian wine?’
‘Ale.’
Henbird nodded to the servant. ‘A pitcher of ale. And make haste, man, before we die of thirst. Now, John…’
Shakespeare waited until the servant had closed the door behind him, then spoke. ‘I want to find Glebe. Walstan Glebe. I recall you made use of him from time to time. Is there a way to seek him out?’
Henbird’s eyes widened. He was enjoying this. ‘Walstan Glebe? Have you looked in limbo or the pit? That’s where I would put him and let him rot like kitchen waste. I would happily cut away his ears and nose to make him prettier. And I would sever his hands at the wrist to make my purse feel safer.’
‘So you don’t know where he is?’
Henbird put up a hand. ‘Now, I didn’t say that, John. I didn’t say that at all. Permit me to guess: could this be something to do with the late issue of his Informer, in which he signs himself Tamburlaine’s Disciple?’
‘ Apostle.’
‘I begin to understand. A most sensitive subject, I am sure. Not one that Sir Robert or the court would care to dwell on for too long. They will want you to solve this and have the powdermen strung up in short order, John. They need the coin from these Dutch goldsmiths and wool merchants to fill the war coffer. Can’t be upsetting the refugees and scaring them back to the Low Countries with their gold and silver.’
‘And Glebe?’
‘Yes, I think I know a way to him. What favour will you do me in return?’
‘What do you want?’ Shakespeare glanced around the room with its exquisite plasterwork, carved oak furnishings and delicate tapestries. ‘You have gold aplenty.’
The ale arrived and they both drank deeply. At last Henbird wiped his gold-threaded sleeve across his mouth. ‘I want to be part of it, John. I want to be part of your world once more. This chicken warrant is most lucrative, but it wearies me to distraction. I would gladly not see another ledger or profit sheet in my life.’
Shakespeare looked Henbird in the eye and saw that he was being utterly serious. Suddenly he leaned forward, reached out his hand across the table and shook Henbird’s firmly. ‘Call it a trade, Nick. I need help and I can think of no one I would rather employ than you. You are well placed and I have a task for you, if you will take it.’
‘Anything, John, anything to get me away from talk of fowl.’
‘But first tell me a way to Glebe.’
‘As you will. I believe I do have a way. Have you heard of Black Lucy?’
‘Why, yes.’
‘Glebe has long had an obsession with th
e whore. She is succubus to him. He worships her glistening black hide — can’t get enough of it.’
‘From what I have heard, he is not alone in that.’
‘Indeed, John, she is a most wondrous exotic creature. Pope, saint or archbishop would be sore tempted by that one. I confess I have partaken of the fruit myself on occasion. A man could spend his family’s fortune on Luce and not rue the day he first saw her. I know and like her well. When once you see her in puris naturalibus, you will desire no other.’
‘Will she help me find him?’
Henbird spread out the plump palms of his hands. ‘If she likes you, if you pay her enough, if she wants to do Glebe a bad turn — any one of those may bring you to him. But tread carefully and treat her well, for she is a greater gift to London than all the beasts in the menagerie.’
‘One more question, Nick: you worked with Poley in the Babington inquiry of ’86. Who does he work for now?’
‘The same man he always worked for — himself. Other than that, I have heard tell that he has connections to Essex House and to Thomas Walsingham. They all do — Poley, Frizer and Skeres. Frizer has been Walsingham’s servant. Poley and Skeres worked with him against the Babington plot. But Thomas Walsingham has no interest in such things now. He is a country gentleman, tending his estates in Kent, dabbling with poetry.’
Shakespeare thought of Thomas Walsingham. Was any man more different from his kin? He was a warm, good-natured man, as far removed from his uncle Francis, the Queen’s late principal secretary, as it was possible to be. He could not see him as the puppet master pulling these strings. Yet nothing could be ruled out in such affairs.
‘Give me your opinion. Who was behind the Marlowe killing? Who was the paymaster and what was the motive?’
Henbird was a man who had stayed alive in the lethal underworld of spies, assassins and traitors by knowing when to talk and when not. ‘That would be an opinion too far, John. My neck might be thicker than a chicken’s, yet it is equally susceptible to the farm-wife’s blade.’
‘You said you wished to go intelligencing again, Nick. I had not thought you afraid of farm-wives.’
‘Do not underestimate farm-wives, nor Queen’s servants…’
Shakespeare nodded. He understood. Queen’s servants. ‘Topcliffe?’
‘You said the name, not I.’
‘But why?’
‘That is for you to discover. And there is the one that said most recently that Marlowe should be silenced…’
‘Baines. Richard Baines.’ Shakespeare frowned. It was a name that had cropped up in his investigations, even before Marlowe’s death. Baines, another sometime spy for Walsingham, had written a tract against Marlowe within the past month in which he said that all Christians should ‘endeavour that the mouth of so dangerous a member be stopped’.
‘Again, John, you said the name. I believe he complained of Kit Marlowe’s irreverence. But that did not sit well with me, for I do not recall Rick Baines having much in the way of religion. Anyway, his wish came true, for Marlowe’s mouth was indeed stopped. Does that mean he did it, though?’
‘It would not be the first man he had killed in cold blood.’ Topcliffe and Baines. Shakespeare tried to find a connection between the two men. What an unholy alliance. ‘You have said enough, Nick. Now, my small task for you: I wish you to discover what you may about a man named Oliver Kettle, presently a servant in the house of a Dutch wool merchant named Jan Sluyterman, of Dowgate. I have a notion about him. But be careful.’
‘As always, John. And the fee?’
‘First find me some information, then ask that.’
‘Ah yes, I had forgot, you learned thrift from Mr Secretary…’
Chapter 6
Boltfoot Cooper rode across London Bridge, beneath the severed heads of traitors. He did not look up; he knew they were there, parboiled and pecked at by the kites, and he had no wish to see them.
Once away from the bridge, he turned east and followed the river along the Deptford road, a track of dust and holes. The road was heavy with an endless train of long open-sided carts, laden with felled oaks and casks of provisions for the shipyards. He passed a line of six great wagons — each pulled by six oxen — that bore mighty guns to arm the Navy Royal. Boltfoot glanced at them: culverin, demi-culverin, saker, minion, falconet. This was ordnance to stir the blood and strike fear into enemy hearts: the culverin, two tons of bronze that could fire seventeen-pound iron balls into the bulwarks and gunwales of King Philip’s galleons; the cannon-perier, a stumpy gun that hurled round stones at ships, shattering into deadly shards as they hit a deck or mast.
Boltfoot was not stirred. The sea and its battles had long since lost their hold over him; three years under the command of Drake as he sailed the globe had seen to that.
After a mile and a half he turned left, on to the spit of land that bulged into the Thames. There were docks and industry, and bustling villages housing the lightermen and those who worked at loading and unloading the carracks heading for the Indies. In clearings beside the road he began to see charcoal burners at work, the smoke rising from their stacks of willow, and then he came to a wooded area close to the water’s edge and saw the stockade protecting the Rotherhithe powdermill.
There were several buildings, scattered over two or three acres and sheltered by trees. Boltfoot understood the need for such a siting: if the powder store exploded, the canopy of trees would muffle the explosion and protect the nearby shipping and dockyards.
Reining in to a slow walk, he rode around the perimeter of the stockaded area. The enclosure was between eight and nine feet high, built of stakes driven into the ground close together to form a palisade. It would be possible to scale with a ladder, unwatched at night. But how good were the guards on the other side?
He approached the front gate, but as he tried to ride on through he was immediately stopped by a pair of sentries. They stepped out in front of him. Both had crossbows at their shoulders, drawn taut, bolts loaded and aimed directly at his chest. Behind them, three ban-dogs in studded collars were leashed to the small guardhouse, slavering and growling.
Boltfoot dropped the reins and put his hands in the air to show he was no threat.
‘I am here on Queen’s business,’ he said. ‘I am to see the keeper.’
The sentries looked like military men to Boltfoot. They were both powerfully built and wore jerkins of hide. They had neat-trimmed beards and bold faces, the sort of men any captain-general would have been happy to have at his disposal. ‘Dismount,’ said one of them, who was slightly taller and more imposing than the other. ‘No sudden movements.’
Boltfoot slowly slid from his horse. He sniffed the air. It was thick with the scent of raw gunpowder.
‘Now the gun. Unsling it. Put it on the ground, gently.’
Again, he did what was required of him, carefully laying the caliver across his arms, his finger well away from the trigger. He bent at the knees and lowered the weapon safely to the turf beneath his feet.
‘Your sword, too, and daggers. All things metal, be they steel or iron. Deposit them by the caliver. Tinderbox, pipe and tobacco, too.’
With an exaggerated lack of haste, Boltfoot obeyed the man.
‘The horse is shod. It’ll have to stay tethered out here. No metal inside.’
The second sentry lowered his crossbow. Boltfoot noticed it was made entirely of wood, apart from the string of gut; even the bolt had a charred and sharpened point, rather than a steel tip. But it was deadly enough, all the same, and would pierce him through if unleashed at that distance. The sentry took the horse’s reins.
‘I understand,’ Boltfoot said.
‘One little spark from a piece of metal on flint. One shod hoof sparking on stone, that’s all it takes and this place will go straight to the heavens and take good men with it. Now then, who are you?’
‘Boltfoot Cooper. My master is John Shakespeare, intelligence secretary to Sir Robert Cecil.’
�
�This will be about the Dutch church.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, we are all a little more wary than usual here.’
‘Are you not always so wary, then?’
The sentry’s blood rose and he pushed forward his crossbow so it was less than a foot from Boltfoot’s heart. ‘Don’t come the cunning man with me, Mr Cooper.’
Boltfoot did not back off, but decided there was nothing to be gained from provoking the sentry further. ‘I have orders to see the mill-keeper, Jeremiah Quincesmith.’
‘Do you have papers?’
Boltfoot put his hand in his jerkin and brought out the letter-patent signed by Shakespeare and Bedwell, warranting him to be received by the keepers of the mills he was to visit and have his questions answered.
The first sentry studied it. ‘Wait here,’ he said, then walked off with the paper, leaving the other guard with Boltfoot. In a few minutes he returned. ‘Follow me.’
Boltfoot looked down at his caliver and cutlass.
‘Don’t worry about that. Mr Willis will look out for your horse and arms.’
‘If they are safe when I return, you will have a groat from me,’ Boltfoot told the second sentry. Reluctantly he turned away from his precious belongings and walked away, dragging his left foot through the dust.
He followed the first sentry to the nearest building, the most substantial of the five. It was constructed of brick and was attached to the great wheel that was turned day and night by the flow of water in a short canal spur carved across the land from the river Thames. The other mill houses were made of timber, daub and wattle with heavy thatching on the roof to keep the contents dry. He knew enough to realise that those buildings would be used for storing the raw ingredients — the grough or crude saltpetre, the charcoal produced by the burners outside the stockade, the sulfur imported from the lands of Italy and elsewhere. The process involved refining and mixing these three components in the correct ratio. The buildings were deliberately flimsy; they would be no loss if the place exploded — and the damage caused by flying twigs and staves would be considerably less than an explosion involving stone or brick.
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